being silly. Scott is crucial to my life. With Nic engaged and living with Jason, and Mel almost engaged and living with Fred, Scott’s the only single friend I still have left to play with. He’s the one who can go out on a Saturday night at a moment’s notice. He’s the one I can call after 10:00 P.M. without a lecture from the other side of the king-size bed.
And lately, he’s the one I want to call when I have news. Any kind of news: good, bad, big, small. Anything from booking a hundred-thousand-dollar donation to my finally finding that vanilla-bean porter from that local brewery in bottles.
He’s the one I called right after my grandmother died. (It was 2:45 in the morning. I didn’t want to bother the girls.) He’s the one who dragged his ass out of bed to pick me up in the middle of the night, drove me up to San Francisco, then stayed with me while I dealt with my crazy family during her Indian funeral. He’s the one who listened to me as I talked through tears about this gold bell that she had on her mantle, and why it meant the world to me. At one point, I was crying so hard, Scott pulled the car over, took me in his arms, and let me sob until I started heaving.
I think back to that moment when I was just a big pit of needs, and he was there for me unconditionally, unquestioningly, and unwaveringly.
I take a deep breath.
Right.
When I’m being lusty, I forget about what’s really important. You don’t find guys like him every day. Why would I want to jeopardize that unconditional love and support just for a one-night stand, no matter how fun and tempting it might be at the time?
I delete Scott’s text. “I’m being silly,” I say aloud to the girls. “Scott is a good friend. I love him. If something was supposed to happen, it would have by now.”
“You’re not being silly,” Nic assures me with a look of determination. “What you need is a chili pepper.”
I furrow my brow at her. “Please tell me that’s not something else I’m supposed to mix with champagne.”
“No. It’s the charm you’re going to pull,” Nic tells me in a firm voice. “I’m telling you, this is going to change your life.”
Chapter Two
Nicole
I can tell Seema is suppressing an urge to roll her eyes at me.
“Don’t give me that look,” I tell her. “The first time I was ever at a cake pull, I pulled the silver heart, which meant I’d be the next woman to fall in love. I met Jason that night.”
Mel looks up from her melon tray. “What’s a cake pull? What are we talking about?”
“Glad you asked,” I say, beaming, as I walk to Seema’s refrigerator. As I open the door, I hear a loud pop of a champagne cork. I turn to see Seema opening a bottle of Taltarni Brut Taché, my favorite sparkling wine.
“Ah,” Mel says happily. “I love that sound.”
Seema pours some champagne into flutes for us. “Good. You’ll need booze to hear this.”
“Stop that,” I say sternly, as I pull a large circular cake with white frosting out of the refrigerator and place it in the middle of Seema’s kitchen table. Radiating from the cake are twenty-four white satin ribboned loops, evenly spaced around the circumference.
“Okay now, you see these ribbons?” I ask Mel.
“Yes,” Mel says, taking a sip of champagne as she fingers one of the ribbons.
“Each ribbon is attached to a sterling silver charm, which gets pulled out before we eat the cake.” I continue. “I stuck twenty-four charms in here, one for each woman at the party. Some of the most common charms include the engagement ring, the heart, the baby carriage, the money bag, the hot air balloon, and the wishing well. The charms are like fortune cookies. What ever charm you pull, that’s the next stage in your life coming up.”
“How on earth did you get these in here?” Mel asks me.
“It’s easy, but messy. First, I bought the charms at therescake inmyfuture-dot-com. Next, since I can’t bake to save my life, I went down to Big Sugar Bakeshop on Ventura and had them bake a two-layer chocolate fudge cake with buttercream frosting. Then I stuck the silver charms in between the layers of the cake, careful to leave the ribbons hanging out in full view but the charms hidden.”
“How long did it take you to do that?” Seema asks me with a hint of disapproval.
“And make it look pretty? About three hours,” I am forced to admit.
The girls widen their eyes at me. I shrug. “What can I say? Since losing my job, I’ve discovered the joys of making a mess in the kitchen, needlepoint, and doing vodka shots at noon.”
As Seema snags a finger full of frosting, I watch Mel inspect the ribbons closely. Mel’s interest is clearly piqued. “So if someone picks the engagement ring, does that mean they’re the next to get engaged?”
“Right,” I tell Mel as I point to her. “That’s the one you’re going to get. And I’m making sure the baby carriage goes to Heather . . .”
“Is she the one at your old job doing the IVF?” Seema asks.
“Yeah. Poor thing has gone through three cycles already. Oh, and speaking of people from my old job, my friend Carolyn was fired during the latest round of layoffs, so she gets the typewriter.”
“Wait. How do you know which charm everyone’s going to get?” Seema asks.
I look at her like that’s the stupidest question I’ve ever heard. “I rigged the cake.”
Mel eyes me suspiciously. “How do you rig a cake?”
I proudly point to a red toothpick at the bottom of the cake, ever so slightly hidden by gobs of vanilla buttercream. “See that toothpick there? When we put out the cake, I’ll make sure the toothpick faces me at the table. Since everyone has a place card, I know exactly where each woman will be sitting. With that chart in mind, I slipped the perfect charm for each girl’s future into the part of the cake closest to her.”
I grab my purse from the dining room table and pull out a folded paper map. I unfold the map to show Seema and Mel a giant circle with twenty-four spokes radiating out of it. On the outside of each spoke is a guest’s name and inside the spoke is the charm they will get. I point to where Mel will sit. “For example, Mel, here you are . . . ,” then I point to a ribbon on the cake, “and here is your corresponding charm: the ring. Seema, you’re here. And here’s your charm: the red hot chili pepper. Which means you’ll be the next one to have a red hot romance.”
Mel promptly pulls her assigned ribbon from the cake.
“What are you doing?” I exclaim.
She looks at the silver solitaire ring attached to the ribbon. “Just making sure your map works.”
I grab the charm from her. “It works!” I insist as I carefully slide the ring back between the cake layers. “I spent a long time on this. Don’t mess it up.”
Seema laughs to herself. “So that’s what you think I need most in my life? Hot sex?”
“Don’t all people need hot sex in their lives?” I counter.
“Fair enough. But why can’t I pick which charm I want?” Seema asks. She takes the list from me and reads, “Like the wishing well, why can’t I have that?”
“What would you wish for? Scott?” I ask knowingly.
I can tell from the way Seema shrugs her shoulders that I’m right about that one.
“Okay,” Seema concedes. “But what about the hot air balloon? I’ve always wanted to go to Napa and take a ride in a hot air balloon.”
“No,” I say, shaking my head determinedly. “The