Rachel turned and grabbed a stool and a spatula. “Here you go, Sadie Lady. It’s high time you learned how to serve cheesecake. The secret is, it doesn’t matter if it comes out messy on the plate as long as it tastes good. So, no pressure, okay?”
Then she guided Sadie’s spatula a little to help her scoop out some cherry cheesecake and plop it on the plate. Sadie reached for another plate, but Rachel shook her head.
“You have to remember the most important part. Spray whipped cream. Not the frozen, scoop it out kind. The squirty kind. Max?” she said. “This is a test. Do you have squirty whipped cream or do I have to find another family to work for? Because I can’t work in a Cool Whip house.” Her eyes sparkled at me.
“Yeah, Daddy! We need squirty!” Sadie said.
I opened the fridge and produced the red can. Rachel took the can and shook it. “Okay, you passed the test.” She handed the can to Sadie and made sure that she pointed it away from her face. Sadie squeezed a lopsided mountain of whipped cream onto the cheesecake and said, “Ta da!”
“Okay, that’s your daddy’s piece,” Rachel said, holding the plate out to me. I took it and kept watching, bemused, as they went on chattering happily like I wasn’t there. “Next piece is yours.”
“I want all the cherry. Can I scoop more cherry on mine?”
“Sure, let’s get some on the plate first. Show me how big. Whoa! Think you can eat all that?” They laughed and then Rachel let Sadie steal cherry topping from another section of the cheesecake and squirt whipped cream on top. Rachel helped her off the stool and handed her the plate. “Meet you at the table,” she said.
When she joined us, I saw Rachel had taken the piece with the cherry scooped off of it. I raised an eyebrow at her, and she shrugged like it was nothing. I burrowed under my whipped cream and got a spoonful of cherry topping. I got up and put it on top of her piece.
“I haven’t used the spoon yet. It’s clean,” I said.
“I wasn’t worried. But you don’t have to share.”
“You’re a guest. I can’t have you eating cherry-less cheesecake because Sadie Cakes was greedy.”
“I am not greedy!” she said with a mouthful of cheesecake, which was pretty damn hilarious, but I just shut my eyes and didn’t laugh. Rachel cleared her throat, obviously trying not to giggle at Sadie’s antics.
“Thank you,” Rachel said, taking a bite.
“This is wonderful,” I said.
“Thanks. The next one, Sadie will make. It’s a no-bake, you just chill it. She’s going to blow you away with her mad kitchen skills this summer.”
“I wanna make cakes!”
“I’m a pie girl, Sadie. You’ll have to start me off slow.”
“That’s okay,” Sadie said. “If we make good pies. I don’t like raisins.”
“Not even in cookies? My grandma made oatmeal raisin cookies that were so good, I’d clean her whole living room just to get one!” Rachel said.
“Really?”
“Really,” Rachel said seriously. “And I have the secret family recipe. I’ll make them with you when I start watching you.”
“For real? Can we take some to my teacher and my class except for Cruz, he’s allergic to wheat?”
“The thing is, these are the kind of cookies you could take to your dad’s crew to give them a break with some lemonade. Kind of a way to help out.”
“You’ll need to ask me for a good time to do that. I don’t let Sadie visit areas where there’s active logging,” I put in, hating how I sounded like a killjoy.
“You’ll give me your number and I’ll message you. Is twenty-four hours’ notice enough? If you pick the time we show up?” she asked.
“That should be enough, but don’t get Sadie excited until I give you the go-ahead to bring stuff to the site,” I said.
“Right,” she said, visibly deflated from my outright ruining the scheme of doing a good deed with my daughter.
“I’m already excited,” Sadie said, “and you always say you always have time for me. Right?” Sadie asked.
“I do always have time for you, but you know that there are things I work on that aren’t safe for you to be near. Sometimes you have to wait.”
“Not for like two hundred hours! I wanna take you cookies and get a hug. Why is that a big deal?” she said.
Truth was, I had an idea why I was making a big deal of it. The sexual tension with Rachel was like warm, honeyed air pressing on me in the room, making me want to open a window to get a breath. So I was trying to put her in her place like a jerk. If Denise had ever suggested bringing Sadie out to see me, I would’ve said give me five minutes’ notice and I’d meet her at the road. I wouldn’t have pulled that crap about giving me notice and not telling my daughter till it was settled. I was pulling rank and I had the sense to feel annoyed at myself.