Skinny Bitch in Love (15 page)

Skinny Bitch Bakes. Or something like that. Yeah. “I’m in.” And now I knew what I was doing this weekend instead of thinking about Zach.

Or Alexander.

Chapter 10

Ty came over on Saturday morning with a shitload of parchment paper, two bags full of ingredients from his own kitchen, and suggestions for what to make—everything from the incredible Chocolate Espresso Raspberry cake I’d once made for him when Seamus dumped him for ten minutes, to vanilla chai cupcakes and cherry pies and tropical fruit scones and lemon-glazed cookies. Everything I made would be vegan, which really just meant no eggs or real butter, but half the samples would be unbleached flour and evaporated cane juice crystals and the other half brown rice flour or spelt or garbanzo fava bean flour, sweetened with agave. The ole something for everyone. Ty told me I could see which stuff sold better, then decide to specialize if I became known for being the crap-free baker.

He gave me lessons on making kick-ass whipped cream from coconut milk and on properly storing everything. A master
class in thirty minutes. And the samples wouldn’t cost me a penny. He’d brought over enough brown rice flour and agave and coconut milk for a hundred cakes, but I already had most of the ingredients in my cupboards and fridge for everything I wanted to make.

“And just because I love you, look what I had my boyfriend make for you,” he said, opening up his messenger bag and handing me a manila envelope.

“What’s this?”

“Duh, open it and see,” he said.

I pulled out five sheets of different labels: Skinny Bitch Bakes. Different colors, fonts, shapes. I liked them all. One, black and white, had kind of a Japanese quality to it; I think that was my favorite. How incredibly amazing were these guys?

He reached into another bag and pulled out many flat white bakery boxes of different sizes. “And this is from me. Once you choose your labels you can get the right-color boxes.”

“You’re both the best,” I said, hugging him.

“We know.”

Then he left me to do my thing, and I cranked up the Red Hot Chili Peppers and mixed and stirred and poured and opened and closed the oven door a thousand times. By Saturday early evening, my kitchen was a glorious disaster, but it smelled amazing, and I had my samples packed and ready to take around Sunday morning to the seven cafés where Ty had gotten me appointments.

A knock at the door came just as I was about to drop on the couch.

It was the woman and her four-year-old from two doors down.

“Eli keeps asking me if he could have a bite of whatever is filling the halls with that amazing smell. He wore me down. I swear, I wouldn’t have bothered you otherwise.”

I smiled at her. “Hold on a sec.” I went into the kitchen and came back with a tropical fruit scone for her and a peanut butter chocolate chip cookie for the kid.

He took a bite and shouted, “Mmm!” then practically shoved the entire thing in his mouth. “Can I have ten more?” he asked around a mouthful of cookie, crumbs all over his chin and shirt.

“He means thank you,” the mother said, winking at me and leading the kid downstairs.

I knew kids liked anything sweet, but I still took it as a good sign that Skinny Bitch Bakes was going to be a huge success.

At 6 p.m. I left to meet a personal chef client and explained about tofu and seitan and all the good frozen not-meats. Four delicious dishes and three hundred bucks later, I again detoured past my spot for Clementine’s No Crap Café.

Almost there.

Sunday morning Ty and I hit up the cafés on his list. First stop: Babe’s, one of my favorite coffee lounges on the Third Street Promenade. On the counter were samples of blondies, and the
display case was full of every imaginable baked dessert from scones to pies to cakes to brownies.

Bree, the owner, kissed Ty on both cheeks, shook my hand, then invited us behind the cashier’s table, where Ty helped me unpack my samples and place them on the counter along the brick wall.

“Mmm, that chocolate cake looks amazing,” she said, sniffing the air above it. “Agave nectar and coconut milk,” she added appreciatively.

This was looking promising. I glanced around—the place was crowded with people with huge coffee mugs. Two women held up a scone and were taking simultaneous bites at either end. Later today that would be
my
scone that a couple’s tongues would eventually meet over.

Bree tasted a sample of a peanut butter chocolate chip cookie and oohed and ahhed over that, too, then she tasted my tropical fruit scone.

“Fantastic,” she said. “Amazing. And I love your labels. But to be honest, I really can’t take on new vendors right now. I’m barely moving half the baked goods as it is. I really just took the appointment as a favor to Ty.”

Well, shit.

“But, really, your stuff is great,” Bree said. “You’ll get in all over, no worries.”

I forced out a “thanks,” packed up, and got out of there. What the hell? All that buildup for . . . nothing.

“It’s just one of seven stops,” Ty said before I could say anything. He pulled out his iPhone and checked something,
then pointed diagonally across the street. “Julia’s is next. She’ll love you.”

“Bree supposedly loved me.”

“Yeah, but Julia
will
love you
and
take your stuff. Trust me.”

“Bree would have taken me on if my stuff was that good, Ty.”

“Not necessarily. Did you see the whole cakes and pies in her display? If she can’t move them, she really can’t take on new vendors. She probably didn’t want to admit that business is slow right now or something.”

Okay. Maybe. But all the time I spent on the samples had better have been worth it.

Julia’s was less crowded than Babe’s. Another bad sign.

Ty introduced me to owner Julia, a very tall woman with long red hair. I realized I was kind of holding my breath as she tried the cherry pie. Then the scone. Then the vanilla chai cupcake. Then the peanut butter chocolate chip cookie.

“Mmm,” she said around a bite of cookie. “This is orgasmic. Compliments to the baker.”

I broke out into a full-watt beam. Orgasmic was better than good. “Thanks!”

She took another bite of a coconut shortbread cookie. “Just amazing. So light and fresh. It’s almost hard to believe this is gluten-free.”

“Yeah, because it’s probably not,” shouted a familiar voice. “That’s the vegan chef who put butter in a dish to impress O. Ellery Rice, the food critic. If Clementine Cooper”—she enunciated loudly—“says a cookie is gluten-free and it’s really
good, I’d be wary if I were you. Your customers will demand their money back and sue you for their kids’ doctors bills.”

That raving bitch. I strained my neck past a huge guy to see Rain Welch sitting in a leather club chair, a teapot and bagel on the table in front of her. She had two friends with her. And she was staring right at me.

So was everyone standing around the counter.

“Clementine Cooper has been my best friend for years,” Ty said to Julia. “A jealous freak, who happens to be sitting right there,” he added, pointing at Rain, “was pissed that Clem got the promotion she thought she was owed because she was fucking the owner. Rain is the one who sabotaged Clem by putting butter in that dish. I know because I was there. Everyone knows.”

The owner of the café seemed unsure. “Um, Ty, are you vouching? I totally trust you, so if you’re telling me this is a non-issue, I’ll believe you.”

“It’s a non-issue,” he said, sending Rain a death stare. “O. Ellery Rice didn’t even write up a review of Fresh that night because she’d heard the chef—Clem—was sabotaged. It’s really pathetic when people have to try to tear down others because their lives aren’t going well.”

“It smells in here,” Rain said to her friends. “Let’s get out of here.”

“Loser,” Ty said as Rain and her entourage passed us.

“Will you excuse me for just a minute?” I said to her. “I’ll be right back.”

I went outside. Rain and her friends were walking up the block. “Hey, Rain,” I shouted.

She turned around. “I’ve got nothing to say to you.”

I walked up to her. “I’ve got something to say to you. I
know
you put the butter in my ravioli. Everyone knows it. And one day, you’ll get what you deserve.”

She rolled her eyes and walked away.

I went back inside. “Sorry about that,” I said to Julia. “I feel like I cost you a customer, even if it is Rain.”

“Don’t worry about it,” she said. “That chick and the blonde she was with got into a screaming match with someone sitting at the next table last weekend because he was supposedly slurping his coffee and his kid was making car engine sounds.” She finished the shortbread cookie. “Anyway, your samples are amazing,” she said to me. “And any friend of Ty’s has the seal of approval. I’ll take a dozen each of the coconut shortbread cookies, the peanut butter chocolate chip cookies, the tropical fruit scones and vanilla chai cupcakes, and a cherry pie, all for Thursday morning.”

Shit, yeah!

Over the next three hours we visited five more shops and I had a huge list of orders for the following week. At Cali Bakes, a café, a woman settling her bill overheard the owner having an orgasm over my Chocolate Espresso Raspberry cake and asked if I could do a rush birthday cake with a sand castle on top for her six-year-old daughter’s birthday party the next day—it had to be ready at five. She’d pay me two hundred bucks. Hell, yeah, I could.

One other café couldn’t take on new vendors, but like the first, the display was full of whole cakes and pies and this time
I believed Ty that business was probably slow. On the way out he assured me that like the birthday cake lady, once people started having my stuff and saw my Skinny Bitch Bakes labels, I’d get calls and emails for private orders, and soon word-of-mouth would win me the shops that had turned me down.

“You’re an empire, Clem,” Ty said, slinging his arm around me as we headed toward Montana Avenue.

Which made me remember something.

Ty always puts his arm around you when you’re out walking,
I heard Sara telling me the night we saw Zach and the redhead.

Yeah, but Ty doesn’t fuck ex-girlfriends in his bedroom while she’s downstairs slaving over a hot stove auditioning her mushroom burgers for him,
Eva had added.
The man has shown his true colors. He’s a player. A carnivore player.

And didn’t I get burned badly enough by Ben?

Every time I tried to give Zach some credit, I heard Eva setting me straight. Not that Eva could be counted on for anything resembling sound advice.

“Let’s celebrate Skinny Bitch taking over the world,” Ty said. “I’m off tonight. Got plans with the billionaire?”

I filled Ty in on Zach, and he was somewhere between Sara and Eva. A you-never-know. But didn’t you really? Idiots never knew. Rationalizers never knew. People who were smart enough not to get burned
knew.
But, maybe if Zach called again, I’d tell him, quite casually, that I saw him the other night on Ocean Avenue. And see what he said.

“Remember the time Seamus dumped me because he thought I was cheating on him with the guy I hired to surprise
paint our bedroom? I’m telling you, Seamus has zero gaydar. That guy was so straight. You really never know, Clem,” he said, squeezing my chin and trying to turn the frown upside down.

Okay, fine. You never knew.
Sometimes
.

Sara had called Duncan the night we’d gotten the scoop from his ex-girlfriend to break the news that she’d moved on with an ex. Almost a week later, at our next cooking class on Tuesday night, he was still down in the dumps.

“I still don’t get why she just didn’t tell me she hated my shirts,” he said, slamming down leeks on his chopping board. “I don’t have to wear bowling shirts. There are a million shirts I could wear.” He unbuttoned his shirt and flung it off, then stomped on it and threw it in our trash can. “Gone. That easy.”

“Honey, it’s not the shirt,” Sara said. “It’s bigger than the shirt.”

“And fuck her if she doesn’t like your style,” I added, turning on the burner for the canola oil. Tonight we were making steamed and fried dumplings with a miso-ginger dipping sauce and sesame broccoli. “You’re supposed to dress all L.A. or skater or whatever because she doesn’t like the geek-nerd look?”