TWO weeks later, Lizzie was startled awake, not by the screech of her alarm—that she’d already snoozed about eight times—but to the foreign trill of a phone call coming through. Who the fuck called people anymore? she thought as she wrestled out of her blankets to find her blaring phone. Psychopaths, that’s who.
And her older brother, apparently.
The words GOLDEN CHILD flashed across her screen above an ugly picture of Ryan. Lizzie really, really didn’t want to answer, but she also knew his ungodly level of persistence for their tense and obligatory once-a-month phone calls. With a sigh, she slid her thumb across the screen to answer.
“Lizzie’s Sperm Bank, you spank it, we bank it. How may I help you?” she said by way of greeting.
There was a long silence on the other end before Ryan let out the world’s heaviest breath. “Good morning to you too, Elizabeth.”
The corners of Lizzie’s mouth kicked up as she traced a pattern on her comforter. She and Ryan didn’t have a … stellar relationship, but she got a shot of joy through her system by tormenting him, and she harbored the secret familial fantasy that he enjoyed her teasing too.
“What’s up, Ry?” she asked. “How’s Mary?”
This was all part of their monthly phone call script. Lizzie and Ryan spent their three-to-five-minute call volleying questions back and forth about everything but each other. It was a good way to say words without actually talking.
Mary was Ryan’s wife—petite, gorgeous, put together, and sporting a ridiculously good personality.
“Mary’s good,” Ryan said then cleared his throat. A long pause followed. “She’s actually part of the reason I’m calling.”
Lizzie’s head jolted back and hit the wall behind her. Ryan wasn’t supposed to have a reason to call her. Their talks were supposed to be about checking off a little task box to assuage both of their guilts for not actually being great siblings to each other. These talks weren’t supposed to have substance, let alone an actual purpose.
“Uh-oh,” Lizzie said, sliding down the wall to land on her pillows. “Did she finally perish from your incessant discussions of golf?”
“Do you have to make everything a joke?”
“Yes. It’s called deflection and poor coping skills.”
Ryan sighed. “I’m calling because Mary wants to hire you to bake something. A cake.”
Lizzie perked up at that. “Really? That’d be awesome. What for?”
“Mary thought it would be a good chance for you to build your … portfolio or whatever. Do bakers even have portfolios?”
Bakers did, but Lizzie did not. She had some random pictures scattered through her phone that she’d always meant to organize and never got around to. “No, I mean, for what occasion.”
“Oh, uh…” Ryan hesitated, taking a few loud swallows Lizzie could hear through the phone. Gross. “Well, as you know, Mom and Dad’s anniversary is—”
“No,” Lizzie cut him off. “Absolutely not.”
Ryan let out an exasperated groan. “Don’t be so dramatic, Lizzie. Mary is planning their thirtieth-anniversary party for the end of summer. You’ll be there anyway, why not bake the cake?”
“Who says I’ll be there? I’d rather burn the hair off my head than go to that.”
“You have to.”
“Oh yeah? Says who?” Lizzie’s voice was rising.
“It’s just … I don’t know. It’s what you’re supposed to do. You’re supposed to go to stuff like that.”
“Yeah, well, I’ve never been great at doing what I’m supposed to do, have I?” Lizzie said, hopping out of bed and pacing her room like a captive cheetah. She hated being told what to do, especially when it came to family bullshit. She’d been so caged in by the dos and don’ts of unspoken family rules that the thought of being back behind those bars made her blood pound through her body like it wanted to burst through the veins.
“I know you have issues with Mom and Dad”—Lizzie snorted at this massive understatement—“so think of it as helping Mary out. She’s always loved your baking.”
Ryan had gone for Lizzie’s Achilles’ heel. Nothing motivated Lizzie more than being needed.
“Mary shouldn’t even want me doing this,” Lizzie said, her shoulders deflating, the fire snuffing out of her as quickly as it started. “We both know something will go wrong, and Mom will lose her shit and then that will look bad on Mary. She should save herself.”
Ryan was quiet for a moment. “I told her that.”
The truth shouldn’t have stung, but it did. Lizzie hadn’t ever done anything to earn Ryan’s faith in her—leaning fully into the wild child role she’d always been cast in—but the confirmation of Lizzie’s shortcomings still felt like a slap.
“She said she knows you won’t mess it up,” Ryan continued, unaware of the tiny little knife he’d twisted between her third and fourth ribs. “She begged me to convince you to do it. So here I am, asking for this favor.”
Hearing that split Lizzie in two. Part of her rejected Ryan’s words immediately, yelling at her that he was lying, that no one had faith in her like that. But the other part of her practically purred at the praise. The idea that Mary found Lizzie’s talent for baking useful was a type of validation she was starving for.
“Ry, I highly doubt Mom even wants me there,” Lizzie said weakly.
“Of course she wants you there.”
“Noooooo,” Lizzie said in a goofy voice, trying to mask her hurt with humor. “She wants you there. You and perfect Mary. She does not want me there. I’m sure she’s afraid I’ll burn the place down. Again.”
“Come on, Elizabeth. Literally no one could believe you would burn a place down twice. And you were ten when it happened anyway.”
Lizzie’s lips quirked at the memory.
While the only casualties from her attempted bonfire on the restaurant’s back patio had been a few table umbrellas and a wooden bench, neither of her parents looked back on the incident with anything close to humor.
Lizzie thought it was funny as hell.
“Please just do it,” Ryan said, his patience running thin.
Lizzie chewed on the inside of her cheek, her thoughts swirling around her head, down her neck, and across her chest, tickling her heart. Maybe she could do this. Maybe she could actually pull this off with no screwups and start to defy every low expectation her family held of her.
“Okay,” she finally said, her voice a tiny squeak. “I’ll do it. Have Mary text me about her ideas for it and stuff.”
Ryan blew out a breath. “Thanks, Elizabeth. Got to run. We’ll talk soon.”
And with that, he hung up.
Lizzie stared at the phone in her hand, her heart and stomach tumbling around her insides, each landing in the wrong place. Ingrained inadequacy pulsed beneath her skin, every instinct telling her that she was going to screw this up and sink even lower in her status as family clown.
She sucked in deep breaths, trying to knock down the rock that seemed to have lodged itself in her throat, repeating the words her therapist had taught her when she was twenty-two: Your brain was built different and that’s beautiful, never a burden.
Lizzie collapsed back onto her bed, exhaustion overwhelming her before her day had even really begun.
She’d been sleepy all week, but a sudden touch of queasiness made her squeeze her eyes shut.
She lay there for a few minutes, halfway asleep when some underused entity of executive function decided to do its job and suddenly jolt her internal alarm.
Her eyes snapped open as she grabbed her phone and looked at the time.
S.H.I.T.
Lizzie was running late. Like, really fucking late.
She tumbled off the side of her bed, speed-crawling across her floor as she searched for her work shirt and a clean pair of underwear. Ripping on the former and not able to find the latter, she slipped out of her pajama bottoms and hoisted her thighs into the closest pair of jeans.
Lizzie sprinted out of her room, her sock-clad feet nearly slipping out from beneath her as she dived for her shoes and hopped into them, grabbing her purse and continuing her breakneck speed out of the apartment.
Stupid stupid stupid, she cursed as she sprinted down the block.
George, her boss, was about to ream her a new clock-shaped asshole for being late again. And, to top it off, she still needed to put finishing touches on a blueberry-kale cake monstrosity that was being picked up in twenty minutes. If George’s recipe wasn’t gross enough, the customer wanted #BLESSED written on top. The thought of having to subject her beautiful buttercream to such depravity made Lizzie’s hands recoil.
Lizzie skidded to a stop in front of her work, Baking Me Crazy, and yanked open the door, her ridiculously sweaty body instantly chilled by the over-cranked air conditioner and the heinously contrived minimalistic vibe of the bakery.
She dashed to the back, pushing through the swinging door and into the kitchen toward the lockers. She wondered if she herself was #blessed and could have her ridiculous lateness go unnoticed when George stepped in front of her path and she almost slammed into his plaid-decked body. While they didn’t exactly belly-slap, she did cause him to lose his balance, and he dropped his mason jar of cold brew, droplets smattering both of their legs.
Lizzie and George stared down at the mess before their gazes slowly lifted and merged, George looking furious, Lizzie looking guilty.
“Do you have any idea what time it is?” George asked, ripping an AirPod from his ear.
“I know I’m late and I’m sorry. I’m so so so so so sorry. Very sorry. I swear it won’t happen again. Deadass.”
“You literally said that exact same thing last week,” George grumbled, scratching at his patchy chin-strap beard. Lizzie stared at the bald spots that ebbed and flowed around the random tufts of hair. She was constantly distracted by the damn thing, wondering why he didn’t just shave it off since he scratched at it so much.
George waved a hand in front of her face, breaking her train of thoughts. “Are you even listening to me?”
Her eyes snapped up to his as she realized he’d kept talking.
No. “Yes.”
“Really?” George said, raising an eyebrow. “What did I say?”
The question caught Lizzie off guard, and she sucked in a giant breath, trying to think on her feet. (Un)fortunately, she also sucked down a bunch of spittle, causing her to double over as she coughed and choked on air.
“Sorry, George,”—cough—“I don’t”—hack, cough, grunt—“hold on—”
By the time she regained her breath and stood up, eyes watering, George looked more weary and resigned than furious, and Lizzie jumped on that. “Sorry, don’t know where that came from. What were you saying?”
George pinched the bridge of his nose, sighing. He looked at her. “You’re an excellent baker, Lizzie. Truly. And I’d be willing to let you incorporate your own recipes here more and take on bigger projects if you could only figure out how to get your head out of your ass and your feet in the door on time.”
Lizzie swallowed against the pinpricks of shame that needled at her throat. “I’m sorry,” she said in a small voice, meaning it.
She hated the all-too-familiar look of exasperation that George was giving her. It was so damn frustrating that her mind was a constant tangled scribble that she could never seem to unravel.
“Am I fired?”
George stared at her for a hard moment before his features softened and he scratched again at his patchy beard. “This is your last warning. I mean it. Late again like this and you’re done. I’ll be watching you closely. Every shift, every break, you better get here on time.”
“Oh fuck, thank you, George. I won’t let you down,” she said, bouncing on her toes as though the relief of still having a job could lift her from the ground.
George dismissed her with a weak flap of his wrist. “Don’t leave this either,” he said, waving at the shards of glass and spilled cold brew. “Grab a mop or something,” he said, walking into his office.
Lizzie wiped up the mess quickly, then got to work on the day’s orders, losing herself in the calming rhythm of measurements and precision. While other tasks seemed to cost Lizzie’s brain twice the fuel to go half the distance, baking was the one thing she could do on autopilot. It was like every delicate swoop of frosting, each powerful knead of dough, every carefully crafted confection, allowed her nervous system to sigh in relief. The constant flood and buzz of energy zipping randomly from neuron to neuron could finally be allowed to still, to focus. It made her feel whole.
She worked on a large order for a gallery, making simple and sturdy sugar cookies, but decorating each with an intricately piped frame, and hand-painting landscapes on the smooth, frosted surface.
While she lost herself in her art—gently piping and painting, absorbing the scent of sweetness and work—she decided she could do this. Be more responsible.
Turn a new leaf.
The problem was, Lizzie had turned so many new leaves, she could be a decaying forest floor for how many of them had failed.
But this time would be different. She would wrestle her brain into submission. She would force it to accurately keep track of time and to-do lists. She’d remember to take her meds and stay on top of chores. She’d yank on its leash every time it started to wander.
She didn’t exactly have a plan for how she was magically going to do this when it was, you know, something that she and her therapist had been trying to develop coping skills for almost a decade. But she’d figure it out.
And she wouldn’t fuck this up.