Bakeshop Mystery 11 - Nothing Bundt Trouble

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  Acknowledgments

  Writing this installment of the Bakeshop Mysteries gave me a deeper understanding of Ashland’s past. I felt a bit like a time-traveler as I researched life in the Rogue Valley in the 1980s. In the process, I learned that while some things have changed—housing prices have skyrocketed and pay phones no longer exist—Ashland’s sense of community still runs strong, in part due to many of the business owners and families who put down roots in the decade of neon.

  I’d like to share a special thanks with Valerie Rachelle for providing me with background, insight, and a behind-the-scenes tour of the Oregon Cabaret Theater. If you ever find yourself in Jules’s hometown, be sure to catch a show at the Cabaret.

  Also, thanks to many longtime locals for lending their perspective and memories, including Steve Sacks, Jamie Palomino, Wendy Ray, Pam Denke, and Stefanie Nagata.

  Last, but certainly not least, my deepest thanks to all of you for coming along on this journey with Jules and her team at Torte. I hope you enjoy this glimpse into her past.

  Chapter One

  They say that the future is mutable. That our choices and actions influence every outcome. That could be true, but the only way I was going to be able to embrace my future was to understand my past. Moving into my childhood home had quickly reacquainted me with years of long-forgotten memories. Like the hallway floorboards that squeaked with the lightest step. It was a good thing I had never tried to sneak out when I was a kid. There was no chance I would have been successful. Maybe that’s why my dad had never bothered to fix the creaky floor. After he died, I guessed that loose pieces of hardwood were low on Mom’s priority list. So here I was almost twenty years later, tiptoeing down the hallway in my slippers, trying to avoid the squeaky sections of the floor.

  My parents’ house—now my house—was tucked in amongst towering ponderosa pines, sequoias, aspens, and blue spruce trees on the aptly named Mountain Avenue in Ashland, Oregon. The view from the back deck offered a panorama of Grizzly Peak and the sepia toned hillsides across the valley. As a kid, I had always felt like I lived in a tree house. I would fall asleep watching the spindly branches of the pine trees waving in the window and staring up at the star-drenched sky.

  When Mom and her new husband, the Professor, had offered to pass the house on to me, I resisted. It wasn’t because I didn’t love the house. Quite the opposite. It was that I didn’t want to take advantage of their generosity. They had done so much for me since I had returned home to Ashland. However, they had made it clear that keeping the house in the family was important to them. After their wedding last summer, they had opted to leave both of their old worlds behind and start a new life together on the wind-swept banks of Emigrant Lake. I hadn’t seen Mom this happy in years. Her enthusiasm was contagious. For the past week she had been over every day helping me unpack boxes and rearrange some of the furniture she had left behind.

  The holidays were also behind us, which meant that I actually had time to focus on organizing my new space. Ashland is a tourist destination and mecca for theater lovers. When the Oregon Shakespeare Festival is in season there’s never a dull moment at Torte, our family bakeshop. Most small business owners in town (myself included) know that there is a small window of time each year to plan a tropical getaway or tackle the list of tasks that fell by the wayside during the rush of the tourist season. Rather than jetting off to a sunny island or trekking through the snowy Siskiyou Mountains, I had decided to use the downtime to officially move in.

  Since I had spent nearly a decade sailing from port to port in my position as head pastry chef for the Amour of the Seas cruise ship, I hadn’t had a need to accumulate things, which made unpacking a breeze. My move had consisted of packing my clothes, my collection of cookbooks, and my kitchen tools. The apartment I had been renting above Elevation, an outdoor store on the plaza just a few doors down from the bakeshop, had come fully furnished. My challenge now was finding enough furniture to fill the four-bedroom house.

  Mom had left a few pieces of mission-style furniture, including a large dining room table and chairs, a couch, side tables, a coffee table, and a desk. I’d been sleeping on my old twin bed in what was my childhood bedroom. Mom had converted it into her sewing room when I left for culinary school. I figured it was probably time to graduate to an adult bed, so I had ordered a custom queen-size four-poster bed and mattress. It was due to arrive this afternoon, and I couldn’t wait.

  As if on cue the doorbell rang. I went down the oak staircase to answer the door.

  “Hello, darling.” My friend Lance stood on the porch, holding a bouquet of pale white roses dotted with greenery in one hand and an expensive-looking tool kit in the other.

  “You’re early.” I greeted him with a kiss on the cheek and showed him inside. Lance had offered to come help me set up the bed and dressers.

  “Better early than late.” He handed me the flowers as I shut the door behind him. “I figured I should be here to oversee the delivery. We wouldn’t want the delivery crew to ding up your walls, would we?”

  “No.” I chuckled. “Imagine the horror.”

  Lance set his tool kit in the entryway and tugged off his charcoal gray wool coat. Beneath the coat he wore a pair of perfectly cut khaki slacks, a cornflower blue shirt, and expensive leather shoes. He hung the coat on a rack by the door. “You jest, Juliet, but you’ll thank me later.”

  “I’m sure I will.” I pointed down the hallway to the kitchen. “Come on in. I’ll put these in some water.” I was in my usual weekend attire—a pair of fleece yoga pants, thick cozy cabin socks, and my favorite well-worn fleece hoodie. I had acquired the two-tone yellow and gray hoodie with front pockets and cowl neck from a vintage shop in the plaza not long after I returned home to Ashland. There hadn’t been much need for fleece clothing or wool socks on the cruise ship.

  We walked to the kitchen where sunlight flooded the room. The original pressed-glass windows reflected a greenish glow from the trees outside. I had planted a row of herbs above the sink that were just beginning to sprout.

  “I see you’ve wasted no time getting the kitchen organized,” Lance noted, pointing to the display of cookbooks near the six-burner gas stove and my copper pots hanging on a wire rack above the butcher-block island.

  “It’s my happy place. I had to start here.” I filled a vase with water and arranged the roses.

  “Trust me, we are all the better that the kitchen is your happy place.” Lance lifted the lid on my canary yellow Dutch oven. “My lord, what smells so divine?”

  “That’s meatball soup for later. I couldn’t beg for your assistance without feeding you. I made a batch of butter rolls, a simple Italian salad, and a bitter chocolate cake. If your handyman skills are really as good as you claim, then I just might feed you when we’re done.” I tried to wink.
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  “For a spread like that, you can work these muscles to the bone.” Lance flexed. He was naturally lanky with a thin frame and angular features.

  I rested the vase of roses on the island. “How are things at the theater? Are you ready for the new season?”

  Lance undid the top button of his pale blue shirt and rolled the sleeves up part way. “It’s fine. Have you heard the news about the Cabaret? That’s where the drama is these days.”

  “No.” I poured us cups of French press that had been steeping. “What’s going on?” Despite Ashland’s small population at around twenty thousand residents, the entire Rogue Valley was ripe with talent. There were dozens of theaters (large and small), music venues, and countless pubs and restaurants that offered a range of entertainment from open mic night to stand-up comedy and poetry readings. Our little hamlet was truly an oasis of entertainment. On any given night you could take in a fun and raucous musical at the Cabaret or catch a serious production of Shakespeare under the stars on the Elizabethan stage.

  “The new owners have taken over. Truly wonderful people. Such great vision. They’re a young couple from LA. They’ve been on the scene for years and I can’t wait to see how they transform the Cabaret over the next few years.”

  “Cream?” I asked, pointing to a pitcher resting on the island.

  “Always.” Lance looked miffed that I had even asked.

  “What’s the issue, then?” I poured a generous splash of heavy cream into Lance’s coffee and swirled it into the dark brew.

  “Where to start? The stage has been rife with emotion. I never should have agreed to provide my expertise. I blame it on my benevolent nature.”

  “You’re so kind, and so humble.” I poured myself a cup of the French press.

  “I am. I truly am. Sometimes I astound myself at my generosity.” Lance raised his coffee mug in a toast to himself. “I mean after all it is my duty to give them the lay of the land here in Ashlandia, so to speak. But I hadn’t counted on the fact that I would be spending so much time hand-holding and refereeing petty arguments. I’ve been burning the midnight oil running back and forth between campus and the Cabaret.”

  “You should have told me that you’ve been busy. I wouldn’t have asked you to come help me put furniture together.”

  Lance dismissed me with a flick of the wrist. “Nonsense, darling. I would never pass up an opportunity to spend a day with you. Plus I need a reprieve from Mamma Mia for a few. If I hear that song again, my ears are going to bleed.”

  “Gross.” I shuddered at the thought. The Cabaret had been running its latest production, Mamma Mia, to sold-out audiences for a month. I had read in the paper that they had extended the show due to demand. “Don’t ruin it for me. I bought tickets for Mom and me for next week.”

  “You’ll love it. It’s a fabulous production and Amanda—the new artistic director—her use of space and set design is nothing short of brilliant. If you’ve seen it fifteen times though, those catchy musical numbers begin to stick in your head.” Lance shoved a finger in his ear and pretended to try to rub away the lyrics.

  “I can’t wait. I scored front-table seats and I’m surprising Mom with dinner too.” The Cabaret served a full dinner menu and drool-worthy desserts and cocktails as part of the show. It added to the ambiance of its intimate setting in an old refurbished church. Seeing shows at the Cabaret had been a family tradition. My parents were friends with the original owner and had helped launch the new theater when I was young.

  “As long as the cast and crew don’t implode in the next week, you’ll be fine.”

  That sounded ominous, but the doorbell sounded again, interrupting our conversation.

  “That must be my furniture.” We left our coffees and went to show the delivery crew where everything went.

  Lance removed a tape measure from his tool kit and proceeded to direct the poor delivery guys as if they were actors in his company. Fortunately, they had a good sense of humor and played along when he stopped to measure each doorframe before allowing them to bring my bed upstairs. It didn’t take long for the crew to unload the boxes. When they were done, I offered them homemade Amish sugar cookies, and then Lance I got to work on the hard part—assembly.

  “These floors are magnificent,” Lance commented as he placed pieces of painter’s tape to mark the spot where each of the four-posters would be placed. “They don’t make hardwood like this anymore. It’s all manufactured and processed laminate now. Is this oak?” He massaged the smooth surface of the shiny floor.

  “Yeah. It was already here when my parents bought the house, but they had the floors sanded and stained. The house was not in great condition when they bought it, but guess what they paid for it back in the eighties?”

  Lance made an X with the tape and moved near the window. “Do I even want to ask?”

  “Probably not. Mom showed me the original deed and I thought she was pranking me. They bought this house, which is over two thousand square feet on a ten-thousand square foot lot, for fifteen thousand dollars. Can you believe that?”

  “No. I can’t. Don’t even ask me what I paid for my place.” He made a choking motion.

  Lance’s house was on Scenic Drive, one of the nicest streets in Ashland. Given its size, ornately manicured grounds, and views, I would guess that he paid close to a million dollars. Housing prices in Ashland had skyrocketed in the last decade. Even cute cottages in the railroad district were selling for half a million dollars or more. Many of Ashland’s restaurant and hotel workers had been priced out of the city. They couldn’t afford the rising cost of rent or the down payment for a tiny two-bedroom fixer-upper for prices that would normally be found in a city like San Francisco or Seattle. It was an ongoing source of stress for Mom and me. We paid our team at Torte a fair wage, but even with that, many of our staff had been priced out of Ashland’s rental market.

  “I think we’re ready to start arranging the slats for the base,” Lance announced, balancing a stack of narrow slats of wood.

  Surprisingly, the bed went together more easily than I had expected. In less than an hour we managed to assemble it, two dressers, and a nightstand. I stood back to inspect our work. The master bedroom was a good size with two rectangular windows on either side of the bed, a skylight, and an adjoining bathroom with a claw-foot tub and a basin sink.

  “What do you think?” Lance brushed dust from his hands.

  “I love it.” The four-poster bed had a romantic vibe with its white finish, raised panel detailing on the head and footboards, and tapered legs. I had painted the bedroom a bright slate gray. The contrast of the white bed with the oak floors and gray walls gave the room an almost coastal feel. I planned to drape sheer fabric across the posters and accent the walls with art from my global travels.

  “It feels like you,” Lance agreed. “You need a large floor rug though, and you should replace that light fixture with a romantic chandelier.” He pointed to the basic light fixture above the bed. “Something black with candles to add a touch of drama, yes?”

  “Yeah. That’s a good idea.”

  “And, plants, darling. For the love of God, please get yourself some plants.”

  “Deal.” I piled up the cardboard boxes to recycle. “Are you ready for a dinner break?”

  “I thought you would never ask.”

  I punched him in the shoulder. “Just for that I’m going to make you take this stack of recycling down.”

  Lance hauled the cardboard outside while I went to finish dinner. I ladled the hearty meatball soup into bowls and removed the rolls from the oven. Then I poured us each a glass of white wine and tossed the salad in a garlic vinaigrette.

  “Thanks for your help. I couldn’t have done that without you.” I set our dinner on the island.

  Lance raised his wineglass to me. “Don’t sell yourself short. There’s nothing you can’t do, Juliet. We both know that. But, here’s to new beginnings.”

  “To new beginnings.” We clinked ou
r glasses.

  “This house suits you,” Lance noted, glancing around the warm kitchen with cheery yellow accents. “In that comfy yet impressively stylish outfit with your dewy cheeks and this marvelous kitchen I feel like I’m in a spread for Sunset magazine.”

  “Stop.” I rolled my eyes and blew on my soup. “Although I do agree about the house. I thought it might be weird at first. You know, coming home literally, but I love it. It feels right.”

  “What are you going to do with the rest of the empty rooms upstairs?”

  “No idea. Do you know anyone looking for a room to rent? I’ve been thinking about renting out a couple rooms to SOU students.” The truth was that the house was too big for me. The main floor had a living room, dining room, kitchen, half bath, and office. Upstairs was the master, plus two additional bedrooms, and there was a full unfinished basement. My former apartment could probably fit in the kitchen and dining room alone.

  “Don’t do that yet. Who knows what will happen with your talk, dark, and devilishly handsome husband. Wasn’t there talk at the holidays of him coming to Ashland for a more permanent trial?”

  “Permanent” and “trial” seemed to be in opposition to me. In some ways, that summed up my relationship with Carlos. We had been living apart for two years. When I had left him on the ship, I didn’t look back. I had thought that my decision to leave was likely the end for us. But, Carlos hadn’t given up that easily. He had been trying to convince me that we weren’t star-crossed lovers. We had spent a magical holiday season together when he and Ramiro showed up on my doorstep (or rather Mom’s doorstep) on Christmas Eve. They had stayed through the New Year, taking in all that Ashland had to offer, from ice-skating at the seasonal rink in Lithia Park to snowshoeing on Mt. A and long lazy days spent in front of a roaring fire playing board games and drinking cups of Carlos’s signature dark hot chocolate with a hint of cinnamon and spice. Being from Spain, Ramiro had never experienced a white Christmas. His joy was contagious. I couldn’t contain a grin watching him engage in epic snowball battles with Andy and Sterling and dressing in so many layers that he could barely move. Having them in town had been easy, seamless, as if that’s how our life had always been. But before I knew it, the week was over and they were packing their bags to catch a flight back to Spain. Carlos left me with a parting kiss and a promise that he would return soon.