Page 46 of The Lone Wolf Café
I turned my head back to the kitchen, and Rowena was standing by the counter. The bag was empty, and tubs of colored frosting and sprinkles were stacked in a neat row.
“You’re letting all the cold in,” Rowena scolded with a slight smirk.
I sighed. “Bye, Fritzi.” I gave the elemental a little wave and shut the door.
“You know she’s fine out there, right?”
“Yeah, I know. Ice elemental and all.”
“But seriously. I once tried to shelter her in the kitchen during a snowstorm. She threw a fit the second I coaxed her in here.”
“I mean, she is literally made of ice.”
Rowena chuckled, grabbing one of the tubs off the counter. “Speaking of ice… orice-ing, that is…”
“That’s a terrible pun.”
Rowena’s cute little black eyebrows knitted together, and I giggled.
“Let me guess…” I continued. “You want me to make more…festivecookies?”
“Well, yes. Hence why the sprinkles are purple, black, and green.”
I stepped toward the counter, settling in next to Rowena so our shoulders were brushing, and studied the goods she had sprawled out. The frosting colors were unnaturally bright, and I wondered what sort of dyes were used to create them. We’d never had anything like them on Hollenboro. I picked up a long, skinny tube of sprinkles, sliding the little beads back and forth in the tube like a toy. The sprinkles came in a variety of colors – mainly black, orange, and green, and were formed into all sortsof shapes. There were round, shiny sprinkles, long, thin ones, and even ones shaped like little pumpkins and bats.
“Yeah,” Rowena replied, eyeing me as I studied the icing and sprinkles. “I figured with everyone bummed about Halloween night festivities, they could use some extra cheer from the bakery.”
“I mean, I’ve never used these sorts of goods before,” I replied, still studying the sprinkles. Rowena rolled her eyes at me, and I chuckled as I placed the tube back on the counter. “But I’ll try. After all, how hard can it be?”
It was much harder than I thought.
An hour later, I stood with my shoulders slumped in front of the counter, the piping bag full of bright purple icing shaking in my hand as I observed the disaster that lay in front of me.
Two dozen cookies ruined. Two dozen homemade sugar cookies with lopsided frosting and uneven sprinkles. Not to mention all the frosting smeared on the counter and the bat-shaped sprinkles scattered across the floor.
Baking the sugar cookies had been the easy part. My grandmother’s recipe was foolproof, and they came out of the wood oven just as fluffy and sweet as they did back on Hollenboro.
The frosting was where it all went wrong. Back home, the only frosting I ever used was a thin, runny mixture made from butter and powdered sugar that I drizzled over scones and cinnamon rolls. The concept of scooping the thick, putty-like frosting into a plastic bag and squeezing it through a tiny funnel was foreign to me.
And it washard. With the first batch of cookies, I could never get the pacing right. I’d end up squeezing out huge globs one moment, then the funnel would get gummed up the next. It reminded me of when I wandered through Bar Harbor and passed by a human bakery. How the cupcakes in the display window were immaculate, with delicate, rounded swirls topped with perfectly placed sprinkles.
At the time, I thought it looked so effortless. I picked up a single sugar cookie, mentally trying to persuade myself they weren’tthatbad. Then a glob of icing dripped off the side and onto the palm of my hand, and I nearly screamed in frustration.
I plopped the ruined cookie back on the parchment, wiped the purple goo off my hand, and crumpled to the floor. I leaned my back against the cabinets, tucked my knees up to my chest, and struggled to breathe through my frustration.
Gods, I hope Rowena doesn’t come back here.I’d heard her fumbling around in the café all morning, but she was yet to come in and check on me.
Up until this point, my job had been easy. I had complete and total confidence in my baking skills. After all, everyone loved my cookies, scones, and whoopie pies. But now that I was away from Hollenboro, out in the real world, I was starting to realize there was a lot more to being a professional baker than just popping some dough in the oven. There was so much I still needed to learn.
Which normally wouldn’t have been a problem. I loved learning. But here, I was an employee, and I was expected to produce baked goods that would sell. I didn’t have time to learn. I didn’t have room for error. Eventually, Rowena would come back here, see the frosting-covered disaster on the counter, and realize I wasn’t the top-tier baker she thought I was.
It crushed both my pride and my heart.
The tops of my cheeks burned, which meant tears were imminent. I scowled and buried my face in my knees, both frustrated and embarrassed.
From a few feet away on the floor, Aria gave a concerned squeak. I lifted my head a fraction of an inch and watched as she scampered over on all fours and lifted her front paw to my ankle.
“Aw, I’m sorry, girl,” I sighed, patting her tiny, windy head with my finger. “We tried our best.”
