100 Days of Cake by Shari Goldhagen Page B

everything.”

    Gram’s house is in the older part of town, and we pass our old house on the way. That rickety swing is still in the backyard; it’s just not ours anymore.
    In one of her baggy shift dresses, Gram meets us at the door. “Well, don’t you girls look pretty?” She hugs V and me. Taking in Mom’s overly complicated dress shirt, she adds, “You must be burning up in that in this weather.”
    â€œGood to see you,” Mom says without skipping a beat, and hands Gram the cherry pie from Coral Cove Bake Shop. “Unfortunately, we had a little bit of a spill with the cake I made.”
    â€œProbably best this way. Lisa, you’re a pretty girl, but you’ve never been much of a cook.” Gram laughs warmly, like this is a funny shared joke.
    V and I exchange a look.
    â€œWell, I’ve been trying,” Mom mumbles.
    Nothing in Gram’s house has been redone in my entire life. Same paisley couches, same olive-colored kitchen appliances, and a shag carpet that has managed to survive three decades relatively unscathed. There is something really nice about the fact that her house is always a constant. The only “new additions” to the place are a couple of these Georgia O’Keeffe–like flower paintings I made in junior high art class that Mom and I had framed for one of Gram’s birthdays. Seeing them I have a momentary flicker of sadness. Art is the one extracurricular I kind of miss, even if I did drop out because I didn’t have any “themes or underlying messages” in my work and felt like a giant fraud.
    â€œAre you working on any new pictures, Molly?” Gram asks when she notices me looking.
    â€œNot right now,” I say, not adding anything about the fraud stuff.
    I brought Pickles in his crabitat, and Gram takes agenuine interest in him, letting Pickles crawl across her arm and getting him some veggie treats from the kitchen.
    Gram is actually a pretty good cook, and when we were really little, V and I used to get out all her pots and pans and pretend to help her. When V was maybe six, she told Gram how much she loved this sausage-and-pepper dish that Gram had made. V had kind of a lisp back then, so the way she said “delicious” was really cute, and Gram was tickled. So now we’re pretty much stuck with that every time we come over for dinner, even though V would never normally eat sausage anymore. Who’s gonna be the jerk to say something about it to an old lady?
    Like clockwork, the second we’re all sitting down to eat, Gram turns to V. “Well, how is it?” she asks.
    â€œStill de-liss-ous,” V assures.
    â€œI would have made those brownies you girls like, but your mom said she was handling dessert.”
    â€œI’m sure the pie will be great,” I say. And it is tasty when we try some twenty minutes later, but I feel like a traitor eating it. Maybe we should have let my mom bring the horrible cheesecake?
    On the ride home Mom is quiet and visibly bummed.
    â€œYou know,” I say, “everyone loooved my hair when you braided it the other night. Maybe you could do it again tonight?”
    I glance at V in the backseat. She rolls her eyes and shakesher head, but then joins in. “Maybe you could do mine, too? I have to open Jaclyn’s tomorrow, and it might save me a ton of time if I didn’t have to do my hair in the morning.”
    â€œOkay.” Mom pinks up a little. “That might be fun.”
    And it actually is.

DAY 26

Crazy Coffee Crumb Cake
    W ant to go to the mall?” Elle asks.
    â€œFor serious?” I say.
    â€œYeah.”
    â€œAre you suffering from heatstroke?” I’m only half joking. For the past few years, every time I’ve so much as used the word “mall” in a sentence, I’ve gotten a lecture about what awful corporate citizens the big stores are and about all the pollution generated by the