Sugar Rush (26 page)
“Spitalfields? You’re making that up.”
His chuckle turned to a full laugh. “I promise you, I’m not. Wonderful marketplace there now.”
“Lit’l Charlie ’ingle from Spitalfields, all grown up,” she said, in a rather delightful attempt at a Cockney accent. Her smile was warm, and the light in her eyes when she looked at him was one of affection and respect. “You’ve really done well for yourself, Baxter.”
He’d thought he’d kick himself later, for telling her. But he realized, she was, in truth, the only person he knew whom he could have shared that part of himself with. He was glad he had. “The same with you,” he replied.
“I thought you didn’t respect my opening up a cupcake bakery.”
“I never said that.”
She laughed then. “You didn’t have to. You should have seen your face when you stepped into my kitchen that first morning. Your expression said it all.” She lifted her hand, waving off any need to explain. “That’s okay. My father doesn’t get it, either. Or Charlotte, for that matter. You all think I’m wasting my talents here.”
“You’re right. When I heard what you were doing with yourself, even when I first got here, I did think that.”
She didn’t look surprised, or insulted, which he appreciated, because his reaction was an insult, one which he felt ashamed of now.
She tilted her head slightly and said, “That implies you’ve since changed your mind?”
“It’s humbling to realize I’d become such a food snob. As you say, a bloke from Old Spi’alfields makin’ good of ’imself hardly has any room to point fingers now, does he? And yet, I absolutely passed judgment on your choice to do this, rather than—”
“Make the same choices you did?” she finished for him. “You were working to elevate yourself so you could escape poverty and make a better life. That’s not only okay, its laudable, in every sense. But I wasn’t escaping anything, or trying to elevate my way out of something. I was merely trying to learn, to grow, to find out what I had inside me in terms of creating amazing, delicious desserts, and become the very best I could be. Nothing so noble as your cause.”
“Nothing noble about survival. That’s all it was, pure and simple.”
“But being a pastry chef is not a means to an end, it’s your true passion. How lucky you are that you found something you felt so passionately about it could also be the solution you needed to get out and move up.”
“What about you, then? What drove you to Belgium and Paris? Then on to New York? What were your goals?”
“To be the best chef I could be. To learn everything I could about my craft, about baking, pastries, chocolate, all of it. I wanted a global perspective, and, when I came back, I thought the best place for me to continue my education was New York.” She smiled. “And it absolutely was.”
He sketched a bowing motion, but said, “I learned from you as well.”
She laughed. “I’m flattered you think so, but you had so much to offer, knew so much, had the most interesting take on things. It was like my brain exploded with new ideas, just being around you.”
His smile softened. “Again, I can say the same. You think very differently, creatively, than I do. My work is more rustic, and yours more refined, yet grounded in much the same sensibilities. You made me think differently, too.”
He thought her cheeks might have pinkened a little. “I—well.” She grinned a little self-consciously, which sent his heart teetering quite dangerously. “Thank you.”
“You’re quite welcome.”
Her smile turned a bit sardonic then, prompting him to add, “What?”
“Oh, it’s nothing, just ...” She twirled the cupcake paper in her fingers. “Ironic, isn’t it, that you’re the more rustic-trained pastry chef, and I’m supposedly the elegant, refined one, yet, I’m the one who ultimately finds happiness and fulfillment in the rudimentary little cupcake.”
“There is nothing remotely rudimentary about your little cakes,” he said quite sincerely.
“Well,” she said, unable to keep a bit of smugness from sliding into her smile. “Thank you for saying that. Very much.”
She’d earned that bit of nose-rubbing, he’d give her that. “You’re quite welcome. It’s the truth. I’ll be honest and admit that I truly couldn’t understand how someone with your natural talents and thirst for creating would be fulfilled, much less inspired, by what I thought of as such a constricting, elemental product. I was certain you’d become creatively stunted and feel stifled, even trapped after a while. I mean, I suppose at any point you could have broadened your shop concept and become a full bakery or patisserie, but—”
She was shaking her head. “No, cupcakes represented happiness and joy to me. I think they’re symbolic of that to everyone.”
“Don’t you feel all desserts are that?”
“No, not at all. I think they represent all sorts of things, and, certainly they’re all meant to be enjoyed ... but none so much as the happy little cupcake. And that’s what I wanted to do. Spread the joy.”
“But your work in New York was doing exactly that.”
“In a very different way, maybe. I know people liked and respected my work, but it was more about wowing with construction and details, than it was about the flavor profiles and the actual food itself. I’m quite certain more than half my desserts routinely sat unfinished on plates, not because they didn’t taste good, but because the consumer was more concerned about maintaining the perfect size zero, or not appearing to be a glutton, or thought it was awesome to be eating a Gateau creation more than they were actually indulging themselves in the experience of the food itself. But I can tell you this ... no one eats half a cupcake.” She ended on a laugh.
He smiled, too. “You have a point.”
“Don’t get me wrong, I was inspired by you, by Gateau, by the city, and by impressing our very important and demanding clientele. I am an overachiever by nature, so the greater the demand, the more challenging the criteria, the better it was for me. It was a real test of what I could do, of where I could go with what I knew, how far I could grow, reach, become.”
“And you were doing all those things. Wondrously so.”
“Thank you. I mean that. Your opinion matters, and not just because you’re a world class chef.”
“But?” He smiled again. “I can always hear them.”
She smiled back. “But,” she repeated, “I was also always stressed out, always worried, always cramming my brain with everything I could think of, to make sure I never ran out of new ideas, which was the main thing that drove me. Topping myself. When I took on the executive chef role at Gateau, I was proud I’d achieved that, and so soon in my career. It was what I wanted, right? I was climbing the ladder, challenging myself every day to become a better chef. It was my dream come true. How else could I measure success? If you’re successful doing something you love, that has to bring with it fulfillment and happiness. Right?”
“It’s the logical conclusion.”
“It was hard. Running Gateau. So hard. I thought I would thrive, but it was really scary, shouldering that much pressure. I hoped it would get easier as time went on, that I’d learn to handle it better. Enjoy it more. I thought it was about the staff, all the negative gossip, and a lot of other things, and surely, once that smoothed out and I proved myself—both to them and to me—it would feel more rewarding. After all, again, my dream was coming true.”
“And then your father got ill.”
She nodded, and he could see the stark fear flash across her face. They’d talked about family before, and he’d thought about her upbringing, in such a strong, matriarchal family, with a father who also loved her deeply. Though he’d empathized with her need to rush to her father’s side, he’d never been in a position to feel that same urgency, that same fear. The kind that grips your core, shakes it numb.
But, watching her now, listening to her talk so passionately, so certainly, he realized he envied her courage. Courage to deal with losing someone she loved so dearly, courage in confronting the terror of possibly losing her only remaining family, then making choices—fearless choices—on what she knew had to be done, what was the right thing to do. To hear her tell it, her father had been no proponent of her move south, or her business launch. But she’d done it anyway. It boggled Baxter and inspired a great deal of respect from him.
It was in that moment he also came to the realization there was one person who, if her life were in sudden jeopardy, could inspire in him the courage to make those same tough choices, face the same terrifying consequences. That person was Leilani.
The thought of forever losing her ...
“When I came down to take care of him, it was my first trip out of the city for any length of time since I’d become a chef,” she went on, mercifully pulling him from his thoughts.
His heart, however, didn’t recover so quickly.
“I thought the slower pace would make me crazy, and that I’d be worrying the whole time that things were completely falling apart back in New York. Between my father’s heart attack and walking away from our insane schedule at Gateau, I thought I’d be a stressed out, anxiety ridden disaster.”
“But—” They said it in unison, and both of them laughed.
“But,” Lani repeated, “once the doctors assured me Dad was expected to make a full recovery, I was able to focus on helping him get his strength back and make sure he followed doctor’s orders. I was still worried, but not in a panic that I was going to lose him. It wasn’t until I’d been here a few days I realized that while I did worry, of course, whether business was being handled properly back in the city, I wasn’t anxiety ridden about it. To be honest, by the end of the second week, I was starting to feel guilty, because the predominant feeling I had at the time was relief. I wasn’t under so much pressure anymore. I baked and baked at Harper House and I enjoyed every second of it, because no one cared, no one was looking over my shoulder, or tapping their toes impatiently waiting for me to finish, or worse, pointing fingers and whispering snidely behind my back.”
“Leilani—”
“No, I’m not blaming you. I just didn’t realize how miserable I was. After all, I was living my dream. Sure, I was tired, stressed out, but that’s the life I signed on for. I could hardly complain about that. Look at the opportunities I was getting. Look at the people who were sampling my work, my food. I was stressed because I cared, and it was just the price of success.”
“I didn’t realize you were so unhappy.”
“That’s just it. Neither did I. If you’d asked me, I’d have told you I was the luckiest pastry chef in the world. Because I was.”
“You always seemed so calm, so focused, so centered.”
She smiled then. “Nothing noble about survival, you said. And you’re right. And that’s what it was. It took stepping out of that life, stepping away from it, to really understand. Last spring, I made the desserts, or some of them, for the big Easter dinner we have on the island. I got to sit and watch folks eat and enjoy my food. Many of them came up to me and told me how much they loved this cake or that pie and asked for the recipe. They shared stories of my mom’s cooking, and those who were old enough even had stories of Nanny’s dishes. By then, I’d already been kind of dreading going back to New York. And was having a hard time facing it. I felt guilty for not being more thankful for what I had. I felt ungracious, and part of me wondered if those first inklings of an idea to open my own place weren’t really just a cop-out, or an escape, an excuse not to go back to Gateau.”
“What made the final decision? It doesn’t seem like you had all that much support, at least not from those who knew you best.”
“My father said it was because he didn’t want me fawning all over him, making him feel like an invalid, but it wasn’t until recently I realized just how much it bothered him that I didn’t go back to my big career in the city. And Charlotte ... she supported my decision to be happy; she just didn’t get it. I hadn’t actually told anyone what I was thinking about. I spent a lot of time playing with recipes in the Harper House kitchen while my dad was convalescing. He was used to me baking all the time and thought I was just keeping my skills sharp while away from the city.”
“Instead, you were ... working on your new menu?”
“That’s eventually where it took me, yes. Those were the kinds of things I could never introduce at Gateau, but I could imagine every one of them making the people in Sugarberry happy.”
A twinkle of excitement lit her eyes in a way he’d never once seen. He’d seen her quiet pride in her work when they’d been at Gateau, but this was entirely different.
“I’d been giving it thought, kind of toying with the idea, talking myself into daring to really give it a chance ... and then I spied the shop space for rent on the square. It had been a bakery before, but it had sat empty for over nine years. Gutted. No equipment. But all the wiring was there, the setup, the structure. It just needed a new face and new equipment. And a lot of tender loving care. But I think I knew. Maybe not that exact day, but when I called the agent to take a look at the place, I knew then I was really going to do it. If it was at all feasible, I was going to stay and open my own place.”
“How?” he asked, sincerely wanting to know.
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