Beyond Love - Chapter 43: Chapter 43

I didn't notice that I'd fallen asleep on my husband's shoulder until I felt something like a kiss on my forehead and forced my eyes open to see Xander paying the driver and Giselle opening the door on my side. I remembered the pastries and flowers that we brought along and panicked because I thought I'd somehow squished them in my sleep. T-thankfully I hadn't.
Handing a couple of boxes over to Giselle before wriggling out of the cab (my legs had fallen asleep at some point), I took the flower bouquet and double checked the address. A single glance at the front lawn made me doubly sure that it was Mr. Dempsey and Miss Julie's place.
Xander joined us both after a couple of seconds, pressing the suspicious silver button beside the gate without hesitation. This was also why my husband would not fair very well in any nerve wrecking situation—stuff like escape rooms or haunted houses. He'd be the worst, without any human reaction to anything at all ;-;
"What? It's just a doorbell," was what he'd said in response after listening to my accidental vocal thoughts that I'd not meant to say aloud.
"You could have at least given me some time to mentally prepare myself," I protested as someone who needed mental preparation for most things in general. As soon as I'd said this, however, a muffled click surprised Giselle and I and what I identified as Mr. Dempsey's voice came on the intercom shortly after.
"Who is this?"
"I-it's me, Chip. And Xander and Giselle. We're from the bakery—if you remember, I mean," I was off to a rough start, fiddling with the ribbon that held the bouquet together.
Just as the intercom had fallen silent all of a sudden and I was ready to turn tail and run, afraid that I'd somehow offended Mr. Dempsey, Giselle stepped forward and spoke (very) loudly into the receiver-like thing on the pillar beside the gate.
"WE. HAVE. COOKIES," she began before Xander or myself could stop her. "LET. US. IN."
We could not help but freeze. Things had taken a turn for the worse and there was nothing we could do to stop it. Under such circumstances, only Xander would be able to come up with something sarcastic.
"If only the big bad wolf spoke like that to the three little pigs," my husband commented. "They'd let him in faster than lightning. No need for huffs and puffs."
Hastily, I took Giselle's place at the intercom. "U-um! Mr. Dempsey. Sorry about that—it's just me, Chip Honeycutt and my husband Xander and his sister, Giselle. We've um...we've just come to say hi." I finished lamely, not knowing what else to say and simply doing my best to redeem my terrible start.
"We heard you lost your—" I reached up to cover Xander's mouth at once.
Quite the opposite of what I'd expected, what sounded to me like a helpless sigh came from the other side of the intercom and with a short 'beep', the front gate swung open.
"I-is this a 'come on in'?" I turned to my husband, forgetting to uncover his mouth. Embarrassed, I retrieved my hand. "Sorry."
"I guess we could walk right in," Xander was about to walk past the gate when the front door clicked open and Mr. Dempsey stepped out into the front porch. "Okay...guess not."
The first thing he must have noticed were the flowers, because he started frowning as soon as he'd seen them in my arms and the moment he greeted us at the gate, stared openly at the pink and white carnations. Immediately, I felt like retreating under my pebble.
"What is the occasion? Why are you here?"
I presented him with the bouquet, smiling sheepishly. "We just wanted to pay you a visit, Mr. Dempsey. We heard you weren't feeling too well," I lied, crossing my fingers behind my back.
"And from whom did you hear such a ridiculous thing?" He snorted, accepting the flowers regardless and opening the gate a little wider to invite the three of us in.
"A-a little bird?" I tried. He laughed. Behind me, I heard Xander stifle one as well.
Mr. Dempsey brought us to the front porch, where Miss Julie popped her head out of the open window and called for us to come in. "What a pleasant surprise! Oh, and cakes!"
"I...appreciate the sentiment," the critic said quietly as we entered the house. "I don't quite know what else to say."
Unexpectedly, Xander had reached over to give Mr. Dempsey's shoulder a pat. "That my husband is the nicest person in the universe? You could say that. He insisted on coming even though he was feeling down himself."
I grabbed Xander's arm and towed him away (o-or more accurately, he towed himself away because I definitely couldn't have done that with my own arms) before he could blurt any more of that nonsense. "Xan, why don't we put the cakes down at the dining table first before—"
"Mr. Chocolate Chip!"
A wild Vanille had appeared in the middle of the doorway, tottering towards us. "You're here? You just missed dinner! Miss Julie made some really good lasagne." The boy came over to hug my legs, his glassing slipping askew as soon as he did. I felt my heart turn marshmallow-soft at once. He then proceeded to hold Giselle's hand as Mr. Dempsey led us into the dining.
"You...must have heard from your husband, then," he began as the five of us settled around the dining table and Miss Julie nyoomed into the kitchen to bring drinks and dessert plates. "I lost my job."
"We don't really know what happened," I clarified, not wanting him to get the wrong idea. "I-it was just a thought. We weren't sure about it, because it's really the last thing we thought would happen to you, Mr. Dempsey."
He laughed sadly. "Well. I thought so too...Lia told me just this morning that the major shareholder who'd gotten me fired made sure I was never going to be hired again. They had me blacklisted in the records."
"They...they did that?" I resisted the urge to hug the old teddy bear, feeling terrible for him. "Why would they go so far?"
Vanille had, at some point, crept to the side of the dining table and peered along the table top on his tippy toes, gaze alternating between his uncle and us.
"I believe you remember Miss Rachel, the owner of ARCD?" Mr. Dempsey sighed. "She'd received an invitation to the tea session that you'd attended as well. I'm sorry you have to hear about this from me, but I believe they...well, they have an entire collection of new desserts that have an uncanny resemblance to—"
"We've seen it too," Xander cut in. "Why didn't you tell us?"
I nudged my husband in the side, knowing that Mr. Dempsey must have had his reasons for keeping this from us.
"I...I couldn't bring myself to," he insisted, looking away. "What could you have done otherwise? Apart from being upset and disheartened." Without a doubt, I was moved to tears. He was worried about me being upset!
"Either way, her new collection featuring pineberries tasted worse than your ridiculous mochi waffles—which I'd already thought was impossible to defeat," Mr. Dempsey coughed aside, to which Xander rolled his eyes and I laughed. "They were absolutely inedible, those cakes and pastries. Haven't seen a dessert more inconsistent and a baker so full of herself."
"And you got fired because you wrote all that shit?" My husband prompted, to which he had to face the wrath of my glare ;v;
"Not quite, Jaxon. I'd barely written a word before I knew I was fired," he shook his head. "Indecent of me to think so but I believe Miss Rachel had to do with the decision. The gall of her to be pulling strings as one of the three pastry chefs we were considering for the annual award."
Miss Julie waltzed into the dining with a tray of drinks and a huge plate of piping hot lasagne. "I heated up some of what we just had. If you'd like, please help yourselves to it." The smell wafted across the room and soon enough, Giselle was picking up the serving spoon and helping herself to the lasagne.
"You said something about a major shareholder before," Xander went on, strangely invested all of a sudden. "You have any names?" It was the first time I'd seen him so involved in the issues of other people, which was, of course, a positive improvement. Yay!
"Unfortunately not," Mr. Dempsey gulped down the glass of water that his fiancé had placed before him. "They'd refused to give any names. I do, however, have past records of all our shareholders. But what would you do with such information?"
Xander had his phone in hand and was scrolling through his contacts. "Find out where the fucking stench is coming from."
At first, I couldn't wait to let Shin read (proofread) the first chapter of this new original fic I'd come up with just last night about a bunny and a wolf but the moment I saw him at his desk at homeroom, I knew something was up.
"Hey," I slid into the seat in front of him. "Are you okay? You look tired."
Shin had his head slumped over his arm and he was staring out of the window, completely out of it. He sighed. "Hey Nguyen."
"Did something happen? Are you pondering over new recipes or something?" I guessed, unsure since this was the first time Japanese boi was not studying between period breaks or looking through online recipe books. The only other time I'd seen him so upset was when his favourite manga was discontinued. That, I felt the pain of.
"It's nothing," he sighed again, turning away. "I just...never mind."
"You know Shin, I thought we were best friends," I played the card, pretending to be hurt. Then I backtracked. "Okay not like, best friends-best friends, but like, I don't know. Not best friends? I mean, Liz is my best friend. You're like, my friend that I don't actually want to be friends with because I'vebeenrecentlystartedhopingyouwerestraightandthat'snotagoodsign 'cuz like Ialwayswishedyouweregaysothatyoucouldbepairedwithsomehottopandthen like I don't know but maybe I just kinda wished you were—ohmygod I did not just confess?" I breathed, turning away with my face horribly red and chili pepper hot. "Please forget I said anything."
At once, I could feel Shin's gaze on my back and I was adamant on not giving him the satisfaction of turning towards him.
"Um, Nguyen?"
"I don't exist," whispered I in return, covering my ears with my hands and sinking into the table. The table and I are one.
"Nguyen," Shin was laughing quietly. "Okay okay, I'll...just. It never happened. Maybe you didn't mean it."
I shot up straight. "Yeah. Yeah, that's it. Thanks Shin, you're always reading my mind—I-I mean, all good, all good. Okay so what's the deal? What are you moping about over?" I paused after asking. "Was that the correct expression in English?"
Shin skipped my final question and went straight into the details because apparently, he was dying to tell someone about his sob story too. "It's about the bakery. I mean, you know I got the part-time job, right?"
"Totally," I scrolled through Shin's walls of texts and proceeded to show him the messages that he'd sent a couple of days ago about white strawberries that I never knew existed. "Look, you even told me about these alien strawberries from heaven."
Japanese boi nodded vigorously and unlocked his phone. "Great, so the context's all settled. You see, Chip—Mr. Honeycutt—came up with this amazing tart idea that tastes and looks just amazing and heavenly and you have no idea how much effort and money it takes to make just one tart but it's the definition of perfection and for some reason, the idea got stolen by some big-ass, big-shot, sex-shop bakery down the street."
Okay, see what I mean when Shin gets angry? You do nOt want to make Japanese boi angry. It was one of the rare times that I've heard him curse or repeat any indecent idea or word that came from the sewers of my own mind. Haven't you heard of the sewers I happen to have inside? No? Good for you.
"Stolen?" I stared. "Are you—you're not. You're not serious, right?"
He sighed, folding his arms over his desk and slumping forward like a...a sad snail. "Sadly, I am. Some customer even came by the bakery to ask if we had a copy of the 'original' across the street, like we were the ones who copied them." Shin groaned, slamming his fist on the table and everyone in class turned to stare.
"I'm so fucking pissed!"
I froze, not having expected this level of intensity or shit-going-down. Everyone else who'd come to class early had gone completely silent and were most likely wondering what had possessed the pure and innocent, precious and ball-phobic Japanese boi.
Immediately, I shooed their eyes away with continuous sweeps of my arm to direct their vision elsewhere. "Um, don't worry Shin. It'll work out," I settled with being politically correct. "Anyway, all people have to do is give Mr. Honeycutt's amazing tart a taste and—"
Idea.
Nguyen has idea. It is dangerous idea but Nguyen is almost always dangerous.
"Ohmygod Shin, listen."
*
It took me less than a minute to get someone with more than two thousand followers on Instagram to hop on board. If you think having two thousand followers on that darn social media thing is an easy feat, you better not have the measly nine followers that I have (of which two were my cousins back in Vietnam, plus my mom). With that many followers, it sort of meant the person would possess some form of credibility, popularity, likability, beauty and influence. Did I just describe my best friend? Yep.
CAPTAIN, THERE ARE PIRATES IN THE DISTANCE FLYING A FUCKING JOLLY ROGER SAVE THE SHIP, was what I'd texted Liz in the middle of homeroom, glancing over at the other end of the classroom to see her pick up her phone. Her eyes promptly narrowed into slits.
WHAT SHIP ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT FIRST MATE NGUYEN, I received within seconds, lowering my phone under the table before typing a response in turn.
TITANIC, was what we'd named our core navy vessel of the one and only angel and devil, the biggest one yet. PLS HELP.
I looked over to Liz. Beside her, Brandon was trying to eye the screen of her phone to which he soon realized was a big mistake because she poked him in the eye with the back of her pen (he screamed in silence) before typing back a response.
BRING OUT THE FUCKING CANNONS
*
"Nguyen, um. Are you sure about this?" Shin asked quietly as we stood by the lockers after school, waiting for Liz who was reapplying her makeup in the washroom. "Don't you have, um, like...other things to do? I mean, I appreciate the help but..."
I fiddled with my trusty ol' camcorder. "What, like reading fanfics all day?" I turned to him with a sigh. "I'm always catching up with assignments school, Shin. You know that. A day's rest from revising isn't going to hurt. And I don't like watching you sulk all day."
It had been approximately a day since Shin and I had the conversation about my feelings—I mean his troubles about the bakery and I'd contacted my professional filming crew (consisting mainly of my camcorder, dad's DSLR and Liz's iPhone) about plans for an upcoming project. When I saw Liz turn the corner with Finn and Evans however, I assumed that my best friend had successfully recruited more professionals in the crew.
"W-why are there so many people all of a sudden?" Shin turned to me, pale.
"Uh, well. I didn't...this wasn't me," I clarified. "Liz, are Finn and Evans holding up your lights or...?"
"I figured they'd be the ones featured in the video instead of me, Nguyen. I'll be, like, the promoter," she explained as we headed to the bus stop. "Most of my followers are female, so you and I will direct the video and I'll give it a shout-out on my account."
Shin was getting worried. "A video? But why them? U-um, I didn't know there was going to be a video."
"It's a taste-test, Shin," I whispered, nudging him in the side. "A blind one. With Mr. Honeycutt's bakery and the other copies and shit."
"Oh," he nodded. "Oh."
Finn and Evans were staring at us with confused expressions all over until Liz gestured in their general direction and very briefly addressed them as 'decent-looking boys'. Finn was not satisfied.
"What do you mean 'decent-looking'?" He jabbed, turning to Liz. "You said this was going to take less than an hour."
"No," Evans corrected with a grin. "She said that there'll be cakes. For free."
The volleyball dude rolled his eyes with a sigh, pinching the bridge of his nose. "Sure. Free cakes over video games at mine after two months because we were busy with season. Sure."
LIZ YOU DID NOT JUST SINK ONE OF MY SHIPS, I eyed her in the midst of our telepathic link, giving her one of my best glares. She caught my eye and smirked. LIZ YOU BETRAYER.
"Your console isn't going anywhere, Finn," Evans was upset. "It's not every day that we get to eat together. You're always with your...volleyball team or something after school."
The last thing I'd expected was the ship to sail itself because well, apparently, it didn't need no captain or crew to function. Finn didn't look too reluctant about stomaching some free cake soon after and seemed to have taken an unusual liking to the idea of having a blind taste test.
*
Filming crew Liz and I were waiting for Shin to emerge from Baked Love with a slice of the beautiful new tart that he'd snapped pictures of and sent to me every single time he made one in Mr. Honeycutt's bakery. We'd situated ourselves under a nice picnic table under a tree in the park nearby after painfully buying a slice of pineberry cake and two meringues from too-much-pink in the next avenue and a pineberry tart from an unnamed bakery not too far away. There was a whole load of copies stemming from Mr. Honeycutt and Shin's original and I was beginning to think that they'd sparked off a whole new trend of using A++ aesthetic fruits in desserts.
In perfect honesty, neither of us quite knew what the direction of the video was going to be. We had but one goal in mind and that was to present the truth. I wasn't sure what spreading the word was going to do in terms of Liz's field of influence but with Finn and Evans around (who weren't too unpopular themselves, at least not as insignificant as I, a speck of dust was), I figured things were going to be better than I'd expected them to be.
Either way, Liz and I needn't say a word about direction to Finn and Evans, who were busy directing themselves around and spontaneously helping each other with their respective blindfolds—
"I got it!" Shin returned, triumphant. He had a nice little box with a ribbon on top in his hands and was walking very carefully. It explained why he'd taken so long to get here. "Mr. Honeycutt must have made it himself, since I wasn't around in the afternoon to do the second batch."
"Doesn't he find it suspicious that you're buying tarts instead of doing your part-time job today?" Evans piped, definitely looking in the wrong direction since he appeared to be talking to the tree. How this guy was a starter of our school's football team remains a mystery.
"I told him I had to...revise for mid-years next week," said Shin, turning away in embarrassment.
"Wow Shin," Liz nodded approvingly. "I didn't know you had it in you to lie."
I clapped my hands to get everyone's attention and called for a run-through of the script to get us back on task—like the real leader I truly was. Finn was completely unaware about there being a script.
"We have to memorize shit?" He frowned, lifting the blindfold slightly to scan the words that I'd scribbled on the back of a random sheet of (probably) algebraic calculations. "I thought this was just a taste-test thing."
"Well you gotta know what to say, at the very least. Some people only use 'awesome' and 'great' to describe good food. Limited vocabulary," I reasoned, pointing out the long list of synonyms I'd copied straight out of the thesaurus. "You need to describe the texture of the food. After that, you guess what type of dessert it is—a cake, a tart, crumble, blah blah, and tell us the rating you give it. Out of ten. Oh, and tell us which you think is the original."
"I get it. So that's what you were referring to," Finn passed the sheet of paper to Evans, who'd removed his blindfold and frowned at the sight of words. "I thought you were going to straight up tell us which bakery the first dessert belonged to. And the second and stuff like that, so we'd remember to say good things about Mr. Honeycutt's."
Shin was high-key (and I mean HIGH-KEY) offended.
"What are you trying to say, Finn?" Japanese boi frowned and was ready to fite the jock. "You seriously think we'd do that? That we even need to?" Finn appeared mildly surprised that he'd offended a patient pebble.
"I bet my life that you can tell the difference in a bite, you little shit. Say whatever you want, just make sure you say exactly what you think once we're recording," snapped Shin, turning around to prepare the first portion of mystery dessert. "クソガキ。"