A Recipe for Disaster: A deliciously feel-good romance. Belinda Missen
from home, it was blessed with sweeping views of the grassy plains around it, and was the picture-perfect location for a country wedding. Perfect except for the corrugated gravel road that covered the last few hundred metres of the drive. If I could keep the cake from being smeared on the windscreen, I would die happy.
‘Do you want help?’ Seamus opened my door for me after we arrived.
‘Not treating the drive here like a go round a rally track would have been a great help.’ I huffed, sending a loose lock of hair outward in a cloud of frustration.
‘Right.’ He pursed his lips, eyebrows raised to the sky. ‘I’ll just go, then, if you’re going to argue.’
I couldn’t be bothered fighting, not now. ‘I’ve got this. Go and grab some seats.’
People were already arriving, an hour before the ceremony, which would take place under a marquee in the front gardens. Workers scrambled to add finishing touches to hessian bunting, gloss-white wooden fold-back chairs, and native flowers that hung from the end of each row of chairs. Tall eucalypts, grey and white, swayed in the breeze, offering up loose leaves and gumnuts that pitter-pattered like rain as they landed on the white tarpaulin roof.
I carried the cake along the gravel driveway, sidestepping up the front stairs like a crab, and in through the heavy door with the wedge of a foot and heave of a shoulder. The foyer revealed a wide sprawling staircase covered in red velvet carpet, a sign of the original owner’s wealth.
‘Hello?’ My voice echoed off marble statues and oil paintings of disapproving previous tenants.
No response. It seemed the building was empty, as was an ornate frame that would soon declare: “Edith loves Barry”. Every moment I stood, I became increasingly aware of the weight in my arms. Cakes were a little like babies in that the longer you held them, the heavier they felt. It was another reminder of how out of practice I was with this baking business.
A pot rattled in a far corner, so I followed the noise along a hall like Alice down the rabbit hole. Around a dark corner, a sign warned of a private function. Before I reached the kitchen, which smelt like the best roast beef I would ever eat, I was cut off by a woman who zipped past quicker than The Flash.
‘Hello!’ I stuttered.
‘Oh, the cake. Thank the gods. I thought you’d be here earlier.’ She threw her hands in the air, and a clasp of grey hair escaped her bun. She tucked it behind her ear. ‘I’m Sally, and I’m running the show today.’
‘Lucy Williams.’ I smiled. ‘Where do you want it?’
‘You really want to know?’ She scoffed, looking more 1800s housekeeper than event manager. Her dark pinstriped shirt was twisted and stained, and sweat patches leached from her underarms. ‘Sorry, it’s been one of those days.’ After more mumbling about brides, overextended budgets, ridiculous cakes, and awful caterers, she pointed me towards the next hallway. ‘There’s a small stand by the bridal table. I’m sure you’ll see it. Just let the catering team know. They’re getting the room ready now, but they’re bloody late, too, aren’t they?’
Without the usual throng of weekend tourists, the old halls felt empty and a little bit naughty. It reminded me of days when, as a child, I’d experienced my school devoid of other students, on nights and weekends when Mum was busy preparing teaching notes. I took a left, and a right, before I found the reception room.
Bluestone walls enclosed barn doors at the opposite end of the room, which was flooded with bright natural light, though festoon lights were strung across the room. Like the marquee, the walls were decorated with bunting, and the centrepieces matched the floral theme, making sure the room smelt like a Sunday walk in a national park.
Placing the cake by the bridal table soon became an early highlight of the day. The sweet relief on my arms coupled with a quick mental download. I’d made it, no dropping, no cracking, and no incidents. To celebrate, I snapped off some social-media-worthy photos, both to show off on my Facebook page and, also, in the odd event I felt spurred on to take up baking again. From above, below, side-on, and close-ups of the flowers, I took so many, I half expected the cake to make a duck-face at me and tell me to get a life.
Satisfied, I scrolled through my photos as I left. Reaching for the door handle, it swung open onto me, sending me scuttling backwards. That would teach me for having my head buried in a screen.
‘… and make sure the napkins are folded properly, too, not like last time.’ A man buzzed past me like an unwelcome memory, a mosquito on a summer night.
‘Yes, chef.’ Standing by a table, a teenager fiddled with silver cutlery that clattered to the ground in a display of nerves. He swore, and grabbed a fresh fork from his apron, which bore a gold “M” against the black fabric.
‘We should be ready by now. You should be in the kitchen helping with prep, not going over this again.’
‘Yes, chef.’ With each answer, a small part of the boy’s soul ebbed away. I’d been in his situation before – anyone who’d worked in hospitality had. It made me want to strangle the man responsible, the one who’d almost bowled me over. My only problem was, I recognised him – too well.
I knew his voice, and every possible incarnation it could take. The happy, the sad, the surprised, and the midnight whispers. I knew the tuft of black hair on the back of his neck and how it curled slightly to the left. The rest of his hair wound around itself like Van Gogh’s ‘Starry Night’ when it got too long or wet. Without tiptoes, he could peer across the top of my refrigerator, and had done so many times looking for lost recipe sheets or keys.
The shape of his body had been burnt into memory, useful when trying to pick someone out in a crowd. So had his eyes, a neon blue that made it look like someone had scrawled on his face with Hi-Liter. As quickly as he made his entrance, he turned and made a beeline for the kitchen door, blustering along without so much as a glance in my direction.
‘Don’t just stand there,’ he snapped. ‘Do what you need to do and go. We’re busy.’
It took me a moment to realise he was talking to me. Had he not seen me at all?
‘Is this how you operate now, Oliver?’
God, he was still so beautiful, as much as it pained me to admit. He wore a black double-breasted uniform that pinched across broad shoulders, complete with the familiar “M” stitched into the breast in fine gold thread. His apron was covered in kitchen detritus. While he’d always been confident, there was added fire behind those eyes, a purpose in his soul. It was no wonder he had restaurant critics eating out of his hand. And yet, underneath it all, teenage vulnerability lapped below his concrete surface, if only you knew what to look for.
Oliver stopped, his body rigid as if on pause. He turned to me slowly, a confused frown lining his face. I felt like he’d reached into my chest and ripped out my still-beating heart. I expected that, somewhere between here and the door, he’d wave it around his head in victory, before taking a bite and spitting it out in disgust.
We hadn’t seen each other in three years. We hadn’t spoken in eighteen months.
‘Lucy.’
I swallowed. ‘Oliver.’
‘Lucy,’ he repeated nervously. ‘How … how are you? Are you well?’
I nodded. ‘Fine, thank you. You?’
‘I’m, yeah, I’m okay.’ He nodded.
‘This is … this is a surprise.’ And one I could have strangled Edith for right now.
‘You could say that, yes.’ He chuckled nervously, looking over his shoulder again. This time, at my cake. ‘One of yours?’
‘It is.’ I rubbed sweating palms on my pants. ‘Issue with the original baker, so here I am.’
‘Rough luck,’ he said quietly, looking behind him again. ‘It looks incredible, Lucy. You’re still unfairly talented. What