Page 122 of Turnabout Is Fair Cosplay
“Don’t tell me they know you by name.”
He snorts. “Right, a steady diet of cake is how I prepare for all my plays.”
I follow Mike into the bakery. It’s homely and definitely not putting on any airs. “Grandma’s baking skills were impressive,but she always bought her cakes from here. She thought it was her best joke.”
I inwardly cringe. I’m pretty sure I’m living Grandma’s best joke.
“She’d always say, ‘Oh, I stayed up all night making this cake. Secret recipe. Oh, don’t mind the pink box. That’s just how I like to keep all my cakes before I put them on a cake stand.’”
I bet she’s cackling in her grave.
Taped to the walls are handwritten thank-you cards from the nineties that appear as if they’re yellowing before my very eyes. By the sheer volume of notes it looks like this bakery has made everyone’s wedding cake in town. Industrial-size mixers are in the back. The individually wrapped slices of cake in the display case have handwritten price tags. Five dollars for a slice. Twelve dollars for three. I want them all. I will give them all a home. No slice of cake has to spend Thanksgiving lonely and alone.
The cashier appears from the back room. “Welcome.”
“The sample plate, please,” Mike says.
The woman returns with a plate filled with rectangular slices of six different kinds of cake. “Swiss black forest, our specialty,” the woman says before pointing to the other slices of cake. “White chocolate Bavarian raspberry, German chocolate, carrot cake, chocolate truffle, and lemon cream.” She places the plate on the counter. “Enjoy.”
I spear a bite of the Swiss black forest but pause when I see Mike has his phone out. “What are you doing?”
“Filming,” he says. “So I can enjoy the moment that smug smile slides right off your face.”
“Whatever.” I roll my eyes and take a bite.
Oh no. It’s incredible. The frosting is creamy without being overly sweet. The chocolate sponge tastes like chocolate while also being moist and fluffy, nothing like the cardboard cakes of my past. Chocolate shavings on the outside melt in my mouth. Athick, creamy layer of chocolate mousse competes with the other textures, its richness contrasting the fluffiness. “Oh my gosh.” I’m practically moaning. “This is the best cake of my life.”
“When’s the wedding?” the cashier asks.
“Never,” I say before Mike can make a polite excuse.
“She won’t forgive me my past.” He grabs a fork and fights me for the last bite of the Swiss black forest. “That’s what this is about, isn’t it? That’s why you bolted from my room the morning after you spent the night. It was some twisted turnabout is fair payback because I had a lapse in judgment the last time you were in cosplay.”
“A lapse in judgment. Is that what you call tonguing that poor woman—”
“She threw herself at me!”
The cashier’s tracking our back and forth with ever widening eyes.
“And landed on your lips?”
“Yes, jeez, Bea. What do you want me to say? I’m sorry? I’ve said it a dozen times and in a dozen different ways. But I’ll say it again. I’m sorry!”
“That’s not why I ran.”
“Then tell me! Don’t shut me out.”
“There’s nothing to tell!”
“You want me to say that I took it too far? Should have known better? That I’ve been crazy about you since I met you? That I’d stock my fridge with nothing but blackberries for the rest of my days if it meant more mornings with you? That if you’d let me, I’d order our wedding cake right now and drive straight to the courthouse? That if I could give you the life you deserved, we’d already be husband and wife?”
The cashier is blinking fast, her eyes glassy.
Curse you, Mike Benedick. All he has to do is get a hitch in his voice and misty-eyed, and he’s convinced the entire world thathe’s a lovesick puppy who had the misfortune of falling for an uncompromising shrew who happens to look like me.
“He’s an actor,” I say around a mouthful of cake. “He means nothing he says.”
Mike snorts. “If that makes you feel better.”
