Lori wasn't one to cancel any scheduled plans for the weekend, but this Saturday was an exception. Today was Leni's big day, and she had promised to not only drop her off at their school a little before three o'clock, just in time for the bake sale, but to stick around for a little bit and buy some of the goodies there for herself, both to give the Fashion Club a helping hand and to satiate her sweet tooth.
Yeah, maybe some key lime pie, a few blueberry muffins, a pecan roll or two, maybe a few…ah, who was she kidding? She was going to go all in on anything with a chocolate theme to it; she'd make sure to buy some chocolate sweets for the whole family, of course, but she'd be keeping most of the haul for herself.
Call it selfish, but what else could one expect from a chocoholic?!
'Just gotta be sure to keep my stash hidden from the others,' Lori thought with a smug grin as she made her way of out of her room, intent on doing more than laying around.
Now that she had about four hours to burn before she had to escort Leni, she figured she'd check on the sister of the hour herself, whom Lori presumed was in the kitchen. It made the most sense, given how the kitchen was practically Leni's favorite room of the entire house as of late.
As she predicted, once she made it to the kitchen, there was Leni, scampering about busily while she hummed to herself. While Lori didn't look around long enough to see exactly what it was she was up to, she figured that she was whipping up something that she intended to sell.
"Last minute addition for the bake sale?" Lori asked, getting Leni to pause in her steps for just a second.
"You bet!" Leni said and got right back to work without a hitch.
Presently, Leni was looking into the fridge and cabinets, pulling out spices and other ingredients that she piled up right next to the sink. While she did so, Lori took the opportunity to get a closer a look at what she was planning to use while she figured that she wouldn't be in Leni's way.
Lori hummed thoughtfully as her eyes scanned the miscellany. "Sugar, flour, coconut shavings, pineapple slices, honey, sugar plums…"
From the looks of things, Leni's aspiration sounded rather…exotic. Lori never recalled tasting a baked delicacy that had coconut shavings and sugar plums in it…
…or the thing that Lori, much to her surprise, found right next to the flour.
"Chili powder?" she asked, but was taken further aback by the oddity that sat right next to the coconut shavings. "And...is that supposed to be a miniature tiki head replica?"
Leni approached her with a bag of lemons, which she plopped down on the ingredient heap. "A what?"
Lori gestured to the decorative ornament. "That."
"Ooooooh, you mean that thingy? Yeah, that's going on top of the cake," Leni said, who was about to sprint off again, until Lori stopped her with another question.
"Cake? What kind of cake?" Lori asked.
A mischievous grin spread across Leni's face, as she leaned next to Lori's ear and whispered, "Sorry, Lori. I can't tell you. I want the Tiki Tropic Thunder cake to be a surprise that no one else knows about until I have it at the bake sale. You'll just have to wait until I'm done."
Lori chuckled as Leni pulled away. "Alright, Leni, if you say…" Just then, realization smacked her over the head like an anvil.
"Say what?!" she shrieked as she grabbed Leni by the shoulders. "The Tiki Tropic Thunder cake?!"
Leni gasped in horror. "Lori, how'd you know about that?!"
Before Lori could answer, the thought of the "obvious" culprit flashed through Leni's head, "It was, Walt, wasn't it?!" she accused with seething tone. "I should've known he'd sing like a canary!"
Lori just shook Leni a few times, relentless in her pursuit of her getting her panic across to her as painfully clear as possible.
"Leni, what on Earth do you think you're doing?!" Lori cried.
Leni didn't get the memo, so her reply was way too casual for Lori's liking.
"Well, I guess since the cat's out of the bag, I suppose I can tell you," Leni said before her face exploded in the biggest "I just scored a date with Chaz"-looking smile that Lori had ever seen. "I'm baking the Tiki Tropic Thunder cake for the bake sale! Isn't it great?!"
Lori shook her head violently. "No, Leni! It's the exact opposite of great!"
…
…
"So…astounding, then, right?"
Lori's dread collapsed under the weight of a measured rebuke. "Uh…no. That's a synonym, Leni," Lori corrected.
Leni tapped her chin as she mulled over the possibility. "Hmmmm…I suppose the Tiki Tropic Thunder cake could use some cinnamon."
Urgent distress welled up in Lori at the way the conversation had veered as she started feeling desperate to convey the seriousness of what Leni was attempting to do.
"Forget about the cinnamon and forget about the cake, Leni!" Lori cried. "There's no way you can bake that in time for the bake sale!"
The panicked objection left Leni's nerves unscathed, evident by her reassuring grin.
"Why not? We both love watching bakers try to make it on Dessert Storm. It'll be fun," Leni insisted and tried to pull herself away from Lori's tight grasp but failed to do so as she felt her fingers cinching in harder to keep her still.
"Leni, need I remind you that the 'Tiki Tropic Thunder Cake Challenge' is literally impossible?!" Lori reprimanded. "Only three people have ever done it, and the last guy to complete it was in 2002! It's supposed to take about five days to make that cake and those guys, most of which are world-class bakers, only get four hours, which is less time than you have before the sale starts at three o'clock! There is absolutely, positively, no way you can make it in time!"
Leni blinked. That's what got Lori in such a tizzy? Heh, apparently, she didn't know whom it was she was doubting.
"Pssh, it's okay, Lori," Leni insisted with a light chortle, along with a smirk that Lori could only describe as "cocky". "I'm not gonna make it exactly like it's supposed to. It's like Luan said; all I have to do is add my own twist, and I can easily make it before three."
Leni took a moment to use a hand to flip her hair with flair. "Besides, my friends were totes right about me; I'm the 'Goddess of Goodies', the 'Baking Beauty', and the 'Diva of Desserts'. There's no way I can mess this up. So, if you don't mind, I have work to d-"
Before she could finish, she realized that Lori was nodding along with her, convinced by her testimony. Instead, she was hastily taking each of her ingredients, one by one, and putting them back in place.
Leni's blood boiled. "Lori! What're you doing?!" she shouted.
"Keeping you from making a huge mistake!" Lori said as she shelved the peanut butter back in its cabinet before she turned to Leni. "Just stay away from that cake, alright?! Bake something else; literally, anything else! You're just gonna make a huge mess of things if you try! There's no way you can…"
Lori trailed off, almost spellbound by the furious expression that Leni wore now. Lori couldn't remember the last time that she felt browbeaten by her sweet little Leni, making her all the more transfixed by Leni's heated gaze.
Meanwhile, Leni couldn't believe her ears. There it was again; that "can't-do" attitude that Lori had promised to do away with. How dare she resort to that again! How dare she go back on her word and make her feel like a fool for trusting her! How could she do this?! What gave her the right to second-guess her after everything she had done to prove herself?!
But Leni didn't feel the need to ask herself why Lori was doing this; she thought that she had a good inkling as to what it was that was making her act like this.
"You know what? I know exactly what's going on here," Leni said, her anger restrained a fraction. "You're jealous."
Lori's captivation was broken as Leni's words stung her like arrow to the gut. Soon, she found herself scowling right back at Leni.
"Jealous? Of what exactly?" Lori asked, her tone dangerously low.
"Of me," Leni replied. "I'm better than you at baking, and you can't stand it; it's obvious."
The vein in Lori's forehead started to bulge and throb, along the ones in her tightened fists. "Leni, that is the…stupidest thing I've ever heard!" Lori snapped. "I've done nothing but support you ever since I promised to be in your corner!"
Leni's temper flared up again, taking offense to the audacity of such a retort that sounded more like a pathetic attempt at an excuse.
"Oh yeah?!" Leni shouted back. "Then why can't you support me now?! Or are you nothing more than a liar?!"
Leni's scorn fueled Lori's fury, which had escalated towards the brink of vitriol.
"You know what?!" Lori bellowed. "Fine! Make your stupid cake all you like, but you'd better do us both a favor and prove me wrong!"
As Lori stomped away, leaving her Leni behind to brew in her own rage, her entire body quaked and shook with the wrath that had barely been expelled from their argument. Her entire face burned as steamed shot out her nostrils like an eager, furious bull behind the gate.
Then, her ears caught fire, twitching and splotching with the burns that came from Leni's next barrage of searing words.
"Fine, I will and guess what, Lori?!" she could hear Leni yell at the top of her lungs. "I hope you never like eating my sweets again because you're officially banned from them! Forever!"
And then, her throat burned as she choked back the sobs that she tried desperately to keep at bay. Her pride only allowed so much control, for by the time she had made it halfway up the stairs, hot streaks of angry tears poured down her face and dripped through the slits of her clenched teeth.
Once she made it to her room and slammed the door shut, the tears only came out that much faster—in the dignified space of her isolation, she allowed herself to lament her grief to the fullest, wondering what she had done to deserve this.
Lying in bed and staring up at ceiling through her blurry, tear-caked eyes was where Lori found herself around twenty minutes later. Once she had finally been spent on tears and her feelings slowly began to feel less sore, she had been calm and collected enough to do something that, even now, she was beginning to feel some regret for…
She lied. Even after that blunt, painful accusation that Leni had lodged at her, she had only proven her right to an extent; just a few minutes ago, she texted her mother and let her know that she was "coming down with something" and couldn't take Leni to the bake sale, after all. It wasn't true, at least in the context that she knew she was putting out—driving Leni wasn't an issue that some sort of debilitating "sickness" could get in the way of…unless, of course, heartache counted as a crippling illness.
'Good thing Mom's taking care of her,' Lori thought. 'I really don't need this…'
Call her a coward, but she just couldn't bear being around her now, not with that utter contempt that she was sure that Leni harbored her for swelling through her veins. Lori knew enough about herself to know that she could be a desperate creature when she was backed into a corner, and she knew she'd resort to just about any measure possible to escape those hate-filled eyes—a lie was a small price to pay to achieve that aim.
But even with those words taunting her, chastising her for validating them with her little fib, Lori didn't feel obligated enough to regard them with any more sincerity than her guilt had already done for her; the reason, Leni's horrid supposition, behind those awful words was never even the heart of the matter in the first place.
She had, and still did, supported Leni all this time, much like everyone else in the family had once they saw her coming around to exceeding all their expectations. But Lori was well aware that support wasn't a game of delusion, a self-serving pact where she was supposed to go out of her way to please Leni's ego by telling her what she wanted to hear. She genuinely believed that she had, and probably still was, going about something that was too much for her to handle.
Where was the crime in that, being a sister who cared enough to try and steer a loved one out of a bad situation? And what made it worse was such mordant retaliation came from Leni, of all people, someone who should've known better than to reach to such a vile conclusion right off the bat. Was she such a horrible person that all it took was one little piece of "evidence" to close the book on her like that? Apparently so, since Leni's sense of empathy never came about in their confrontation once.
Suddenly, she started to feel sick to her stomach, the queasy pang of misery submerging her under the violent waves of sorrowful recollection; Leni wasn't just angry with her, she wanted her gone from a part of her life that was all about sharing her love and kindness with others. She was deemed unworthy of that privilege and against her better judgment, Lori clung to the idea that it was all her fault.
Only one thought kept Lori at peace with herself, and it was enough to let her body submit to the tug of sleep that her emotionally-wrecked body surrendered to; if there was something that could be said about Leni, it's that she was always full of surprises.
Maybe, hopefully, Leni would prove her wrong, after all.
Lori wasn't granted as much rest as she would've liked; she supposed that she didn't have the right to complain about not having that luxury for not only neglecting to silence her phone, which was presently vibrating right next to her ear, but for keeping it in such close proximity.
Though her head was still swimming with fog and her senses were slightly dulled, Lori managed to pick up her phone and hold it up to her face to see who it was that was calling her. Once she did, she realized a few things.
According to the time on the phone's touchscreen, it was a few minutes passed four o'clock, meaning that she had been out of it for roughly five hours. The radiant yellow-orange beams of the afternoon Sun, shining though her window and blanketing her room in its warm hue, confirmed her phone's report.
The last observation, which inspired her to answer the phone, was that the Caller ID notified her that the caller was Trish, a friend of hers. She wasn't what Lori would call a close friend, but a friend was still a friend, and she needed one in the worst way right now; it wasn't as if such a venomous quarrel with Leni could be easily forgotten.
"Hey, Trish, what's…" Lori began to say until a yawn broke through her sentence, "…what's up?"
…
…
"Wait, what?"
…
…
"Trish, calm down. Slow down for a…"
…
…
"What?! Are you serious?! When did y-"
…
…
"I'll be right there! Don't lose sight of her!"
With breakneck speed, Lori cut the call, rolled out of bed, and ran out of her room as fast as she could, not forgetting to take her car keys first. As her body and brain flooded with panic, she could only hope that she could get to her school before it was too late to make a difference.
Leni needed help, and Lori knew she couldn't afford to be slow as she raced against time.
"Yeah, I'm at the bake sale right now, and I saw her run off to the girls' bathroom; the one in the hallway that's next to the gym on the first floor! I just thought I'd let you know!"
That was the last thing Lori heard from Trish before she hastily hung up the phone and drove as fast as she could (within the legal speed limit) to her school. Though cars, signs, and familiar landmarks flashed by, the thought of Leni, crying her eyes out and feeling lost, stuck with Lori. She only had a vague idea of the shame and defeat that Leni was going through right now, given how brief Trish's account of what she had seen, but it still stirred more than enough sympathy—to the point where every second she couldn't see Leni might as well have been an entire day of agony.
It was made all the more agonizing but the fact that Lori had a plan, a lifeline that could very well bring Leni out of her despair, but it means nothing unless she can get to her soon.
To Lori's relief, the school's parking lot was fairly empty, meaning that she had no trouble finding a spot that was close to front of the main entrance. Upon doing so, Lori bolted out of the van, speeding past a few loitering students and faculty that were hanging around by the front doors. The memory of the rules and regulations, specifically those pertaining to hallway conduct, were insignificant to her; she had to get to Leni at all costs.
"Leni?!" Lori called, doing so more out of desperation than practicality; it wasn't as if she didn't have a good idea where Leni should've been. "Leniiiiiiiii?!"
After about twenty seconds, her body was already taxed and burdened with exhaustion as her steps grew heavy, her face became splotched with droplets of sweat, her breath grew labored, and her heart pounded out of exertion and dismay. Her teeth grit as a jolt of pain shoots through her side and settles in her waist, and her legs begin to feel like brittle pretzel sticks that are ready to snap at any moment's notice.
She ignored it all for Leni's sake, for the sake of a sister that she would rather see with her head help up high while resenting her than hearing, let alone seeing, the idea that she was broken up and without a way out.
"Le-"
She cut off the call as her tired body stumbled towards the wall, skidding to a stop—there was no need for it anymore because lo and behold, there was the bathroom…
And there were the sound of…sobbing, Leni's sobbing, coming from the other side of the door. Though her body felt worn out, it's all but negligible to the way Lori's heart shattered at the excruciating wails that lance through her ears and embed in her brain.
She pushed her body forward, cramps and all, and swung the door open with all her might. Without the blockade of the door dampening the noise, Lori can clearly hear the echo of sobbing coming from one of the stalls. She doesn't consider the possibility of running into an embarrassing situation from pulling back on the stall door, too engrossed with getting to her sister and holding her in her arms.
Before she could approach the door, however, the crying regressed into sniffles and whimpers—Lori took it that Leni finally had the wherewithal to notice that someone had barged into her sanctuary, uninvited. But she was prepared to face any rebukes she'd face from her intrusion because she never needed an invitation to comfort her family before and she wasn't about to need one now.
Without a second thought, Lori opened the door and instantly locked eyes with Leni, who was sitting on the floor, her knees bunched into her chest as she held them within her arms. Lori's chest constricted, throbs of misery pulsating as she saw Leni's beautiful, blue eyes drowning in her unshed tears.
"Oh, Leni," Lori said as she bent down to Leni's level, wrapped her up in a hug, and pressed her face against the top of her head.
And just like that, Leni's waterworks started up again and Lori's worries about Leni pushing her away disintegrated as Leni pushed herself closer and allowed to Lori to stroke her head.
"It's okay, Leni. I'm here now," Lori cooed softly. "I heard what happened, and I'm telling you that it's okay now; I'm here for you."
Though Lori was almost certain that Leni didn't believe a word of what she had said about things being "okay", she was at least appreciative of the fact that Leni still held her close, as if her anger towards her was all but a distant memory to her right now.
"I should've known," Leni sobbed into the Lori's shoulder.
Lori, not expecting for Leni to open up to her so quickly, was slow to ask, "Known…what?"
"That I…" Leni sniffled, cutting herself off before she could finish, "…that I messed up."
And that was when it all started; Lori held onto every word as she listened to Leni delineate what she had missed after she had stormed away from the kitchen…
Leni never thought she'd be in a place like this again—it wasn't as bad as what Luan had stumbled across a few months ago, but the kitchen was once again, a battlefield wrought by Leni's culinary shortcomings. While most of the room was immaculately spotless, Leni's workplace was anything but and Leni, who was slumped against the refrigerator with her head slumped, was blotched from head to toe in an array of ingredient-based stains.
The baking process had fallen apart before Leni had a chance to begin, the difficulty of her task blindsiding her and shaking her confidence to the core. Leni assumed that the Tiki Tropic Thunder cake could be compromised with a few of her own signatures touches, but what was absolutely paramount and essential, the trademark of the dessert, were its air-filled layers. Much like a soufflé, Leni had to be sure to make sure that the egg whites were beaten with precisely the correct number of strokes and the proper amount of force behind each stroke—as Leni found out, if she was either too soft or too hard with her strokes, the baked layer would collapse in under a minute.
And that was only the beginning of her troubles; not only did the layers, which the recipe called for six, have to be air-filled, but each layer had to be decorated with an assortment of the cake's toppings, some of which Leni didn't even have. Those compromises, such as the sugar plums, only spelt out disaster—as Leni found out with the only two layers that she was successful in baking, and just barely, because of the air-filled center, precision and dexterity were the key to making sure that the alignment of the decorations didn't make the layer collapse from the added weight. Needless to say, Leni failed to make "adding her own twist" work as she was met with two failures, both of which only whipped up her actions into a hurried rush…
And when Leni rushed, she only made more and more costly missteps, her frustration and her frantic eagerness to finish in time blinding her to the amateur pitfalls that she had learned to avoid long ago—forgetting ingredients for the batter, clumsily handling the whisk, setting the temperature at the wrong degree, running around frantically under stress…it all made what was supposed to be Leni's dream into a living nightmare.
"Maybe Lori was right, after all," Leni said. "Maybe I should just…"
But just before she could finish her sentence, the mental image of Lori, a heinously boastful Lori at that, taunting her with a barrage of "I told you so!" and "In your face!" as she mocked her, laughed at her for daring to oppose her wisdom, even after she had done so much to prove her wrong. It did the trick into making Leni riled up, angered that she was forced into such a state of vulnerability after everything that she had gone through and that it would soon be followed up with Lori doing her part to rub salt in the wound.
"Lori," she hissed, her eyes narrowed in icy slits. "What does she know about baking? She couldn't crack an egg if her life depended on it. Who is she to tell me that I can't bake a cake?"
She pumped herself up further with the knowledge that it had only been an hour since she started trying to bake—she could get this done with another three! She was better than this, moping on the floor like some…some…greenhorn without a clue! She wouldn't be given such high marks from her peers, her neighbors, and her family if she still were!
'I'll show her!' Leni thought as she rose to her feet. 'This cake will blow everyone away! I don't need anything else!'
And what followed after that was Leni explaining everything else, everything that led up to where they were now. In the end, Leni's cake wasn't anywhere close to the way she wanted it to be but rather than just admit defeat, she tried to make her deflated, deformed cake look as presentable as possible by hastily slapping on some frosting and toppings and calling it a day. She had hoped that it would be enough to both satiate her pride and the customers, but it satisfied neither in the end. A few customers, who were unfortunate to try Leni's advertised "exotic, daring" cake, were treated to a bad taste in their mouths and massive stomach cramps.
Since Leni was considered the club's crown jewel for the event, her table was placed in the middle of the first floor's gymnasium—the room where the sale was hosted—for all to see Leni's customers groaning in pain. Such a horror caused some of the other patrons to deny the delicacies from the other tables, leaving the sale altogether.
Trish, who was around at the time, was in close enough range to hear what Leni had to say next; the bake sale's coordinator and a few Fashion Club students pulled Leni off to the side and told her, in no uncertain terms, that she was banned from participation because of her actions—that, of course, led to her fleeing the gym in tears.
Even though Leni had recalled everything without falling back into another crying fit, Lori couldn't keep herself from shedding some tears of her own. She was already familiar with mostly everything that Leni had told her, so those parts didn't make her emotional. What did, however, was what she didn't know right off the bat; Leni's motivation for her actions in the first place.
Once again, Leni was set on proving herself…because of her. She took risks and paid the price, and it was all because proving Lori wrong was her objective. Lori knew it was irrational to believe that she was an all-powerful puppeteer, someone who could completely control Leni's actions and drive her reach this low point, but the fact that she was the motivation for her not to care about making people happy—just like she always wanted to do with her baking in the first place—and focus only on being a hit, just to spite her, did nothing to comfort her guilt.
'Why am I so…so toxic?'
"Umm…a-are you alright?" Lori asked, doing so to stop herself from selfishly self-loathing when it was Leni that needed to be at ease.
"No," Leni replied without hesitation, her tone wavering. "The Fashion Club hates me, and we probably won't get enough money to reach our goal, since I scared a ton of the customers away. And worst of all, I was horrible to you. I bit off more than I could chew, even after you warned me."
Lori sighed. "Leni, it's ok-"
"No, it's not," Leni interrupted firmly. "I shouldn't have called you a jealous liar. That was mean and unfair."
"Look, I get that, Leni, but-"
"What's the point of being a good baker if I'm just going to be a horrible sister?!" Leni cried. "I jus-"
"Enough!"
Lori was already acquainted with the price of her rashness as Leni looked back at her, wounded and a little spooked from Lori raising her voice the way she did. Still, Lori knew that it had to be done—it was bad enough that she was riddled with an overabundance of shame but even though Leni had dug her own grave, she didn't need to take it that far.
"Leni, enough of that, please," Lori pleaded. "Yes, you made a big mistake, but there are three things you ought to know."
Lori allowed silence to reign for about a minute to allow Leni to compose herself before she continued.
"I forgive you. How could I not? As far as I'm concerned, you put up with me way more than I put up with you."
Though she never let go of Leni this whole time, Lori couldn't help but feel as though they were still a little cold and distant, as if their close hug wasn't enough—that only told her that they had a lot of quality time to spend together after this was all over.
"And you are far from a horrible sister, you hear? Far from it. You wouldn't be my best friend if you were," Lori said.
Slowly but surely, a tiny smile began to form on Leni's face, and it was the little gesture that pushed Lori into showing her full hand without any lingering doubts—even if it was a shot in the dark, she couldn't allow herself to believe that unfavorable odds were something that should prevent her from giving her all in brightening up Leni's world.
"And as for the last thing? You're gonna love this," Lori said with a confident smile. "I've think I've got a way to make things better."
Leni's eyes lit up like a Christmas tree. "Really?! You do?!" she exclaimed with joyous abandon.
Before Lori could get a chance to stand and help Leni up—she was just starting to realize how they had both been sprawled out on the icky bathroom floor all this time—but Leni clinched on a hug of her own, preventing her from moving around too much.
Not that Lori minded; this was the type of reaction that she hoped that Leni would have.
"Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you!" Leni cried, nestling her face in the crook of her neck.
"Hey, don't thank just me," Lori said, grinning from ear-to-ear. "If it wasn't for Trish tipping me off to what happened, I wouldn't have known what to do before I got here."
"Wait…" Leni's ecstatic squealing stopped as she allowed Lori's statement to settle, "…you mean the Trish with that really big mole on her nose that we don't stare at out of politeness?"
Lori laughed. "No, no, you're thinking of Trish Summers. I'm talking about Trish Everett."
"Ah."
…
…
"Lori?"
"Hmm?"
Though Leni looked like she was still delighted with the good news of Lori's plan, she still couldn't help but ask, "You're sure your plan will work?"
"Yep. You wanna know how I know that?" Lori lightly bopped Leni on the nose, eliciting a giggle. "Because you're the reason it will."
Things were going a little easier than Lori thought they would. According to Leni, the supervisor of the bake sale and the Fashion Club's sponsor, Mr. Myers, would be hanging around inside the gymnasium, making sure that everything was running smoothly. Since Lori's plan involved approaching him with Leni in tow, she wasn't sure if she could do so without making a scene by bringing "unauthorized" personnel back to the place where they were banned.
Fortunately, she didn't have to worry about creating bedlam, because once they came to the gym's entrance, they could see Mr. Myers sitting behind a table, studiously peering over some papers of importance that Lori didn't care to figure out for herself.
'Yeah, that's him already,' Lori thought, casting the wiry man judgmental glare as the duo walked over to him.
Leni's description was quite accurate; his state of overdress (seriously, who wears a gray suit for a bake sale?) was quite easy to spot, along with the combover that failed to cover his bald spot.
"Excuse me," Lori said as they reached the table.
The man looked up, looking indifferent to the greeting. Leni stood behind Lori, peering over her shoulder—even after Lori insisted that everything would be fine, Leni couldn't help but regard her mentor with trepidation after their last encounter.
"Are you Mr. Myers?" Lori asked out of formality.
"The one and only," came the overly posh-sounding reply.
"And I take it you're supervising the Fashion Club's bake sale?"
"Indeed," Mr. Myers replied, casting Leni a disparaging look. "And I take it that the young lady behind you has already informed you that I've already told her not to come back here, correct?"
Lori had to bite her tongue from giving the supercilious man a piece of her mind, though that didn't stop her from shooting a quick frown at him before it dissolved into a friendly smile.
"Yeah, but forget about her for a minute," Lori said as she reached into her pocket. "I just wanna know something first."
Mr. Myers quirked an eyebrow. "And that is?"
Lori fished out a plastic bag and waved it and its contents in Mr. Myers face. "Want a cookie?"
Mr. Myers just glared at the proffered treat with incredulity, humming tentatively.
"It's oatmeal raisiiiiiiiin," Lori sang enticingly.
For whatever reason, that did the trick to get the skeptic to snatch the bag away and zip it open; apparently, Mr. Myers had a soft spot for something that didn't involve gaudily dressing himself.
Leni looked on, confused but intrigued as to where Lori was going with this. She wasn't forthcoming with the details on what she had planned, but Leni still trusted that this was going to play out in their favor.
If the plan involved getting Mr. Myers to think that the cookie that he just took a small bite of was one of the best things he ever tasted, by the look of astonishment on his face, it had worked like a charm. After his itty-bitty nibble, the man looked at the cookie as if it was a precious gemstone.
"Goodness, this is…incredible!" Mr. Myers exclaimed. "Such a marvel! The tartness of the raisin compliments the dull sweetness of the cookie splendidly! And the cookie itself is neither hard enough to be uncomfortable against my teeth nor soft enough to render it a soggy, mushy mess!"
He got up from his chair and came up to Lori, jittering with euphoria.
"Young lady, where did you get this?! If you have more, you must sell these at our bake sale! It'd mean so much to me if you did!"
Lori chuckled, a wry grin taking shape. "Oh, believe me, I have more," she said, "but I can't be the one who sells them. After all, I didn't bake them."
Then, in a move that Leni didn't expect, Lori pulled her up to her side, pressing her close in a side hug as she pointed at her with her other hand. "She did."
While both Leni and Mr. Myers were stricken stupefied by the declaration, Lori pulled out her phone and held it up to the Fashion Club's sponsor's face, a move that made his eyes sparkle at the picture that the phone presented to him.
The interior of Vanzilla was never anything to write home about, but the cargo that she carried was a sight to behold—the photo revealed the multiple baskets, trays, and plastic containers that lined up the back seats, front passenger seat, and trunk of the van. In those containers was an assemblage of the baked delicacies that Leni had made for the bake sale, treats that she had purposefully left behind for the sake of her putrid cake.
"As you can see, I've got a van full of her baked goodies," Lori said. "And I'm sure Leni would be more than happy to sell all of them and be recognized for her hard work."
And just like that, Lori shuffled the phone back into her pocket, much to Mr. Myers disappointment.
"That is, if a certain Fashion Club sponsor would let my sweet little sister back in the bake sale," Lori said as she looked at her nails in disinterest, hoping her nonchalance would urge him to play into her hands.
Mr. Myers looked to Leni, doing so with awe that Leni wasn't used to seeing from him.
"Leni, is this true? Did you bake all of those sweets yourself?" he asked.
"Uh-huh," Leni replied, feeling shame as her destructive behavior returned to the forefront of her mind. "The only reason I brought that nasty cake over was because I was trying too hard to impress everyone and stick it to Lori. I almost ruined the sale for everyone, and I'm so sorry that I-"
"Oh, that's water under the bridge now," Mr. Myers interrupted eagerly. "There's no way I can turn away such an offer. Just let me inform the others first, and I'm sure they'll try and make a spot for you at one of their tables."
And with that, he left the sisters alone as he went to do just that. Leni couldn't bottle down the rejoicing that boiled in her belly, and she jumped up and ensnared Lori in the world's biggest sister hug. Mercifully, Lori was strong enough to hold her, despite the little pangs of soreness that her body was racked with from her scampering about earlier.
"It worked! It worked!" Leni cheered.
"I told you it would, didn't I?" Lori asked, letting her heartfelt smile persist as her sister swayed around and giggled.
"I still can't believe you managed to do this for me," Leni said after she calmed down a little. "It's, like, too good to be true."
Lori shook her head. "No, Leni, you made this happen. You just needed a second chance. And if there's anyone I know who deserves one the most, it's you."
At this point, Leni's voice was too choked up with emotion to express her gratitude, so she did what her body allowed her to do and shed tears of elation at how one of the darkest hours of her life turned into occasion for celebration.
And even though Lori insisted that she was responsible for this turn of events, she couldn't live with herself if she didn't give any credit to her big, protective sister.
Leni never thought that shopping for ingredients would be so much fun with a partner, but Lori had proven herself to be a worthwhile commodity. Maybe it was Lori's usual contributions to juicy conversation that endeared Leni to the dynamic or perhaps, it came from the thrill of "leading the charge", so to speak—she couldn't remember the last time where Lori followed her lead, trusting her guidance and relying on her instincts to see the both of them through.
Whichever way it was, Leni didn't care; she was with Lori and that's all that mattered.
The hour-long trip to and from the grocery store concluded with the girls setting their bags on the kitchen counter. As promised, Lori took it upon herself to help Leni with a new batch of cookies that she thought would taste wonderful.
She didn't know what to call them yet—or even have a grasp of all the ingredients that would make her visionary concoction work—but apparently, Lori didn't mind; she just wanted to see her "little genius of a sister" work her magic and be part of the fun that came with experimenting.
"So, what'd you think, Leni?" Lori asked, reaching into one of the bags and pulling out two plastic bags of nuts. "Macadamia or walnuts?"
"Macadamia," Leni said. "Mr. Grouse is allergic to walnuts, and I'm planning on giving some of the cookies to him later."
Lori beamed at the noble thought. "That's mighty thoughtful of you. Alrighty then, macadamia it is."
What followed was minutes of silence, the sisters prepping up their "workstation" as fast as they could. Their father would need the kitchen to himself in a few hours for dinner, and even with Leni's position as a "culinary contributor", she wasn't a peg above "the man of the house" or his responsibilities.
Whether she wanted it or not, the silence of their collusion allowed Leni to meditate on what had happened yesterday, in this very kitchen, no less. Her belligerence and arrogance nearly cost her the cherished relationship that she and Lori had forged over a decade-plus of the ups and downs of sisterhood and the triumphs and good memories of a treasured friendship…
And yet Lori forgave her and allowed her to have a chance to shine at the bake sale—no motivation other than to help her little sister and show that the water was indeed under the bridge.
But if there was anything that wasn't under the bridge, something to be tucked away to be forgotten, it was the joyous report that her Fashion Club friends had told her a few hours ago over the phone. She never thought to relay the good news to Lori, but now was as good of a time as ever to do just that.
"Hey, Lori?" Leni said, after walking away from the preheated oven to head towards the fridge.
"What's up?" Lori called, washing a big, white bowl in the sink.
She turned the water off and paid Leni her undivided attention to hear her next words as clearly as possible.
"Thanks again for helping me out at the bake sale," Leni said, opening the fridge and surveying its innards. "We shot over our goal of a thousand dollars."
Now…where was it? Butter…butter…bu-ah! There it was; hiding between the milk carton and the bag of carrots. Think you can hide from Leni's eyes, eh? Fat chance!
Lori waved off the bestowed credit as she watched Leni retrieve a stick of butter. "Eh, what're big sisters for? And really, it's not like I did that much. If it wasn't for your leftovers, I wouldn't have been able to do much of anything. And even if I don't know for sure, I'm certain it was your baking that raked in most of the cash."
Leni couldn't help but bashfully grin as Lori's words recalled her to the night before. Mr. Myers and her friends had said that much, though Leni was insistent on bringing up the fact that it was a team effort that saved the day.
Still, it wasn't a crime to relish in the glow of such praise for just a little bit, especially now that she was extra vigilant about keeping her ego in check.
"I mean, yeah," Leni said, placing the butter next to the stock of ingredients that she already had in mind to use, "but it was still really sweet of you to do what you did, even after I acted like such a jerk."
Her mood was quickly brought down at the mention of her fall from grace. She had worn an awful pair of meanie pants, a fashion decision that she swore she would do her best to never indulge in again, especially to the ones she loved.
"Hey, Leni?" Leni didn't bother to turn around until Lori's next words followed her question. "Speaking of sweet…"
*splat*
After she squeaked in surprise, Leni froze—her eyes shut but her other senses kicking into high gear.
She could feel the warm, oozing texture smeared across her cheek.
She could smell wafts of vanilla drifting into her nostrils, though the odor was faint.
Those clues didn't tell her enough, so Leni set out to do the only suitable course of action and open her eyes. Once she did, she could see a smirking Lori, brandishing a tube of white frosting in her outstretched hand.
"Oops," Lori said, her wily eyebrows arched in a teasing fashion. "My fingers must've slipped."
Leni gave her a puzzled frown. Since when did fingers slip? People slipped, sure, but fingers? And what was up with her voice? Instead of the firm yet tender tone she had come to both love and respect, it wavered with a timbre that Leni didn't often hear from her, unless she was…
Leni cracked a naughty grin of her own, her eyes squinted challengingly; now she understood. "You're gonna pay for that," she declared with gusto, her intentions broadcasted loud and clear as she looked back at the assortment of ingredients next to her.
"Oh? Am I?" Lori asked, drawing her "weapon" back to her side in anticipation for Leni's next move.
Said next move happened in the blink of an eye, and Lori was barely able to dodge the oncoming jet of blue frosting from Leni's own tube of ammunition.
"Yeah!" Leni cried and charged forward while squirting another round at her giggling sister, whose reflexes proved to be too slow this time around, and she paid the price with a blast of frosting splattering the front of her tank top.
The joust between the two sisters continued to be a delightful affair, though the kitchen was beginning to resemble a Pollock painting with the streams of blue and white decorating every corner that didn't hit a combatant. But between the dodging, and firing, Leni could only think about one other thing; the atmosphere was brimming with the laughter and cheeriness that she had wanted to inspire with her baking all along.
And the fact that she got to do it with Lori was the…well, frosting on the cake.
A/N: My portrayal of Leni, during her "mean" moments, might be what one calls…OOC. Of course, OOCness isn't exactly, well, new to TLH fanfics, but I might've walked a thin tightrope that very few people have done before and that's because most people wouldn't think that it was possible for Leni Loud to ever be arrogant or cocky. Still, I wasn't going to let her status as the fandom's "cinnamon roll" keep me from writing her as an infallible character who's incapable of having faults. That, of course, doesn't mean that every immoral fault is up for grabs (you have to consider the character and whether the gloves fits or not), but I don't think I was writing too far out of her range to be believable.
Still, that's ultimately for you, the reader, to decide for yourselves. Whether you agree with me or not, I'm interested in hearing what you have to say.