Chapter 14: Cupcakes for Mistah J
When I saw that sewing machine it confirmed two things; one, that Jermaine was right when he said it was hard to cut ties with these people, and two that this hotel had laughably inadequate security; who wouldn't notice a bunch of people walking in with a sewing machine?
I foolishly pushed the clunky piece of machinery to the back of the closet and covered it with a few articles of clothing. I angrily paced around the closet for a few moments, wondering how the hell he had found me. Finally I calmed down and decided I had something more immediate to worry about; my employment status. The money the Jester had given me would be enough to pay rent for quite a while, but I didn't plan on using it, deciding I'd donate it to charity. Finally I found a job near our new apartment, taking that job was probably the biggest mistake I ever made.
…
I walked down the street briskly, clutching a copy of the newspaper tightly under my arm. I stopped in front of a square lavender building, I unfolded the newspaper and flipped to the help wanted ads, carefully reading the one which I had circled in red. This is the place I thought excitedly.
The bakery was a small, square building in between a toy shop and an office building, it was possibly the bubbliest building in Gotham. It was painted bright blue with lavender window boxes and a big, ocean blue sign that read "Cakes by Elyssa" on it. I smiled, thinking I would fit right in. I walked through the double doors, feeling a whoosh of cold air flow past. I smiled, the inside of the bakery was just as bubbly as the outside. The floors were glistening white tile, the walls were a light shade of pink and displayed portraits of beautiful, and often ridiculous, cakes that the bakery had made. There were one or two small white tables with white, curvy chairs. The cashier, a young man with thick dreadlocks that had been carefully pinned out of his face, looked up at me. "Welcome to cakes by Elyssa, how may I help you?"
"Oh, I'm not here for a cake" I said sheepishly, "I'm Sarah Valens, I applied for a job here?"
"Oh, right!" He exclaimed, "We heard you were coming. I'm Aiden, Elyssa's in the back room, follow me."
Aiden put a sign on the counter that read "please ring bell for service" and stepped out from behind the counter, pushing the stool he had been standing on out of the way. He was short, maybe 4'7, though the way he had shaped his dreadlocks made him look half an inch taller. I followed him past the counter and through rows of intricately decorated sheet cakes to a shiny, metal door. He opened it and gestured inside, "ladies first". Thanking him quickly, I stepped inside and took a deep whiff of the air. It smelled strongly of powdered sugar, cake batter and cannoli cream. There were around seventeen people in the room, some decorated cakes, others baked, and a few others put together or boxed other pastries. I smiled; my mother had been a baker, it felt as if I was at bring-your-kid-to-work day.
A plump, middle aged woman with striking red hair and glasses, looked up from inspecting a cake and walked over to me. "You must be Sarah" she said, with a blank expression, she looked me up and down with her hawk-like eyes, making me increasingly uncomfortable.
"Um, yes." I replied sheepishly.
She didn't waste any time getting to the heart of the matter. "Hmm, you don't look like much…" she muttered.
"I've baked before!" I quickly said, "I went to cooking school!" And dropped out because I couldn't pay tuition anymore, I mentally added.
Elyssa didn't seem impressed. "Alright, tell you what," she said, "I'll start you off baking for a week, if your baking is worth more than your dress I'll let you keep the job. Sound good?"
I looked down at my dress self-consciously. It was a flat pastel blue dress which came just below my knees, a thin strip of white fabric served as a sash; the fabric had faded long ago and there was a light orange mystery stain on the hem. Mildly offended, I nodded my head.
"Great, see you around kid." She gave me a swat on the back and left the room. Several of the other employees looked at me sympathetically.
"Don't mind her" said Aiden, "Elyssa's rough around the edges, but once you get to know her she's really nice."
"I'll take your word for it." I replied.
"Hey!" Shouted a man's voice from the corner, "You're baking right?" I nodded, he gestured at me to come closer "get over here! I'll show you how to work the oven!"
…
The next few days were enjoyable and uneventful. The other baker's name was Owen, he was very kind and an excellent teacher. At the end of the day we took whatever pastries that had been left over from the day home, not that any of us complained –though Vikki did say that the cannoli were making her fat on multiple occasions-. The store closed fairly late, and as I was the newbie, I took the graveyard shift every day. My only company in these hours was Aiden. As we had maybe one customer come in between the hours of ten o'clock PM to midnight, we usually sat around playing cards in the back room or the like. It was the same on the dark Wednesday night when I met another big shot rogue.
"Gin!" Said Aiden triumphantly.
I groaned and sorted my cards into runs and sets, putting the remaining ones on the table, "fifteen." I muttered, he always cleaned my clock in gin rummy!
"Want a rematch?" He asked teasingly.
"No way! You've stacked the deck or something!" We both burst out laughing, and in the midst of our laughter we heard the bell ringing at the front desk. We slowly stopped laughing, we listened carefully as to confirm yes, that was the bell ringing rather than the chirp of a bird that had managed to get in. "Yoo-hoo!" Shouted a voice, "helloooo? Anyone home?"
"Be right with you!" Shouted Aiden. He flashed a smile at me and went to help the customer out. He rushed back in ten minutes later, a panicked look on his face. "Sarah!" He said, "Quick! I need you to whip up a three-layer chocolate cake with purple frosting!"
"What, why?" I asked as he pushed me towards the oven.
"Just do it! We'll talk later!"
The two of us wasted no time. I showed Aiden how to make the batter, but he really knew nothing about baking and tended to slow me down more than help! I eventually told him to sit down and let me do the heavy lifting, so he instead paced around the room wringing his hands nervously.
"How much longer?" Shouted the voice.
"Almost done!" I replied. I carefully but quickly frosted each layer, stacked them on top of each other and put the finished cake into a box.
"I'm not getting any younger!" Shouted the voice again.
"Just a second!"
Aiden and I burst through the doors into the lobby. I put the cake onto the counter, "okay, here's the ca-"only then did I realize who I was speaking to. My jaw dropped, there, in all her black-and-red glory, was Harley Quinn. Yes, Harley Quinn, as in the Joker's henchwoman Harley Quinn.
She looked at the cake quizzically, turning the box around in her hands. When she had decided it met her specifications she nodded and said; "Finally, I thought you'd never finish up!"
I gulped, "s-sorry for the delay, Miss Quinn."
The annoyingly bright perpetual smile returned to her face, "no problem!" She beamed, she looked down at the cake again and scratched her head thoughtfully, "it's missing something…" she looked at Aiden "hey, shorty! Can you get me some red and green icing?"
Though he clearly resented being called "shorty" he nodded his head and said "right away Miss Quinn!"
"Hurry up! It's Mistah J's birthday, I can't be late!"
He raced back into the bake room and returned less than twenty seconds later with two icing pens. She opened the box and pulled the cake out. She outlined the cake layers with the green icing, and used the red icing to draw a big, exaggerated smiley face on top. "Perfect!" She squealed delightedly. She slid the cake back into the box and picked it up. "Just tell Elyssa that Harley called, okay sweetie?" She asked. We numbly nodded our heads yes. "Thank you, goodnight!" She called as she left the store. The door shut and we stood in silence for several seconds. We looked at each other, dumbstruck.
Aiden was the first to break the silence, "son of a-!"
(You may fill that blank with whatever profane language you'd like; whatever you choose, you're probably right.)