Getting Hitched Fiction - Winning Them Over

By Lauren Walter

"Now, don’t get too upset, love," Merryl’s father told her. "Your Aunt Harriet’s had a fall."

"No! Will she still be able to bring the wedding cake tomorrow?"

"She fell while carrying the cake." He put a hand on Merryl’s shoulder, but she shrugged it off. This was a disaster. On Sunday, she would marry her dear Brian, and now she would have to do it without her Aunt Harriet’s renowned delicious marzipan fruit cake.

"Oh, and this came for you in the post." Her father held out a thick envelope. Thinking it was a letter from her pen-friend wishing her well for her big day, Merryl opened it:

‘Miss Phillips, we are pleased to inform you that your honey biscuit recipe has won our competition. Please find a copy of our recipe book enclosed as your prize.’

Merryl dejectedly flicked through the cookbook. There was a decided lack of recipes that could resemble a wedding cake and it was too late to begin making a basic fruit cake.

She stopped as she saw her own picture above the recipe she had submitted. The soft-centred honey biscuits had always brightened her spirits and she used any opportunity she found to bake them. She quickly checked the pantry and the cool room to make sure she had all of the ingredients.

Merryl watched the drip of honey slowly dissolve in the boiling water. So she couldn’t have Aunt Harriet’s wedding cake. She would have the one recipe that had always been truly special to her. It wouldn’t be traditional, but it would make her happy.

And as Sunday afternoon came and she watched Brian bite into one of the monogrammed honey biscuits, Merryl knew she had made the right choice.

***

"Come on!" Caroline dumped a handful of flour on to the sticky mass in front of her. She kneaded the dough over and over again in an imitation of how the chefs did it on TV, but who was she kidding? Cooking had never been her thing.

Paul had never let a meal prepared by Caroline go by without giving it a Burnt Rating and scraping most of it into the bin. He hadn’t wanted to make any effort, even then. As the wedding anniversaries slipped by, Caroline had forgone slaving away in the kitchen in favour of take-away shops and microwave packaged meals.

Now, with Paul filing for divorce, she feared losing her children to him and his new flashy lifestyle. Who would they choose to live with, a dad with a girlfriend who cooked as if she had been awarded three Michelin stars, or their incompetent mother, who couldn’t prepare an edible meal if a million dollars was riding on it?

It had all been so simple. Caroline had found an old cookbook in a second-hand book store that listed simple recipes for baking. The honey biscuit recipe had been the first for which she had all the ingredients, as well as the first where she understood the measurements. She’d make these biscuits, proving to everyone she could cook, and making her children proud of her. But after battling with the recipe for the best part of an hour, all Caroline wanted to do was run the book through the shredder and be done with it all.

As the mixture began to flake off in her hands, Caroline felt like giving up. One batch of honey biscuits wasn’t going to make her children choose to stay with her, no matter how much icing she intended to slather on the charred dough.

She wiped away a smear from the black and white photo of a young girl who had created the recipe. The caption read: ‘Merryl Phillips, our competition winner, says this recipe brightens even her darkest hour.’ Caroline threw the book to the floor. Honey biscuits may have solved everything back in 1953, but Caroline felt they meant the end of her world.

The door slammed and Caroline quickly wiped her wet eyes. The kids were home.

"Mum, what are you doing?" Caroline’s daughter grabbed a cloth and wiped the dough smears from the recipe book. "Don’t cook!"

"Alyssa cooks," Caroline spat out.

"So?" Her daughter wrung the cloth out and returned it to the sink. "Are you worried we’re going to want to live with Dad because Alyssa can cook?"

"Ew!" Caroline’s young son said. "She makes us eat tofu and vegetables. You buy us pizza. Who would you want to live with?"

Caroline breathed a sigh of relief. She may have made a mess of the honey biscuits, but she hadn’t made a mess of her relationship with her kids.

***

Madison looked at the rows of golden biscuits baking in the oven.

Pot luck for anything was hard enough, but for a work function it was a minefield. The choice of food was important – try too hard and the same level of quality was expected every time a memo was passed around to bring in something savoury or sweet; don’t try hard enough and you looked like you didn’t care to make an effort.

Madison loved the smell of honey biscuits. Her mum had once made a failed attempt to bake them after Madison’s dad left, and they reminded her of how much her mum cared about her.

Madison also wanted to use the honey biscuits to impress Daniel, the good-looking new guy at work, whose welcoming lunch the biscuits were for. She arranged them neatly on a plate and placed them on the trestle table between the steaming party pies and cream biscuits that were still tucked inside their packaging.

As with every lunch like this, the company’s employees had peeled off into groups: the girls at reception sat on the comfy couches, the IT guys stood by the window. Madison pretended listen to the conversation her work friends were having, while keeping an eye on Daniel. Having no group to slot in to, he sidled up to the table. After lifting off the plastic wrap of several items, he finally reached for her plate of biscuits.

Daniel caught her watching him, and moved towards her group. Madison quickly returned to the conversation, willing the redness to disappear from her cheeks.

"These are delicious," Daniel appeared next to her, holding three of her honey biscuits in the palm of his hand. "I could eat the whole plate! Did you make them?"

Madison nodded, her face getting redder.

"You know, my grandmother won a competition with a recipe like this one. She always said good things happened because of honey biscuits."

Daniel smiled and ate another biscuit. Madison couldn’t agree with him more.

***

© Lauren Walter 2008

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