Total pages in book: 143
Estimated words: 138881 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 694(@200wpm)___ 556(@250wpm)___ 463(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 138881 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 694(@200wpm)___ 556(@250wpm)___ 463(@300wpm)
And I’m yawning.
Maybe in retrospect we should have picked a date to open that wasn’t after a night game, but there aren’t that many days like this—Saturdays, when my whole day is free.
Which means I’m here at the crack of dawn hanging this cake chandelier. It arrived yesterday—a surprise thing Mabel ordered. She said she found it late one night on an online shopping bender. It’s thrifted, pink, and painted like an old-fashioned, over-the-top frilly cake with chandelier teardrops hanging from the upside-down tiers.
“It’s so kitschy and cute, I can’t stand it,” Mabel told me.
The problem is you have to turn off the power to the circuit breaker to install it, so I’m here fuck-all early, mounting a cake chandelier to the ceiling.
As I finish adjusting the chain so the chandelier will hang at just the right length, I think about Riggs’s question on the plane about the pressure of being good enough to play, the ribbon Mabel’s going to wear in her hair, and whether this chandelier chain is the right length. My head’s a mess, thoughts yanking in too many different directions.
Fuck.
If I don’t concentrate, this light monstrosity will turn into a smashed chandelier. I can’t stand it for real, but Mabel loves it, and that’s all that matters.
I climb down the ladder, grab the chandelier from the floor where it’s resting, and haul it back up. It’s not heavy, so that’s good. I spend the next thirty minutes wiring it up, and it takes so much focus I can barely think of Mabel and how she looks under a kitchen towel.
Edible.
When I’m done, I install the bulbs, then restore power at the circuit breaker and pray hard when I flick the switch.
Let there be light!
I give a fist pump. Mabel will be happy, and that’s good.
I picture her reaction, and I start to let go of some of this tension. If only I can keep it at bay during the next game.
But first, I go home and catch a few more hours of shut-eye. Well, there are benefits to our late morning store hours.
Around ten, I roll into the bakery with bouquets of irises, and I’m greeted by the warm, inviting scent of melting chocolate and mouth-watering sugary flour. My heart rate starts to settle. Tension begins to melt off.
It falls to the floor when Mabel strides out from the kitchen and into the bakery, her gaze landing on the flowers. “You really did it,” she says, with something like wonder in her voice.
I cock my head, giving her a really look. “What do you take me for? A man who doesn’t keep his promises?”
She wraps a hand around my biceps. “I love them. They’re my favorite,” she says, but she’s looking at me, not the flowers, and my heart does a funny little jump.
“I’m glad,” I mumble, since I really, really need to be careful around Mabel.
“I’ll get some vases. I picked some up at the thrift shop just for this,” she says, and returns a minute later with three vases filled with water. We put the irises in them and set them on the pink tables. I watch her as she arranges them, positioning them just so, moving each one an inch farther away, an inch closer till they’re perfect. She steps back and releases a satisfied breath, clearly pleased with her work. “I love it.”
And I can’t stop looking at her. The way she works, the way she smiles, the way she wants this to succeed.
Which means I really need to do something else. Like I told Riggs on the plane, I bake to relax, and I could use a little relaxation right now. So I join Mabel in the kitchen, but blink when I find she’s not alone.
My daughter’s there, wearing a bandana and an apron. “Hi! Travis dropped me off when I told them I wanted to help. Mom will pick me up later.”
Mabel is mixing cake batter at the counter. “She’s very helpful.”
“I am,” Charlotte says, and then I join them, rolling out my shoulders and trying, really trying, to let the baking relax me.
But it’s harder when you’re baking for business rather than pleasure.
Then, this business is a pleasure.
“By the way, the chandelier is perfection,” Mabel says with a smile. And it looks like she wants to come over and hug me.
Or is that my own wishful thinking?
Who even knows? “Glad you like it. Your dress is nice,” I say, nodding at her pink-and-white outfit under the apron. The compliment is the understatement of the century.
But her eyes say she knows she looks good, she knows I like it, and she knows I can’t say more in front of my kid.
And her thank-you smile? That slays me.
I’m so fucked.
It’s almost time to open. I run a rag down the fire pole, making sure it’s shiny. I adjust a few trays in the display cases, arranging them just so, making sure the cards are out listing all the ingredients and which allergens are in them, and which ones aren’t.