• • •
“What’s this?” Winnie said when I untied the dish towel and set the cake on the counter. “Looks like somebody put their fist through it.”
“We had some bike trouble. It’ll still taste good. Do you have a microwave so we can zap it for a few seconds? It’s better warm.”
“Radiation makes it tastes better? How ’bout mercury? That make it taste better too? Maybe I have some asbestos we could shake over it like powdered sugar?”
“Never mind,” I said. It would still taste good. The chocolate center just wouldn’t pack the same ooze. Her loss.
Winnie leaned over and sniffed. “What is it anyway?”
“Molten chocolate cake.”
“Just chocolate, right? I don’t like it when people get all fancy and mix the chocolate up with stuff that’s got no business with chocolate. Some guy came in here trying to sell me chocolate bars with chili peppers in them. What’s that about?”
Clearly I was getting points for chocolate. That was something at least.
“I know,” I said. “My parents took us to this fancy restaurant once that put lavender in the chocolate mousse. It was like eating that dried stuff people use to make clothes smell good.”
“Potpourri in chocolate? An abomination, that’s what that is.”
I didn’t know what an abomination was, but she seemed to be agreeing with me, which felt like a good sign. “Yeah, don’t worry. This is just chocolate and eggs and butter and sugar. It’s my mom’s famous recipe.”
“Famous, huh? Did they write about it in the papers?” She pointed to the frame on the counter.
“I just meant people love it.” How was it that every other word out of my mouth got her all worked up? Worked up wasn’t a good way to go into a taste test.
“Well, I’m not everyone,” she muttered as she disappeared into the back of the store. Moments later, she was back, fork in hand. “Just chocolate, right?” She jabbed the cake like she was trying to wake it up.
“Just chocolate, I promise.”
“Okay, here we go…”
I tried to read her face as she chewed.
“Didn’t anybody ever tell you it’s rude to watch a person eat?”
“Sorry.” I turned around and pretended to study the egg cartons.
“Hmn,” she grunted.
I snuck a quick look just in time to see her take another bite, much bigger than the first.
“Not earth-shattering or anything,” she said, still chewing, “but you should be able to make my doughnuts okay.”
“Yes!” I spun around to face her.
“Not so fast,” she said, wagging her fork at me. “Before you get that recipe, we need to hammer out the details. You bring your business plan?”
“You never told me I needed a business plan.”
“I never told you not to put chili peppers in chocolate cake either, but you knew that. Of course you need a business plan. You’re selling something, right? If you’re selling, you’re in business. You need a budget. You need to figure out your costs. You need to figure out how many doughnuts you’re planning to sell each day. I wouldn’t recommend making more than forty for starters, no matter how much people beg. And then…”
I wanted to cry. I just wanted a chocolate cream doughnut. Now I was starting a business? I’d only come up with the idea to sell the doughnuts to get Winnie to give me the recipe and get my parents off my back.
“After all, I need to know your profits so I can figure out my cut,” Winnie was saying when I started listening again.
“What? You want money? But I’m going to be doing all the work.”
“But it’s my recipe. They call it intellectual property. You’ve got to pay for a license to use what I created. Now that sounds fair, doesn’t it?” She took another big bite of cake. She seemed quite pleased with how things were going. Why wouldn’t she be? She’d gotten the stupid new kid in town to make her chocolate cake, and now she thought she was going to get him to pay her for the privilege of making her doughnuts.
“When you use a recipe from a cookbook, you don’t have to buy a license,” I argued.
“Ah, but you do,” she said, dotting an I in the air with her fork. “You had to buy the cookbook.”
Unfortunately, I could see her point. “How much do you want?”
“I told you. I can’t figure that out without seeing the numbers.”
“But I don’t know anything about making a budget and all that other stuff. It sounds like a lot of math. Maybe I could get my sister to work on it. She’s really good at that kind of thing.”
“What are you talking about? This isn’t math. It’s common sense. Besides, this is your business. Why do you want to hand over the details of your business to just anybody?”
“She’s not anybody. She’s my sister.”
“Even worse. Family members don’t respect each other’s property. It’s the first rule of family: what’s mine is yours. You really want somebody who can’t tell the difference between yours and theirs working on your business?”
“She did sell my stuff at this tag sale we had once,” I admitted.
“Of course she did! Family. They sell your stuff right out from under you.”
“But I wouldn’t even know how to start putting a budget together.”
“Like I said, this isn’t rocket science. Go across the street.”
“What’s across the street?”
“You have your sister do your reading for you too? Ever heard of a library?” she said, knocking on my head.
“You want me to do research?” I groaned. Those doughnuts were slipping farther away every second.
“Just tell Mary what you’re looking for, and she’ll point you in the right direction.”
“I can’t believe this,” I muttered as I dragged myself out of the store.
“What was that?” Winnie called.
“Bye!” I shouted over my shoulder.
My only hope was that if I acted really stupid, Josh’s mom would just do the
