In the sunlight, it looks horrible. She can see all the cracks and puckers of the marzipan layer, all the imperfections she hadn’t been able to iron out.
“We’re late” he says gruffly, breaker her from her thoughts. With a deep breath she hurries from the porch to the car, fumbling with the door, cake perched precariously on her open palm as he slips easily into the drivers seat.
“I don’t want to stay long” he grunts, reversing out of the driveway. She looks down at the cake. It’s sweating in the oppressive heat of the car.
“I need to open the window” she frees her hand from underneath the plate “or the cake will melt”
“Turn on the aircon. I don’t want to mess my hair” he replies.
She glances over briefly at his gelled hair, shiny as a helmet, before pressing the aircon button. The air comes out hot, sending her into a panic. She stares, frozen, at the sweating cake until several blocks later, the air turns cold. With a sigh of relief, she holds the cake in front of the air vent.
She hold sit steady, overcompensating for the bumps in the road, and gradually, the marzipan begins to dry and firm up.
“The cracks are gone” she says, mostly to herself as she turns the cake. “I guess the heat helped smooth things over”. He doesn’t respond, speeding down an empty road. And then, he breaks, out of the blue, and the cake slips from her fingers into the passenger dashboard. She lunges forward, fingers catching the bottom of the plate as he honks loudly again and again at the family pulling out of their driveway.
She pulls the cake to her, damaged side facing away from her. Green marzipan and white cream nestles into the crack of the air vents and smear across the dashboard.
“For fuck’s sake” he says glancing over “look at the mess you’ve made”
Home Sweet Home 