Heartbreak Cake (5 page)

I dive toward my cordless to make it stop, “Good god, do you know how early it is?”

“Indira? Its 10 a.m., everyone is looking for you,” Rebecca says with concern.

“Why are you calling me at my home number, who died?” I rub my fist against my eyes and feel the first throbs of a hangover thanks to the half-drunk bottle of whiskey sitting on my nightstand.

“You won’t answer your cell phone. It keeps going to voicemail. Pedro is convinced you were killed by someone named Stephanie Hemsley. Do you know who that is?”

“Oh my God,” I moan and instantly remember my night like a brick to the face. Josh waiting outside my door, calling my cell phone relentlessly until I turned it off, Mrs. Dmitri, my 74-year-old landlady, coming out and shooing him away with her broom the same way she did with the horny neighborhood cats. Eventually, he left, but not before he came to my door and whispered loudly that I couldn’t just “shut him out forever.”

Maybe not, but I am going to try my hardest.

“Bec, I had a rough night. Pedro is going to have to forgive me for this one. I just had to deal with something, and I’m exhausted.”

“Well, call him, and I’m sure he’ll calm down and stop calling everyone on your emergency list. P.S., he called your mom, too, so you may want to give her a call.”

“Fabulous.”

“Since you’re home this morning, can I come over? Magpie and I need a break. I can stroller over and take you to a late breakfast,” Rebecca suggests eagerly. “Sounds like you could use some girl talk and greasy bacon.”

In the last year, Rebecca and I have grown distant, mainly because I didn’t want to lie to her about my secret relationship. She’s been my best friend since we were eighteen, and I’ve always been able to confide in her with everything in my life. Except for this. Adultery is not something you share with your happily married friend. So I’ve been dodging her; conversations have been vague at best, and I use work as an excuse for why I seem to have disappeared off the friend grid.

But part of walking away from Josh is purging everything, and that includes confessing to my very best friend where I’ve been for the last year and how much I could use her help to keep me away from Josh. “Bacon and girl talk is exactly what I want. Give me about forty-five minutes to get ready.”

I take a deep breath before dialing the bakeshoppe and am surprised when it’s Pedro who answers the phone in a friendly voice.

“Cake Pan Bakeshoppe.”

“Did you fire everyone again?” I demand, remembering the last time he answered the phone.

“You didn’t listen to your voicemails, did you?”

“Not yet, I wanted to call first and say sorry for being a flake today.”

“I feel wonderful, and I don’t care that you are too hung over to come in,” Pedro says playfully.

“You are officially freaking me out. What’s going on? What was so important that you called my mother?”

“They called.”

“Who?”

“The. New.York.Times,” he says each word dripping with dramatic flair.

I scream. And then we both scream.

“Wait, what? Tell me everything. Who called? What did they say? Please tell me you were nice to them.”

“Of course I was. I was a little rude to Stephanie Hemsley. She called first and you weren’t here, so I had to deal with her. But you know what? She’s not so bad after all.”

“Oh Pedro.”

“The writer’s name is Lindsey Winters and she called because they’re going to be covering Stephanie’s wedding and while she was doing research she read about us and now wants to come down and personally interview us for the story.”

I can feel Pedro beaming over the phone and I beam right back.

“It’s happening Pedro.”

“I know! I know! She will be here in three weeks, so everything has to be perfect.”

“Of course it will be. What could go wrong at this point? We totally got this. You know what, Pedro? I thought leaving Crystal Cove was the end of my career, but it’s actually the beginning,” I ramble absently.

“I’m glad you can see that now,” he says quickly.

I shake my head back to the present and realize Pedro may know more than he lets on.

“We have some time to get organized,” I say. “Thanks for taking care of all this. I owe you one. I’ll come in later to close up the shop. Tell Tomas, so he doesn’t panic.”

Hanging up, I grab Norma who’s asleep on the bed, and twirl her around in my arms like a ballroom partner. “It’s happening, Norms.” She looks characteristically annoyed and squirms out of my arms to make a mad dash under the bed.

As I head to the shower, I hum happily while I take out my contact lenses from last night, and it isn’t until I look at myself in the mirror that I remember Josh. There I stand, still wearing the outfit from last night, dried mascara flakes on my cheek and stained lipstick I never bothered to take off. I cried myself to sleep last night, like I’ve done a hundred times in the last year.

I think of Josh’s face when he’s sleeping and of his daughter Eloise’s face as I read her her favorite Amelia Bedelia book. I think of how safe I felt when our hands would clasp before crossing the street together, and how lost I felt when I packed my bags, and he didn’t say a word to me to make it stop.

I anticipate a wave, an emotional tsunami to come and take me down like it did last year. But at the moment, truthfully, all I feel is freedom.

“Welcome back” I say to the woman in the mirror.

***

After a lengthy brunch with Rebecca that turned into a big sob fest with both of us sharing, crying, apologizing and lamenting the cruelty of love, timing, and beautiful Italian women, I marvel at Rebecca for not once reproaching me with her sharp tongue. Maybe motherhood had softened her “corporate bitch” persona after all?

As I come back from the restroom and the waitress sets the check down, Rebecca shoos my reach for my wallet and drops her Visa card down with a smile. She turns her big apple green eyes on me—the same ones she once used to help us get free drinks at every bar in town—and casually says, “I just can’t believe you were that stupid to fall for it.”

And there she is.

“Thanks Bec. That feels good, especially since it’s not even been a full twenty-four hours since I ended things, and I could be too weak to make it stick.” I sigh and stare at Maggie who is frantically sucking on her bright aqua blue pacifier. “For the record, you promised, on your daughter no less, that you wouldn’t judge me.”

“I know. I’m not judging, merely critiquing. I’m just surprised, considering your past with your father that you let yourself be swindled.”

“I don’t know if ‘swindle’ is the right way to look at this,” I say. “I’m no victim. I made a mistake. A big, mortal sin, commandment-breaking kinda mistake.”

My phone vibrates for the twelfth time, and up pops another text message from Josh begging for a response.

“I never liked that guy. Too perfect,” Rebecca says and glares at the phone.

“You loved him.”

“Never. Anyone with hair that good scares me. Either gay or a player,” Rebecca says angrily, as another text appears that reads, “Please pick up. Let me explain.”

“You gotta put him on ice. Don’t pick up phone calls. Don’t answer emails. If you see him on the street, go the other direction, you hear me? If you falter, if he smells a hint of weakness on you, he will break you down.”

Rebecca picks up Maggie from her stroller, and plops her red-haired and green-eyed mini-me on her lap, and eases comfortably into her typical Type-A bossy-pants role.

“Are you listening to me, Indira?” she barks at me.

“Of course, how could I ignore your sweet melodic voice?”

“I guess what I want to say is, I know he felt like The One. I saw the two of you together. It was darn close, but so what? The minute things got tough, he ran back to hide under Valentina’s linen skirt and left you. And then he had the nerve to come back and offer you some limbo-land bullshit. I cannot believe him, but mainly I can’t believe you fell for it.”

I’m too shocked to say anything back to Rebecca, who is leaning in waiting for me to say something to her that defends my behavior with Josh. But I have nothing.

“I would never have done this if I didn’t think he loved me.” I hear my words come out and hate how naïve I sound. “I really did think that we were different. A love story that just got a little bent out of shape because of circumstances. But that’s my version of the truth. Everyone has their own, even Josh.”

“What you can’t do is keep turning this over and over. It just is…I know that isn’t what you want to hear, but it’s time to start over. Date new people, be single, and just let yourself be happy. Look. Look at the guy over there. He’s adorable, and even better, I don’t see a ring on his finger.”

Rebecca shakes her ring finger at me, and I scowl, but follow her gaze to see Noah Cavatelli being led into the outdoor patio by the café manager herself. She sets the menu down, tucks a piece of blonde hair behind her ear, and I can hear her tell him that if he needs anything, “anything at all,” to please let her know.

“Now that’s some service.” Rebecca mutters and we both giggle.

“I just met that guy yesterday. He’s the new chef at Crystal Cove. Josh introduced us.”

“Forget it. You need someone who doesn’t have the Josh connection.”

“Look at him,” I say dreamily. “Not only is he handsome, but he’s an amazing chef. I’ve heard that he makes these goat cheese raviolis that look like little pasta jewels.”

“I think it’s so cute when you geek out on food,” Rebecca says as we get up to leave.

Walking to our car, I explain to Rebecca how I met Noah just yesterday, and we go over the pros and cons of dating someone who works with an ex.

“Worst case scenario, you get a few dates out of this guy before he heads back to the farm, you drive Josh mad with jealousy, and you get to kiss those lips and best of all—”

“He makes me pasta,” I chirp.

“No, you are moving past Josh, and that’s what this is all about.”

Chapter 5

My story of how girl met rolling pin begins like any good romance gone bad.

Boy meets girl. They fall in love. Boy wants open relationship and crushes girl. Girl seeks comfort in the sweet arms of flakey croissants and petit fours. It may not be Jane Austen, but it’s the truth.

Heartbreak can motivate people to do so many different things. Some people cut their hair, move to a new city, change jobs, have revenge sex, get a therapist, or just get a new mate.

Me? I dropped out of college, changed my entire life plan I’d had since I was nine, and became obsessed with making fresh panna cotta.

Before I broke up with my college boyfriend, I was a junior with just a year left before I graduated with a degree in Feminist Theories—nothing cute, pink or covered in butter cream about that. I wrote essays on the death of conventional marriage, participated in demonstrations advocating human equality, and worked in a women’s shelter teaching self-defense.

I was on my way to greatness. Gloria Steinem greatness.

It was everything I had ever envisioned for myself, and that included my highly-evolved, feminist boyfriend Jake who was going backpacking through Europe with me that summer. Our trip was as magical as one would imagine a college backpacking trip to be. Late nights drinking, train rides through the Swiss Alps, meeting new people everywhere we went, and the stench of dirty youth hostels where we slept with our clothes on. Most of the time. It was perfect, until Belgium, where I found him indulging in goblets of Framboise and a flirty 21-year-old red head from Canada when he thought I was napping.

Rather than listen to his reasoning on how progressive couples shouldn’t have boundaries or put each other in boxes—I broke his nose with a swift palm heel punch and then broke into sobs. Turns out, I wasn’t as open as I thought I was.