Page 28 of The Golden Spoon
Disarmed, the half smile flickers on his face.
“Okay.” He laughs awkwardly now, attempting to put me in my place and establish dominance in the conversation by making me look silly, but I won’t give it to him. I merely lean against my baking table, blowing hair from my face, and wait for him to get on with it. He is truly confused by my lack of simpering but pulls himself together.
“What can you tell me about your cake?” he asks, leaning over and resting a hand on my workstation. It is large and stubby, his fingers round like cigars. I remember how he prodded Hannah’s back, pushing her toward the house. I wonder if he’d even asked if he could touch her. It is unlikely. He has the unearned confidence of someone who has gotten away with this kind of shit for years, possibly throughout his entire career. I look back at him stone-eyed. I’ll have to keep my cool for now.
“It will be flavored with honey and orange zest. And I’m planning a sculptural element that I hope Betsy will love.” I avoid making eye contact with Archie, working on pouring my batter into a variety of cake pans.
“It sounds gorgeous,” he says, smiling. I look away.
“Hard to resist a pretty thing, isn’t it?” I say curtly. I can tell he’s a bit confused now.Good.I’ll throw him off his game.
“All right, Stella. Good luck,” he says, retreating. I am satisfied that at least for the moment I seem to have won the power struggle.
I’d had an idea last night as I lay awake worried about Hannah. If I can pull it off, it will be my biggest story ever, my return to journalism. I’m imagining it as a reported piece, part exposé and part personal essay. I wouldn’t give Hannah’s name away, not if she doesn’t want me to. But it will be better if I can get her to speak. There must be other women he’s done this to. I haven’t watched many episodes ofThe Cutting Board, but I do remember some of the youngest, prettiest contestants. As soon as I leave here, I’ll do some research. But first, I’ll need plenty of evidence. I will collect proof that he is preying on contestants in his shows so that people can see beyond any reasonable doubt what a terrible person Archie Morris is. Today I see none of the flirtation in his interactions with Hannah. He seems almost to be avoiding her, and I wonder, cynically, if he has already had his fun.I will keep watching you. Archie furtively glances at me, and I give him a coy smile.
As I put my cakes into the oven, I realize that this experience atBake Weekhas been about more than proving my worth as a baker. I was a good writer. If I can pull this off, maybe I can be a great one. I grate orange zest for my glaze, and I feel more confident than I have in a very long time. Tonight, I will sit by that fireplace with the others and relish my win. This is my chance to be the journalist, the person, I was before. The one who is not paralyzed by fear, afraid of her own shadow. Someone with a future.
GERALD
After the taxi lets me out, I drag my bags off the main driveway and onto the path that loops around the woods beyond the lawn. There I wait. I have decided that what I need to do next is to sneak back into the house. It is the only chance I have at uncovering the perpetrator who sabotaged me and who clearly has something againstBake Week. I’ll have to stay put for a while, until filming gets under way, so I pop open the lid on the document canister and tap out the blueprints, unfurling them across the back of my overturned suitcase. I’ve already studied them well, annotating them to familiarize myself with the places I would pass through each day before and after filming. Now I have a slightly different goal, which is to find the places I’mnotmeant to go, someplace I can hide and watch.
I run my forefinger down hallways, stopping and turning around, testing different pathways as though I’m solving a maze. My eyes land on the cutaway marking of a balcony on the second floor just to the east side of the house. It is off one of the second-floor parlors, a room that shouldn’t be in heavy use. Here I would be able to see the tent while remaining concealed.
Satisfied with this option, I roll the blueprint up and slide it back into its tube. I pull out a nutritional bar and munch on it methodically.Now that I have my phone back from Melanie’s clutches, I take it out and look at the time: 10:24. Even accounting for delays, filming will have begun. It is time to get moving.
I stand up and dust myself off, attempting to shake the wrinkles out of my suit, which I notice has already gathered some grass and dirt stains. This kind of sartorial messiness would normally cause me a great deal of apprehension, but fortunately I am too focused on the task at hand to fully give it my attention. I pull my suitcase upright and slide the attaché case over the handle. Tucking the roll of blueprints under my arm, I begin to drag my things back toward Grafton. I do not like to speculate without sufficient evidence, but I would assume, based on motive, that the person committing these acts is a contestant themself. Who else would have any reason to meddle with someone’s bakes?
When I reach the edge of the woods, I stop. Given the time of day, it is unlikely there would be a break in filming for the next hour. Everyone should be deeply involved with their baking. I take a deep breath, focusing on a point in the distance, the corner of the building I must disappear around. Ready… set… I take off at a good clip, my suitcase bouncing behind me, jerking my arm as it catches on the lawn. Through the clear vinyl windows of the tent, I can make out the bakers at their stations. I am tempted to go closer, to see what the assignment is today, but I remind myself that I have a mission to complete. I must hurry. As I pick up the pace, the wheel of my suitcase catches on something. I feel myself flying backward through the air. I let out an involuntary grunt as I land hard on my back, splayed out like an overturned turtle. Surely I will be caught now. I raise my head and look at the tent. Inside Melanie’s back is to me, her head bent to whisper something to one of the camera operators. No one has seen me. I almost feel like laughing. I quickly hoist myself up, pick up my suitcase, and make a final run to the side of the manor.
Out of view, I lean against the cool stone breathing heavily. The sky overhead swirls with cirrostratus clouds. The rain will follow themclosely, it’s already well on its way. The wall above me is covered in ivy. I look up into its chaotic patterns, admiring how it adapts to the architecture, twisting and turning around windows and stone trim. I step back. I am looking at the balcony with the parapet I’d seen in the blueprint.
On one side of the balcony, a rusted iron storm drain cuts past the parapet and on up to the roof. I take one step up, bouncing my sole on it, testing the strength of the pipe. I put my phone and several nutritional bars into my pocket and push my suitcase behind a row of shrubbery. I approach the drainpipe tentatively, placing one dress shoe onto the bolt that connects it to the wall. This is not ideal. The probability of an accident here is very high.Please, brain, be quiet for once.I continue to climb higher and higher until I am level with the balcony. I shift my weight over to the side, throwing myself toward the parapet wall. I feel some of the bricks shift as I land heavily on the floor of the balcony. From here I can lean out just a fraction of an inch and see the action. Now to watch.
LOTTIE
My hands feel light and capable as I mix up a simple batter, creaming sugar and butter with eggs and vanilla. Though I have hardly slept I am wide awake, more alert than I’ve felt the whole time I’ve been at Grafton. I am invigorated by all that I’ve discovered in the past twenty-four hours. I still can’t believe that my mother and Richard Grafton were together in that photograph. It’s an unthinkable revelation, one I never would have had were it not for Pradyumna. Who’d have thought the young millionaire would have been someone I could confide in, let alone such a help? I’m deeply grateful for his quick thinking this morning bringing us into the East Wing.
Working on my cake, I have a surprising surge of hope. I feel closer to my mother than I have in decades. Finding her recipes so many years later could have made me incredibly sad. Instead, seeing her notecards, her handwriting, feels like a message not to give up. I’ve thought of my mother’s recipes from time to time over the years but always assumed they were just lost in the shuffle of my displacement. I had always wondered why the recipe box wasn’t returned to me. I think of the carboard box I was sent out into the world with.It contained my own sparse collection of clothes plus a few of my mother’s clothes, a couple of books, a pair of shoes. All that remained of her. I had looked for the recipe box in the folds of her dresses, my small hands coming up against the sides of the box and finding nothing. I assumed that it had gotten lost in the shuffle. But seeing the recipe box sitting prominently on Betsy Martin’s mantel was a shock. It makes me realize that she must not have forgotten all about us after all. She can’t have.
As I zest a lemon, I replay memories of my mother. It is a common exercise of mine whenever I have a spare moment to think of the times I’ve spent with her, to recall what she said, what she was wearing, the smells in the air. I do it hoping the repetition will preserve them for me, to keep her alive in what small ways I can. Now I comb through my memories, shake them out, searching them for clues. If I could just discover some new detail that would reveal to me what my mother had been going through, I have the feeling that I could solve the entire mystery of her disappearance. I try to remember any time I saw her with Richard Grafton, a strange look or an intimate word between them, but I can’t seem to pull up anything unusual.
I pour my blueberries onto the countertop and pick through them, discarding the ones that are too soft. Then I roll them in flour until each one is coated evenly. As I stir them into my batter, I have a memory of her standing at the tall wooden table in Grafton’s kitchen. It is summer, and she is kneading bread, her hands and apron dusted with flour. I am next to her, helping, pulling green beans from a bowl and trimming their ends. We work together, me snapping the beans and my mother slapping the dough down on the table. I remember the rhythm of it, the heaviness of the bread hitting the wood. And how it suddenly stopped. I watched my mother’s hands pulling away from the dough.
I stop stirring my cake batter. My heart skips a beat as I recall mymother looking up from the bread, fear freezing her features. I followed her eyes to the kitchen door, propped open to give us a breeze and watched with her as two shadows passed by the door, one tall and imposing and one small in pigtails, Richard Grafton and his daughter Betsy. My stomach drops, my optimism evaporating as I recall looking at my mother’s hands and seeing they were shaking.
HANNAH
I pull my cakes out of the oven. The tops are spongy and golden brown. I exhale heavily with relief and set them out on wire racks to cool. I’ve tried and tried but I am unable get into my baking flow today. I just can’t disappear into the rhythm of measuring and mixing the way I normally do. Maybe I’m just too distracted to bake. I keep thinking of last night with Archie, replaying the entire evening over and over in my mind. It was so romantic, I think now, him taking me into the woods like that and then later sneaking me once again into the East Wing, to his bed. I bite back a smile remembering the rest. I’ve never had anyone act so passionately toward me or say the things he did. I wonder if this is what a real adult relationship feels like, and I have been selling myself short all this time. I know what Archie would say, that I deserve to be treated like a queen.
It’s hard for me not to stare at him as he moves confidently around the tent chatting with the rest of the contestants. I try not to feel hurt that he hasn’t come by my table yet.He is just doing his job, I tell myself.And you should be too!But my hands are clumsy, and I struggle to complete each basic step of my recipe.
Stomach full of jitters, I try to carefully pull my cakes out of their silicone molds. My hands are unsteady, trembling as I pull the sidesaway. I watch with horror as one of the cakes sticks, leaving a jagged chunk in the bottom of the mold as I peel it away. This has never happened before. I am so careful, normally. Panic springs up in my chest. The remaining sponge is a tragedy, with a good portion of its golden crust ripped away, exposing its soft white innards. My eyes sting with embarrassment.
A camera operator catches it all—the worry on my face as I pry the missing pieces out of the mold, my pathetic attempt to salvage it by fitting the pieces together on top of my sponge. I feel them focusing on my every flaw. I try to keep a smile on my face. “No one likes a young lady with a scowl,” I hear my mom scolding me. I strain my facial muscles, willing myself to stay calm, look pretty, as they move in closer. I look quickly to make sure Archie hasn’t seen me mess up and am relieved this time to see he is engaged in conversation with Lottie. “There we go, just like a puzzle piece,” I chirp for them, though even I can hear the strain in my voice. “Won’t matter once there’s icing involved.”
I hope that it’s true, but the way things are going for me so far today, I’m not too sure. Though I’ve managed to fit the cake back together, the seam is still clearly visible, a jagged line of crumbly white cake that threatens to topple off the top entirely. I wonder about trying a different icing to cover up the whole mess but I feel unsteady as well, unsure what to do.
I try not to look up as Archie bypasses my table yet again with two of the camera crew and goes to talk to Pradyumna. As I crouch down next to my station to pull out a new mixing bowl I hear his laugh and feel a sharp stab of jealousy. I try to remind myself that it’s silly to compare myself with Pradyumna, of all people. Archie is just doing his job. Remember what he said, I tell myself. I am the one who he thinks is so talented I can be a professional baker, and not just that.One day you will be as successful as Betsy Martin, Hannah. I think of him this morning telling me how beautiful I am, murmuring it into my hair as he held me. I almost laugh with relief. I am the one who woke up in his bed this morning, not them.
