1
“What do you mean you gave away the Frankencake?”
Aubrey kept her voice low and calm while she roared and stomped like a T. rex in her head. Her high school part-timer had already locked herself in the bathroom/locker room. There was no point freaking her out any further.
“I served it to someone,” Lily whispered with a tremor in her voice. “It’s gone.”
She breathed through her nose, ten seconds in and fifteen seconds out. Aubrey had been in the kitchen checking on a batch of gelato when Lily sold the wrong cake. If not for the worst timing in the world, she could’ve stopped the switcheroo.
The birthday girl’s chocolate Bundt cake looked exactly like the bakery’s special of the week. On the outside. The surprise lay inside—gummy worms, cream cheese, and peanut butter. The six-year-old’s logic was if you mix something tasty with something else tasty, it would be twice as tasty. In this case, thrice as tasty. An unfortunate and erroneous hypothesis.
Her pint-size customer wailed with renewed grief beyond the kitchen doors. With a sinking sigh, she left Lily in the safety of her hiding place and pushed through the swinging doors to the shop front.
“Please don’t cry, Andy.” Aubrey wished she could conjure up a rainbow, a unicorn, or a rainbow unicorn that trailed cotton candy from its mane. Anything to cheer her up. “I’m so sorry.”
“B-b-but … that was my … cake.”
This was the biggest crisis Comfort Zone had ever faced. Customers came first and foremost for her, and she’d never made a customer cry before. The business was overextended to move to a larger, more visible location, and Aubrey was running low on time, energy, and patience. She had her life and work balanced so perilously that one false move could knock her world down. But she wouldn’t let an unfortunate mistake shake her. Despite the less-than-ideal timing, Aubrey Choi, owner and baker of Comfort Zone, had to woman up and take charge.
“I’ll have a new cake delivered to your house in three hours, tops. Will that work?” she asked Andy’s mom.
“Oh, totally,” she said with an easy smile. “Her birthday party won’t start for another hour, and we’re not serving the cake till the end.”
Thank you, Aubrey mouthed to her, then knelt beside Andy. “I pinkie promise that your cake will be perfect and right on time. I won’t take my eyes off it until it’s safely in your hands.”
“O … o … kay.” Her voice wobbled, but she pinched her lips tightly until her tears receded. What a trooper. “Pinkie promise.”
“Good girl.” She ruffled the kiddo’s hair and waved good-bye. “See you soon.”
Once the door swung closed behind the mother and her hiccupping child, Aubrey faced her waiting customers. “Sorry for the wait, guys. Reinforcement is on the way. We’ll throw in some cashew brittles with your orders. Thanks for being so patient.”
She ran into the kitchen and wrapped her apron around her waist, cinching it with a quick flat knot. “Lily, stop hiding in there. I need you to man the front.”
“Is it safe?” Her part-timer peeked out from the bathroom. “I’m so sorry. I don’t even remember who I gave the cake to.”
“Don’t worry about it, hon,” Aubrey said, pushing aside her frustration. The sad, worried expression on Lily’s normally deadpan face made her heart heavy. “But you’d better hurry before the customers form an angry mob. They’re raising tiny forks and brandishing birthday candles. Go.”
Lily rolled her eyes with lightning teenage reflexes—forgetting she was “so sorry”—and marched through the swinging kitchen doors. That’s more like it. With Lily back to her sardonic self, it was time for Aubrey to make Andy happy. Exhaling the tension from her shoulders, she got to work.
Comfort Zone was a tiny bakery hidden away in Weldon, a quiet California town on the outer edges of the Sierra Nevada. It saw a fair share of adventurers passing through, but Weldon was rarely the final destination, and the town still belonged to its tightly knit locals. It was these locals who filled the mismatched chairs and smiled through the pictures clustered across the bakery walls. It was for them, her extended family, Aubrey kneaded her dough and mixed her batters in unholy hours of the morning. Nothing made her happier than seeing a customer’s face light up with delight after taking a bite of her goodies.
But with the highs come the lows. That afternoon Aubrey learned that nothing deflated her more than a customer’s face crumpling with disappointment. Intent on wiping away Andy’s tears, she baked Frankencake II with special care. It felt odd to be acutely aware of cracking a single egg, something she usually did by the dozens with the speed and precision of a machine. Even the flour felt softer when she gave it her undivided attention. She loved baking, but baking a one-and-only cake for a special customer was decadent.
The chocolate cake batter moved like silk and glistened when it caught the light. She thinned and smoothed the peanut butter and cream cheese filling, but the gummy worms were on their own. There was no improving them. She crinkled her nose in distaste, but her preferences didn’t matter for this one. It was all about Andy.
By the time Aubrey drizzled the glaze on the cake, she had seventeen minutes left on the clock. She poked her head through the kitchen doors. “Lily, I need to deliver this cake right this second before my pinkie shrivels off.”
“Yeah.” Her employee raised an eyebrow at her but kindly left the you are so weird unsaid. “Sure.”
Aubrey tripped on her sprint to the car, but she righted herself before the cake splattered on the road. Breathing deeply through her nose, she knit the last bits of her patience together and forced herself to stay calm. After securing the cake box on the floor of the passenger seat, she slid into her fifteen-year-old Jeep and sped out of her parking spot.
She couldn’t breathe properly until she pulled into Andy’s driveway with one-and-a-half minutes to spare. Her deodorant had failed under pressure, leaving stains the size of dinner plates under her arms, and her shirt clung to her clammy chest and back. Aubrey lifted the cake box with excruciating care as if it held newly hatched chicks—delicate and precious. Her body wanted to run, but her brain forced her to walk toward the house. A wise call, since her head might blow up in a mushroom cloud if she tripped and ruined the cake.
The front door swung open before her knuckles made contact, giving Aubrey a split second to hike the cake over her head before the birthday girl launched herself at her.
“Oh, thank you. Thank you. Thank you.” Andy gave her a giant grin, her two missing teeth doubling her cute factor. The smile and the little arms circling her midriff warmed Aubrey from head to toe. “You’re the best cake lady in the world.”
This. She had the best job in the world.
“I would never break a pinkie promise,” she replied, her voice husky with emotion.
“Thank you so much, Aubrey.” Andy’s mom lifted the cake box out of Aubrey’s hands and detached her daughter from her waist.
“My pleasure. Sorry again about the mix-up.”
Aubrey jogged back to her Jeep without pausing to savor the moment. She had to get back to the bakery for closing. The adrenaline drained from her, leaving her limp and tired, and she wasn’t looking forward to the scrubbing and mopping waiting for her.