Mom Over Miami - By Annie Jones Page 0,22
recalling the class she had taken in cake decorating. “I’m forgetting something here.”
She examined the rectangular cake sitting on a foil-covered piece of heavy cardboard.
“Let’s see. Top. Sides. Frosting. Spatula.” She ticked off the bits and pieces of the process she knew she had under control. “What else?”
The back door slammed shut. The pounding of Sam’s shoes thundered through the whole house.
“Oh, crumbs!”
The boy pulled up short just six inches shy of hitting the side of the kitchen counter at full force. Tub of spackling compound in both hands, he looked up at her, breathing hard from his run. “Wow!”
“What?”
“I never heard you cuss before.”
“I never…Oh, crumbs!” Hannah laughed. “No, honey, I just remembered I have to brush the crumbs off the cake before I ice it.”
“Why?”
“So the crumbs won’t get in the frosting.”
“Doesn’t it all get mixed-up together when you eat it?”
“Well, yes, but…” She made a motion in the air, trying to demonstrate the smooth surface she hoped to achieve. “Not important. Let’s just say, sweeping of the crumbs makes me happy.”
“You know that’s really weird, though, don’t you?”
She tipped her chin and held out her hand. “Hand me my spatula, good sir.”
“Where is it?”
“I left it right…hmm, no.” She spun around and checked in the sink.
“Can’t you use old trusty?”
Could she? For an instant it was tempting…but only for an instant.
“’Fraid not.”
He frowned at the rejection of his idea.
She placed her hand on his back. “But you can get old trusty out and test the spackling stuff to make sure it hasn’t hardened. How about that?”
He flexed his arms to show his impressive muscles and announced, “Spackle-tester man.”
“Go for it.”
“Where would I be if I were a spatula?” She shuffled through the things scattered on the countertop, peeking under the edge of the cardboard cake carrier, lifting up a crushed paper towel. No luck. “Wait, I had it with the frosting tub in the living room.”
Sam hoisted up the tub of frosting.
“Yup. There is it.”
He set her tub down again and placed his carefully a few inches away.
“Now to dust for crumbs and get this show on the road.” Hannah reached for the frosting.
Tessa’s piercing cry made her jerk, which almost knocked the tub to the floor.
Sam caught it in time and pushed it back in place.
“Thanks. I’ll go get the baby and be right back.” She dashed through to living room with a glance out the open front door to see how far the deliverymen had gotten.
Beep…beep…beep. The truck backed slowly into the semicircular drive.
She sighed. At this rate there’d never be time to get the furniture situated, the walls retouched and the cake frosted before Lauren Faison showed up!
Hannah made the trek from front room to nursery in record time. A quick diaper change and a fresh T-shirt and Tessa could sit in her high chair and be a party to the goings-on from there.
“Hey, lady, what goes where in here?”
“Sam!” She called him to the nursery, and when he appeared in the doorway, she managed to call to him over her shoulder, “I’m up to my wrists in…”
He pinched his nose. “I know!”
“Can you tell the men to wait a minute?”
“I can tell them where to put everything, Hannah. I watched you and Payt walk around last night saying where to put stuff.”
“Okay. Fine. It’s not like I can stand and direct them anyway. And if I don’t like where they set things, I can always move them.” A year ago she’d have never imagined the skill with which she would be able to clean up a baby’s bottom and simultaneously give a young boy instructions. “Let me go over this for you—big couch and little couch on either side of the fireplace, oak armoire on the opposite wall, coffee table in the middle. Anything else just set out of the way and I’ll position it myself. Got that?”
He used his hands to show her the layout. “Big, little, oak, table.”
“Great. I’ll be in just as soon as—”
R-r-r-r-ring.
“Just as soon as the world stops spinning,” she muttered. She stamped down the tab on her daughter’s fresh diaper and picked up the child, drool-stained shirt and all, and headed for the kitchen.
R-r-r-r-ring.
Hannah eased Tessa into her high chair and turned just as Sam nabbed the phone from its stand. “Hello?”
“Whoever it is, tell them I can’t take the call right now.” In two steps she had globbed liquid soap onto her hands and thrust them under the faucet in the kitchen sink.
“Sorry, Mrs. Faison, she