All Roads Lead to Roman Apple Cake—
apples folded into vanilla goodness and topped with a trip down memory lane that feels inevitable
In typical DeLuca form, my mother pointedly ignores me for the rest of the day, giving me a wide berth and directing all dinner conversation to Spence. It’s obvious she’s mad by the way the skin around her eyes tightens whenever she accidentally looks in my direction, which is fine by me because I’m upset, too. I finally listened to the message she left me last night, and while it did in fact warn me that Wilder would be joining us for breakfast in the morning, I don’t forgive her. She knew what was in that codicil and instead of telling me privately, she dropped it like a bag of flaming shit on my doorstep. And then there’s the bit where she somehow didn’t find it outrageous that my father freely gave away half of our family’s bakery, the bakery he designed and built with his own hands through countless years of hard work, to Wilder?!
My parents’ love for Wilder isn’t in dispute. I’m half surprised there isn’t a framed picture of him hanging on their wall. Even when he broke my heart the summer before senior year, they treated him with grace. But this is something else entirely.
I grumble under my breath as I poke the remnants of my pecan pie, willing the last moments of this meal to disappear so that I may hide in my bedroom like all repressed adults are wont to do. Part of me is itching to get my hands on the will, so I might scour it in private and try to understand the how and why of Dad’s decision. But there is no “private” when you have a nine-year-old and I’m not ready to discuss it with Spence until I can approach it calmly. I’ve barely been in control of my stress levels all day and going over it again will only get my blood pressure up. I already lost my temper once and I’m feeling a smidge guilty about that. No, I’ll sleep on it and ask my mother for the will in the morning when I’m hopefully less frazzled.
“Would you like more pie, Spencer?” my mother offers.
He leans back in his chair and pats his belly. “That’s a big fat yes,” he says with enthusiasm, his cheeks lifting at the prospect. “It’s sooo good, like next level. It might even be better than yours, Mom. You should totally get this recipe.”
My head flies up, my pride stung. But I manage a smile—you can’t teach your kid to be generous while being stingy yourself. “Maybe I will.”
My mother smiles, too, only hers has a certain knowing that reeks of gloat. “It’s from your grandfather’s bakery, dear. You should have your mom take you there tomorrow. It’s filled with all sorts of amazing treats.”
Her words hit me right in my gut. I stare at my mother and her formidable posture, knowing she’s booby-trapped me.
“Yeeesss,” Spence agrees, perking from his slouched pie-laden position. “Mom?”
I press my lips together, biting back my thoughts on the matter. “Yeah,” I say. “We’ll visit the bakery tomorrow.”
* * *
Because it’s Monday morning, there are parking spots aplenty in the square and I snag one a couple of doors down from the bakery. I zip my coat, pulling up my hood. Spence is already bouncing out of the car, all vim and vigor as I reluctantly slink onto the sidewalk.
I throw Spence’s scarf around his neck.
“Mom,” he objects, but his face is plastered with a huge grin as he sets off toward the bakery, the one place I’ve been adamantly trying to forget these past ten years.
I pull into the square, my thumbs tapping anxiously against the steering wheel. I slide my used-like-new Prius quietly into a parking spot right next to Dad’s bakery. I frown at the gentleness of the motion, as though it were an affront to the tumult I currently feel. It’s been one month since Wilder and I broke up, two weeks since I decided we could try to be friends, and three days since he started dating some girl named Alice—a rich prep from Boston with a khaki personality. The worst part is, he asked my permission. Told me that our friendship was more important. And worse still, I said he should go for it. Then I spent the rest of the night eviscerating the ice cream supply in our freezer (which is both horrific and a record of some kind) telling myself I didn’t care. I’ve avoided him for the past couple of days. But if I cancel our Sunday bake-off, he’ll track me down and try to have an even-tempered conversation about things I do not feel even-tempered about at all.
I kick open my car door like it personally offended me and step out into the humid salt-scented air. It’s always been one of the things I love about Haverberry, the way you can smell the ocean from anywhere in the town, a hint of brine from seaweed and glistening shells drying in the bright sun. But not today. Today I would burn the whole town down if I had a match.
I grumble my way into my dad’s bakery, the chimes on the door giving a shocked jingle. Mrs. Varma stands behind the counter, her black hair braided down her back, hints of gray framing her face, her warm brown skin creased deep with laugh lines, and an eye patch over her right eye, which she lost some years back.
She lifts her eyebrows as I enter, and smiles when I kiss her on the cheek.
I slip through the door leading to the bakery kitchen and find Wilder is already there, pulling ingredients from the shelves and lining up bowls. His hair is messy like a handsome scholar who fell asleep with his books and rushed to class thereafter. While his face is all well-cut angles, his brown eyes are soft and gentle. And as he turns them on me, my stomach fluttering and pulling toward him like he was my center, I hate the way I feel.
I yank my blue and white striped apron off the hook by the door.
“Battle of the chocolate tarts,” he announces, the corners of his mouth turning up. “I hope you brought your A-game, DeLuca, because I have a recipe that is going to make you want to propose—” He stops abruptly, realizing his mistake and looking slightly horrified. In a way, his remorse makes it worse, because it indicates that he has no idea how to be normal with me, either, that our default is set improperly to something much more intimate than we now share.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean . . .” He lets his voice trail off, clearly unsure how to finish that sentence without embarrassing us both further. He scratches his eyebrow even though I’m positive it doesn’t itch.
For my part, I stare at the ingredients like they’re fascinating as I remove them from my dad’s supply shelves, plunking them down at my usual spot on the counter. For years now, Dad has reserved a bit of his counter for us, personalized with ceramic jars filled with our favorite spoons and a rack of measuring cups and piping tools. He claims he did it because otherwise we’d run roughshod over his entire kitchen, but I know the truth is a bit more fuzzy and warm than that.
I set to measuring and pouring, all the while not looking at Wilder.
He sighs next to me and I can feel him stealing glances in my direction. “I hope you don’t mind, I mean—” Wilder pushes his hair back, like he’s just realizing whatever he’s about to say is a bad idea, but he’s in it now for better or worse. “I sorta told Alice she could stop by when we’re ready to judge these things.”
My skin prickles and my eyes whip to Wilder. “You invited her here?”
“Yeah,” he admits like he already regrets it. He puts down his spoon. “I just thought it would be better if we could all be friends. I did ask you straight out if you minded about me dating her. You told me you didn’t. I’m not trying to upset you, Mads,” he says in his mature voice that I used to find magnetic.
I lose some of my heat at the unarguable truth of it. “I know.”
“But you’re angry with me?”
I purse my lips, holding my reaction at bay. I don’t tell him that up until a few days ago. I thought this was all a passing trial, something we would go through and come out the other side stronger and more in love. But the truth is he’s moved on. Wilder is not in love with me the way I am with him. And now my anger turns inward, forcefully vowing not to care about him that way anymore, desperately trying to snap the invisible tethers that have bound us so tightly all these years. I feel a strange sense of recklessness, an unwanted freedom that’s a bit like a speeding car on an icy street. “You know what, Wilder? You’re right. Have Alice come.”
He stares at me, not quite sure if I’ve come to my senses or if I’m disarming him so that I can take a swing. “You sure?”
“Yeah, I am,” I say, and in that moment, I mean it. I pull out my phone and type a text to Jake.
Before we enter the bakery, we stop at the window to admire the cozy winter scene elaborately crafted from chocolate.
“No way! That is insanely cool,” Spence breathes.
“It really is,” I agree, once again wondering where my mother procured this display. It’s a perfect replica of Haverberry Town Square, I realize, right down to the ornate lampposts.
“Come on,” Spence says, pulling me away from the window and through the bakery door.
The bells give their telltale jingle and the warm pastry-scented air wafts toward me. The familiarity is so overwhelming that I gasp. The heavy wooden tables with their antique chairs and the arched wooden shelves displaying birch bark birdhouses and old lace gloves (a design choice made by my mother when they were first married) are the same as they always were. Despite the cute name and the small-town location, it looks more like an elegant teahouse plucked from a cobblestone alleyway in Italy, something hidden and intimate that only the locals know exists.
I register the elderly man behind the counter who is not Mrs. Varma, feeling further disoriented.
“Let me know if I can help you with anything,” the gentleman says, giving me an inquisitive glance no doubt because I’m staring at him like a spooked cat. His hair is mostly gone, save a thin line of white curls that loops over his ears. His smooth umber skin is clean-shaven, and he wears a pair of round spectacles that elevate his grandfatherly energy to expert level. But the fact that he doesn’t know me, that I’m a stranger in my own family bakery, causes such acute pain that I can’t think how to respond.
Spence, of course, skips up to the counter with his hand extended. “I’m Spencer DeLuca and that’s my mom,” he says happily, leaving out my actual name as he gestures in my direction. “My grandpa used to own this place. I came here once when I was five. He was making cookies in the kitchen, and he let me taste the batter.”
My breath catches at the memory, nostalgia sending a right hook to my already wounded heart.
The old man’s eyes brighten with recognition as he shifts his gaze to me. “So that would make you—”
“Madeline DeLuca—the one and only,” a voice announces as the door to the kitchen opens behind the counter. My shoulders tense and my hands twitch. I don’t need a visual to know who’s speaking. “Maddi, this is Albert. He’s been here since Mrs. Varma retired,” Wilder continues, walking up to the counter and smiling at Albert like they are the best of friends, only further exacerbating the feeling that I don’t belong.
Guilt snakes through me that I didn’t know Mrs. Varma had left.
“Pleased to meet you,” Albert says, standing a little straighter, his suspenders pulling tight against his belly.
I return his greeting. But my eyes flit to Wilder, who’s wearing an apron spotted with flour from baking in the kitchen. The indignity I felt yesterday spikes at the sight of him invading my dad’s bakery. It’s been twenty-four hours since my mother delivered the news of our inheritance and he’s already here laying claim?
“Spence, you okay if I pop in the back for a minute?” I say, my voice strained, giving Wilder a brief look that indicates I need to speak to him privately.
Spence absently nods, currently too taken with the display case to notice my stiff posture. Albert joins my son as he oohs and aahs over the deep-fried bomboloni donuts stuffed with Nutella and cream and the custard-filled zeppole topped with sour cherries, everything labeled with handwritten plaques showcasing cute names like Take My Heart Chocolate Tart that I made up when I was a just a girl. The sight of them sends me reeling, tightening my throat.
While Spence doesn’t verbalize a response, too busy spouting fast and furious questions about the pastries, Albert tells me he’ll keep an eye out. And so I walk around the counter, not meeting Wilder’s gaze, not wanting him to see how difficult it is for me to be here.
I push through the kitchen door, and Wilder follows me without hesitation. The moment it closes behind us, I turn to face him, crossing my arms like a shield. His dark wavy hair falls lazily onto his forehead, and when he makes eye contact with me, he smiles ever so slightly. There’s something in his eyes, like he’s trying to puzzle through a complicated equation.
“What’s that look for?” I say, balancing plates of chocolate tart in my hands.
Wilder holds the door open for me, and I step from the kitchen into the bakery behind the counter.
“Nothing,” he says, his eyes flicking to Jake and Alice chatting at a window table in the bakery. “I just didn’t realize you invited Jake.”
“Yup,” I say. “Is that a problem?” I want to add that Jake is sitting with Wilder’s new girlfriend and that any objection he has is one thousand percent moot, but I hold back for the sake of avoiding a scrimmage, which I think is rather big of me.
“No,” he says, but his voice says otherwise. Only I don’t feel satisfaction at his jealousy, the exact opposite.
“Look,” I say, “the last thing either of us needs is more tension. You asked me to be mature about this, and now I’m asking you the same.” He doesn’t get to pick and choose as he pleases.
“And as your friend,” he says, trying to sound casual, but I can clearly see this is bothering him. “I’m just saying that Jake is a player.”
I shake my head, losing patience with the conversation. “He’s actually the opposite. There’s no game there. He just likes girls, probably too many of them too enthusiastically, but he’s not slick about it. Also, I’m a big girl. I don’t need you to warn me.”
Wilder’s frown deepens. “So what then? You plan on dating him?” He sounds hurt about it and it sends me right over the edge.
“All I did was invite him to judge our tarts, just like you invited Alice.”
“Right,” Wilder says with the distinct tone that implies he doesn’t believe me.
“And what’s that supposed to mean?” I say, feeling my thin hold on my emotions growing weaker by the second. He doesn’t get to move on and then be hurt that I’m trying to do the same.
“Come on, Mads,” he says, letting his composure slip a little. “You and I both know you invited him because he’s my friend and you knew it would bother me.”
“Our friend, you cocky asshole.”
Wilder bristles. “Good to know we’ve already arrived at the point in the conversation where you just fling insults at me. I guess there must be more truth to what I said than I realized.”
I slam the plates I’m carrying down on the front counter, causing a few of the customers to turn in our direction, including Mrs. Varma, who fixes us in a glare that I imagine translates to “If you take this fight one step further and disturb my peaceful bakery, you better believe there’ll be hell to pay.” I mumble a guilty apology to Mrs. Varma, refusing to look at Wilder.
Instead, I take off my apron, throw it in the dirty rag bin, and push back my hair.
I move around the counter with determination. “You coming?” I say to Jake. And to his credit, he doesn’t hesitate. He gets up with a grin and tips his nonexistent hat at a scowling Wilder on the way out. And that is the last time Wilder and I ever attempt a bake-off.
“It’s really great to see you here,” Wilder says, and even though it sounds like it’s meant to be friendly, it gets my back up, remembering his remark yesterday about my lack of visits.
“What are you doing here, Wilder?” I ask calmly, eyeing his apron with the distinct feeling he’s intruding yet again.
“I thought I might get a jump start on working in our bakery,” he says like it’s a good thing.
His use of our makes my stomach flip unpleasantly. And the enthusiasm that had him coming here so quickly, before the paperwork is even settled, shines an unwelcome light on my own reluctance. But all I do is grunt, determined not to let him get the better of me today.
I watch as he pushes his tousled hair from his forehead and glances at the place on the counter where he was obviously just working, my dad’s recipe book splayed out next to bowls and ingredients. The red fabric cover is worn thin at the edges and is so stuffed with handwritten recipes, notes, and pictures that it bows triangular. To deepen the sting, sitting right next to it is a tray of freshly baked ladyfingers, and from where I’m standing, I can smell the coffee and rum in the mixing bowl. Wilder’s not just enthusiastically jumping into his duties at the bakery, he’s making tiramisu—my dad’s favorite dessert, his prized recipe passed down from his great-grandparents in Italy. My breath hitches and my eyes tingle before I can stop them.
Wilder looks from the counter to me, his expression apologetic like he gets that this must be difficult for me, making me feel even more foolish. And it’s all too much—this bakery, Wilder, my dad’s tiramisu, the memory of the young girl I used to be, the one who cared so deeply about this place that the wound inflicted in parting with it hasn’t healed after ten years.
The need to run is so strong that it takes everything I have not to bolt out of the kitchen. “So, this is what I’m thinking,” I say, doing my best to even my tone. “You said yesterday that you wanted this place, right?”
He pauses like I’ve caught him off guard. “I do.”
“Good,” I reply like a conclusion, emboldened by his agreement. “Then what I propose is . . . you buy me out.” As the words leave my mouth, I immediately feel guilty about them.
For a long moment he just stares at me, his smile gone, no hint of what he’s thinking in his eyes. Finally, he just says, “No.”
“No?” I repeat, a bright spark of frustration nipping at my calm, trying to justify my proposal to both him and myself. “Think about it. You want to be here. I want to be in California. It’s not a financial strain on you by any means. It’s the only thing that makes sense.”
“No, I’m sorry,” he says again, no explanation or rebuttal, just that one stupid word followed by an apology that makes me think he’s experiencing the one emotion I will not stand for—pity.
I press my lips tight, my eyebrows pushing together. I want to mention how much nerve he has to even accept this place, my family’s bakery, my dad’s beloved business. But instead, I say, “I’m gonna need more than that.”
“Maddi,” he says with weight, like I’m putting him in an untenable position. “Your father wanted us both to have it. You and me. Those were his dying wishes. And whether or not you want to respect that, I’m going to.”
Gut fucking punch.
“This isn’t about my father,” I say, barely above a whisper.
“You’re wrong, Maddi,” he says gently. “That’s exactly what this is about.” His voice is clear where mine is garbled.
“I’m not moving back here, Wilder. Not in a million years,” I say, intending my tone to be firm, but it comes out tinted with panic. I take a breath, collecting myself. “If you refuse to buy it, I guess you’ll just have to send my share of the profits to California.”
“Sorry, but I can’t do that,” he says, his eyebrows momentarily pinching like something I said was off.
Death by pastry knife is now looking like a decent solution. “You’d actually refuse—”
“Not me,” he says, and opens his mouth. But there’s a lag before his words follow like he doesn’t know how to deliver this next part. “I think . . .” he starts reluctantly, “that you might want to read the rest of your father’s will.”
My frustration instantly turns to sweat-laden anxiety. I almost ask him to explain but can’t seem to get past my own pride and admit that he’s right that I didn’t read it.
Eyes locked, we stand there for a long moment at an impasse, neither of us sure what to say. And the longer the silence stretches, the more embarrassed I become.
“Did you know it was my grandmother who taught me to bake, Madeline?” my father says, turning the pages of recipes encased in plastic sleeves.
I push a wooden stool to the counter and step onto it so I don’t have to stand on my toes to see the ladyfingers he’s soaking in rum and coffee.
“She used to watch me while Mom was out. And while I wasn’t a loud child, I was sensationally curious. Gram used to say she couldn’t leave me alone for ten minutes without me tangling all her yarn into a giant ball. So, in an act of self-preservation, she brought me into the kitchen one day. She said, ‘Charlie, today we’re going to create an entirely new flavor of scone for your grandfather’s bakery, one the world has never heard of. And I need you to help design it.’”
I stare up at my dad. “What did you make?”
He smiles. “Orange and chocolate—not a new invention by any means, but new for me, which I suppose was the point. And once she got me measuring and mixing, I got the baking bug.” He points to the recipe book, to one of the pages written in neat loopy cursive. “See here, this is the recipe we made up that day.”
I run my fingertips over the numbered instructions, thrilled by the idea of creating new recipes that might also be in this book one day.
I break eye contact with Wilder. “I have to go check on Spence,” I say.
He starts to say something, but I’m already pushing through the door into the front of the bakery, putting on my mom mask, and building a big fucking wall between me and everything that just happened in that kitchen.