July
“This isn’t working.”
A camera rolls closer to me, zooming in on my face as I wipe a smudge of flour from my cheek with the sleeve of my novelty Christmas sweater. I flip off the mixer and turn to look at my boyfriend, Adam, who’s standing next to me at the counter, stirring food coloring into a vat of royal icing.
“Maybe add another drop or two of color?” I advise as I pick up a spatula and start scraping batter off the edge of the mixing bowl. The camera looming ever closer to me is serving as a very clear reminder that there’s no time to waste—we only have two hours to produce 200 cookies for the judges, with no less than three different flavors and Christmassy designs on them. “If we want to do a Santa cookie, the color has got to be really rich and vivid.”
“I know how to make frosting, Maddie,” Adam retorts, pulling at the collar of his own itchy holiday sweater, and I hear it immediately: the thinly disguised contempt in his tone.
He’s been using that tone a lot with me lately.
Because he’s stressed, I reassure myself.
And he really does know how to make frosting… better than me, that’s for sure. We’re both bakers at heart, but I usually focus on healthy ingredient substitutes for traditional baked goods, whereas Adam’s the pastry chef at a high-end restaurant in metro Atlanta. He’s been making some strides towards opening his own place: a dessert emporium where he’ll create luxurious confections to cater to the most upper-crust and refined of sweet-toothed cravings.
It was my idea for us to apply as a couple’s team for the Food Network’s Behemoth Holiday Baking Bonanza! I thought the television exposure might do him good. That the publicity might help him get on his feet. Even if it did mean putting my own budding career on pause for a hot second. Or more. I’m not sure anyone’s going to want to hire a nutritionist known for peddling butter, flour and sugar in gargantuan quantities, but I’ll worry about that later.
I also thought it might be a nice way for us to spend more time together. Adam’s been hard at work trying to make his business dream a reality, and we haven’t seen much of each other lately. Which is rather unusual. Adam’s been in my life almost as long as I can remember—his dad and my stepdad are criminal defense lawyers at some fancy law office downtown, and when my Mom married my stepdad, she became friends with Adam’s mom, too.
As a couple, we just made sense. While other high-schoolers spent their weekends partying and illicitly drinking, Adam and I would make cookies together. Until Adam graduated a year before me and moved on to culinary school, creating soufflés and choux pastry and leaving me to lick snickerdoodle batter from the bowl alone on Friday nights.
But having a dessert emporium is Adam’s dream, and I totally respect all the work he’s put into it. Including frequent meetings with Elizabeth Carberry, business advisor extraordinaire. And really, really pretty.
I know, because I’ve visited her website. Numerous times.
I was a little suspicious for awhile… but then, I found the ring in his sock drawer.
Adam’s finally going to propose.
And I’d bet money that he’s planning on proposing this Christmas. My family has spent every holiday season with Adam’s family at their cabin in Aspen for years. It was at that cabin that Adam asked me out for the first time, and though it was over a decade ago, I still remember it like it was yesterday. It would be the perfect place for him to propose. Bookend our relationship. Christmas is only a few months away now.
That has to be why he’s been so stressed and distant lately. Planning a proposal for your girlfriend of over a decade while also trying to start your own business has to be a lot of pressure. And on top of that, I had this idea for us to do this nationally televised baking show together.
But a nagging, unsettled voice in me wonders if I have it wrong. Maybe this whole thing—making 200 novelty holiday cookies for a TV show—is beneath him and his luxurious dessert brand.
Maybe he’s only taking part in it because I wanted us to?
I suddenly feel a bit guilty. Guilty enough to smile and soothe his snapping tone.
“You’re right, I’m sorry,” I say gently as I put a hand on his arm, trying to ignore the cameraperson who’s currently getting all up in my face. Which I’m sure is beet-red and sweaty as all hell. I feel like I’m about to melt into the floorboards. Why do they have to film Christmas shows in the height of summer when it’s literally a hundred degrees out? “I’m sure you know better than me how to fix the frosting.”
“I’m not talking about the damn frosting.” Adam’s jaw tics and he yanks his sweater off. His glasses get stuck in the process and go flying, skidding across the counter.
He blinks at me, all squinty.
“Oh, let me get those for you!”
I can’t even take a single step before he grabs my arm.
In-my-face cameraperson is now literally so close, I can see my tiny, surprised, red-cheeked reflection on the lens. In the corner, the judges have taken notice of the commotion and are looking at us with interest. Another camera materializes right next to us. And another.
Apparently, our little tiff is more interesting than the grannies at the next station happily whipping up fruit cookies.
“Mads,” Adam says, looking at me through unfocused eyes. His eyesight has always been terrible, and contacts never agreed with him.
“Just let me get—”
“I mean this isn’t working.” He gestures from himself, to me. “Me and you.”
I sigh. Adam is highly competitive. I want to win this thing, too; it’s a trait we share. But if we want to have a shot at claiming that W, we need to put a pin in this convo. Stat.
And if I know Adam at all, I know that the only way to end a squabble is to roll over and let him believe he’s right. So instead of telling him to pipe the hell down and focus on getting his Santa-red right, I smile. “I’m not as skilled a baker as you, but if I’m being a crappy teammate, you can take the lead and assign me grunt work—”
“Our relationship!” He half yells, and for the first time, I notice the thin sheen of stress sweat dotting his forehead. He only sweats like that when he has something on his mind that he doesn’t want to say, and I know that because… dammit, I know everything about this man after being with him for the past eleven years.
“What?” I blink at him. Camera one is so up in my face, I suddenly feel like a goldfish in a very, very claustrophobic bowl.
He sighs. “I don’t want to do this with you anymore, Madelyn. Us. Our relationship.”
I blink again, not comprehending.
“It’s over,” he adds for good measure, really twisting the pastry knife.
“B-b-but… the ring,” I stutter, my vision blurring at the edges as hot tears prick the corners of my eyes.
Now, it’s Adam’s turn to look confused. “What ring?”
“I found it in your drawer,” I mumble, blinking up at a shiny decorative Christmas bauble suspended above me.
“Oh. That’s not for you.”
It’s then that I notice that the studio is quiet. Too quiet. The only thing punctuating the silence is the tinny blast of that “Deck the Halls” song coming from the speakers. Camera four is now also focused on Adam and me. The grannies to our left have stopped adding raisins to their oatmeal dough. The steampunk bakers to our right have paused piping their neon-pink-and-black-skull sugar cookie stockings. Gina DeLaurier, beloved host of Easy Peasy Lemon Squeezy Meals For One—and today’s guest judge—stands up, concern worrying her pretty features.
But I can’t focus on any of that. Because Adam’s words are sinking in like acid on my skin.
“Wait… you’re breaking up with me… so you can propose to someone else??” My voice has taken on the harpy, almost hysterical quality of a too-tight violin string.
Adam swallows, his unfocused eyes darting back and forth like a metronome. He, at least, has the decency to look bashful. “I’ve fallen in love with Elizabeth.”
“Elizabeth,” I repeat dumbly.
Adam frowns. “You know… my Elizabeth? I didn’t mean for this to happen, but…”
I tune Adam out as a rush of blood floods my eardrums, roaring like the ocean in indignance.
His Elizabeth. Elizabeth Carberry. Business advisor extraordinaire. Really, really pretty.
And apparent go-to girl for an affair.
Ha.
It’s the third round of the competition. We were only one step away from making the finals. And my cookies in the form of jolly little Santa Clauses sipping hot chocolate were going to knock it out of the park today.
But now, Adam has Elizabeth, and Elizabeth is going to have a ring, and all I have is some red frosting that is totally the wrong color because Adam mixed it wrong, for frick’s sake.
“So, I think you’ll understand that this is for the best for everyone,” Adam concludes blinkily as his voice comes back into focus.
He puts his hands on the counter and starts to pat around blindly.
And so, I do the only thing that a reasonable, sane, mature, twenty-five year old woman who’s just been dumped on national television would do:
I reach up, grab the back of his head… and dunk his stupid blind-bat face in the vat of wrong-color-red frosting.
Fa la la la la la la la la.
