I Hate, I Bake, and I Don’t Date! by Alina Jacobs

64

Tess

Maeve’s phone alarm went off too early the next morning. The whole apartment smelled like cake batter, and since the gas was off, that meant the hot water was off, and last night I had been faced with the option of not showering or showering in cold water, and I chose to sleep in my own filth and pray the water was back on in the morning.

Maeve rolled off the bottom bunk and stumbled over the couch to the floor then turned on the water at the kitchen sink.

“Hot water’s still off,” she said. “I’m calling in sick. I can’t work under these conditions.”

“I want pizza.” I groaned. “And a new life.”

“Rent is due in a few days by the way.”

“We could just cancel our lease,” I mumbled as she crawled back into bed. “We could go pretend to be supermodels and sneak into a hotel and live there.”

“Neither of us looks like a supermodel,” Maeve reminded me. “Also, you have cake batter shellacked in your hair.”

“How do you know?” I murmured.

“Because I saw it plastered to the side of the bunk bed.”

I sat up then yelped as the back of my head was yanked.

“Oof!” I let my head fall back on the pillow. “I guess this is my life now.”

“It can’t be,” Maeve said. “We got a confirmation for interviews from the mystery firm. They want to meet tomorrow. We need to pick up your clothes.”

“Just go without me. Leave me! Save yourself,” I said dramatically.

“We’re in this together! No fellow baker left behind!” She poked the underside of the bunk bed. “Call Beck and demand that he allow you to retrieve your clothes.”

The thought made my stomach churn or maybe it was all the uncooked cake batter I had eaten last night.

“I just need to work up to it,” I said, staring at the sagging ceiling. It looked like there was a big water bubble under the paint. At least if it popped, I would be free of the cake batter chains.

Workingup to it included ordering pizza and sitting around in our pajamas, watching Gilmore Girls reruns.

“Ready to go get your clothes?” Maeve asked after we had finished two pizzas and half of season seven.

“Maybe after a nap.” I yawned.

After food-related nightmares of being chased by giant doughnuts, it was the then subsequent craving for doughnuts that finally coaxed me out of bed.

“Yay! We’re doing it!” Maeve said as I crawled out of bed.

“I’m just going out for doughnuts,” I warned.

“There’s a great doughnut shop near 101 Park Place tower,” she prodded.

“I just can’t face Beck,” I wailed.

“You just need a shower and a doughnut.”

I tried the tap. Still no hot water. Now in addition to the cake batter, I had pizza sauce on me.

Brave the cold water or say fuck it and channel your inner bag lady?

I wrapped plastic wrap around my hair. Hey, the raw eggs in the batter were probably good for it. That was what they used instead of conditioner in the Victorian times.

“You have a right to get your own belongings that belong to you,” Maeve said. She pulled a hat out of the overstuffed, tiny closet.

“If he gives you trouble, you can call the police, and they’d make him let you in. If you think about it, the fact that you’re not involving the police is doing Beck a favor he doesn’t deserve.”

I picked up my coat. Maeve handed me a trash bag and my bathrobe.

“You can’t afford a new coat, and I don’t know if dry cleaning will take out a pizza sauce stain,” she said.

“I can’t show up to Beck’s condo looking like this!” I said, looking down at my disheveled state. “I’ll be arrested!”

“I thought you were tight with some of the seniors there,” Maeve said as she shoved me out the door. “It’s the middle of the afternoon. Beck is at work. You’ll just scoot upstairs—the concierge can probably let you in—you’ll grab your things, then we’ll leave. Maybe the hot water will be back on when we come back. We’ll do some interview prep, then we’ll have super amazing jobs! You can do it!”

“I can’t.”

But I had to. My rent wasn’t going to pay for itself. A new job wasn’t going to fall in my lap. Beck wasn’t going to ride in on a horse and rescue me like Prince Charming. My life wasn’t going to magically turn great.

It was just that when I had been with him, it had finally felt like it was my turn. I was going to have my promised reward for working hard and being a (mostly) good person. But Beck hadn’t been a reward. He had only been yet another obstacle on my drunken two a.m. walk through life.

Time to woman up, I told myself as Maeve and I waited for the subway. Time to start adulting. First step, pick up your clothes. Then you’re going to go home and take a cold shower. Yes, you are because you cannot sleep in your own filth for another night. You’re going to do laundry then interview prep.

But it all seemed so exhausting. I just wanted to curl up in bed with a big mug of tea, some homemade scones, and a romance novel and lose myself in someone else’s world.

“At the very least,” Maeve said as the train rumbled through the tunnels, “no one wants to be anywhere near us when we’re dressed like this.”

“I think it’s just me,” I said. My hair was frizzy and poofy on a good day. Between not combing it or putting any product on it and sleeping in a pile of cake batter, I hadn’t been able to fit it under my hat.

Instead, my pink Hello Kitty hat that I’d bought while drunk online shopping one night was perched on top of my plastic-wrapped hair.

“You’re definitely giving out ‘I just escaped the insane asylum’ vibes,” she whispered.

“Hey, free room and board and hot water?” I said. “Sounds like my kind of place. I’m not picky.”

I was filledwith dread as Maeve and I headed toward 101 Park Place tower. Would Beck be there?

Of course not, I tried to assure myself. It’s the afternoon; he has meetings with Owen and Walker in the afternoons right after I bring him his tea.

But no one would have brought him his tea, so maybe that had thrown him off his schedule.

There’s no reason for him to be there. You’re going to get in and get out, just likeMission: Impossible.

I knocked on the glass lobby door.

The doorman glared at us and yelled, “No panhandling!”

I started to panic. Guess I should have braved the cold shower after all.

“Tess!” Vera called. She and several of her fellow senior residents were power walking along the Central Park side of the street. “You’re looking great! Did you have a spa day?”

The group crossed the street, not looking where they were going and not stopping for traffic. A taxi almost crashed into a car that had stopped for the women. The taxi driver yelled out of the window, shaking his fist. I cringed, but Vera was completely oblivious.

Over the blaring of the horns, Vera asked, “Which spa were you girls at? Did you go to the one on thirty-seventh where they do the Mali mud hair treatment? I’ve been meaning to go there.”

I reached up to gingerly touch my plastic-wrapped head. “Er, no, just a little baking mishap.”

“Now that you’re here, we should reschedule the HOA meeting.”

“What? Why?” Maeve asked.

“Don’t worry about it,” I said in confusion. “I’m just here to pick up my clothes.”

The doorman opened the door, and Vera ushered us inside.

“Do you think the concierge will let me up?”

“I’m one of the concierges,” Vera said proudly. “Just got hired after the last gal had to go on bed rest for her pregnancy, poor thing. We’re all organizing a food delivery for her. I have you down for cupcakes and a casserole next Tuesday.” She bustled behind the desk and grabbed a set of keys.

“And of course, it’s staffed twenty-four, seven.” We heard Belle’s voice as she came around the corner from the elevator lobby. A stately, elderly woman was beside her.

“Good gracious! There’s a homeless person here.” Ethel clutched her handbag.

“Tess is one of our best residents,” Vera explained, “and when she’s HOA president, we’re going to have not only twenty-four, seven alcohol in the lobby, but we’re also going to have a hot guy down here to serve it.”

“Er… what?” Maeve said. “You’re going to be on an HOA, Tess?”

Ethel was just as confused. “Tess, what in the world are you wearing?”

“I need to do laundry,” I tried to explain.

But Vera had moved on.

“This place is hopping,” Vera told Ethel, grabbing her arm. “We have jazzercise in the park on Wednesdays, naked yoga on Tuesday and Thursdays, and the people at the pool will bring you as much alcohol as you want, whenever you want. You can’t beat free alcohol.”

“I think I need a drink now,” Ethel said, wavering a little.

“So do I,” I muttered to Maeve.

“I’ll give you a few days to think about the unit then check in with you,” Belle said smoothly.

“Oh,” Ethel said. “Of course I’m taking the unit! I need to be near my three granddaughters.”

“You have another one?” I asked in confusion.

“You’re my granddaughter too,” Ethel said like it was the most obvious thing in the world. “My son adopted you.”

“Yeah, but I’m not—”

“Of course you are,” she said, adjusting her handbag. “And now that I’ve disowned Alistair and Shannyn, I expect our Friday-night dinners to continue. I’m going to have the Indian place that the girls introduced me to cater. Also—” she turned to Vera “—go ahead and put my name down for canasta night. I hope you all come ready to play because you all haven’t seen anything yet.”

She looked at me critically. “Tess, you can put on your calendar that we’re going shopping. I can’t have my granddaughter running around in her bathrobe. I know that’s the style among all the young billionaires, but I just don’t understand it. In my day, people with money knew how to dress. They didn’t just turn up looking like a homeless person. But you should have seen this one young man at the club the other day. Practically in rags but he ran a multibillion-dollar tech company.”

“I’m actually not going to be at Friday-night dinner,” I said, holding up a finger.

“Why in heavens not?”

“Beck and I are not… er… well, you know.” I tapped my two index fingers together.

“Oh,” Ethel said, giving me a knowing look. “Yes, that happened to my husband in his later years. He just couldn’t get it up. No shame in sleeping in separate bedrooms. However, if I were you, I would invest in a vibrator.”

“We’re having a vibrator salesperson come by for a class next week,” Vera offered.

“I don’t need—that’s not—” I stammered as Maeve snickered.

“You can sign me up for that one too,” Ethel said. She turned back to me. “But honestly, you’d think Beck wouldn’t have performance problems. He’s young, handsome, and fit.” She looked at me critically. “Maybe you need to dress up a little, keep him interested.”

“It’s not that. He—”

“Are you all having any lingerie salespeople coming any time soon?” Ethel asked Vera. “If not, I know a gal. We do need someone that knows what the young people like. I’m concerned about Tess.”

“Beck doesn’t have any trouble having an erection!” I yelled.

“I certainly hope I don’t.”