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be there in half an hour.” I put down the phone and turned to Eddie, who was knee-deep in printouts and happily gnawing an unlit cigar. “Looks like I’m on cake patrol. I might as well stay at the EMP once I’m there, and just run back home later to suit up.”
“I meant to mention,” said my partner, his voice oddly casual. “I’d, ah, kinda like to see you in that gown.”
“Why, you sentimental son of a gun! Sure, I’ll model for you. We’ll get a picture of the two of us and send it to Mom.” Eddie was still one of my mother’s oldest and dearest friends. “Lily’s coming by at five to help me dress, you can come down then.”
Eddie turned suddenly brusque and bashful. “ ’Course I might not be in the office that late. Probably will, though. Say, you better keep that cake dry, sister. It’s raining again.”
It was indeed, a slanting ice-water rain that popped off the wooden surface of the outside steps as I descended them. I wished, for the millionth time, that my houseboat had interior stairs between my home and office, although I knew full well that a stairwell would eat up half the floor space of both. I darted into my kitchen, grabbed my old goose-down parka with the more-or-less waterproof shell, and then rushed out again. Straight into Zack Hartmann.
“Hey, what are you doing here?” I said. “Oops, sorry—”
Zack bore a cellophane-wrapped bundle that slipped to the ground in our collision. He retrieved it while I unfurled my umbrella, and handed it to me: a sorry-looking supermarket bouquet of desiccated carnations and skeletal mums. The poor things would have done better out in the rain.
“It’s to, like, apologize for last night,” said a blushing Robin Hood. “I think I made you mad.”
“Oh, Zack, I wasn’t mad! I was just frustrated by all that fussing around at the rehearsal. These are very nice, thank you. I’ll put them in water, and then I’ve got to run.”
“I thought we could talk… ?” he began.
“We will talk, but not right now. I’ve got to get up to Queen Anne and fetch Elizabeth’s cake.”
He brightened. “I’ll come and help you.”
“No, that’s not—Actually, yes, I could use an extra pair of hands, to sit in back and keep the cake steady. Better yet, you can drive while I ride shotgun. I’ve still got phone calls to make.”
“Cool! Good thing I came over, huh?”
You’d have thought it was me doing Zack the favor. I felt a brief pang at taking advantage of his infatuation, but on a wedding day I’ll dragoon anybody to do anything, just to get the job done.
I stayed busy on my cell phone the whole way up to Todd’s, raising my voice above the thrumming of the rain on Vanna’s roof. Zack drove in silent concentration, apparently determined to be the world’s best assistant cake picker-upper. But both of us broke into awed exclamations when Todd wheeled out the low cart bearing his tour de force.
And it was awesome. The confectionary Space Needle was a good two feet tall, and the cake itself covered an area almost three by four. I’d know the Needle if it was carved in Spam, but I was amazed at how instantly recognizable the EMP was, with undulations of rolled fondant re-creating the glistening swerves and curves of the building in silver, gold, red, and bright blue. The final flourish, a marzipan monorail on chocolate tracks, was so cute you could eat it up. So to speak.
“Todd, this is extraordinary,” I told him. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”
“Well,” he said, taking a stab at modesty, “it’s a fairly interesting building to start with. Now, young man, if you’ll get that side of the board…”
The cake rested on a thick sheet of plywood covered with silver plastifoil, and boxed around the sides with heavy cardboard. No top on the box, though, not with the Space Needle rising high. But Todd’s little loading bay was covered from the rain, and we all stayed dry, including our irreplaceable cargo, while he fussed over the loading like a hen with one chick.
It took all three of us to lift the thing—I wondered how many thousands of calories we were hefting—and quite a while to secure it in the back of the van. Then I belted myself into the backward-facing seat, where I could hold the plywood steady if we hit any bumps.
“It’ll do,” said Todd. “I’ll meet you down there,