Wedding Girl (30 page)

“I'm so, so thankful, to you both, really.”

“Okay, I'm totally useless here for all of this,” Mark says, “so I'm going to take off. I've been told I have some serious housecleaning I need to take care of most urgently.” He winks at me, and I can feel my face go red. I suppose when I said we shouldn't speak of it, I should have also said we shouldn't reference it or intimate it or wink at it in any way.

“Okay, then, good luck with that,” I say, knowing that he can't leave soon enough for my tastes.

“Will do, I leave you all to it. Sophie, I'll see you Wednesday night at the usual time.”

“Yep, sounds good.” At least I have two days before I have to see him again. Hopefully he will have figured out how to be cool about the whole thing by then.

“Yeah, well, stop with the endless good-byes, then, and take us through the week and show me the recipes. I want to study up so that I can hit the ground running for you next week,” Jason says, and I reach for the recipe bible and start to tell him what Langer's is all about, as Mark slips out of the kitchen.

(1940)

WILLIAM POWELL AS GEORGE CAREY:
You be careful, madam, or you'll turn my pretty head with your flattery.

MYRNA LOY AS KAY WILSON:
I often wished I could turn your head—on a spit, over a slow fire.

“Okay, are you ready?” Ruth says from her perch on a stool at the door between the kitchen and the store, armed with a copy of our list of components.

I look over at Mark, who nods at me. “Yes, I think we are ready.”

“I have the official clock,” Amelia says, finger ready to punch the countdown timer she has set up on an iPad mini and mounted to the wall with duct tape.

“And I've got the judging points list,” says Jean, who has a clipboard with all of the various points and criteria that will be used on Saturday for the competition. I've annotated it for her, along with a list of questions she should ask and some things we need her to do while we are working, including coming around and getting into our work space, tasting components as we work with them, and generally being both a nuisance and distracting presence at key moments.

“I think we are good to go. Let's get this party started!”
Mark says companionably. Since our little naked adventure he has been as good as his word and has not brought it up, teased me about it, or in any way indicated that it even happened. I wish I could say that it was fully a relief, but working so closely together for all of these hours in a hot kitchen, touching hands as we mold fondant, feeding each other tastes of this and that, or feeling his whole front pressed tight against my back, like we're spooning, while I stabilize the base of the cake as he puts the final tier on over my head—it has an effect. I keep getting flashes of him grabbing me movie-style, sweeping all of the equipment off the prep table and making passionate love to me in the debris field. Of course these images also haunt me anytime I start to get the least bit flirtatious in my emails to Jake, making me feel even worse. I know intellectually that I've done nothing at all wrong, but it still feels like I've betrayed him. I know that if I found out that he was sleeping with someone in London that my feelings would be hurt, as if it would be some sort of indication of lack of faith or hope in this weird whatever-it-is we have started.

Then again, it was an itch that clearly needed scratching, so I suppose I have to just be glad that Mark was there, that he was really good and fun in bed, and that he hasn't turned it into a whole thing between us.

“Alright, team. Let's do it!” I give Amelia the thumbs-up and she sets our countdown clock in motion. We have six hours to finish the cake, and it will be our final practice before the competition. This week Jason and Annabel will run the bakery, using the kitchen at the café for everything except the challahs, which have to be done here. Mark and I will spend the week making all of the cake layers, filling components, fondants, Rice Krispies treats, and other elements that are allowed to be prepped ahead, so that we can deliver them to the Astor Place Hotel on Friday. The hot new boutique hotel is hosting both the
VIP cocktail party Friday night and the competition Saturday. I've heard nothing but good things about the space, a high-end, all-suite, five-star hotel that offers a very personalized level of service. There is a wonderful new fine-dining Italian restaurant on the first floor that is getting raves, and they have been focused on donating their event spaces and services to various local charities, all of which have gotten them good coverage. They are focused on a “one-stop shopping” sort of approach to events—in-house catering, floral design, event production—the perfect place to have an event if you don't have time or the inclination to shop around for each individual element. The buzz is that they are seriously going after the destination wedding market, and hoping to become the place in Chicago for weddings in general, and gay weddings in particular.

Mark heads for the left side of the table and begins assembling the chocolate tier of the cake, spreading the first layer of cake with a layer of ganache, then the big piece of crunchy dacquoise, another layer of ganache, and then the second layer of cake. He is working quickly and efficiently, getting the cake into the walk-in to chill and firm up, and bringing out the cakes and fillings for the second tier. I'm using a stiff chocolate gingerbread dough to make the templates for all of the windows and doors. I called in a small favor from Anneke, who has been stuck home with the twins for nearly six months, and was more than grateful to turn my photos of Bubbles's old house into some simple AutoCad drawings, and then print them to scale for the cake, so that we can lay parchment paper over them and build the different elements right over the drawings for precision.

I get all of the sheets of windows and doorframes into the oven to bake, and turn my attention to the tuiles for the tile portion of the roof. As I'm pulling the first sheet out of the oven and quickly laying the pliable sheet into the form I've built so that it can cool in the right shape, Jean appears at my elbow.

“So what is that made of?”

I explain the contents of the tuile batter, and the decision to color the dough itself a terra-cotta color instead of risking breakage by trying to paint it with colored chocolate after assembly. She makes some notes on her clipboard, and heads over to talk to Mark, and I realize that while I was answering her, I stopped working, and my other cookie has now hardened on the sheet and will have to be re-baked. I make a note to myself that my hands and mouth have to be able to work at the same time, or I will get behind. I toss the now-useless cookie onto the small table for the girls to snack on, and pull a new piece of parchment, smearing the thin tuile batter over the template, and getting the sheet back in the oven.

Jean is getting in Mark's way, tasting all of the various fillings for the second tier, and chatting with him about the inspiration for that layer, and unlike me, he manages to talk with her easily while still spreading the pineapple jam over the first layer of cake. Whatever other ups and downs and complications Mark has presented in my life these past months, I have to give him total credit. He is a very skilled baker, and a godsend on this project. With him by my side I can believe that we will not embarrass ourselves, and I cannot say the same of Herman.

I get the second tuile safely into the form, and move them aside to cool completely and be out of the way till we need them.

“One hour gone,” Amelia says cheerily. That flew by, and I know that the day of the contest will be even worse, since the adrenaline will really kick in.

Ruth walks over and hands first Mark and then me bottles of water, which we both open and down in one go, and then get back to work. I pull the gingerbread out of the oven and set the sheets on racks to cool. I have to wait to fill the larger window sections with clear sugar caramel, and they have to be completely cooled, since they will shrink a bit as they cool, and we
want the windows to be a tight fit. The stained glass pieces will get colored sugars sprinkled in the various sections and then will get torched to melt them. I've given myself enough time to do the windows twice, just in case of cracking.

Mark gets the second completed tier into the walk-in and pulls out the components for the top tier. I turn my attention to making some of the smaller, more intricate carved details for the house out of gum paste, so that they will have plenty of time to dry and harden before we have to attach them. As with the fondant, I've pre-colored the gum paste gray so that it has a good base, and once everything is assembled, we'll soften the edges with gray and black and white powdered food colors.

Mark gets the third tier into the walk-in, pulling out the first tier, now firmed up and ready for its buttercream coating. Jean comes back around.

“So, Sophie, how are you feeling about your time-management on this?”

“Pretty good,” I say, being sure not to look up or stop what I'm doing, carefully crafting the capitals for the columns that will hold up the balcony. The columns themselves are already made of formed chocolate set around a large dowel, but the capitals and plinths have to be done the day of since they are a more decorative element.

“Mark, are you feeling good about your time management as well?” Jean asks.

Mark finishes spreading the thin layer of mint buttercream over the top of the cake, smoothing it easily with a large offset spatula, and hefts it up to take it back to the walk-in. “Seems okay so far,” he says.

“Looking good, Billy Ray,” I call out to him.

“Feeling good, Louis,” he calls back, and we all giggle except for Amelia, who is apparently too young to get a decent
Trading Places
reference when she hears one.

“Two hours,” Amelia says.

And so it goes. We check things off the list; we deal with problems as they arise. The first batch of stained glass windows went too-dark-caramel with the blowtorch, losing the colors, so I tried the second batch in the oven under the broiler instead, and they are gorgeous, the colors clear and bright, and when you hold them to the light, they are absolutely stained glass. Mark, being handy, has set us up with a small battery-operated lighting system, with tiny LED bulbs that will go into the little vestibule to backlight the stained glass transom, and sidelights to show off that we will have done that entry to perfection: the mosaic tiled floor, the intricate crown molding, the William Morris–style wallpaper printed on edible sheets of rice paper.

By the time we hit the final hour, the house is up and both Mark and I are working on details. He focuses on the landscaping details, trees and shrubs and plants created with green cotton candy and chocolate and frosting, and I work on the people, fun little roly-poly characters sitting on the porch, a toddler in a little Cubs sunhat splashing in a kiddie pool that I've lined with crumpled tinfoil before filling it with blue melted sugar, to make it look like the sun is catching on the water. A Weber grill covered in tiny hot dogs and burgers with even tinier grill marks. When the bell rings, we are sweaty, muscles cramping, and bleary-eyed, but with the exception of a couple of the planned party guests, and some of the smaller details we had designed, like the green hose curled on the side of the house, the classic Chicago black garbage cans and blue recycling cans in the alley, and all of the animals we had thought of, the Labradors in the yard, the squirrels in the tree, the little nest of robins in the eaves of the house, the important stuff all got done.

“You guys,” Amelia says, handing us bottles of water as we collapse onto stools to sit for the first time in six hours. “It is
amazeballs
.”

“Really, it is just spectacular. You are totally going to win this thing,” Jean says.

“Have to admit, it's very impressive,” Ruth says. “I hope this means we can all show up for just the last hour on Saturday, though, no one needs to sit through the whole thing twice, you know?”

Jean smacks her on the arm. I laugh. “Of course you can come at the end. I can't imagine how boring it will be to watch it again.”

“It's not boring, though; it's fascinating,” Amelia says. “I was riveted.”

“Yeah, it was fine. But I don't need to see it again. What I do need is sustenance. Are we going out for dinner?” Ruth asks.

“Hell yes, I'm starving,” Jean says.

“I'm in for sure,” Amelia says.

“I love you guys, but I'm barely going to make it up those stairs, and I'm not in any condition to change and make myself presentable to go out. You go and eat, thank you all again for helping us out today, and we'll see you Saturday.”

“Okay, then. Let's go, troops,” Ruth says and herds them away, Mark following to let them out the front and then relock the door.

When he comes back, we work in companionable silence, getting everything cleaned up.

“She looks good,” he says, giving the beast a once-over. “Damn good.”

“Yeah. True enough. Thank you.”

“No thanks necessary.”

“Well, necessary or not, I could not have done it without you. You are doing your dad very proud.”

I look over and see that Mark's eyes are extra sparkly, and it touches my heart to see him getting a little emotional about his dad.

We finish cleaning up and shut down the lights in the kitchen, leaving the cake standing on the prep table. When
Jason and Annabel get here tomorrow we will do a full tasting of the three tiers, just to make sure that no one has any notes on flavors that might need tweaking.

“Want a beer?” I ask Mark as we head into the store.

“That would be really good,” he says, following me through the secret door and up the stairs. I really hope he isn't looking too critically at the wide expanse of my ass.

“Beer's in the fridge, I'm just going to change really fast,” I say, heading for my room to get out of my sticky work clothes. I forgo a shower, figuring once Mark leaves I'll take a long hot bath, and just give myself a fresh layer of deodorant and pull on some black leggings and an oversized gray long-sleeved T-shirt.