CHAPTER TWO
I now knew what it felt like to be a cupcake. With Juliet satisfied that her mother’s pink hat covered up the hair disaster, I felt free to sneak over to Swissmen Sweets to check on the cake one last time before the ceremony. I was cutting it close, but I had to see for myself that the cake was ready. Thankfully, the candy shop was just across the square from the church. I ran out of the church door, and my lavender and white, polka-dotted bridesmaid dress puffed out around me as I skipped down the church steps.
A little boy playing on the square pointed at me. “Look, Mommy, she’s dressed like a cupcake.”
I put my head down and ran around the gazebo. Thankfully, I had thought to wear my sneakers to dash to the candy shop. No, they didn’t go with the tea-length dress, but at least I could make a quick yet poufy getaway from my cupcake humiliation.
I stopped at Main Street for an Amish buggy before continuing across the street to my shop. There were four children in the back of the buggy, and they all stuck out their blond heads to take a look at me. I gave a finger wave. They smiled and waved back. As the buggy continued on, I could hear them talking excitedly in Pennsylvania Dutch to their parents. I didn’t know the Amish word for cupcake, but I was pretty certain I heard kuche, which meant cake. That was close enough.
When the buggy passed, I made a dash for the shop. Right before I went in, I made the mistake of looking to my right. Esther Esh stood outside the Esh Family Pretzel Shop scowling at me, but then again, that’s all she ever did when I was around.
I didn’t have time to worry about Esther, though. I had exactly ten minutes to check the cake and then run back to the church to walk down the aisle ahead of Juliet. Cass had promised to be waiting by the church door with my heels.
The moment I stepped into Swissmen Sweets, I felt comforted. The sweet smell of vanilla, caramel, and, of course, chocolate permeated the front room of the candy shop. An Amish shop in every way, it was clean but with no frills. There were several blond wood tables around the room with ladder-back chairs where customers could sit and enjoy all the delectable treats on the wooden shelves behind them.
There was every kind of candy available, from licorice to lemon drops and everything in between. However, the crown jewel, if there could ever be such a thing in a plain Amish business, was the glass, half-domed counter, which was filled to bursting with fudge and chocolate-covered delights of every flavor. There were even chocolate-covered marshmallows in that case, which was surprising when I considered how much marshmallow it had taken to ice Juliet’s cake.
“What are you wearing?” Charlotte Weaver, my twenty-two-year-old cousin and shop assistant, was standing behind the half-domed counter with her mouth hanging open. Charlotte had fair skin and red hair, and for the last few months she had been straddling the fence, trying to decide whether she wanted to be baptized into the Amish faith. She was currently a practicing Amish, but not a baptized one. She had started her rumspringa years ago, and I knew the Amish district and my grandmother, also her cousin, were becoming anxious to see her make a decision.
I looked down at the gauzy dress. “It’s my bridesmaid dress. I don’t want to talk about it.”
“I thought Englisch clothes were strange, but . . .” she trailed off.
“Yes, I know, I look like a cupcake.”
Charlotte cocked her head. “I was going to say a purple lily pad, but cupcake works.”
I didn’t know which was more insulting, being called a cupcake or a lily pad.
“I can’t stay long to chat. I just ran over to check on the cake before the ceremony.”
Charlotte smiled. “The cake is fine. Cousin Clara and Emily are in the back, putting the last touches on it.”
I gave a sigh of relief. I didn’t know what I’d do if the cake flopped. Juliet was counting on my ability to make a “wondrous cake,” and had told everyone who was coming to the wedding that I was baking it. If it didn’t go well, it would certainly be my last venture into wedding cakes and could affect the reputation of my other sweets, too. If the cake went well, weddings could become a lucrative side business for the shop, with the proximity of the village church. I would always be a candy maker and chocolatier first—like my BFF Cass, I’d gotten my start at JP Chocolates in New York—but I would be willing to continue making cakes for the right price.
“Oh,” Charlotte said. “That new fire extinguisher you ordered for the kitchen was delivered.” She pointed to the large, narrow box behind the counter.
“That’s good news,” I said. “I’ll hang it up after the wedding.”
She nodded, and I stepped into the industrial kitchen. While the front of the shop was rustic, with pine floors and furniture, the kitchen at Swissmen Sweets was all business. It had a white-tile floor, stainless-steel countertops, and industrial-size mixers, refrigerators, and convection ovens. In the middle of the room was a giant, stainless-steel island where we did the majority of our prep work. On top of the island was the cake. It was a four-tier, pink and white, polka-dotted triumph. Charlotte and I had been up half the night icing it because I knew that I wouldn’t have any time on the day of the wedding. Even so, this was the first time I had seen it all together. We had put the marshmallow icing on each tier separately before storing it in the refrigerator for the night because it would never fit in the fridge assembled. But now, with all three layers stacked up, the giant cake stood three and half feet tall. No one at the wedding was going to go without a slice of cake. Pink fondant polka dots decorated it, and a pink fondant ribbon wove around it to the very top, where it was tied into a perfect bow.
It was quirky and elegant, the perfect wedding cake for Aiden’s mother.
The cake was surrounded by large blocks of ice set in plastic tubs. It looked as if it was surrounded by an ice fort.
“It’s like an old-fashioned icebox,” I said.
“It’s not that old-fashioned to us. There are Amish who still keep their food cool in root cellars,” Maami said.
I blinked at her. “Really? I can understand that they wouldn’t have electricity to run appliances, but I would have thought that at least the fridge would be run off a propane generator.”
My grandmother smiled. “That is the case for most, but it’s up to the local bishop to decide what technology a family is allowed to use.”
How well I knew that. Everything in Amish life seemed to come from the bishop’s mandate—from how a woman dressed and where she could work to what technology she could use.
“The cake looks great,” I said, unable to keep a note of relief from my voice. “Are you sure you will be able to get it over to the tent after the services? It’s huge!”
“Do not worry, Bailey,” Maami said. “We have it well in hand. Several men from the district will be carrying the cake over right after the wedding.”
I sighed. “It looks like you have everything under control. I should have expected this.” I tried to smooth the ruffles in the many layers of my dress.
“I’ve never seen a dress like that,” said Emily, our other shop assistant. Emily was close to Charlotte’s age, but she was fully committed to Amish life. She had been baptized into the church years ago and had married a local Christmas tree farmer a few months earlier. She also happened to be Esther Esh’s younger sister. This was one of the many reasons that Esther didn’t care for me. She thought I had stolen Emily from her when I offered her a job at Swissmen Sweets.
But the truth was, I never offered Emily a job. She asked me for one and told me how much she wanted to get out from under the authority of her sister and her brother, Abel. Also, the older Esh siblings hadn’t wanted Emily to marry. In order to have her own life, she had no choice but to leave her brother and sister behind.
“You look like an upside down summer poppy. We have some in our garden at the Christmas tree farm,” Emily said with her customary smile.
I smiled. “So far, I have been compared to a cupcake and a lily pad and now a poppy. Of those three, I will take the poppy. It’s the most appealing.”
Emily smiled sweetly back.
“Don’t you worry for a moment about the cake, Bailey,” Maami said. “We have everything under control. By the time you reach the reception tent, it will be in place, with time to spare.” She glanced at the battery-powered clock on the wall and cocked her head. “Now, shouldn’t you be at the church?”
I glanced over and squeaked. “Got to run. You all need to get to the church, too.”
“We are on our way,” Maami said. “We were just about to lock up when you popped in. Now, go!”
I waved at them and thanked them for taking such great care of the cake. Now I could enjoy the wedding without fear. As the maid of honor and the cake creator, I had taken every precaution I could think of to give Juliet the best possible day. There was no way anything could go wrong now. One mishap at a wedding was to be expected, but that was over and done with when Dylan burned Juliet’s hair. All would be well now, or so I thought.