An Excerpt from A Sheetcake Named Desire
first in the Piece of Cake mystery series
CHAPTER ONE
The Mississippi
riverboat cake tilted on the table in front of me, its fondant paddle wheel
askew, gashes of lemony yellow cake gaping in its once-smooth white surface. In
the five years I’ve been working as a cake artist, this was the worst disaster
I’d ever seen. Repairing the badly damaged three-foot cake would have been a daunting
task under ideal conditions. In my current situation, the job was almost
overwhelming.
Trickles of nervous perspiration snaked down my back as I studied
the wreck from every angle. I could feel the staff of Zydeco Cakes watching me
intently as I sorted through possible ways to proceed.
First priority: stay calm. Not easy under the circumstances.
The stakes were as high as they got in the world of professional cake
decorating. The cake was due in less than three hours at the grand opening of a
new riverboat cruise line, for folks with money and influence. Failure to
deliver on time would have a far-reaching impact on Zydeco’s reputation. For a
cake artist, reputation is every bit as important as talent.
The staff at Zydeco had already suffered a blow today. I
couldn’t let them down again.
The air conditioner was cranked up to keep the work area
cool, but the intense heat and humidity of New Orleans in July still managed to
creep into the building somehow. The undercurrents of tension that ebbed and
flowed through the room didn’t help me keep my cool either.
My name is Rita Lucero, and I’m a trained cake artist, a
graduate of the French Pastry School in Chicago.
Currently wasting my fancy training by working as sous chef in my uncle Nestor’s
Mexican restaurant in Albuquerque.
So what was I doing sweating over a cake in New Orleans?
It was the same pending divorce that had left me chopping
onions by the bushel that had brought me to the
Crescent City
for
a few
days. But now, instead of getting my ex’s signature on our divorce settlement, I was
standing in his bakery, shaking the dust off my cake decorating skills.
Taking a deep breath to calm my nerves, I closed my eyes
and counted to ten—a trick my aunt Yolanda had taught me when I was thirteen
and angry with the world. It didn’t always work, but I hadn’t given up trying. I
needed to focus, but concentration was hard to find in a room full of tense,
anxious people.
When I opened my eyes again, Zydeco’s manager, Edie Bryce, was
staring up at me, a deep scowl accentuating her round face and the almond-shaped
eyes she’d inherited from a Chinese grandmother. To the uninformed, Edie resembles
the stereotypical porcelain doll, but I learned a long time ago not to
underestimate her.
“So?” she demanded. “Can you do it or not, Rita?”
“I’m thinking.”
“Think faster! That cake is due for delivery in less than
three hours.”
Not helpful. “Nobody’s more aware of the clock than I am,”
I assured her. “Just back off a little, okay? Pushing through this too quickly
is guaranteed to make things worse.”
Edie’s frown deepened, and impatience flashed in her dark
eyes. She muttered something under her breath and turned away, but I knew she’d
be back soon. Patience has never been one of her virtues.
I glanced around at the others, some of whom I’d known
since pastry school. The rest I’d met just a couple hours earlier, and I was
still struggling to remember their names. “We’re going to need buttercream,” I
said to no one in particular. “Lots of it.”
___________________________________
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