62 - Pat-a-Cake, Pat-a-Cake

“Motherfucker!”  David tossed the baking pan onto the counter and fiercely shook his hand in the air, willing away the third-degree burn that had just been inflicted on him by Betty Crocker’s minions – also known as a fun-fucking-fetti cake.  A very burnt one.  “Those directions are jacked up!”

The damn thing had very clearly read three hundred twenty-five degrees for fifty minutes, and he dug it out of the trash to get the number to the Pillsbury support line.  They were going to get a piece of his mind because that was exactly what he’d done and he used a few of his favorite Yiddish words to convey his exact feelings on the matter while scraping egg shells off of the box. 

“There!”  He stabbed at the baking directions with his index finger.  “Right there it says three hundred twenty-five degrees for fifty…  Well, hell.  Three hundred fifty degrees for twenty-five minutes.  Goddammit!”

Okay, so maybe that would’ve been a little clearer before his third Fireball mimosa.  Drinking and baking clearly didn’t mix, but how the hell was he to know that?  There were no public service ads for that shit.  “Don’t Drink and Drive” was everywhere, but when was the last time anybody saw a “Don’t Drink and Bake”? 

“Motherfucking never,” he muttered with disgust, letting the box slip from his fingers back into the trash can.  His foresight in buying three cake mixes was genius, at least.

He was just reaching into the pantry for victim number two when a phone call rang in the front pocket of his jeans.  Cramming a hand in there, he extracted it to find…  Jon’s number on the screen.

That was odd.  After the awkward in-flight chat yesterday, he didn’t expect to hear from that guy for at least a week.

“Yo bro.  Wassup?”  He nudged the pantry door closed with his bare toe and strolled to the island, climbing onto a stool and trading the cake mix for the mimosa glass that sat patiently waiting on the marble surface. 

“I need a favor.  Are you busy?”

That was short and to the point.

“Yes and no.  I’m baking, but I can take a break,” he offered and tipped back the champagne glass.

“Good, I-  What?  You’re baking?”

Damn those Fireball mimosas are the bomb.  Fire bomb.  F-bomb.  HA!  I kill me.

“Yeah, baking.  My youngest child has my sick sense of humor and it amuses her to have dear old Dad bake the cake for her birthday party tomorrow.”

“Oh, Jesus.  Is Lexi helping you?”

“No.  She’s at some holistic detox retreat or something.”  Hell, he was happy he’d remembered that much.  He’d gone two days not knowing where she was, just knowing that she was somewhere.  It was all perfectly logical yin-yang balance in his mind, whether it made sense to anyone else or not.

“So would you be interested in having someone else help you?”

The question was laid out like a rabbit snare for an unsuspecting little Thumper in the woods, yet the carrot within was so enticing that David simply couldn’t resist taking a nibble.

“You bake?”

A loud snort came over the line at the absurdity.  “Fuck, no.  But I bet Cassidy does.”

“Um.  Not that I dispute her culinary achievements, but that’s a long drive to whip up a ninety-nine cent cake mix.”

“Yeah, well, that’s the favor, man.  She needs a place to stay this weekend and I obviously can’t let her stay here.  Can she crash at your house until we hear back from the Tennessee Bar?”

The hamster wheel of David’s brain was woefully unmanned, seeing as the hamster was swimming in cinnamon whiskey, but he gave it a twirl with his finger and tried to make at least a couple of his brain cells click. 

“You want Cassidy to stay here.  With me.  For the weekend.”

“Yeahhh...  That’s what I said.  If it’s a problem, I’ll call Obie instead.”

It wasn’t a problem, per se, other than it made zero sense to him.  He just simply couldn’t see why Cassidy might want to come to New Jersey – for a weekend that was half-over already.

“Nah, she can stay, but why?”

The combination groan/sigh foretold of a story and David’s ears perked up with interest. 

“It’s a clusterfuck, man, and I can’t give you all the details.  Hell, I don’t have the details yet.  All I can say is this shit with her grandmother’s will necessitates that she lay way-the-fuck low so that nobody knows where she is.”

“You realize you’ve made it sound like she’s hiding from the Mob.”

Which would be pretty interesting from David’s standpoint.  Not that he wanted Al Capone knocking on his front door, but it would make a cool-as-fuck story to tell when it was all over.

“No, you dumb fucker.  She’s just staying out of her family’s way until the legal shit is resolved.”

That wasn’t nearly as entertaining, but whatever.  He liked Cassidy and would appreciate some Funfetti assistance.  Maybe he would even let her play his baby grand.  It could be like a small co-ed slumber party. 

“Yeah, whatever.  Where and when is she arriving?”

“Not sure what time, but there’s a charter at the Nashville airfield and I’ll have a car waiting at Newark to bring her to your place.  I’ll text an ETA when I have it.”

This was all very strange, but it was a way to liven up a solitary Saturday night without having to go to the liquor store - again.  Who was he to complain?

###

Cassidy stared pensively out the window as the hired car exited the Garden State Parkway.  It was exceedingly awkward to turn up on the doorstep of someone you didn’t know all that well, and she was feeling a bit anxious about it.  David’s unpredictable behavior intensified that anxiety, particularly since Jon had told her David’s wife was out of town. 

Not that she thought David would be physically inappropriate.  It was just… It just made her uneasy.  Of course, that uneasiness could have a fair amount to do with Gerald Ray’s visit and his revelation about Uncle Stanley.  Before she knew of his gun purchase, this whole interrupted life thing was merely an inconvenience to get through.  Now it was something a little more sinister that was hard to laugh off.

Lord, I do thank You for puttin’ me on Gerald Ray’s path or vice-versa.  I guess it’s better to be armed with knowledge than to be ignorantly gunned down.  It leads me to believe that You share my philosophy about good things happenin’ to good people.  I find it very reassurin’ that we are on the same page, if You don’t mind me sayin’. 

I have no idea what to be prayin’ about right now.  Do I ask for Uncle Stanley to stay away?  Mr. Beasley to be found?  A definitive answer for the whole situation?  A hand in my more personal situation with Jon?  Lord, there’s too much goin’ on for me to be picky.  I’ll gratefully accept any input or intervention You’re willin’ to provide and if You could pass a blessin’ on to those that are givin’ me help and shelter just because they’re good people, I’d be mighty thankful about that, too.  In Jesus’s name, Amen.

“Here we are, ma’am,” the driver quietly announced before getting out to open her door and circle to the back of the car for her single suitcase. 

Cassidy had only brought enough for a few days, packing up the rest of her things and taking them over to Tully’s bar, where he agreed to let her store them in the back room for a few days.  Maybe that didn’t make the most sense, but it prevented her from having to show ID for a storage unit since she hadn’t wanted to leave everything in the cabin.  Gerald Ray knew approximately where it was, so it only stood to reason that Uncle Stanley did, too.  Who knew what could happen to her belongings?  She wasn’t taking any chances with her Wizard of Oz quilt.

Hiking her purse onto her shoulder along with her overnight/carryon bag, she looked to the top of the wide, exterior staircase to find David standing there.  Wearing jeans and a white t-shirt with some kind of intricate scrolls and skulls on it, he held a whiskey glass in his hand.  Six o’clock must be cocktail hour at the Bryan household.

“You’re not in Kansas anymore, baby,” he drawled.  “Welcome to Jersey.”

What could she do but shake her head and laugh?

“I’ll take that,” she told the driver when he started up the stairs with her suitcase.  After asking if she was sure, he passed it over and refused her paltry tip with a smile.

“It’s already been taken care of, ma’am.  But thank you.”

It was one more thing in the mental ledger of what she owed Jon when this was all over but, as her eyes roved over David’s “house” that was more like a mansion, Cassidy realized it wasn’t a drop in the bucket to these men.  Yes, she’d known they were famous musicians and that they had money.  Seeing the evidence of that in person, however, had more of an impact than some vague knowledge.

They’re still the same men.  Don’t let a house intimidate you.

Hefting her suitcase, she climbed the dozen or so concrete stairs to where her host stood. 

“Hello, David.”

“Hello yourself, Dixie Chick.”  With one swift motion, he relieved her of the luggage and gestured for her to follow him inside.  “Welcome to my humble abode.  You bake?”

“Uh.”  There was that unpredictability.  “I’ve been known to do a little.  Why?”

The big red suitcase was deposited in the foyer as Cassidy closed the door behind them, with David saying, “We’ll leave that there until I show you to your room.  Unless you want to take a nap or freshen up or whatever the hell women do?”

“No,” she chuckled, her eyes taking in the lavishness of the mansion’s interior.  “I’m fine.  So what’s this about baking?”

The ice cubes rattled in his glass when he drained it, and David gestured with his head for her to, once again, follow him.  “My youngest daughter turns fifteen on Tuesday and she’s requested that Dad bake her cake.  There was a miscommunication between myself and the box the first time around and the second time.  Well, I ate part of it and it tasted like shit.”

“What kind of cake are you tryin’ to make?”

The kitchen was full of dark wood, marble and black appliances with an island the size of a double bed that had a well-used bottle of Fireball on its surface.  Dirty dishes were stacked in the sink from his baking efforts, and there was a cake on the countertop with a David-size bite missing from the center.  From the look of the colorful dots inside, it was…

“Funfetti,” he intoned with disgust.

Leaning a hip against the cabinet, Cassidy reached to pinch another piece from that crater in the center of the cake and popped it in her mouth.  Her nose immediately wrinkled in mild disgust.

“You didn’t do anything wrong.  That’s just what those things taste like.  My daughter liked ‘em at that age, too.”

His eyebrows pitched into curious arches.  “Daughter?  You have kids?”

“Mhm.  Just one.  How many do you have?”  She nodded toward the bottle of Fireball.  “And why don’t you pour me a drink to sip while we’re talkin’ about it?”

A drink was the perfect accompaniment to David’s quirky personality and quirkier conversation.  When tinted with alcohol, she had no doubt that he would seem much more mainstream.

He poured her drink, they talked about kids, they baked a cake and she did the dishes while he drank enough to pickle the average liver.  It amazed her that he didn’t seem any drunker after finishing off the cinnamon whiskey and half a dozen tequila shots while Cassidy still sipped on her now-watery second drink.  David wasn’t any less lucid than when she arrived and she determined that he either had an incredible tolerance for alcohol or he’d been drunk as long as she’d known him.

To his credit, though, he’d shown a lot less surprise than Jon had when finding out that Calliope was in medical school.  David had merely said what a bitch med school was and that he was glad he’d gone the more flexible music route.

“You know,” he mused, when they were both sitting on stools with the completed cake on the island’s surface between them.   “I may owe Jon an apology.”

“Why’s that?”

“I gave him hell over falling for you, like he had a choice in the matter.  Even never having seen you naked, I can see now that he didn’t have a choice – or a chance in hell.”

The clouded look in his eyes had Cassidy squirming in her seat, uncrossing her ankles and crossing them the other way.  She truly hoped that he wasn’t drunker than she thought and about to make some kind of pass at her.  That would make things… uncomfortable.

“He just needed a friend.”

His quiet snort was unconvinced.  “He needed a helluva lot more than that, but I’m glad he found it.”

The moment of silence that followed had nearly reached the point of awkwardness when he slid from his stool and kicked it back with one foot.  Hooking a finger around the neck of the tequila bottle, clear blue eyes reflected nothing but friendliness when he invited, “C’mon.  You can tell me what you’re hiding from while I’ll show you what a real piano looks like.  It’ll pass the time until he gets here.”

Cassidy was a little surprised at the remark, but slid to her feet to follow him.  She hadn’t expected to see Jon tonight.  In their two brief conversations today, he’d never even hinted at it. 

“Did he tell you he was comin’ over?”

Blonde curls swung as David glanced over his shoulder and cocked a knowing eyebrow.  “He didn’t have to tell me.”