The Bake-Off (31 page)

“Congratulations, both of you.” Snowley offered them the microphone, but Linnie had nothing to say. Her work here was done.

She posed for a moment alongside Amy, both of them beaming for the cameras while showing off a six-foot-long poster-board check. She turned to the contest official to her right and asked, “Hey, can we actually deposit this thing?”

“Right now?” the woman asked.

“Yeah.”

She looked taken aback. “Well, no, this is just for the photo op. In a few days, the corporation will send you and your sister traditional checks, along with some tax forms—”

The double doors clanged again as another Delicious sugar representative loped in from the hallway. He had a cell phone in one hand and a stack of what appeared to be scorecards in the other.

And then Cam walked in. He stopped, locked eyes with Linnie from across the ballroom, and she knew.

The flour bowl was about to hit the floor, and there was nothing she could do but watch it shatter.

While Amy continued to wave and blow kisses, Linnie stepped aside and met the contest rep at the top of the stairs.

“What's going on?” asked the woman who had presented the check to Linnie. “Is everything all right?”

“I'm sorry to interrupt, but I need to speak with Ms. Bialek for a moment.” He refused to look Linnie in the face.

Using the enormous check to partially shield them from the audience's view, he introduced himself as Stephen Wexel, one of the contest's chief administrators.

“First, let me congratulate you and your sister on your win.” His smile flickered on and off. “I hate to take away from your big moment, but it's my job to investigate any allegation of misconduct.” He adjusted his tie. “I'm sorry to embarrass you, but I have to ask this. You didn't have any, uh,
contact
with any of our judges, did you?”

Both of them peered around the edge of the check at Cam, who had been surrounded by a protective posse of men in green. Linnie could tell from the set of his jaw and his impassive expression that he hadn't revealed anything about their relationship. He was leaving it up to her.

“Why would you ask me such a thing?” she asked, trying to buy time while she scrambled to come up with a decent line of defense.

Stephen continued to hem and haw about how he was just doing his duty. “One of the Delicious Duet contestants claims he has a photo of you kissing a judge, but as you can see”—he held up a cell phone, presumably Ty's—“this image is rather blurry, and this particular contestant is known as something of a troublemaker. Still, I would be remiss if I didn't at least ask. Do you or did you have any kind of personal relationship with Mr. McMillan over there?”

Linnie knew she looked shocked—she
was
shocked. Shocked that Ty had caught her, shocked that she hadn't figured it out as soon as she saw him by the elevator this morning. But she could play this off as dismay at being falsely accused. She could deny ever having met Cam, and she knew he'd go along with her.

She could break the rules one more time and get away with it. No one would contradict her.

She stared straight ahead, past the crowds and the cameras, and fixed her gaze on the glowing red exit sign hanging over the main doors. Then she squared her shoulders and uttered a single word:

“Yes.”

The microphone picked up her voice and carried it over the loudspeakers.

Everyone in the room immediately quieted down and gave her their full attention. Amy paused in midlaugh, her head thrown back and her eyes sparkling. “Yes, what?” she asked.

Linnie cleared her throat and covered the mic with her hand. “Yes, I know him,” she confirmed.

This confession set off a round of gasps and exclamations in the front row of the audience, and word quickly spread back through the aisles.

The contest rep looked even more horrified than Linnie felt. “You do?” he asked, as if he were hoping she would change her answer.

Linnie nodded. “Yes, sir.”

“And you knew he was a judge?”

“Not until this morning.”

“A likely story,” somebody hissed. “She targeted him.”

“And he didn't know I was a Delicious Duet contestant,” she emphasized. “Or what I was baking.”

There came a snicker of derision. “Riiiight.”

“That explains a lot,” sniped another voice. “Did you taste the pie they left out for the crowd? B-minus at best.”

“So you”—Mr. Millington looked over at Cam, then back at Linnie—“and you . . .”

“Yes,” Linnie confirmed. “Yes to everything you are too polite to ask. But again, it's entirely my fault. He was unaware of who I was and why I was staying in the hotel.”

Cam started toward her, but a swarm of reporters blocked his path and a pair of security officers hustled him out into the hall while Stephen adjusted his glasses. “I'm going to need a moment to confer with my staff.” He stepped back into a cluster of corporate colleagues.

Linnie remained where she stood, bracing for the oncoming tsunami of accusation and hostility.

And then she felt a hand on her back as Amy stepped up beside her. “Don't freak out. I'm right here with you.”

“I'm not freaking out,” Linnie insisted.

“You're shaking like a bobblehead on a dashboard.”

“It's okay.” Linnie kept her chin high. “In the words of a very wise woman, ‘It's just fucking pie.' ”

“Good girl. Hey, if you rip off your shirt and flash the cameras right now, I bet you could parlay this whole fiasco into a reality show.”

“Ladies, we've reached a decision.” Stephen Wexel returned, looking somber. “I'm afraid you both are disqualified.”

Amy nodded and turned to go, but Linnie tried one last appeal. “I know I was wrong, sir, and I absolutely deserve to be disqualified. But please don't disqualify my sister, too. Why should she have to pay for my mistakes?”

The contest rep looked ready to pound back a bottle of bourbon and smoke a carton of cigarettes. “The Delicious Duet championship is a team event. If one team member is out, you're both out.”

“But—”

“Forget it.” Amy strutted toward the stairs like she was working the runway at Fashion Week. “Begging is beneath you. They can choke on their hundred thousand dollars.”

Mr. Millington stepped back up to the microphone and addressed the murmuring crowd. “We apologize for the confusion, ladies and gentlemen. Due to an unforeseen conflict of interest, we have no choice but to revoke the grand prize from Ms. Bialek and Mrs. Nichols. We are delighted to declare Tyson and Tai Tottenham the winners of this year's Delicious Duet Dessert Championship!”

There were a few halfhearted cheers and heckles as Tai and Ty took the stage, but the media throng surged as one toward Amy and Linnie.

“Excuse me! Ms. Bialek!”

“Do you have a comment . . . ?”

“How does it feel . . . ?”

Linnie cringed and huddled against her big sister. “Okay, now I'm freaking out.”

Amy threw out a straight arm like an NFL running back and charged through the masses. She used her other arm to shield Linnie's face from the flashbulbs and camera lenses.

“Coming through!” she bellowed. “Step aside.” She continued zigging and zagging until they were safely out the door, then collapsed into giggles. “I feel like Angelina Jolie's bodyguard.”

Linnie gaped at her in disbelief. “You're enjoying this?”

Amy shrugged. “It's been a long time since I had this much excitement. Now stop talking and run.”

They hightailed it down the hallway, through the hotel's back exit, and into the alleyway, where all traces of the ANARKY graffito had vanished.

“Cam's people must have been busy.” Amy jerked her thumb toward the brick wall.

“His people? He was probably down here with a bucket and a scrubbing brush himself.” Linnie sighed. “Speaking of Cam, do you think the CEO of Delicious Sugar is interrogating him right now? Do you think his family will disown him? Do you think he's banning me from all McMillan hotels for the rest of my life?”

“Why don't you give him a call and find out?”

Linnie hung her head. “I don't actually know his cell phone number. Or his exact age or his permanent residence. I never bothered to ask, because I wasn't thinking about anything beyond a weeklong fling. You were right. I treated him like a disposable boy toy.”

“Cookie nookie.” Amy nodded solemnly. She strode toward the sidewalk, raised her hand to summon a cab, and whipped out her cell phone. When a taxi pulled over, she dived into the backseat. Linnie followed, though with considerably less enthusiasm.

“Who're you calling?”

Amy held up her index finger as she addressed the person on the other end of the line. “Yes, hi. I'd like to book two tickets to Las Vegas, please. The next available flight from JFK. We're on our way to the airport now.”

“
What?
But all of our luggage is still up in our room! What about checking out of the hotel? What about your car?”

“Calm down; we'll be back in like fifteen hours.” Amy shushed Linnie, then provided the customer service rep with passenger names and her credit card number. Then she clicked her phone shut and buckled her seat belt. “Road trip!”

“But we lost. They're going to shred our giant poster-board check. We'll never bake in this town again.”

“Let's get one thing straight,” Amy said. “We didn't lose; we won. Yes, we got disqualified on a ticky-tack technicality, but we still won. Now, before we spend five hours trapped in coach eating stale pretzels, call the pawnshop and make sure the brooch is still there.”

“We're still short forty grand,” Linnie pointed out. She dialed the pawnshop's number from memory.

“I'll work something out with them. Maybe they can put us on a payment plan, layaway, something.”

“Don't you think I already asked them about that during our daily phone chats? They don't want to hear about hardship or installment loans or future earnings potential. They only want cash on the barrelhead.” Linnie hung up as her call went to voice mail. “They open late on Fridays and Saturdays, and there's a three-hour time difference. But trust me: They're not going to budge on their payment terms.”

“Don't be so sure.” Amy flashed her big, disarming smile. “I can be very persuasive. And if worse comes to worst, Brandon and I have been saving money for his dental practice.”

“Amy, no.”

“Hey, if you tutor Chloe and Ben, maybe they won't need college funds.”

“Absolutely not,” Linnie declared. “I got us into this mess; I'll get us out.”

“We're out of options, Linnie. We're also out of time. The most important thing right now is getting our hands on that brooch before Grammy, you know, needs it.”

Linnie twisted her head and peered out the rear window as the cab stopped for a red light. “How much time do we have before the flight?”

Amy checked the time on her cell phone. “If traffic's good, we'll get to the airport with about an hour to spare. Why?”

Linnie leaned forward and rapped on the seat divider with her knuckles. “Turn around, please. We need to go back to the hotel.”

“
Y
ou don't have to do this right now,” Amy said. “You don't have to do it at all.”

“Yes, I do.” Linnie cracked open the car door. The taxi had stopped in the round portico at the Hotel McMillan's main entrance, and while they were currently surrounded by other cabs, town cars, and vans, Linnie knew that once she got out, she'd be fair game for the media throngs.

“There are journalists and photographers all over the lobby.” Amy glanced out the window. “Why not spare yourself the walk of shame and just track down Cam when we get back from Vegas?”

“I can't leave him wondering like that. He deserves better.”

“Wow. There's that human decency again.”

“I know. Frankly, it's a very disturbing trend.” Linnie stepped out onto the curb before she lost her nerve.

“Meter's running,” the cabdriver informed her.

“I'll be back in seven minutes or less. Time me.”

When she pushed through the revolving door, all conversation stopped. The lobby was packed with contestants, but the only sound was the gurgling of the fountain in the back corner and a phone ringing at the front desk.

Why hadn't she thought to ask Amy if she had sunglasses in her bag? Well, too late. She'd have to do her perp walk sans shades, clad in a wrinkled white button-down shirt, red plaid pajama pants, and no bra.

She glimpsed a few of the Confectionistas by the concierge desk, and when she caught their eye, they turned their backs on her in unison.

“Are we filming?” she heard a reporter whisper to her crew.

“We're filming,” the cameraman confirmed.

Great. She was going to be the James Frey of the Culinary Channel.

She forced herself to maintain a slow, stately pace until she reached the elevator bank. With a cheerful
bing
, the polished brass doors opened and Linnie stepped inside. The outbursts began before the doors closed:

“Oh my God! Did you see that?”

“She's got some chutzpah, showing her face after what she tried to pull.”

“Who does she think she is?”

Linnie collapsed back against the wall and gulped down air. She had just faced her worst fear—public judgment and humiliation—and survived. Before today, she couldn't have imagined anything more excruciating.