My Wedding Cake
The last thing J.D. wanted to worry about on his wedding day was cake. It was the one thing he had been responsible, fervently arguing with Elliot and then Turk over the different nuances of cake batter, icing, decorations and toppers. He had envisioned his perfect wedding cake and worked relentlessly with the designer and baker until he had chosen the perfect dessert for the reception. In fact, he had been so terribly protective of the cake that he had actually insisted on picking it up himself the morning of his wedding. That is how the cake ended up in the middle of the street.
"No, no, no, no, no, no!" came J.D.'s distressed yelp down the empty alley behind Flour, the newest bakery in town and the only one to meet his unrealistic expectations. Turk half expected his best friend to be withering in pain when he made it to him, but instead, found him shaking his head forlornly as he looked at the empty pink box and the smashed cake next to it. "My cake!"
He knew that he was being overly dramatic when his last statement came out more like the infamous call from Rocky, but he couldn't find it in him to care. This cake had become his everything the past month. It was the one detail that Elliot let him be in charge of and the only thing he really cared about other than finally marrying her. He had scoured websites, menus, recipe books and gourmet magazines in search of the perfect cake. Finding it had been almost as hard as finding Elliot. Losing it physically hurt.
"Turk, my cake," he said sadly, pointing at the mess of white icing melting on the pavement. He could still see a few of the meticulously swirled letters that once spelled out their names and the remains of a flower. "Elliot is going to kill me."
Resting his hand on his friend's shoulder, Turk could only give him a hug and click his tongue sympathetically. He knew what it was like to ruin a wedding for the bride-to-be, having faced his own issues when he had married Carla. Eventually, she had forgiven him, and after everything, he knew that Elliot would too. Still, that cake looked amazing, and he had to admit that he was almost as sad as J.D. having lost it.
The cake was a work of art really. It had been a three-tiered confection of imported Belgian chocolate and organic cocoa grown only in Madagascar. The icing had been handmade with freshly crushed vanilla beans and strawberries from a field a few miles from his mom's house, a place he had frequented with his brother as a kid. The baker had flown them in especially for the occasion, working with the designer to hand place each one that served as a garnish. It was the perfect cake and then it was ruined.
"We'll call Carla. She will know someone," Turk finally suggested once he had given J.D. enough time to adequately mourn. "If she doesn't know someone, we can just pick up a sheet cake at Costco. Elliot won't know the difference. You said she hadn't seen the cake, right?"
"It was supposed to be a surprise," J.D. muttered in disappointment. He had refused to let Elliot go to any of the tastings or design meetings. Only Turk had been privy to the elaborate details of his cake. The two of them had shared a very extensive (and very awkward, according to the designer) tasting session over the course of several hours one weekend last month. "I mean, I even got the topper custom ordered. That can't be replaced on short notice."
The cake topper had been quite a trial for J.D. He had insisted on a matching duo of doctors, a tall lanky blonde for Elliot and a handsome doctor with perfect hair for him. He had carefully chosen the scrubs colors so that they matched the ones they were wearing the first day they met at Sacred Heart and even had their names printed on tiny ID cards affixed to each figure's chest. It was silly how detailed they were really, but it mattered to J.D.
"Well, buddy, that cake isn't going to happen. We just have to accept that," Turk reminded him. "So I am going to give you some advice. We can sit here on the curb, being sad over what could have been, or we could figure out a solution because this is the best day of your life. You get to marry a crazy sexy blonde who is way too good for you but somehow lowered her standards and fell in love with you."
J.D. knew that it was true. It had always been true, from their first encounter in the medical supply closet to when she broke up with a dolphin trainer because he asked her to from the night in the on-call room just before her almost-wedding with Keith to the moment he watched her with Sam and realized that forever dwelled in a pair of blue eyes he knew better than his own. Other than his son, there was nothing – not even Turk – that mattered to him as much as that woman. She wouldn't care about some stupid cake. She just wanted to marry him.
Gathering himself up, J.D. brushed off the knees of his tuxedo pants and hugged Turk for a moment before sliding back into his car. He headed across town to the small health store near his apartment and bought all the cupcakes they had in stock. It would be enough if everyone only had one, and they also happened to be Elliot's favorite treat right now. Then, he handed his keys over to his best friend and made his last trip across town as a single man to the church.
Sam was waiting with Izzy and Carla in the back of the church when they came in, both the kids dressed in tiny formal wear and Carla adorned in her crimson satin bridesmaid dress. Carla started to admonish them both for being late but exhaled with a shrug when she realized that it didn't matter. Elliot was happy and that made her happy and that's all they needed right now. J.D. was quickly tucked away in his dressing room along with Turk and Sam, leaving Carla just enough time to get her daughter and her own best friend ready for the biggest day of her life.
Afterward, after the "I Dos" and the tears and grand kiss in front of their friends and family, J.D. shoves an organic red velvet cupcake in his new wife's face and forgets that his so-called perfect cake ever existed. He instead remembers why he wanted to marry Elliot in the first place when she snorts and laughs as icing drips off the tip of her nose. He dances with Carla and Izzy to her favorite song and laughs when Turk gives his best man speech and holds a sleeping Sam against his shoulder while Elliot changes into her dress for the honeymoon.
He doesn't get his cake that day, at least not the one that he picked out. Life had a way of doing that sometimes – taking away what you thought you wanted and replacing it with something that you need. It was a pattern in his life, one that brought him Sacred Heart and Elliot and Sam. He might have thought that he needed the perfect wedding cake, but instead, he got the cupcake he never knew he wanted and the dessert of his dreams.