Lizzy stared at the next task and at first she seemed really cocky about it. This was a very easy task, she thought to herself, all I going do is bake a cake. How tough could that be? Turns out the Gods of baking had a great sense of humour and proved to her and Anna how tough it could be just to make one single cake. After several failures and a few hundred dollars in wasted groceries, Lizzy finally realized this was not going to be that easy and that they might need some help. "How are we going to get past this?" she cried out, "We have to at least make an edible cake that someone else would eat to complete this job."
"I'm not sure, but I can tell you this much." Anna said as she gestured towards the latest horrific mass of cake on the counter. "I'm not touching that thing with a ten foot pole."
"I don't blame you one bit." Lizzy said as she stared at her latest attempt to bake. It was horrible and not in a nice way too. This task from the list was going to be a lot more difficult than she had earlier anticipated.
"The biggest problem is that the task isn't for you to just bake any cake, but something nice enough to celebrate someone's birthday with."
"We're finished, there's no way we're going to do this one. Let's move on to the next on the list!" Anna cried, ready to toss in the towel.
"Never!" Lizzy said with fire in her voice. "We will do this list in order, because this is the way Hayden would have done it."
"Are you sure about that?" Anna asked.
"No." Lizzy confessed, "But that's how we're going to do it. Let's do this right."
"How are we going to do that?" Anna asked as she took her apron off in disgust. "Are we going to hire a ringer to cook it for us?"
"No, we are going to do all these tasks ourselves. No ringers!" Lizzy paused for a moment, "But that doesn't mean we can't pay someone to teach us how to do it." She looked down at the notebook she was googling with and turned the monitor around for Anna to read: Alfredo's cooking academy. There was full information and numbers for them to call. "There are single night classes that teach specific things to people who are not chefs." She picked up the phone and dialled the number.
After a few rings, someone finally picked up the line. "Good afternoon, Alfredo's cooking academy. How may I help you?"
Lizzy paused, nervous to speak. "Yes, I was wondering if there were any classes that could teach someone how to bake a fancy cake."
"Yes, there is. We have a class specifically made for creating and professionally decorating birthday cakes."
"Oh my!" Lizzy said as she got excited, "How much to attend that class?"
"It's one hundred each for a ten class course. Classes are every Tuesday night."
"Perfect. I'd like to reserve a place for two students." Lizzy said as she whipped out her credit card to put down a deposit for their places. After she made the payment, she was told information would arrive in the mail. About a week later they had course materials, a reading list of the books they needed to buy as well as another list of the materials they needed to bring to class. They had to supply their own kitchenware so that they could bring the pans and other stuff home when they wanted to make stuff for homework. Lizzy for the first time in a while was very excited. She was on a quest to make something rather than investigate and run around looking for answers. She was going to learn how to make a cake and then use that vast knowledge to make it for someone, maybe at a party.
Lizzy was very excited when they arrived for their first class, but Anna was anything but. She didn't like cooking that much, but was confident that Lizzy would do most of the work, and they would both pass. It was pretty much a flashback to her high school days when Lizzy would do all the work in science class and she just copied the notes and passed. Same would happen here so she wasn't worried. But things got interesting when they arrived to class. There were only twenty people in the class, paired off in groups of two, so naturally Anna clung to Lizzy like always. She was confident that it would work out, they'd make a decent cake and move on.
They stood together, waiting with aprons on and materials set out to meet their teacher and get to work. He strolled in and had that puffy hat that all good chefs seemed to wear and spoke with a very, very thick French accent. "Good evening, ladies and gentlemen," he said, "I am Alfredo Marchant. Yes, the Alfredo of this school. You were supposed to have a skinny and very well trained chef here to instruct you on this important dessert, but she has left for better pastures and here we are. You will learn from the very best, and when this class is over... you will be able to bake me a brilliant cake. An inspiring cake that someone would be proud to have at their party to celebrate their special day. Now who is ready to learn?"
Everyone in the class seemed very excited, especially with Alfredo himself teaching the class but he wasn't the easiest instructor to work with. His standards were very high, and if your batter was not whipped enough or the cake didn't bake puffy enough... that piece of crap you attempted to call a cake was tossed into the trash bin with absolute authority. Toss in one ingredient and the Frenchman would turn into an angry Brit in five point five seconds, kicking trash cans and telling you to dump what you got and start over again. Anna was quickly tiring of the old man's antics, but Lizzy was taking it all in and working hard to make sure everything was perfect. She wasn't doing it for the chef, and even he could tell that much was true. Everyone was there to just learn so they wouldn't have to buy something from their local bakery and save twenty bucks every time someone had a special day. Lizzy was focused and wanted to learn how to properly make a cake, because to her the item on the list wouldn't be finished unless the cake was made the right way and good enough for everyone to feast on it till there was nothing left. She would take all her cake knowledge home and keep baking until she ran out of stuff to bake with. With time her efforts were paying off. Each cake that came out after the other was getting better, as was her timing with the oven and the batter.
It was around week six when Alfredo couldn't contain himself and went out of his way to stand up and be heard. "I have to tell you everyone that I have never seen this kind of commitment and dedication from someone taking part in this kind of amateur class. I am very touched by the work many of you are doing, but Elizabeth has been one of my best pupils I have seen in a while. Tell me my dear, where does it come from. Who inspires such effort and hard work?"
"I want to make a cake for someone I love." Lizzy said honestly, "For someone who deserves nothing but the best and I want to be the person that makes this cake for them."
Alfredo's heart melted and the old man cracked a wide smile from underneath his big white beard. "I understand and appreciate your motives. Deep down this is the reason why people want to cook. The only true reason why anyone wants to cook is to make something for someone else who will appreciate and enjoy their creations. Nothing says thank you more to a chef than to see someone reach for a second helping. That kind of satisfaction is fulfilling, and to want provide that gift of a well made meal for someone you care about... that is true love. A love of food and what it can bring out in people when they try it."
His words seemed to inspire the class for everyone, even Anna was making more of an effort to work hard and remember everything they were taught and apply it as best as she could. They worked hard to improve their decorating techniques and turned out some amazing cakes that months earlier would have been impossible for them to make. When the ten weeks was over, Alfredo was happy to inspect their final works and congratulate them all on a successful semester.
"I will be honest from the very start." the old chef said as he took his had off and tossed it on his own table. "I really didn't think we were going to make magic like this, but that is the only word I can used to describe the masterpieces that lie before me. I want to thank you all for making this a very beautiful semester here at my academy. Go out there a make a cake that will bring smiles to everyone’s face!"
Everyone cheered and just like that Lizzy's class was over. She had spent the better part of three months learnin
g the proper way to make the cake, now all she needed to do was find someone with a birthday and bake them the mother of all cakes that everyone would love. She checked her calendar and find out when the next big birthday was in both her own and in Hayden's family. She skipped ahead a few weeks and stopped when she reached a certain date. The next one from her current day was Sept 21st: her birthday.
It seemed awkward for her to make herself a cake, but it was better than nothing. She would invite her best friends and closest family members and make a huge cake for everyone to enjoy and eat. To her the best way to take care of the list would be to make herself a grand cake and then hold her own party to celebrate her new found talent and then move on to the next item.
As her Birthday slowly approached, Lizzy and Anna decided to invite a small gathering of friends and family, the first big event at her apartment since Hayden's passing. When the day came, Lizzy and Anna both applied what they had learned and made an amazing two tier cake that was pink all over with white trim and had vanilla filling with a middle layer of raspberry jam. It was an amazing cake and it took them both hours just to decorate it. They left the cake in the center of the living room table, the center piece surrounded by chicken wings, salads and other snacks that made up the main meal. Friends and family slowly streamed in and we very impressed with the spread as well as the cake. They ate, drank and were very merry. Anna took it upon herself to light the cake and start the singing of her birthday song, much to Lizzy’s surprise and with a little help from her brothers they were able to blow out all the candles that were spaced throughout the cake. Then it was time to consume the main attraction.
Anna divvied out some very hearty helpings since they didn't want very much left over. It was a big hit with everyone who came to attend the party. Both Lizzy and Hayden's father took a second helping, the key to happiness according to Alfredo. While everyone was eating their cake, it was Hayden's mom who first inquired about the origin of the magnificent dessert. "Who made this?"
"Anna and I did." Lizzy said as she beamed with pride. "We took a cooking class to learn how to make it properly and this fancy."
"Well good for you!" her mother in law said as she also beamed with pride. "I think Hayden would have been very proud of your efforts. He always loved something that was made with love rather than cooked for by someone else."
"I know. It was one of my favourite things about him." Lizzy quietly replied.
"You know, Hayden had asked me to teach him how to make a cake." his mother then piped in. "He said he wanted to do it for you. To make you a great cake for today actually. I was going to start teaching him how to bake two weeks after he passed away. It's so strange that you made such a great effort to do the same, as if you're taking care of this for him."
Lizzy looked back at her Mother-in-law and smiled at how she managed to figure it out without having access to the list. She didn't have the courage to tell her about the list just yet but thought when the time was right and she was ready, they would sit down and talk about it. For now she wanted to relish the moment that had completed the cake quest that took a lot longer than either of them thought it was going to take. The next few tasks looked like they were going to be a little easier, but she wasn't going to assume that anymore after how long it took her to do something like bake a cake. The item about the park was not going to be an issue, especially since Hayden talked to her about it all the time. To Lizzy, there was no doubt what the next task as about and she looked forward to it being a little easier to complete than this task was. One could only hope.