Page 13 of Sweet and Salty

Scrunching my nose, I inspect my setup. Cake. Camera. Lighting. Cheerful farmhouse kitchen background, courtesy of my own home. Lovely. That’s the beauty of social media, after all. Faking perfection in one’s life.

I hit the countdown on the camera timer and take up my position behind the sample Wild in Love cake. After Dr. Sieber’s party and with tourists starting to descend on the café, I haven’t had time to work on it until the weekend. Daisy Gustavson is highly specific about what she wants, so I made this one as a test. There it stands, still crumb-coated only, awaiting thebig garishly-colored swirls that she waxed rhapsodic about for fifteen minutes during her consultation.

Not my wedding. Not my wedding.

The timer chirps readiness, but I take one look at the preview photo of me glowering and reset the clock. Unless I want to rename my channel Frowny Chef, that expression isn’t going to cut it.

I close my eyes and breathe deeply. Focus on one sense at a time. The scent of vanilla and strawberry. The weight of the piping bag in my hand. Einstein barking outside at the pigs. Einstein’s always been popular on my channel. Nothing sends a post viral like a canine photo bomb.

With calm washing through me, I open my eyes, paste on a bright smile, and hit the record button.

“Welcome back to Frosting Monkey. I’m Laura, and I’ve really missed you all.”

Two hours later,I close the video editing program and drink the last of my homemade latte. It isn’t perfect, but it’s good. Both the latte and the video.

I’ll do one more run-through later in the evening and upload it to my channels. For the first video I’ve made in a while, I left it a longer length, but I also recorded short videos of me making bagels and puff pastry. If I focus primarily on shorts, I won’t burn out trying to make epic Food Network-worthy stuff.

Not that the Food Network is going to come calling. I can’t even get a spot onAmerica Bakes!No matter how badly I once wanted to audition. I once wanted a heck of a lot of things.

The latte backs up into my stomach and I reach for the large glass of water beside it.

I don’t have time for dreaming. I have to deal with acid reflux.

It’s late afternoon, that time of day that weighs the most heavily on my shoulders. Too late for lunch, too early for dinner, the long, lonely hours of night stretching ahead of me. I could go to the Saturday Polka Potluck, but with the influx of tourists in town, it’s undoubtedly going to be at capacity. After the week I’ve had, dodging sympathetic glances and sideways comments about why a nice girl like me can’t hold down a man–ugh–I have zero desire to put on shapewear and shove my double Ds into a bra.

I glance out the window, past the tree line. Behind there is the cabin where Jesse’s staying.

It was so sweet, the way he had added the lollipop to the bag. A tiny gesture, but it meant everything to me that day. That someone had noticed me and wanted to try to help. That despite his grumpy lumberjack vibe, he has a streak of kindness.

I wonder if he likes brownies.

Lucretia Borgia snorts and tosses her head in the paddock, and I have to agree with her.

No. Nope. Not even a snowball’s chance in hell.

Rory told me he’d invited him to my little apartment over the garage. Thank heck he refused. There’s more than enough gossip this past week about that grump. I don’t need him twenty feet away from me. Not with that salt-and-pepper grimace.

I’ll plan my next meal. That’s always worked for me. I open my refrigerator door, inspecting the contents. Kale, lemons, parmesan. A creamy, lemony pasta. Yes. Maybe Jesse likes pasta? There’s a little gauntness to his face that–

Nope. Doesn’t matter. Not thinking about him.

I’ll record it too. Nothing like stacking content to be uploaded on a schedule, especially when the café gets busy. And with summer coming, the café bustles this time of year.

Taking out all the ingredients, I lay them on the counter in a visually appealing array, stacking complimentary colors next to one another so everything pops. It feels good to get back into the groove of it all. The long-dormant dreams I squashed when everything went to hell twelve years ago bubble up below the surface. Like I’m Rip Van Winkle, waking up after a long sleep. I don’t need a liquor license for my café or babies or a man who doesn’t smell like deep-fried Oreos. Maybe I can still be an internet sensation or get a spot on a baking show. I won’t win, I don’t expect that, but it would be an honor to participate.

I just need one win. One.

I step back and look at my dinner setup. Perfect. A few tweaks to the ring light and it will look amazing, almost better than it’ll taste. Almost.

At the door, Einstein scratches at the worn yellow wood. Begging to be let in again.

“Oh, Einstein,” I chide as I open the door, his coat tawny in the glow of the kitchen lights. He sniffs all around the floor, looking for any tasty dropped bits from my earlier culinary attempts. Not that he’ll find anything. In a restaurant or bakery, cleanliness is the key to everything.

Not the key to a liquor license, but that’s because that vault is controlled by the Drydens. Not a house full of kids and laughter and a partner who cares.

Resentment curdles in my stomach like fresh ricotta. I close my eyes and repeat “it’s not worth it” over and over and over. It isn’t. What matters at the end of the day is my family and my animals, their health and safety. My dreams can change.

Really.