thick with a sweetness that I knew was fake and so completely annoying.
“Elizabeth. What the fuck?”
“Katherine, it’s lovely to hear from you. I was just going to call you. So I’m getting married…”
“I know, our mother has already called me.”
“Well, that is unfortunate. I really wanted to talk to you myself and see if you wanted to make the cake for us.”
“She already ordered me to make it. You’re telling me this close to the date? I’m so busy right now.”
“Well, Kevin only just asked me to marry him. We’re just excited to start our lives together, so we aren’t doing anything outlandish. Just some family and a few close friends. But you know how I love your cakes, and it would mean the world to me.”
She didn’t love my cakes, she just wanted to brag about having one of my cakes. It didn’t really look very good if your sister was a famous baker and your wedding cake was made by someone else. My entire life these two had cared nothing about me, my own sister often the cause of my pain and ridicule growing up. She’d even hit on the only guy I’d ever been interested in one time.
So really, I should have said no to her wedding cake request. I should have told them both to go to hell, but the truth was, every single time they made me feel so small, they made me feel so powerless...they made me want to do anything to finally win their approval.
And so I said yes.
I hung up the phone with my heart and a thousand unsaid words in my throat.
I was two-years-old when I was introduced to the art of baking by my grandmother, who was my most favorite person ever. When my parents dropped my sister and me at my granny’s house to leave for some cruise or European holiday, I would stand at my Granny’s knee and bake, mixing and pouring while my siblings would be off playing. I spent all of my adolescence learning everything I could learn beside my Granny, starting from the best cookie recipe and graduating to elaborate cake decorating.
She was the reason I’d opened Sweet Curves Bakery.
I’d received some amazing job offers when I graduated from the Culinary Institute. I turned out to be a pretty good chef too, but my heart was still in the art of dessert making. So I opened Sweet Curves, a small shop in a nice up and coming, hipster neighborhood.
At first it was a struggle, competing with large, established businesses in such a metropolitan city, but then one day it all changed when Connie Miller--the Oscar winning actress-- dropped in to the bakery in order to escape a paparazzi. I let her in, locking the door behind her, eliminating his access into the shop. She was shaking so badly that I sat her down and poured her a cup of Granny’s cocoa and gave her a slice of my lemon cake, something simple that always made me think of home.
When she bit into the cake and closed her eyes as a lustful look fell over her face, I knew that my Granny was looking down at me in that moment, proud. After a few hours, Connie Miller took my card, thanked me and left a hundred dollar tip.
I was just as excited about the tip as meeting Connie Miller. Never in my wildest dreams had I expected to have her talk up the shop. Almost overnight my cakes were in every single media outlet known to man. Because of her, Sweet Curves was featured in every magazine, on the food network, and I even went on the Today Show. Connie Miller made my little shop one of the hottest places in the city, and the entire country, leading to a roster full of high-profile clients and bookings for at least two years out. I was the talk of the town and professionally at the top of my game, yet my nouveau riche mother still thought I was flirting around with a hobby. According to her, I should get serious about meeting a man and settling down.
My mother’s idea of success was a girl that looked a certain way and took care of her man above anything else. I had no idea how that woman was related to my Granny. Needless to say, my mother and I hadn’t spoken in two years--until that phone call, until I had said yes.
Sawyer
“Ten more, pussy! You gonna let Jocko here