Just Desserts (21 page)

“You're drunk,” Anton said as he flopped down on the sofa opposite Finn.

“Not yet,” Finn said, “but give me another hour.”

“Where'd you get the Glenfiddich?”

Finn gestured behind him. “There's a bar back there. Help yourself.”

Anton grabbed himself a sports bottle of still water and settled back down across from Finn. “You're going to have one hell of a hangover tomorrow, old friend.”

“That's the plan.”

Anton took a pull of water. “Not bad but it's not Grey Goose.”

“How long's it been? Ten years? Twelve?”

“Eleven years, eight months, fourteen days.” He took a long look at Finn. “You're not a drinker, friend. Take it from someone with experience: whatever you're getting from the booze tonight won't be worth the way you're going to feel in the morning.”

“I'm in love with Tommy's daughter.”

Anton paled visibly. “Tell me you're kidding.”

“Wish I could. It hit me about two hours ago.”

“Amber and Beryl are married. Topaz is a half step up from jailbait.” He met Finn's eyes. “You're talking about the cake baker?”

Finn nodded. “The cake baker.”

“Not good.”

“Tell me about it.”

“I mean she's great. Don't get me wrong. She's about as terrific as they come but, dude! There are some complications here even my therapist couldn't figure out.”

Finn looked at him over his glass of Scotch. “You're seeing a therapist?”

“Couples therapy. It was Lyssa's idea.” Anton looked embarrassed. “Forget I said anything.”

“If I wasn't halfway through this Scotch I'd make your life a living hell.” He took another gulp of booze. “Lucky for you my own life is a living hell.”

“So what are you going to do?”

He refilled his glass. “Finish the single malt, for starters.”

Anton reached for the bottle and put it on the side table out of reach.

“You know what's gonna happen at the party, don't you?” Finn asked his best friend. “The same thing I predicted when he came up with this idea. He'll take one look at Hayley and it'll be all over. He'll spill everything right there in front of the press and there won't be a single thing I can do to make it easier for her.”

“Nothing new, my friend. You knew that from the start.”

“Yeah, but now I'm not worrying about how it'll affect Tom. I'm worried about what it'll do to Hayley.”

“I have news for you: you've been worrying about what it'll do to her from the first minute you met.”

Anton was right. He had tried to look around it, over it, through it, but the truth was undeniable.

“There's more,” he said. “Her mother's coming back from India any day.”

Anton whistled. “Now that's not good news.”

“When worlds collide,” Finn said. “It feels like a bad science-fiction movie.”

“Tommy and the Professor,” Anton said. “Sounds more like a sitcom to me.”

“Tommy, the professor, and the supermodel.” Finn started to laugh. “Now there's a three-way from hell.”

“I want to be there to see Willow's face when she meets her predecessor,” Anton said between guffaws.

“Willow's not that bad,” Finn said. “Mostly she's insecure.” Her biggest problem was that in many ways she was still a kid looking for approval.

“Let me do the math,” Anton said. “Unless I'm wrong, the professor could be Willow's grandmother.”

“She's old enough to be Tom's mother.”

“Which means Hayley could be Zach and Winston's mom.”

“You're right,” Finn said. “There isn't a therapist on the planet who could sort this mess out.”

“So when did you finally figure out what was going on with you?”

Thinking was getting harder by the minute. “I was—” He cleared his throat and wished it was half as easy to clear his brain. “I was at the laptop working out Sy's retirement package when I opened an e-mail from her. Nothing special. Just a see-you-tomorrow kind of thing and suddenly I wasn't just seeing tomorrow, I was seeing five, ten years down the road and she was right there at the heart of it all.”

“Shit,” Anton said. “You really are in love.” He thought for a moment. “Here's what you have to do: take her out after the party. Get her out of there and away from Tommy. Better yet, get her out of there before it ends. Drive her home. Take her to supper.”

“And then what?”

“And then you tell her everything.”

He would be doing both of them a favor. Tommy wouldn't have to drop the bomb on Hayley and she wouldn't have to hear the news in a roomful of strangers with cameras and tape recorders.

It was what he had wanted to do from the night they met. Maybe then he could stop feeling like a bastard every time he looked at her.

Atlantic City—Late Afternoon

“We had you down for a morning arrival, ma'am,” the young man with the electronic clipboard said.

Hayley tried hard not to wince.
Ma'am
was a tough one to get used to. She bet it wouldn't have happened if Michie had been well enough to work her magic with hair and makeup.

“I'm late,” she said with a controlled smile. “Okay, so I'm very late. I had to wait for a delivery from the guys up in East Brunswick, prep the cakes to a certain point, then I had to wait until Paula finished driving car pool, and I'm not even going to tell you about the really hellacious traffic on the A.C. Expressway.” She widened the smile. “But I'm here now!”

He wasn't impressed. He scribbled something with a stylus, clicked a time or two, then looked over at her. “You're cleared to use level two. Show your pass to the guard and you'll be directed to the unloading area. The union rep will send some people to help you.”

“Does Homeland Security know about you?” she asked. “Seems like you're wasted here in Atlantic City.”

He was efficient and without humor. A deadly combination.

She climbed back behind the wheel of the borrowed minivan and headed for level two. So far the day was turning out to be a total disaster. Dominic called a little after six in the morning to tell her that the van wouldn't be repaired until the following Monday. The town's lone rental car outfit was out of vans and SUVs and there was no way she could load the partially assembled drum kit into the back of a Buick Regal. Paula volunteered her minivan but Hayley had to wait until afternoon car-pool duty was over, which meant she didn't hit the road until three thirty.

Lizzie was teetering on the brink of something nasty, which Hayley
really
hoped wasn't Michie's flu. She wasn't running a fever but there was no denying she wasn't feeling like herself. Bless Aunt Fee for being willing to come over and keep an eye on things until Hayley got home.

And as if all of that wasn't bad enough, just before Hayley left for Atlantic City, she discovered a message from her mother languishing on the house phone. “See you Thursday evening,” Jane said in such a cheery, upbeat tone of voice that Hayley was instantly suspicious.

“Are you sure she hasn't told you anything?” she prodded Fee as her aunt settled in to watch over Lizzie and await Jane's arrival. “Something doesn't feel right about this.”

“Honey, you know my sister tells me as little as possible,” Fee said with a good-natured laugh, “and I return the favor. That's why we get along.”

She gave Fee explicit instructions to call her on the cell the second Jane arrived. “I want info,” she told her aunt. “Specifics. If she's eavesdropping, text me. Something's wrong and I need to know what it is.”

“Stop worrying about your mother,” Fee had advised, “and start worrying about those fancy cakes of yours. That's where your future lies.”

Fee was right. But the worry lingered just the same.

A hotel employee directed her toward the loading dock on level two where she once again ran the gauntlet of security checks. She parked ten feet from the huge double doors marked
THEATER
and waited for the union cake-toting workers to show up.

So far the glamour quotient was negligible. The parking garage smelled of exhaust fumes, cigarettes, and sweat. Hardly the stuff dreams were made of. She waited, trying hard not to count down the number of minutes she had left to pull this whole thing together.

Finally three tired-looking employees shoved through the doors and approached the minivan.

“That's a cake?” one of them asked, pointing toward the skeleton of the set of drums.

“Big cookies, actually,” she said. “And they're fragile. Please be careful.”

“So where are the cakes?” another one asked. “I'm supposed to carry cakes.”

“The cakes are in those big white boxes,” she said, pointing to the carefully secured stacks of boxes deeper inside Paula's minivan.

They muttered among themselves, then the third worker disappeared through the doors only to reappear with one of those huge flat carts like the ones she used to buy fifty-pound bags of sugar at Costco.

It was clear they felt the job was beneath their collective dignity but a few minutes later Hayley followed her baked goods into what could only be described as a wonderland in progress. The vaulted ceiling of the huge ballroom was draped with black and twinkled with a thousand stars. Electricians hung from scaffoldings and balanced precariously on ladders as they positioned the lights that would bring the whole thing to life. Chunky crystal candleholders graced every table, sharing space with arrangements of white jasmine and gardenias floating in silky pools of water. The floor of the ballroom had been polished until it gleamed like a skating rink. When the work lights dimmed and the key lights took over, the reflection would be dazzling.

Somehow the effect managed to be both over the top and understated, an amazing accomplishment in perennially over-the-top Atlantic City.

The hotel catering staff, clad in black, were busily occupied setting up the various buffet stations while the bar staff laughed and joked in the corner. Waist-high insulated buckets of ice, crates of champagne, focaccia fresh from the oven—everywhere she looked she saw something wonderful or something on its way toward being wonderful.

“Wow!” she said as they rolled to a stop near a table covered with black velvet shot through with faint silver and gold threads. “This is fantastic!”

The union worker gave her a look over his shoulder as if to say, “Gimme a break,” but she ignored it. The high-profile events she had supplied cakes for in the past had all been serious celebrations held for serious people. There hadn't been a sequin on the premises at the two inaugural parties.

“Is there any glitter left in South Jersey?” she asked no one in particular.

One of the hotel catering staff, a woman around her own age, stopped to laugh. “If there is then we didn't do our job!”

She pointed to where she wanted the framework for the drums then waited, barely breathing, while they opened up each of the ten boxes and placed the cakes in the arrangement she showed them on her worksheet.

She wasn't sure if the union workers expected a tip but since she only had a ten-dollar bill on her, the point was moot.

Focus,
she told herself as she took out the fragile sheets of gold leaf. She had to get it right the first time or kiss her dreams of fame and fortune good-bye. The prep work had been completed. More than once during the process, she had been intensely grateful for her art training. Mixing a perfect black that didn't veer toward purple or slump toward brown was never easy. To complicate matters further, she needed color with dimension, not a flat expanse of tint but something with vibrancy and depth. All in all, it was a lot to ask of rolled fondant, gum paste, and royal icing.

Clearly her prayers to Elizabeth of Hungary, patron saint of bakers, hadn't gone unanswered, because she settled immediately into the zone. One by one the cakes were transformed into glittering gold and platinum records celebrating Tommy Stiles and his accomplishments. More than a few jaded hotel workers stopped to admire the intricacies of the design.

A pretty young member of the hotel waitstaff stopped to admire the drums. “I've seen a lot of cool stuff around here but that's probably the coolest thing yet.”

“Thanks,” Hayley said, feeling more than a little jolt of artistic pride. “I'm very happy with the way it turned out.”

“You should be,” the woman said. “If I could do something that terrific I sure as hell wouldn't be working the ballroom, serving coffee to obnoxious assholes with comb-overs.”

Hayley laughed as she continued to apply gold leaf to the last cake. “I don't think you'll see too many comb-overs with this group, do you?”

“You're new here, aren't you,” the woman said. “Honey, trust me, there's always a comb-over lurking. Rock stars have accountants, don't they? Lawyers—” She stopped midsentence. “I'm a married woman. I could burn in hell for what I'm thinking right now.”

Hayley turned to see what had captured the woman's attention. Finn, in a tight black T-shirt, even tighter jeans, and a leather strap around his wrist, met her eyes across the ballroom and everything else melted away.

“I know him,” she said.

The woman looked from Finn to Hayley. “You know him?” She sounded dubious.

“He's a lawyer,” Hayley said, not taking her eyes off Finn's approach.

“Yeah, right.” The woman was almost salivating. Who could blame her? Finn looked like a magic hot fudge sundae that not only didn't make you fat, it banished cellulite and gave you bigger boobs.

She had been right that first day when she had noticed he didn't walk like any lawyer she had ever known. He walked like a full-color two-page ad for sex.

“I'm glad I found you,” he said with a nod to the nosy woman next to Hayley.

“Glad to be found,” she said.

So this was how it felt to be the prom queen. She had waited twenty years to find out and it was every bit as good as she had imagined it would be.

Her new best friend nudged Hayley in the ribs. “You didn't tell me you were with the band.”

Hayley, smiling widely, met Finn's eyes. “Am I with the band?”

“Tonight you are.”

Suddenly she regretted her decision to guard the cakes instead of rocking out backstage. She was with the band!

“I could still get you backstage,” he said, reading her mind.

“I wish I could but I'd better stick around.”
I'm a business owner…I'm a mother…I'm a business owner…I'm a mother…

“Have dinner with me.”

“Tonight?”

“After you finish here,” he said. “We need to talk.”

“If she won't, I will,” the nosy woman piped up. “The hotel can just kiss my ass.”

There were a hundred reasons to say no and only one reason to say yes: because every single moment she was with him she felt like herself. Not a version of herself. Not a little piece of herself. Her 100 percent true self.

She said yes.

They locked eyes.

“I like you in that white jacket,” he said, referring to her austere snowy-white baker's coat.

“It was Lizzie's idea. We figured why go sequin
à
sequin with all the other caterers.”

“And the hair.”

“The ballet bun?” She touched her hair. “That's Lizzie's idea too. The austere and professional look.”

“It's sexy.”

“I don't think so.”

“Trust me,” he said. “It's sexy as hell.”

The nosy woman next to Hayley started twisting her long, dark hair into a topknot. They both pretended not to notice.

“I'm partial to hot pink myself.” She tried for a deadpan delivery but couldn't manage to wipe the smile from her face.

“Not me,” he said. “I like Scooby-Doo.”

“You two are very disappointing,” their one-woman audience said. “I expected better from a rocker.”

She noticed that he seemed a little edgy, a little wired, but she chalked it up to stage fright.

Of course, there was always the possibility that the sight of her clad in crisply starched whites and bright red clogs was more than mortal man could handle in public.

“So we're on for later,” he said.

“We're definitely on.” It was going to require a lot of phone calls and probably a minor clash with both Fee and Jane when she got home, but she couldn't have said no to him if the fate of civilization depended on it.

They agreed to meet right there at the cake table after the show. The moment seemed to wrap itself around them, drawing them closer together, and for a moment Hayley thought he was going to take her in his arms and kiss her and really give the nosy woman something to talk about.

But he didn't. He touched her hand instead and then ducked out the side door.

“Why are you still standing here?” the nosy woman asked. “I'd follow him and jump his bones in the hallway.”

Little did the nosy woman know that was exactly what Hayley was doing in her imagination right that second.

She gave what she hoped was an enigmatic smile and turned back to prepping the cakes for display.

She told herself that the nonkiss was a good thing. They had acted like responsible adults. Making out with a rock guitarist in the middle of a job venue wasn't exactly the best way to get your name out there, but the thought of wrapping herself around Finn Rafferty made her burn.

She remembered how he looked after his shower, all damp and rumpled and slightly embarrassed in that man's man kind of way. She remembered the way his skin smelled, the long gleaming expanses of muscled flesh…and it didn't hurt that he had already taken inventory of her cellulite and not run screaming back to the Hamptons.