Cake Cute

When I was younger, maybe five or six, my mom said I had a short fuse; meaning that I meltdown easily. Sensing that she had a point, seeing that I had shattered five large jars of pickles out of the fury of missing out on the samples at Costco, I worked toward changing myself.

Ten years later, in high school now, it happened again. I sensed it coming, like how an experienced captain can sense when a storm was brewing. It was all too much. Soccer tryouts on Wednesday until five-thirty, then I have to rush home to wrap up an essay for AP Lang, to finish everything off by teaching myself how to name polyatomic ions for an exam tomorrow(not to forget the regular homework I haven't even mentioned). High school can be like a balancing act, if one object gains more weight than the others it risks toppling the whole thing over.

I had one break, an elective that would easily raise my GPA, Home Economics. It was the blow-off class of all classes provided here. Mrs.Parkson was barely qualified, she could only present slideshows for us to copy down and host class discussions. The only real assignment we got was to prepare one baked dessert from scratch(Mrs.Parkson had a sweet tooth). I procrastinated until it was too late. Baking a cake, how hard could it be?

That Wednesday afternoon, while everyone else was eating lunch, I got work in the Home Ec kitchen. I had one secret that gave me an edge, a prebaked cake. Don’t judge me! I had no time, and I didn’t want to and everyone else did it too, and if you were in my shoes I’m sure you’d do the same.

I felt my heart quicken while holding the icy pan with my spongy cake. I’m not the best baker, never had time to be, but I figured whipping together a frosting wouldn’t be that hard. I place it on the counter. My eyes, tired from the night before of hitting, actually, no, from beating the books, I didn’t notice the slight slant the counter had.

I turned away for a mere second, to grab the cherry red hand mixer in the cabinet, that’s all it took. Crash!

I don’t cry over spilled milk, I cry over forgetting my homework at home or getting a surprise email from my teacher. On the counter, there was nothing. That was the problem. On the floor, miserably going beyond the five-second rule, sat my cake that had fused with the glass pan(If it just fell out, I wouldn’t be above salvaging it and making cake pops). 

I swept it up and threw it away. That was easy. Now I just need to find the ingredients to make a cake, teach myself how to bake it, and have it done before the end of the day. That was it, the final straw.

Panting like a sick dog, crying like a dying goat, I let everything out as tears raced down my face. Pathetic, I know. Suppressing these feelings would have only made me feel worse so I let the tears rain down. It was like that one special day in Southern day in California when it poured down so much to make up for the other three hundred and sixty-four days it didn’t rain.

Click! Went to the closing of the fridge in the corner. My legs wobbled like a pot of tea, one that was long forgotten, boiling over upon itself. There she was, caught red-handed, with one of the leftover red velvet cupcakes from Nelly J in block C.

“Who are you?” I asked while trying to blink the redness from my eyes away. She took one loud gulp.

“I’m Rachel…” She dumped the rest of the cupcake in the trash bin, eyeing the inside of it for a moment, “We had math together last year.” ‘Rachel’ could be making all this up but I wouldn’t care to know.

“I’m Grace,” I attempted a smile. Eyes overflowing with pity, pity that outweighed her disinterest, Rachel made a loud sigh, then said,

“What’s wrong?” She whispered while half-smiling. Rachel came closer, revealing her t-shirt displaying this year’s spring musical, Legally Blond. Ah, a theater kid. I swallowed my quiver.

“I dropped my final project,” I avoided eye contact while wiping the tears away. Rachel tilted her head ever so slightly.

“How?” She had a bit of amusement in her eyes. I glared at Satan’s high school’s kitchen counter.

“This stupid thing,” I kicked the leg of the counter, hurting my toe. Bouncing up from one leg, nurturing the one toe, I felt her mood dip. Rachel’s mirth left her as a grave seriousness fell upon her expression. After a brief silence, she finally said,

“Is there anything I can do to help?” It must have been kindness, no pity, I don’t care, this practically complete stranger was going to waste her lunch to help little old me.

“Do you know how to make a cake?” I asked in a soft, wind-like voice. Her smile returned.

“That’s all?” I nodded. “Should be a piece of cake!” I felt my insides psychically cringe from that “joke”.

Together, we raided the kitchen, finding almost all the right ingredients for vanilla cake with chocolate frosting. 

“I found a video on a vanilla cake,” She said while flipping through her phone.

“Why didn’t I think of that?” I said to myself while looking away.

“Because you spend your time after school kicking around a ball instead of expanding your mind.” That elitism, that theater shirt, it could only mean one thing...

“Eww, are you on the Improv team?” Rachel looked at the corner and saw my soccer bag.

“Yup, at least I’m not a part of a cult.” At my school, there’s this stupid little joke about how the soccer girls are in a cult just because we spend morning, day and night together. I don’t understand how people find it funny.

“Soccer isn’t a cult! I don’t know why people keep saying that.” There was a filter of playfulness when we made fun of each other's passions.

Dumping the flour in the bowl, a pinch of salt, and the disinterested look in his eyes told me Rachel wasn’t paying attention to measurements. “Uhhhhhhh,” I murmured softly,

“Don’t worry, I’ve baked a cake tons of times.”  Without meeting my eye, she put a capful of vanilla extract in it. “Take the butter out from the fridge so it can soften.” After I did that, she stopped mixing. “You should do this.”

“What, no!” I trembled my lower lip, “I thought you said you’d help me!”

“I’ll advise you, but this is your project. You know me doing it would be wrong.” A horrible shadow trepidation came over me. It’s darkness filling me with a sticky, ink-like dread. “I know you can do it, I’ll be right here with you.” The kind gleam in her eyes, comforting soft brown eyes, calmed me down. They grounded me, I had made this whole project too much of a big thing. I wasn’t used to doing work in this class.

Painfully slowly, I put all the dried ingredients in a big bowl; baking powder, baking soda, sugar, and all the other white powdery stuff.

After what felt like forever (butter takes a long time to soften), using that hot cherry red mixer, I stirred in eggs, one at a time with the butter. Rachel showed me how to gradually mix the white stuff. Before we added the last cupful or so of the white stuff, we had to mix buttermilk.

“There’s no buttermilk,” I had a sorta calm terror to myself now. Lunch was already over and I was missing some of my last block, Spanish.

“It’s fine, we got regular milk, now we only need a lemon.” Rachel didn’t have any stakes in this so she didn’t understand the sheer pain of this complication.

“There are no lemons,” I said quietly, soaking in my defeat. Rachel gave me a breathy laugh.

“You know in my improv group, we don’t say no, we say yes and,” A twinge a fiery irritation flared up in me.

“I get it, your quirk is that you're annoying, but what does that have to do with us not having lemons?” Rachel clutched her hands, then released as she glanced at the broken counter leg.

“Yes, and,” A grin spread across her face as she winked, “We may not have lemons but there’s a lime tree in the Bio lab.” I gnawed on my lower lip.

“But there’s a class full of freshmen in there now!” She wagged her finger.

“What did I just say?” Rachel smiled even more and leaned in to me.

“Yes, and there’s a class going on in there now.” I said, trembling slightly with balled fists.

“You're really gonna let that stop you from doing this right?” I took a deep sigh and nodded.

Walking to that class, I felt that acidic sting of my peers looking on at me, wondering what I was doing.

“I think I can handle it from here Rachel, I don’t want you missing class.” The stares didn’t seem to bother her, or, at least, she didn’t show it bothering her.

“It’s fine, I have a free block now.” Rachel was awfully eager to help a practical stranger, too eager. Well, you were sobbing like a baby earlier. I wiped my eyes to confirm their dryness. Still, Rachel was too zealous to help me.

In the Bio Lab, everyone was pushed in the back, observing something with their microscopes. Mr.Tennyson nowhere to be seen.

Gingerly, I twisted the knob and snuck in. None of them noticed. The precious little lime tree had been placed near Mr.Tennyson's desk, he always did that before labs. Ever since last year when someone in block B wasn’t paying attention and knocked it over.

This was going to be easier than I thought. I smiled to myself while gently plucking the plumest lime I saw. Creakkk!

I felt all my blood sink to the bottom of my body. Why? Why did she feel the need to come in too, I was almost done and everything! 

One freshman picked up their head and stared squarely at us. Stay calm, Grace, she’s just confused. Step back slowly. I did what my brain instructed. That one freshman poked her partner’s hand, who also raised her head. Two now. It’s okay, it’s okay, two out of twenty isn’t so bad.

“Ignore us freshman!” Rachel declared so loudly and boldly, I felt my skin turn a sickly white shade, like that flour from earlier. Every single one of them was watching us now. “Oh come on, whatcha going to do about it?” A few bold ones arched their eyebrows, preparing a response, “We’re borrowing a lime! And I know for a fact that telling Talk-A Lot-Tennyson would mean you wouldn’t be able to finish your worksheet.” All of us, mortified and too adept to respond, just stared. Rachel grabbed my hand, “The choice is yours, freshman,” She pulled me out of the Bio Lab. My sweat, slippery fingers clung to the lime. We rushed, jogging turned into full on running when we saw that there was no hall motiter. That shameful, awkward moment, was a gamble. The pay off was the gushing of excitement and joy I got from that random side quest. I usually only get this feeling from a soccer match. Even then, it’s not as electric and feverish like this. We raced back to the kitchen.

“What’s next?” I couldn’t help but smile at her. That second, it was mortifying and unnecessary. But now, it was funny.

“You mix all the last ingredients together,” Rachel said while squeezing some lime in the milk, “Then, after this curdles, mix this in slowly.”

After all the batter was mixed, and placed in an oven at three hundred and fifty degrees for some reason, we could finally relax.

“You can go to class if you want, I wouldn’t mind watching the cake.” Rachel said while pulling out the cocoa powder. I dumped a bunch powdered sugar with the softened butter. Rachel snickered, then added a spoonful of vanilla extract.

“We have a sub in Spanish away, I won’t be missing anything important.” That statement was so carefree, so authentic, that I didn’t recognize myself.

Rachel and I chatted the entire as I mixed these sweet smelling things that were supposed to make frosting.

“I’m sorry if I was mean earlier,” I whispered into the frosting between Rachel’s third “funny” improv story. She laughed loudly, there was something infectious about the way she did that.

“Don’t worry about it, we’ve all been there.” A grin spread across her face. “Maybe not exactly here, but we’ve all at some point in highschool have had a meltdown over an assignment,” She patted my head, “It’s just how things are.” Rachel has done so much for me. And what have I done? Frowned down on her kindness.

“Rachel, do you wanna exchange Snapchats?” Her face brightened up. “Yeah, wait,” Rachel dimmed a bit, “I don’t have Snapchat.” Nope, not today. There’s always a way around any challenge. 

“Do you have a TikTok?” The light in her eyes returned. Without a word, she pulled out her phone. Her hands shook a bit. While I opened TikTok on my phone, I saw Rachel's eyes widened. She wasn’t excited, no, it was something else. The sharp sting of recognition. Come on Grace, Rachel deserves the benefit of the doubt. Hasn’t she proved herself enough?

“You wouldn’t want my TikTok,” Rachel said in a sheepish tone, “It’s full of dumb improv stuff, you wouldn’t care about it.” No, something isn’t right. Out of all the stunts she’s pulled,  this is the one that elicits shame? The Bio lab thing didn’t nerve her but videos of her friends doing improv would. It didn’t add up. Especially after she told me all those stories. “Do you have a Discord-” I interrupted.

“No, I was a bit dismissive earlier but I would love to see your improv TikToks,” Whatever that would, I don’t even know. Painfully slow, Rachel reopened her app. She looked down on it pensively. Too caught up in her thoughts to notice me typing in her account name into my phone. Ding! Went the oven, declaring the cake’s readiness.

Rachel smiled apologetically, then got up, leaving her phone faced up, open to my prying eyes. There are thousands of possibilities of what I could have done; confess my undying love to the first number I found in her contacts, taking dumb pictures of myself with her camara, start a live stream on TikTok, put a bunch of embarrassing things into her Amazon cart. But nope, I’m going to be good. However, when I saw the notification for my friend request, I accepted for her.

Rachel returned that second, back to her bubbly self. Hovering behind me, seeing her and her friends dance, Rachel flinched.

“I don’t get it,” I said softly, “This is normal, healthy TikTok cringe, what were you worried about?” She laughed in a gentle manner.

“Nothing… The cake is basically done now,” I kept flipping through her videos. They all looked the same. One forced me to stop, one that looked familiar. Rachel and someone I didn’t recognize were dancing in this kitchen.

“Oh, you took this class last semester?” Her sweaty, slippery fingers almost dropped the frosting bowl.

“Y-Yeah, how do you know that?” She ran up to my phone and watched helplessly as I played the video. It started out normal, they were doing a quick dance in front of the counter. Then, Rachel took a misstep, she almost fell but didn’t. She stubbed her foot on something. Her friend caught her and they laughed it off. Before it ended, I couldn’t help but see that the counter was suddenly at a slant.

“You wrecked the counter!” I shouted at her. Maybe it was her improvisational skills but, she was ready for this.

“Yup, that was all me,” She admitted with a meek smile, “But! One big but,” Rachel giggled to herself, “You would have been caught with that cake box, Mrs.Parkson’s takes out the trash,” I tilted my head, “If I noticed it while throwing away my cupcake wrapper, then she would have too.”

After I apologized, and she apologized, we frosted the cake, spending the rest of the school decorating it. Laughing together for almost the entire time. Maybe Rachel and I didn’t have much in common. I don’t really care anymore. This would be a high school memory I’d never forget.