The Cake Therapist by Judith Fertig Read Free Book Online Page B

good. She did know how to mix a drink. But as I took a sip, I grimaced. “I think you put a little too much lemon in it this time.”
    “Here, I’ll just shhtir in a little shhugar and it will be fine.”
    “Mmm.” I sipped again. “Perfect, Helen. A toast to my first big wedding!” We clinked our glasses together.
    “Who? When?” Mom and Aunt Helen asked at the same time, then laughed.
    “Well, it will be at Carriage Hill Country Club. Ellen Schumacher is the bride and Samuel Whyte the groom.”
    “Society people?” Mom asked.
    “How would we know if they were or not?” asked Helen.
    Mom gave her a look.
    “The Schumachers were lovely and gracious people,” I said, hoping to nip the quarrel in the bud, “society” or not.
    “What are their colors for the wedding?” Mom continued.
    “Cobalt blue and pale coral.”
    “Ahhh,” Mom sighed. “That will be beautiful.”
    “I think I’ll be pretty busy this April,” I added.
    “You’re pretty busy now!” Mom said, looking at me with motherly concern. “You’ve worked so hard, maybe too hard, honey.” I guess she couldn’t help that her eyes darted to the ring finger of my left hand, newly bare. “Is everything . . .”
    It wasn’t like I hadn’t thought the same thing, over and over again. Maybe if I hadn’t been so set on making my own way, maybe if I had been home more, maybe . . .
    I shook my head and flicked my hands to deflect that question. I hadn’t allowed myself to think much about Luke. I didn’t
want
to think about Luke. And I left my rings locked up in my jewelry box because I didn’t want to lose them when I washed my hands for the umpteenth time.
    I had other things to occupy my thoughts. Like the troubling message from Dad that I was not about to share, either.
    I couldn’t do anything about Luke or Dad, but I could do something about Rainbow Cake. I wanted to focus on what was going well.
    “I’ve had a very good day and that’s all I care about right now,” I said in a tone designed to quash the mini-inquisition.
    Mom and Aunt Helen looked at each other knowingly. “Another drink, anyone?” Helen offered.
    When we sat down at the table, Mom made the sign of the cross. “Bless us, oh Lord, and these thy gifts. . . .”
    Then we all began talking about our days—Mom as the elementary school secretary at Saints Peter and Paul a block away, Aunt Helen as the power-behind-the-pump at a water sprinkler company.
    “Sister Mary Alphonse has been sick with the flu all week and her sixth-graders were almost uncontrollable,” Mom began. “You could hear the ruckus all the way down the hall.”
    “You mean Brenda Jean Overbeck, don’t you?” Aunt Helen commented, adding a dab of horseradish to her cottage ham.
    “That’s ancient history, Helen, and you know that. Brenda Jean has been Sister Mary Alphonse for over thirty years!”
    “That long.” Aunt Helen looked at me and winked. “I guess I keep expecting her to cut and run. She never seemed like nun material to me, anyway. In high school, she used to have that hard orange line of makeup around her face, and she always wore fluorescent blue eye shadow. Remember when she was caught with Joey Ashbrock behind the bleachers and—”
    “Helen,” Mom warned. “We’ve all heard that story at least fifty times.”
    I laughed because we really had heard that story fifty times.
    “By the way, I’ll have extra cupcakes that I can take up to the nursing home and maybe to the convent tomorrow,” I said, changing the subject. That was sure to smooth things over. My mom was Catholic to the core and the one person in the Rosary Altar Society who never, ever missed a meeting. She also never missed seven a.m. mass before she walked on to work. Mom would have made a great nun. Maybe my dad had come to that conclusion, too. . . .
    “Speaking of goodies, Doreen at work gave me a new recipe for a ‘quickie,’” Helen said with a knowing smile. I looked at my