One
The Mississippi riverboat cake tilted on the table in front of me, its fondant paddle wheel askew, gashes of lemony yellow cake gaping in its once-smooth white surface. In all the years I’ve been working as a cake artist, this was the worst disaster I’d ever seen. Repairing the badly damaged threefoot cake would have been a daunting task under ideal conditions. In my current situation, the job was almost overwhelming.
Trickles of nervous perspiration snaked down my back as I studied the wreck from every angle. I could feel the staff of Zydeco Cakes watching me intently as I sorted through possible ways to proceed.
First priority: stay calm. Not easy under the circumstances. The stakes were as high as they got in the world of professional cake decorating. The cake was due in less than three hours at the grand opening of a new riverboat cruise line, for folks with money and influence. Failure to deliver on time would have a far-reaching impact on Zydeco’s reputation. For a cake artist, reputation is every bit as important as talent.
The staff at Zydeco had already suffered a blow today. I couldn’t let them down again.
The air conditioner was cranked up to keep the work area cool, but the intense heat and humidity of New Orleans in July still managed to creep into the building somehow. The undercurrents of tension that ebbed and flowed through the room didn’t help me keep my cool either.
My name is Rita Lucero, and I’m a trained cake artist, a graduate of the French Pastry School in Chicago. Currently wasting my fancy training by working as sous chef in my uncle Nestor’s Mexican restaurant in Albuquerque. So what was I doing sweating over a cake in New Orleans?
It was the same pending divorce that had left me chopping onions by the bushel that had brought me to the Crescent City for a few days. But now, instead of getting my ex’s signature on our divorce settlement, I was standing in his bakery, shaking the dust off my cake decorating skills.
Taking a deep breath to calm my nerves, I closed my eyes and counted to ten—a trick my aunt Yolanda had taught me when I was thirteen and angry with the world. It didn’t always work, but I hadn’t given up trying. I needed to focus, but concentration was hard to find in a room full of tense, anxious people.
When I opened my eyes again, Zydeco’s manager, Edie Bryce, was staring up at me, a deep scowl accentuating her round face and the almond-shaped eyes she’d inherited from a Chinese grandmother. To the uninformed, Edie resembles the stereotypical porcelain doll, but I learned a long time ago not to underestimate her.
“So?” she demanded. “Can you do it or not, Rita?”
“I’m thinking.”
“Think faster! That cake is due for delivery in less than three hours.”
Not helpful. “Nobody’s more aware of the clock than I am,” I assured her. “Just back off a little, okay? Pushing through this too quickly is guaranteed to make things worse.”
Edie’s frown deepened, and impatience flashed in her dark eyes. She muttered something under her breath and turned away, but I knew she’d be back soon. Patience has never been one of her virtues.
I glanced around at the others, some of whom I’d known since pastry school. The rest I’d met just a couple hours earlier, and I was still struggling to remember their names. “We’re going to need buttercream,” I said to no one in particular. “Lots of it.”
It had all started just two hours earlier, at precisely ten o’clock a.m. It was a Saturday morning in July and already steaming. I’m from New Mexico, so hot I can deal with—but I’m used to dry desert heat, and the humidity here weighed me down even as it made my curls frizz up.
I dragged myself and my duffel bag out of the taxi I’d taken from my hotel near the French Quarter. I’d booked the room back when I thought I’d get in some sightseeing while I was in town. Big laugh. Maybe I should have let Philippe know I was coming, but I’d been afraid he’d put me off. I’d spent the entire day yesterday trying to catch him, and I was back this morning to try again.
Zydeco Cakes—Philippe’s business—occupied a gleaming-white, beautifully renovated antebellum mansion near the Garden District. Philippe couldn’t have picked a more perfect setting for his new business. The surrounding neighborhood was upscale and trendy, the nearby restaurants and boutiques looked eclectic and inviting, and the renovated mansion could have been used on the set of Gone with the Wind or Jezebel; it looked ready to receive carriages filled with gentlemen planters and hoopskirted belles. Philippe, with his old-money roots, must feel right at home here; I felt dazzled but intimidated and totally self-conscious about being a poor, orphaned Hispanic girl who was out of her element in this town.