Sugar, Butter, Flour, and Love - Chapter 16: Chapter 16

About half of the bakers were done and the others were scrambling. I hated that I was one of the latter. I went to the blast chiller to get my marscapone mixture and— it wasn't there. I blinked a couple times to see if I was crazy. I closed the freezer, stepped back, and opened it again. Everyone shared the freezer and it had to be in there unless someone had taken it.
"You have thirty seconds left bakers!"
Oh fuck.
For a few seconds I stood glued to the spot not sure what to do. Damn, I had to cut my losses. I closed the fridge and scampered back to my station.
"If you aren't plating, now, then you need to get something on the plate. We will only judge you for what you present," Miranda said loudly.
The three judges stood together at the front of the room and started the ten second countdown.
I laid out the cupcakes. Briefly, I considered only plating the apple pie cupcakes but I had to show them everything I could do. I was a good baker so it felt like a waste not to plate all the work I had done. I plated each of the cupcakes in three rows of two and picked up my buttercream piping bag.
The ten second countdown continued as I piped the buttercream frosting on the tiramisu cupcakes. As soon as I put down the piping bag and remembered to breathe the alarm sounded.
"Hands up bakers!"
I took a step back and looked at what I'd done: an hour for two kinds of cupcakes and I hadn't even completed it the way I wanted to. My heart was still racing but I didn't feel like I was going to have an attack. For once I was just genuinely nervous and I needed a moment to unwind. Wow, this was way harder than it looked on TV.
Richard went and stood beside the judges. "Alright everyone, we're going to shoot your confessionals while you guys are still feeling everything and the memories are fresh. You'll each be assigned a member of crew to talk through everything."
Just like that members of crew starting walking towards each of the contestants and a woman slowly came towards. Her brown skin leant itself towards South East Asian ancestry and she was wearing practical sneakers, dark jeans, a long sleeved shirt and a baby blue hijab.
I held out a hand. "Nice to meet you, I'm Darius." Her dark eyes locked onto my hand and I could see remnants of icing and flour stuck beneath my fingernails. "Oops," I'm murmured before turning to my sink to wash my hands properly.
She moved beside me and she let out a small laugh. "It's alright, I did this last year. You'd be surprised how many contestants forget their hands are gunky. Sorry for the awkwardness, you're just really tall... We'll have to adjust the camera to get you in the shot nicely."
I finished washing my hands and gave her a plastic smile. "You'd be surprised how often I hear that."
"I'm Dhara by the way, and let's just head over to the confessional. There's just a series of rooms by the east wing and there will be two rounds since we only have so many rooms. You'll be in the first round and just remember to phrase everything in present tense. It adds more urgency and immediacy for the episode."
I dried my hands with a paper towel and followed her to the hallway where, as she said, people were filing into rooms and others were sitting in a waiting area.
I followed Dhara into the room and there was a professional looking camera set up with a tripod. She went behind the camera and peered into it. "Okay," she said from behind it while fiddling with the lens. "Just sit on that chair and we'll do a small test shot. Introduce yourself."
The chair was surprisingly comfortable and I folded my hands on my lap and made sure I sat with my back straight. I looked up and into the camera lens.
"Do I look at the camera?"
"Yeah, that would be good. Just give me a sec, you're just really tall." Dhara propped the camera up higher until it was at eye level.
"Uh," I said quickly, "My name is Darius Nkrumah, I am twenty-six years old, and I was raised in Toronto, Canada. It's really great to be here—"
Dhara looked out from behind the camera. "Okay, make it more natural, Darius. And no need for last names, the audience will just know you by your first name, anyways. Think of how you would introduce yourself on a date or like, in a way where your personality comes out. Remember, this is prime time TV you can be yourself or you can be interesting."
I tried to relax and I introduced myself again. Dhara nodded from behind the camera. "That's a bit better. Okay, so walk me through what you made for the challenge and your feelings throughout the process."
The next half hour was something of a Q&A with Dhara reminding me to look at the camera and to be more animated. I went through my baking process, the rush that I was in, and my missing marscapone mixture.
"So," Dhara said eventually, "Do you think of any of the contestants as your rivals?"
I laughed. "I mean, it's a little early for that, so, not really, no."
"Remember, you have to answer with the question."
"Oh, uh— Considering the competition has barely started I don't think of anyone as my rival."
"Great, okay, I noticed that one of your icing bowls went missing. What do you think happened to it, and did it impact your final product?"
"Well, there's only two possibilities: either someone took it by accident or on purpose. Or, I lost it. And—" I leaned back in my seat. "I've been baking since I was nine years old and I have never lost or misplaced any part of my baking process." I sat back in the chair and crossed my arms. "I know that the marscapone would have been complimentary to a tirimasu based cupcake so I'm frustrated and disappointed that I couldn't find it."
Dhara asked me a few more questions before she announced we were finished. The entire interview had felt somewhat invasive and like she was digging to make me seem theatrical or dramatic.
I started to take off my microphone before Dhara asked another question. "So how does it feel having a famous basketball star as your brother? Do you feel like you're the black sheep of the family?"
I paused right as my heart fell into my stomach. "Do I— what?"
Dhara spoke slowly, "It's part of your segment."
"My segment?"
"Yeah, for your intro. Also, do you feel like basketball was your first love or was it baking? From our research we found that you were a division one basketball starter at a prestigious university known for producing a lot of basketball stars. Why didn't you go pro?"
Instinctively, I started to pull off my microphone. At the cooking facility they'd given me some kind of microphone that looked like a battery which I had to hook to my pants or strap my back. It was sort of uncomfortable and with Dhara asking things I didn't want to answer it felt even more intrusive. "You said the questions were over."
"You'll have to answer those questions, eventually if you make it to the next round...Might as well get them out of the way."
"It's got nothing to do with baking, or the first stage of the competition, Dhara." I hated feeling pushed, and she just sounded so pushy about it.
I loved basketball but it was a complicated thing. I was given the same genes as my brother and an equal amount of talent. Scouts had been seeking me out, they'd pegged me as the next big thing because of how well my brother had debuted. That was the path they'd all thought would be best for me.
But me as a professional basketball player would be insanely laughable. My anxiety rarely flared up when I played sports but I wouldn't have been able to be gay, out, and in the NBA. It would've been a complete and utter shit show. By the time I was in my late teens I was quietly out and one scout had a lengthy conversation with me about what the next twenty or so years of being closeted would look like. He'd said I could do whatever I wanted behind closed doors but if I wanted a career in basketball then that was going to be my life. Hiding would be my life.
So, I did my year in division one basketball in the states, played in March Madness, got a lot of coverage, and then I didn't declare for the draft. I just— couldn't live the life they wanted me to. Being gay was a fraction of who I was as a person but the NBA took the sport I loved and twisted it into this freak display of hyper masculinity that treated athletes like pawns and as ways to make money.
It would've been different if I was the only athlete in my family, then I would have done what needed to be done to ensure my parents were always taken care of. Luckily, Cyrus had been able to do that for our family. So after my division one stint was over I transferred my credits to a Canadian university and finished my undergrad there in finance.
My short foray in investment banking gave me the expertise to inform Cyrus that he couldn't get blinded by the money. And it was a lot of money. I was the one who told him to get a pre-nup when he got married, and to restructure his will every year.
In the end, the life I was living was the best case scenario for me, Cyrus' life was the best case scenario for him, and that was okay.
I looked at Dhara for several seconds without saying anything. That chapter of my life was closed and a reality baking show wasn't going to make me open it up again.
I exited the confessional area and closed the door softly. The waiting area was filled with other contestants waiting their turn and I slumped into an empty seat. They'd probably edit the footage to make me seem combative and crazy when I was just worried.
Someone sat beside me and I turned to see it was Ai. She sighed. "That was weird. It doesn't seem like an interview when it's on TV."
"Do you think they'll air all of it?"
"Well," she said, "whatever narrative they want to promote is what they'll promote. We knew that when we signed up for this thing."
My chest tightened. "Yeah, you're right, Ai. I'm just worried. My family will see this thing, my friends, the people I work with..." All the people who were important to me and I had to seem normal even if I wasn't.
"But, that won't be for months, Darius. And at the end of the day, the people here know what's really going down. Our only job is to bake. And I know I'm a pretty damn good baker. I saw you cooking, too. You know what you're doing. That's the most important thing."
I really wanted to believe her, and a part of me did but the more substantial part just wanted to go somewhere comfortable and be alone for a while. Instead, I was in this unfamiliar place, surrounded by cameras, with strangers and this undeniable pressure to succeed. It was fucking hard.
The minutes passed and soon we were back in the competition room, and the judging for the first round officially began. I fiddled with my microphone for a bit while looking around. Everyone else looked nervous, too. And, this was only the beginning.
The three judges stood at the front of the room and someone said 'action' before things started. Each of us were instructed to bring our dishes to the front as we were judged one by one. It took forever because of all the closeups the camera had to do for each dish. But, the entire time I just listened for marscapone. Maybe someone else had used it as an ingredient.
As more and more people went up, I listened to the feedback and the dishes. There were two dishes that stood out to me: Mary Lou, the Texan stay at home mom and Mel, the dad who was a high school teacher. Both their dishes featured marscapone... Mary Lou made a tiramisu that she got rave reviews on. Isaac said it was one of the best tiramisu's he'd ever tasted. Mel's dish was more lacklustre as the cheesecake hadn't set properly.
The other contestants had made pies, tarts, cakes, and a few savoury items. But my brain only zeroed in on Mel's strawberry cheesecake and Mary Lou's tiramisu.
Eventually, everyone else had gone but me and I hated that I was last. It was silent as I picked up my plate and walked across the room and presented my dish nervously. I kept reminding myself not to drop the plate even though I was holding onto it for dear life.
There was a high table set up and each of the judges sat at their seats and I gave them each a plate with two cupcakes on it. I was supposed to present my dish and it took me two takes before I didn't stutter through it..
"You know," Miranda said while peering up at me, "Before I dig in, I have got to see you cook like a tornado, young man. It was just a whirlwind of motion, mixing and micro-management. I guess it was controlled chaos because these cupcakes look beautiful. The presentation is delicate and professional." She used her fork to cut into the apple pie cupcake and she gasped. "Wow, this smells gorgeous. The cinnamon, the baked apple, and the icing to cake ratio looks good.  The cake looks light and spongy and—" she took a bite and closed her eyes while nodding. "Well done, Darius."
My cheeks hurt from smiling so much and I nodded at every compliment, murmuring a few thank yous along the way.
Isaac commented next. "Ditto to what Miranda said. Plus, I really like this apple pie cupcake. Really nice stuff here." He seemed like the most laconic of the bunch but his wording seemed genuine. "And," he continued, "in the next round you have to trust your instincts.  In the beginning I could see you second guessing yourself and there's nothing you need to be second guessing, okay?"
I nodded like a bobble head, barely processing what he was saying. "Uhm, okay."
Aditya was the last to comment and I realized that even if I found him problematic I still valued his thoughts. He was brief, "Light, airy and flavourful. It's a delightfully well done cupcake, Darius."
They moved on to the second cupcake and they asked the question I had been dreading.
Aditya took a generous bite. "It's all very good Darius, like the first cupcake, light, airy, nice ratios. But I question your palate. Buttercream frosting doesn't align as nicely with this cupcake as a cream cheese or even a marscapone could. That's a missed opportunity for me."
"I—," I cleared my throat before confessing, "I did make marscapone and I left it in the freezer to cool but when I went back to get it...it wasn't there."
"So, you're suggesting...?"
The room had already been silent but it felt like it got even quieter.
"Maybe— by accident or... I don't know." I hated how uncertain I sounded but I knew that I hadn't misplaced it. "Maybe someone took my bowl by accident. The last few minutes were a rush for everyone."
"Did anyone take Darius' bowl 'by accident?'" Aditya called out to the room. His mocking tone made me feel small. I turned around and everyone looked as uncomfortable as I felt. When I turned back around Aditya had a frown on his face. "Hmm, well, I think we've tasted all we can for now. Good job."
Someone yelled cut, and the judges took a break, drinking some water and stretching.
I went back to my station and Ai nudged me. "Bro, Mary Lou was shooting daggers at you at every compliment, and that was kind of a shitty thing of Aditya to do. But maybe next time don't bring up stuff that didn't work out."
"Yeah, I think you're right. I just sounded like I was making up excuses." I hadn't even considered how it would look. "And really? Mary Lou?"
Ai nodded as she lowered her voice, "I wouldn't want to be on her bad side...That haircut has 'I want to speak to your manager' all over it."
That made me snort and the tension of the day started to ease out of me a bit. "You realize our microphones are probably on, right?"
Ai grinned. "So? I think I'd make a pretty good reality TV villain."
By that point filming resumed and we were getting to the winners of the first challenge.
"I would like to remind you all what you are competing for. This is a competition for bakers with little to no professional baking experience and the prize for winning the competition will be a quarter of a million dollars, a brand new convertible, you'll have the opportunity to author your very own Baking Beasts cook book, and of course the Baking Beasts trophy." Aditya paused before continuing, "Alright, we'd like Mary Lou, Darius and Ai to come to the front."
Ai and me grinned at each other before going to the front. A few cameraman positioned us before they did some panning, a makeup artist went up to the judges and then after all that the filming resumed.
Isaac spoke first, "Darius, you had a delightful pair of cupcakes that each had different flavours and it was a joy to eat. However, the tiramisu cupcake could have had more complementary flavours. Overall, good job."
Then, Miranda continued. "Ai, your eclair was fantastic. Though the choux pastry was just this side of under, the tempered chocolate ganache and the  pastry filling all worked nicely together."
Finally Aditya spoke, "Mary Lou, you have made me a fan of your tiramisu for life. Every layer was perfection. How you managed that in an hour I couldn't guess. I would like to congratulate Mary Lou for winning this first challenge."
It was silent for a couple beats and then we all started to clap because it seemed like the right thing to do. I made sure to lean over to Mary Lou and tell her a rushed 'good job.' The judges congratulated Mary Lou but it felt bittersweet to me. I didn't come all the way out here to tie for second place. We were instructed to go back to our stations and they brought up the worst dishes of the afternoon.
Then, the bad news came and it shocked me when three people were sent home. It felt so soon and it felt like a kick in the rear to remind the rest of us what we were here for. It was sobering and kind of a wake up call to get it together. The oldest contestant was eliminated, who also happened to be the mixed looking black grandmotherly woman, one of the stay at home moms who dropped a few components of her dishes, and someone whose name I'd completely forgotten. Maybe rick or Allen or something.
After filming was over and the three ex-contestants were escorted out, the rest of us tried some of other people's dishes.
Most people assembled around Ai and Mary Lou's stations since they had extras and they were curious about their creations. But, I felt more like I needed air. I went back to my station and focused on wiping down my countertop even thought it was pretty clean.
A few minutes passed before we were corralled back to the confessionals and I was one again poked and prodded by Dhara for my thoughts about placing well. By that point I feel like ants were crawling under my skin and on edge.
I never did close to this amount of socializing on a regular basis. My regular life consisted of work, and a good chunk of my free time was spent alone. Being this social, if I could even call it that, was taking its toll on me.
By the time we got back to the cooking facility we had to start the next challenge. It was the technical bake and we were all tasked with recreating a four tier Black Forest cake...in eighty minutes.
The next eighty minutes were not as bad as the first challenge but I was still frazzled. The time it took to mix the batter, bake the cakes, get the icing ready, and have it properly cool just wouldn't be enough. Two hours would've been much more doable. But, I didn't really have a choice.
Not to mention I was still annoyed my concerns about my icing hadn't been addressed in any capacity. I also noticed that the cameras were spending more time on me than they had been before. The judges also came around more and I tried to radiate a calmness I didn't feel.
It was only the first day and I felt like my patience was wearing thin. In the first challenge I could tune everything out and focus on my recipe but I began to overthink. What would people think when they watched the episodes? I was already the only black person left since the grandmotherly woman was eliminated. I'd have to live with these people, and what if someone made fun of my du-rag? Would my family watch this, too? Or, would they be too busy supporting Cyrus?
I tried to stop the disorderly thoughts but it was like a train with broken breaks that just kept going and going and going. My brain was doing one thing and my hands were doing another. But, then I was interrupted by a question from Miranda.
I blinked and looked over at her. "Huh?" I said.
Miranda leaned closer to me and touched my arm. "I was just wondering how progress is over here?" I got the impression she was trying to be nice but I really hated when touches came out of nowhere. I swallowed hard, and tried to ignore her fingers on my forearm and instead focused on answering the question like a normal human being.
"Well, I'm just—" for the first time I paid attention to what I was doing. "I'm— waiting for my chocolate cakes to chill in the freezer, working on my icing and—getting my cherries ready."
"Well done, you seem to have grasped time management but do you feel like you're in a position to win this challenge?"
I laughed and moved my arm out of her grasp awkwardly. "I'm just really trying to make sure I have all my components and that I don't forget anything. It's been a while since I last made Black Forest cake, though."
"I wouldn't want you to forget one of your components again so I'll let you continue working." Her tone was cool but I found myself annoyed that she implied I had lost my component the first time.
"Hopefully, nothing pulls a disappearing act," I replied quietly.
She finally left me alone and I was able to focus on completing my cake. The minutes passed as I finished my components, got my cakes out of the freezer and began assembling. The cakes were a little warmer than I would have liked and I knew my icing might smear but I was running out of time.
After I finished decorating I had a few minutes left and I focused on going over the patches of icing that were too thin and as soon as I stuck the last cherry on my cake the timer went off.
In the end Mary-Lou won the Black Forest cake challenge and I didn't end up in the top three. I hadn't been focused enough so I wasn't surprised. Another one of the 'dads who can bake' was sent home and we wrapped up filming for the day.
#
I thought they'd put us in hotels for the entirety of our stay but they ended up driving us in a bus a bit out of the city to an estate. By the time we got to the residence it was dark but it looked like a mansion... Like a genuine mansion with gates, security, and manicured . Ai and me sat beside each other on the bus and she explained that one of the producers paid for the show to rent a house for one month. It had twelve bedrooms, fourteen bathrooms and was apparently nearly ten thousand square feet.
Wow.
Once we got to the house, we did a quick tour and then went about deciding upon a sleeping situation. There were two master bedrooms with one bed each and the rest of the rooms had two beds. There were twenty-one of us left, and it was decided that eighteen of us would share nine rooms and the other three would get to be on their own.
In reality I was desperate for my own room but couldn't rationalize speaking up for one. Mary Lou wormed her way into her own room, and apparently Brian had a sleeping condition that required him being hooked up to a breathing mask and he got his own room. The last room was fought over and it came down to a serious battle of Rock Paper Scissors , which Ai won.
I ended up rooming with one of the teachers who had been kind to me when I first entered, Mel. The room was large and spacious and the bed was even long enough for me to stretch out. I'd personalized my space a bit with the Egyptian cotton sheets I'd brought with me, and my silk pillow case. Mel had joked that I really seemed to care about my comfort and it was true, I did care about my own comfort.
"Damn, I'm bushed," Mel grumbled on his bed. His half of the room was something of an organized mess, each little pile seemingly where he wanted it to be. He'd said before he was married with a kid or two so I was beginning to imagine his wife maintained any semblance of order in their bed room.
The last time I had shared a room with someone was my older brother when we were kids. I'd gotten my own room once Cyrus became a teenager, and I preferred it that way. Mel didn't seem too bad but I didn't like that he wasn't more organized.
I pieced together an outfit for what I would wear the next day and put my clothing on the dresser beside my bed. Then, I got out my hair brush to start maintaining my waves.
"Well, I gotta say I'm glad I'm rooming with you, Darius. You seem like a good guy."
"Oh? Thanks." I said distractedly, checking my watch and setting a fifteen minute timer before going back to my waves.
"Yeah, I couldn't believe Ashton just got sent home like that, he said he bakes at home for his kids all the time. He didn't even get to get settled in first." Ah, that was one of the other baking dads.
I frowned. "Yeah, seeing people leave really wakes you up. I just don't want to be one of the first ones to go."
"Well, the women and that gay kid have an advantage. They're probably used to baking in their sleep which is why I was hoping more of us unconventional bakers could perform well." Mel chuckled at his joke and looked at me inquisitively when I didn't say anything.
"There's only a few stay at home moms here," I said carefully, "and from what I understand they've got young kids. I don't have any kids but I feel like they wouldn't leave a lot of time for baking. I used to baby-sit my nephew and I nearly had an aneurysm." Not to mention most professional chefs and pastry chefs were men...
Mel laughed but I could tell that there was a disconnect building. "Well, I'm still glad Brian has his own room."
"Because of his sleep apnea?" I said in a flat voice.
"Oh c'mon, it's just us guys, you know what I mean." Mel turned over in his bed and his voice was muffled by his blanket. "There's just some people I'd feel more comfortable not sleeping in the same room as. And, I've got all kinds of students, so at this point I've seen everything, but still..."
My voice was soft, "So, just to clarify, you wouldn't feel comfortable sleeping in the same room as someone who's gay?" Brian was effeminate and more obviously gay in a way that I wasn't. I'd seen gay people on Baking Beasts before but I'd never thought deeply about the living dynamics in those cases.
My sexuality had never come up and I'd kept my introduction brief. Most of the contestants had gotten caught up in my height, my ethnic last name, and the fact I was Canadian. So, most questions had surrounded that.
"I'm sure a guy like you feels the same way," Mel continued.
It took a lot to get me angry, but it was like the one part of me that was holding on to civility by a thread had snapped. Instead of replying,  I put my brush, du-rag, and pillow in the middle of the  duvet before bundling everything together and leaving the room. Mel was calling after me but before I closed the door I looked at his bewildered expression.
"You and I are nothing alike," I said quietly before closing the door even more softly.
I made my way to the living room and settled on the couch where I'd make my bed for the night. Mel had complained he wouldn't feel comfortable sharing a bedroom with a gay person. How could I possibly feel comfortable, as a gay person, to share a bedroom with a homophobe?
It was ridiculous but not surprising. The women had gravitated to Brian a lot more than the men had. There was that careful distance made up of homophobia and the eternally weak heterosexual male ego. We all knew the reason why even if it wasn't verbalized. A part of me hated that the world was so intolerant but I also knew that at the end of the day I was just trying to live.
Not everyday could be a fight for my own human right to exist, and as for tonight, I was tired. Tomorrow, however, there wouldn't be any fights I'd back down from.