Page 17 of Sugar and Spice
When we arrived at the cabin, I didn’t recognize it, which meant it was a new build. Something out-of-towners most likely summered in. I looked over my shoulder towards the small cabin that was supposed to house Daisy and I for the night. It was...cozy, I guessed. That was what Bunny kept telling us on the way up from Clarity. She spoke it over us so much that, when asked what we thought about the small pale green cabin with its small red door framed by two tiny windows I knew would scarcely let in light come morning, the only thing we could think to say was that it was cozy.
Cozy was the word people used for when something was too damn small. Daisy did love it though. I knew she did, from the way she ran up the rough stone walkway, and peeked in the windows excitedly.
“What exactly are you going to have us do out here?” I asked, watching Daisy hop around the cabin before one of the camera men let her in and she dashed inside. I glanced around in front of the cabin. It was a small clearing really with a few boulderish looking rocks that didn’t go past my waist. I could see Bunny’s wheels turning as she walked around the clearing. She was no doubt imagining those boulders as work stations in her plan to film us competing. “There’s not a lot room out here, and what supplies are you giving us?”
“You sound so suspicious, Austin,” she said, stopping in her perusal of the space. “Why is that?”
“Not sure why you are so interested in pitting husband and wife against each other when this is supposed to be a feel good Christmas special featuring small town businesses, isn’t that right? What’s the angle?”
Bunny tilted her head to the side, considering me. “You’re smarter than you look, you know that? I figured you for the big pretty type but not the smart one out of you two. Very surprising.”
I bristled at her words, or more at what she wasn’t saying. If I was the smart one here, I knew what she was saying about Daisy. “My wife is plenty smart. She’s the smartest woman in town,” I bit out.
Bunny gave a wag of her clipboard at me. “And protective too. I do just love an old fashioned man. The viewers will too, which is why,” she said, rushing on when I glared at her, “I want to explore the prickly dynamic I can see between you too. I know it’s all roses now, but it wasn’t always that way. I asked around town, poked here and there, and there was quite a bit of gossip surrounding you and Daisy.”
“My wife and I have a past. Everyone does in a town as small as Clarity.”
“Too true, too true! That’s just what makes small towns wonderful. A slice of Americana and all that jazz.” She gave a little wiggle of her clipboard and then pointed a finger at one of the camera men. “Set up here in front of these rocks. We can use them as workstations. I’ll have them start off with a small bite dessert and we’ll go from there to foraged finds.”
My brow furrowed. “Foraged finds?” I asked, not liking the sound of that. We were in the woods and there was only so much to work with out here if Bunny was wanting us to bake something for her.
“Yeah, it’ll add an interesting element to the whole thing, you’ll see.” She turned towards the cabin and gave a holler. “Daisy, you want to come on out? We can get started once the supplies are all set up.”
The supplies turned out to be a whole lot of bull shit. There was everything you might expect in a baking competition: flour, sugar, milk, butter, eggs, the normal sort of things and that was just fine. The problem was Bunny only had half the amount necessary for two bakers delivered. I gritted my teeth, taking in the single pack of butter sticks that wouldn’t nearly be enough with the three challenges she had just told us we would be competing in. Four sticks of butter for three competitions between two bakers in a baking competition? The woman was hoping we’d fight with the scarce supplies. The dozen eggs I saw told me so even if I didn’t take the butter into account.
“There isn’t enough here,” I said, my hands going to my hips. Bunny was standing off to the side, her clipboard in her hand and an expectant look on her face. She’d just explained we were to create a small bite dessert to start off with—and that we had forty minutes to do it in.
“What’s wrong?” Bunny asked.
“There isn’t enough here for two bakers,” Daisy added, pointing a finger at the supplies that had been dumped on a makeshift table to the side of us. Why we weren’t given similar tables with more space, I didn’t know. We were relegated to working on the boulder rocks in front of the cabin which were less than ideal with their sloping tops and jagged surfaces.
“Well, itisa competition,” Bunny hedged and gave us a bright smile. “You’ll just have to call up some of that grudge I heard about in town, now won’t you?”
Daisy swallowed hard, eyes coming to mine. “I don’t know…” she said quietly and I could read her. She was thinking what I was, which was that it was playing with fire to put us in our natural element. We ran the risk of falling into old patterns, which was definitely not how happy husbands and wives acted with one another. Or at least, they didn’t on television. If we slipped up it would be one step closer to us being found out and that meant kissing the cash prize goodbye.
It wasn’t a big deal for me. I wasn’t in this for the money, I was in it for Daisy. But for us to get a shot at the payday we had to keep Bunny happy and that meant competing in this crazy competition whether we liked it or not. I was going to have to carry us through this to make sure Daisy and I weren’t found out.
“It’ll be fine,” I said to Bunny, but my eyes were on Daisy. “There’s plenty if we think smart about what we’re going to make. Trust me.”
Bunny clapped. “That’s the spirit!” She cheered and then turned to the cameras. “All right, you heard the man, get ready to roll in five…”
Both Daisy and I gave a little jump at how fast she was starting us off. Not much time to think, let alone be careful about what we were going to make.
“Fuck, she’s nuts,” Daisy whispered.
“You have no idea, sweetheart.”
“What are you making?”
“Ah, ah, ah, no secret sharing over there you lovebirds,” Bunny called out, hustling over to a chair that had been unfolded for her. “And remember, I hear everything,” she said, tapping her ear. Crap, she’d heard us call her nuts. Bunny turned to the crew, “Three! Two! One!”
And just like that the lights around us seemed to glow brighter, the camera light that told me it was recording glowed red, and we were being filmed. I heard the lead producer shout at us that our time had started and the table that had been stacked with supplies was fair game. Daisy and I hesitated, eyes on each other before the producer’s voice sounded again.
“Winner of the quick bake gets those bakery bragging rights, and another 10 grand!”
Daisy was off like a shot, and before I could stop myself, I followed out of instinct. If Daisy ran, I chased. There was no turning it off.
When we got to the table, Daisy hesitated, I watched her. She took a step towards where those damn butter sticks were but then she stopped and glanced at me. She had something up her sleeve, I could tell.
