Today was definitely a good day to make Christmas cookies, Betty decided. It was Saturday morning, the sun was shining, a radio station she'd found on the internet was playing Christmas music and most importantly, she didn't have anything else planned.
She'd already decided on the kind of cookies she wanted to make…she'd found a fairly easy recipe in one of the cook books Papi had given her as a going away present when she moved. So she just needed to get the ingredients and then she could start.
Betty had just returned from her trip to the grocery store and was putting the groceries away when her phone rang. She saw on her display that it was Daniel calling from his place.
"Hi Daniel." She answered cheerfully as she tucked her phone between her chin and shoulder to free up her hands so she could continue putting groceries away.
"Hey Betty. What's up?" Daniel asked.
"Not too much…I just got back from the grocery store." She answered. She put the sugar into the cupboard and the eggs into the fridge, except for two…make that three. She remembered Papi saying room temperature eggs worked better for baking…or something like that.
"Wow. You've gone out shopping and home already? It's only ten thirty in the morning."
"Let me guess…you just woke up." Betty said.
"No…for your information, I've been up for an hour. I've already showered, shaved and had breakfast." He sounded proud of himself.
"Well, I've got a busy day ahead. I'm making cookies." She said.
"You're doing what?" Daniel was surprised.
"I'm making cookies." She repeated. "I thought it would be a nice gesture to give everyone at work a little package of homemade cookies for Christmas…or for the "Holiday Season" I should say."
"I know you're walking on a tightrope, hoping that the magazine stays afloat and everything but I sure hope that is not their bonus." Daniel joked.
"No. It's just something I want to do. You know…as gesture of holiday cheer." She looked at the package of icing in her hand. "Do you think the icing needs to be refrigerated?" She was mostly asking herself…as if Daniel would know.
"You're not seriously asking me, are you?" Daniel wondered.
"No…I guess not. I'm just talking to myself." Betty answered, deciding it didn't need to.
"I didn't know you could make cookies." Daniel commented. "When did you become Martha Stuart?"
"Well…to be honest, I've never made them on my own before." She confessed. "But I have a recipe. I mean…how hard can it be?"
He laughed. "I think those are some pretty famous last words."
"They are just sugar cookies Daniel. It's not like I'm making a gourmet meal or something." She thought of something and her face lit up. "Hey…do you want to help me?"
"Make cookies? You're kidding, right?" He was dreading what she was about to rope him into.
"No, I'm serious. It'll be fun. And if we work together they'll get done faster and then we can go out or something afterward." Betty thought it was a great idea. She could make cookies and see Daniel – two birds, one stone.
"Couldn't we just buy some cookies?" Daniel thought that his was a much better idea.
"Daniel!" She scolded. "How much thought and effort is there in that? The cookies will be a nice token because I took the effort to make them myself. Please…can you help? I'd really appreciate it." She asked sweetly, realizing he might not be as on board with this idea as she'd hoped.
"But if I help you then it's not your effort." He reminded her in his desperate attempt to thwart her recruiting plans.
"It's the same thing. They're still homemade. And I will be making them…just not alone. You don't want me to be alone, do you?" She figured a little emotional blackmail couldn't hurt.
"Ok, fine, I'll help." He said a little reluctantly. "But let me just say this Betty…I must have it pretty bad because I am certain no one else on the planet would be able to convince me to spend my Saturday making cookies."
"I know…you really do." She said smugly. "So can you come over now?"
"Over to your place?" Daniel's tone was skeptical.
"Yes, of course. Where else would we make the cookies?"
"I thought maybe you'd come here." Her place was so tiny Daniel was sure they'd be tripping over each other in the kitchen.
"Well if you lived a little less like a bachelor and had things like mixing bowls and measuring cups then maybe I would. But as it stands, I'd have to lug half my kitchen over if we made them there."
"Oh." Daniel realized the impracticality of that. "Alright, I'll be over in about twenty minutes then."
Twenty minutes later, almost to the second, Daniel buzzed from downstairs. When he came into her apartment she looked like she was all ready to start. There were mixing bowls and ingredients in front of her on the counter, and the recipe book was on the table, open to the appropriate page. She was wearing a white sweater and jeans. Over top she had a bright red apron with a picture of kittens in Santa hats on the front, and she had a Santa hat on her head.
"Nice hat." Daniel commented, grinning at her.
"Thanks." She smiled. "Here is yours." Turning to the drawer, she pulled out another one.
"I'm not wearing that." Daniel said, shaking his head. He was insistent.
"You have to. We're baking; we have to cover our heads so stray hairs don't end up in the cookies."
"What do you mean "stray hairs"?" He asked defensively.
Oh no…Betty realized she'd inadvertently touched on a sensitive issue. "I just mean that we shed our hair sometimes and we don't want it to end up in the cookies. That would be gross. So it's either this or a hair net…take your pick." She tried to approach it casually – this hair issue had become such a big deal for him lately, and she didn't even know why he was so paranoid.
"Fine." He snatched the hat from her hand and stuck it on his head. "But that had better not be a jab."
She was all business – talking enthusiastically and using her hands as she spoke. "Ok…based on the number of people I work with, and so I can have some extra for the freelancers, we need to double…or maybe even triple this recipe so that I'll have enough cookies. Maybe you can handle that while I dig out the baking sheets."
She handed him the measuring cup of sugar and opened the door to the cupboard but her kitchen was small so when she pulled open the door, she smacked him in the side of his leg.
"Ow!" He yelped.
"Oh…I'm sorry Daniel."
"I knew it was going to be close quarters cooking in this tiny kitchen of yours." He grumbled.
"There is nothing wrong with my kitchen. It's just not really meant for multiple chefs." She bent down and pulled out the cookie sheets.
"It's microscopic, Betty. I'm claustrophobic just standing in here." Daniel complained.
"It's not so bad." Betty defended – even though it was a very tiny kitchen. "It's perfect for one person."
"Uh…Betty…" Daniel had just discovered something about the recipe. "The measurements don't jive."
"What?" Betty was distracted looking for the parchment paper she just bought.
"The measurements on the cup don't match the recipe. The recipe is written in imperial but the measurements on the cup are metric." He paused to look at her, his face dropping at a realization. "Please, please don't tell me I have to multiply the ingredients and convert the measurements. When I signed on for this project you never mentioned it was going to involve this much math." He was almost whining.
Betty started laughing; she really couldn't help herself, he looked so forlorn. "You don't have to convert the measurements." She said through her chuckles as she turned the measuring cup around in his hand. The imperial measurements were on the other side. "Although, I kind of wish you did. By the look on your face, I think I would have enjoyed watching you suffer through that a little bit." She grinned at him.
Daniel put the butter and sugar in the mixing bowl and picked up the mixer Betty had placed on the counter. Betty started mixing up the dry ingredients in another bowl.
"You doubled it, right?" She confirmed before starting.
"Hmm?...Uh…yeah." Daniel answered distractedly as he plugged in the mixer. He wasn't really paying too much attention to her. He was examining the mixer trying to figure out the speeds.
Betty noticed what he was doing. "Uh, Daniel…be care—"
She didn't get to finish her sentence before he flicked the mixer on to, what turned out to be, a high speed. Immediately, sugar and butter pieces went flying all over.
Daniel jumped back quickly and turned off the mixer, obviously startled by the flying ingredients. There were bits of sugar speckled butter all over the cupboards, the walls, the counter, and especially Daniel.
Betty laughed again; her hand went up to cover her mouth. He was quite the sight. He had some of the butter speckles all over his hat and in the bangs that were sticking out from under the hat, not to mention the ones all over his face. He even had some stuck on his eyelashes.
"You are really bad at this." She teased him. "I wish I had my camera out."
He wiped up his face while she tackled the rest of the mess. She was still cleaning up the counter and cupboards while he took over mixing up the rest of the ingredients.
Several minutes later they had the cookie dough made and flattened into two sections and the cookie sheets lined with parchment paper just like the recipe said.
"Ok. Now we have to wait." Betty said as she put the flattened dough into the refrigerator.
"Wait…what?" Daniel was confused. "I thought we were making cookies. Can't we just get this over with?" He wanted to get on with his day with Betty. And making cookies was taking a toll on his patience and his ego.
"No. The recipe says the dough has to harden enough to cut the shapes out. We have to leave it for…" She looked at the book. "…at least an hour."
"What are we going to do for an hour?" Daniel wondered.
"Why don't we have some lunch and then go for a walk?" Betty suggested. She thought it might be nice to get out and get some fresh air.
"Well I'm all for the food, but it's cold out." Daniel complained.
"Well what do you suggest then?" Betty asked him.
"Well…" Daniel raised his eyebrows and had a very familiar smirk on his face.
"Other than that." Betty firmly stifled his idea. "If we engage in those kinds of activities the cookies will never get made."
He sighed. "Well, I guess we could play Scrabble." He offered instead.
"Daniel, I always beat you at Scrabble." Betty reminded him. "And then your pride is wounded and you spend the rest of the day moping."
"But then you feel the need to do all sorts of nice things to cheer me up. So it's win-win really." He smirked. "Besides, I have a feeling today is my lucky day." He grinned at her.
"You always say that and yet, somehow, I still always win." She said, sighing. "Let me see if I can find it."
She came back in a few minutes with the game. Daniel set it up on the kitchen table, while Betty made some sandwiches.
The game included a lively debate about whether or not meso was a word or just a prefix and whether or not bling and swag could be used even though they are slang. Also, Betty had insisted that "estivate" and "ophic" were actual words even if Daniel hadn't heard of them before. He accused her of making them up and went to confirm that with the dictionary only to be proven wrong. After about an hour, the game was over with Betty, once again, the undefeated champion.
"You only win because you cheat, you know." Daniel said as they were putting the game away.
"What! I do not cheat." She defended, her mouth dropping open.
"Well you must. How else do you explain the fact that you always beat me?" Betty was right; his pride was slightly wounded from another Scrabble loss at her hands. It was bad enough she had this uncanny ability to pull words out of a seemingly meaningless mess of letters…now he realized she had a much larger vocabulary than he did too.
"Maybe because I'm clever and have an acute grasp of the English language." Betty ventured, tilting her head and smiling sweetly.
"Yeah, well…maybe that." Daniel conceded. "Can we make those cookies yet?"
"Yeah, let's finish them."
About half an hour later they had the first batch done. Betty pulled it out of the oven and placed it on top of the stove. Daniel reached out and grabbed one.
"Ow!" He immediately dropped it on the floor, shaking his hand back and forth.
She grabbed his hand and pulled him to the sink to run some cold water on it.
"We probably should let them cool down a bit." She said to him, shaking her head at his impulsiveness.
"Yeah, good idea." Daniel said sheepishly.
"Are you burnt?" Betty asked, examining his fingers. They looked fine.
"No, I think I managed to escape an actual burn."
"Why do they look funny?" Betty asked when she turned back to the cookies on the stovetop.
"What do you mean?" Daniel looked at his fingers with confusion on his face…his fingers weren't funny.
"They don't really look right. They're flat and spread out and they aren't even the right colour."
"Oh." Daniel realized she was referring to cookies, not his fingers. "They look fine to me." He examined the cookies a little closer.
"They are really not fine." Betty turned to him smiling - amazed that he couldn't see how weird they looked. "How can you not tell that?"
He shrugged. "I don't know…I guess I'm not a cookie connoisseur. Try one." He suggested.
Betty lifted one off the sheet with the spatula and placed it on the rack so it could cool. It was so soft she had to be careful it didn't crumble.
"I really don't think they are supposed to be that soft." She observed. "I'll give it a minute and then we can try it." She busied herself with putting the extra ingredients back into the cupboards.
Once she had finished she broke the cookie in two pieces and hand half to Daniel. It was extremely sweet and soft and melted in her mouth almost immediately.
"Mmmm." Obviously Daniel appreciated it.
"Well they don't taste too bad but something is definitely wrong with them…they're really sweet."
"They're sugar cookies…they're supposed to be sweet. Hence the name sugar cookies." He emphasized the word sugar.
"Not that sweet." Betty shook her head. "Besides, they look funny."
"Again with the snap judgments about their appearance." Daniel teased.
She grinned at him and rolled her eyes.
"Well, I'm not sure where we went wrong. We followed the recipe. We used all the ingredients." He was looking closely at the recipe.
Betty thought for a minute, trying to figure out the problem. She started thinking out loud. "You put in the sugar and butter and then I doubled the flour—"
"Wait…" Daniel interrupted. "Did you say that you doubled the flour?"
"Yeah…why?" Betty responded slowly.
"Because I tripled the sugar and butter and all the other ingredients I put in."
"You said you doubled them…" Betty accused him. "I asked you before I started putting in the flour."
"You did?" He honestly couldn't remember.
"Yes…just before you turned on the mixer." Betty reminded him
Daniel looked very apologetic. "I'm sorry Betty. I guess I wasn't paying much attention to what you were asking me. But you can still use them can't you?"
"Daniel…they have twice as much butter as they're supposed to. It's a heart attack with sprinkles."
"Well…technically, not twice as much butter." He tried to make a joke but it fell flat.
Betty was annoyed and disappointed that the batch was messed up and her face must have said as much because Daniel pulled her close to him and wrapped his arms around her. "I am very sorry." He said again, sincerely. "I swear…from now on I will give you my undivided attention whenever you speak to me."
She looked up at him and the look he was giving her made it impossible for her to stay annoyed with him. Besides, it was just cookie dough; they could make some more.
She managed a slight smile and then she said "It's alright. It's just cookie dough, right? But let's be realistic about the undivided attention. We both know that is so not going to happen." She grinned at him and stood on her tiptoes to kiss his cheek.
"You taste like…butter…really sweet butter." She started to chuckle and he chuckled to.
He bent down and kissed her softly.
She slowly pulled back a little when he broke the kiss and looked up at him. "I know I already said this today but… you are really bad at this cookie making thing." She shook her head smiling.
He grabbed her by both hands and gently coaxed her out of the kitchen and across the apartment.
"Daniel…what are you doing? We have to clean up this mess and start over with a new batch." She said stopping in her place.
"I can't make a new batch right now." He said bluntly.
"What? Why?" Betty asked, disappointed she was going to be on her own with this endeavor.
"Look Betty, you kicked my butt in Scrabble using words I didn't even know existed. And then in a stupid maneuver that I should have abandoned sometime before the end of high school, I impulsively reached for a hot cookie and burned my fingers. I just spent a couple of hours of my Saturday making cookies that didn't turn out, because – as you so graciously pointed out - I'm really bad at it. My ego is a little battered at the moment and there is only one way that I can recover from that."
"And what's that?" Betty asked, tilting her head.
He pulled her right up against him and wrapped his arms around her. He leaned down and said softly, seductively "I need to remind you that there are some things I'm very, very good at." He smirked at her suggestively, the gaze from his penetrating blue eyes causing tingles up and down her spine and melting whatever resolve she had to finish the cookies. He released his hold, took her hands again, and started leading her into her bedroom.
Betty's heart stopped for a brief moment and she had to remind herself to breathe because…boy…he was not wrong about his aptitude in that area. There would be time later to do a fresh batch of cookies…come to think of it…maybe Daniel was right after all, maybe she should just buy some.