For Hannah, Nadine, and Shane – in no particular order.
Wedding cakes have always fascinated me. When I was a young girl, they’d be the centrepiece of any drawing I fashioned up in school. Big ones, small ones, plain white ones with that awful marzipan icing, or the ornate beauty of a royal fairy tale. I marvelled at television programmes that featured cakes; each one of them a work of art. Someone had spent hours toiling away in a kitchen, hair in a net, poring over finer details of lace, ganache, height, and taste.
Now that job was mine.
As a baker, it was almost a shame to see your work sliced and served in greasy paper bags at the end of a long night. I’d woken after countless events to find a squashed slice of chocolate mud in the bottom of my handbag. I hated to think of wedding cakes ending their life like that, but I also loved seeing them enjoyed.
The history of the wedding cake was simple, stretching back to the time of Arthur and Camelot. Wealth, prosperity, fertility, and good luck were all said to come from consuming said baked delight. For me? It was all about the art. Was the icing set? Did I get that flower just right? What about the topper? Is the cake even cooked? Never mind the brides they were designed for.
Today, my bride was Edith. Keeper of chickens and knitter of ugly sweaters, she lived exactly four houses away from me in our not always quiet country town of Inverleigh, ninety minutes south-west of Melbourne. It was home to exactly one pub, one general store – which served as bank, post office, chippy, and advice line – a restaurant that closed twelve months earlier, and a football team. In two hours’ time, Edith was marrying Barry – a not-so-handsome football player with a thrice-broken nose and a penchant for homebrew strong enough to blind even the most seasoned of drinkers.
‘Are you listening?’ Edith’s screech verged on delirium.
‘I am absolutely listening,’ I said, hearing her bridesmaids cluck away in the background. ‘Aren’t you supposed to be getting ready?’
‘I am ready – I’ve been ready for hours.’ She yawned. ‘Is the cake still all right?’
The night before had been a last-minute panic over the cake being “too naked”, and whether I couldn’t “just add some more flowers”. I’d been at the florist at first crack of the door lock to get extra coverage, before dashing home to fill the gaps and please the bride. A quick dozen photo messages confirmed everything was in order, even if that cake now looked like it had sprouted a pubic region somewhere towards its front.
‘It’s beautiful.’ I smiled.
Sitting on the turntable in front of me were three layers of white chocolate and citrus mud deliciousness. A semi-nude cake, it was iced in soft lemon-gelati-flavoured meringue buttercream, and adorned with a selection of native flowers. Pink waratahs sat with golden wattle, grey-green eucalypt leaves and their gumnuts. I stood back and admired it again to the soundtrack of a grumbling tummy. Perfect.
‘Do you think it’s bad luck?’ Edith interrupted my thoughts.
‘What’s bad luck?’ I asked.
In my bathroom, the shower stopped running.
‘The whole dead baker thing.’
Two days ago, Edith’s original baker dropped dead. Just like that. I received a panicked phone call at one o’clock in the morning, asking if I could please, please, with extra money on top, resurrect my baking career to help her. It had been almost three years since I’d fashioned anything more than a birthday cake, but I was more than happy to help. So far, it was looking like a success.
‘Honestly, Eds, the only person it’s bad luck for is your baker, and his family. You and Barry are going to be completely fine. You’ll put your dress on—’
‘I’ve already got it on.’
‘Okay, so you’ll turn up, you’ll say your vows.’ I pulled lace curtains aside and looked out the kitchen window. ‘The weather is stunning, by the way. It’s a lovely Friday, with a little bit of sun and not too much wind. You’re going to have an amazing day, surrounded by friends and family. It’ll be one big eating, drinking lovefest.’
‘You’re right. Of course, you’re right.’ She breathed deeply into the receiver. ‘Okay. I’m going for photos now. I’ll see you there. Please, please don’t drop it.’ She hung up before I could get another word in.
I put my phone on charge, and walked into the bathroom to find Seamus buried under a cloud of shaving cream. Butcher to my baker, he’d been a trade-show find six months earlier. While I’d been wandering around, thinking I should buy a new stand mixer and considering my life path, he rounded the corner with an armful of carving knives, a headful of unruly auburn hair and bottle-green eyes. One drink had led to another, we’d discovered mutual friends, and slowly, but surely, started dating.
‘Everything okay, Pet?’ His Irish lilt was muffled by the soft white clouds that sputtered towards the mirror.
I pulled my blonde hair into a loose bun and leant closer to the mirror, poking at the new lines under my tired brown eyes. Baking, huh? ‘Yeah, all fine. Just need to deliver it, and hark, the herald angels sing.’
‘Good.’ He grinned, razor gliding through foam. ‘At least she’ll stop calling at all hours.’
‘She’s allowed to call at all hours. She’s my friend, she’s a client, and she’s stressed.’ I paused, arms in the air, bobby pin poised.
‘I’m just saying. Eleven o’clock on a Thursday night.’
‘And it’s completely fine,’ I stressed, agitated. ‘I need the money right now.’
As I walked away, he mumbled something just quietly enough that I couldn’t hear. I ignored the call to argument and closed the bedroom door. A grey pantsuit I’d dangled from the back of the door last night now hung limply from the door handle, and had been dragged across the floor. Really? Right now? I brushed the dust and lint from the bottoms and hoped for the best.
‘Oh, I got that magazine for you, too. The Gourmet Chef?’ he asked.
‘Gourmet Traveller?’ I tugged at my shirt.
‘Yeah, that might be the one.’ Seamus knotted his tie. ‘Something like that.’
The magazine he was talking about had already made its way to the floor of the lounge room, discarded the moment he walked through the front door. Not a moment later, as I waddled towards the front door under the weight of a cake, snapping at Seamus as I went, I kicked the magazine under the lip of the couch, and hoped for the best.
Unloading and transporting cakes is no different when they’ve been made for friends. In fact, it’s even more nerve-racking. While I resembled something close to awake, with my suit sorted and a dab of make-up, I struggled between keeping the cake upright, and trying not to kill Seamus as he sped along Winchelsea Road towards the reception venue. The road was far from safe, one lane of dusty orange gravel or knobby bitumen most of the way, twists and bends, oncoming livestock trucks, and a driver who was hellbent on getting to his destination as if he were piloting a live-action Mario Kart game.