Chapter 1: EllaCHAPTER 1 ELLA Food brings people together, warms the heart, and feeds the soul. The Book of Cakes, p. 21 Written: 1792-2019 Ella Dove came home on a lazy, scorching, bee-buzzed evening. As she turned her rental car off Interstate 40, her phone rang. Sighing, she hit the answer button on her car screen. "Hi, Tiff. What''s up?" Tiffany Harper, a fresh-faced social media whiz, had been Ella''s assistant for five years now. Tiff and her team of production experts were worth every penny of the hefty amount Ella paid them too.
"Are you home yet?" Tiff asked in her way-too-perky voice. No matter the circumstances, she always sounded as if she were about to announce she''d just won the lottery. "Almost." Ella turned onto a small country road and rolled her aching shoulders. The last eighteen hours had been brutal. Just this morning, she''d stuffed as much as she could into her two largest suitcases, handed the keys to her Paris patisserie with its adorable apartment upstairs to its new owner, jumped into a cab, and headed for the airport. From there, she''d flown for ten long and bumpy hours to Atlanta, where she''d picked up the rental car Tiff had reserved, a feisty red Lexus. Now, after five hours of driving, Ella was almost home, jet-lagged to the bone, and already jonesing to leave.
"I need a nap." "I bet," Tiff said with sympathy. "But I thought you''d want to know that Matt from Ferndale Farms called. They''re worried about your content now that you''ve moved stateside." Ella grimaced. She would be so glad when her contractual obligation to Ferndale Farms was over. The name "Ferndale Farms" might make people think of cozy little farms set in the sunny countryside, but it was actually a huge multinational food syndicate. When Ferndale had bought her small Ella Dove Pie Company for a price she couldn''t refuse, they''d offered a huge bonus if she agreed to do a brand partnership with them for two years.
In the beginning, the extra social posts had seemed harmless enough--especially because she already had Tiff and her team to help produce content for her growing accounts--but sheesh, Matt was a pain. "How much longer are we obligated to them?" "Let''s see. This is August fifth, so. six months, one week, and two days." Ella smiled. "You knew I was going to ask." "Who wouldn''t? I told Matt his target audience--your over two million followers on the Gram and four million plus on TikTok--would love the new content. Small towns are ''in'' right now.
" "It is a pretty town," Ella admitted grudgingly. "Charming. Speaking of content, what do you have planned? We need something fresh." "Content. Right. I''ll make a cake first thing tomorrow." Just the thought of baking eased the tension in Ella''s shoulders. Tired as she was, her soul itched to get back into the kitchen.
"Maybe a lemon pound cake." "And?" When Ella didn''t answer, Tiff sighed. "What do I always say about content?" Ella tried not to roll her eyes and failed. "?''Cakes alone won''t do it. You have to share bits of your life, too.''?" She hated that, but Tiff was right. The metrics didn''t lie. To be honest, Ella couldn''t believe she could make so much money just by sharing videos of her making cakes mixed with casual glimpses of her so-called baking life.
Ella had made a small fortune thanks to the sponsorships Tiff and her team had managed to line up, which had allowed her to develop her brand far more quickly than other bakers. "Maybe I could do a time lapse of me setting up the kitchen at my old house with my favorite kitchen tools." At this very moment, a large yellow suitcase in the trunk of her car held her favorite cookbooks, three special aprons, a crazy-expensive Japanese knife, her favorite rolling pin, some unique cookie cutters, and more. "Ohhh, that could be fun. Paul could do something cool with that." "Paul''s video editing skills are sick. He can make dust look interesting." Ella would rather produce content at the old Dove home than wander around town anyway.
Being a Dove in Dove Pond inspired the exact kind of expectations she hated. People watched her as if she might wave a wand and make all their dreams come true. Her magic was in her cooking, in making a cake that could allow a person to relive a prized, sometimes-forgotten memory. When compared to her sisters'' abilities, her magic seemed pretty tame. "Terrific!" Tiff said. "And get some vid of your sister Ava''s Pink Magnolia Tearoom. I saw the website and it''s perfection." "Sure," Ella said.
"I''ll go down there tomorrow and--" There, right above her wrist, rested a vivid slash of pink strawberry frosting that hadn''t been there a second before. Her heart sank. Stupid frosting. She swallowed. "I''ll get that content to you ASAP." "Great. We can''t wait to see what you come up with." Ella ended the call and reached for her tote bag from where it sat on the passenger seat.
She pushed aside a wrinkled newspaper, pulled out a napkin, and cleaned the frosting from her wrist. She''d told Tiff she was coming home to take care of some family matters, but that was a lie. Over the past four months, she''d been plagued by annoying dreams in which she was chased by a giant, silver-papered cupcake with strawberry frosting. In every dream, the huge cupcake chased her through the tree-lined streets of Dove Pond to the highest point of Hill Street. The dream always ended with her standing alone and terrified in front of the Stewart house. She might have been able to ignore those dreams, but every time she had one, sometime after the dream had ended, strawberry frosting would appear somewhere on her arms or legs. Sometimes it showed up as a plump rose, perfectly made, as if ready for a wedding cake. Sometimes, like just now, it showed up in a long, delicate curlicue.
The frosting was always pink, always smelled like strawberry, and was always annoying. And it was why she''d come back to Dove Pond. There was only one person who might understand what was going on. She turned her car down Main Street and fell in behind a faded blue pickup truck. The sun shimmered on the hot asphalt as a faint breeze rippled through the stifling air and flapped the red awnings that adorned the storefronts, the smell of heat, hay, and summer diesel hanging in the air. The early-evening sun warmed the small American flags still on the light poles from the July Fourth parade a month ago, and glinted off the plate glass fronts of the small stores she knew all too well. People who didn''t know Dove Pond would see only the names of the businesses, but she''d grown up here. She knew Paw Printz was "Maggie and Ed Mayhew''s pet store" and the Ace Hardware was "Stevens''s hardware," while the Moonlight Café was "Jules''s place" and had the best meatloaf on earth.
Ella slowed down as she passed her sister Ava''s new tearoom. The old brick building featured a beautiful wrought-iron bow window filled with colorful pastel canisters of Ava''s specialty teas. Ella absently wondered when she, or any of the other town residents, would drop the "new" part of "Ava''s new tearoom." Probably never. The people of Dove Pond weren''t the sort to embrace change. That was one of the many reasons Ella had left. She loved change. It kept her from drowning in boredom.
Sadly, Ava and Sarah didn''t understand Ella''s aversion to sameness. Their unbridled enthusiasm for Dove Pond and everything in it was as irritating as their heavy-handed attempts to convince Ella and her other sisters to move back home. Together, the two were as subtle as a dump truck rolling downhill without brakes. Ella reached the end of the street, but instead of turning onto Elm Street toward the Dove house, she headed in the other direction. At the edge of town, the houses were smaller, had less trim, and were much farther apart. Ella turned off a windy, narrow road and into the driveway of a familiar yellow house. Aunt Jo sat on her front porch, her cane leaning against the windowsill near her chair, her chunky bulldog Moon Pie asleep at her feet. Her colorful dress of blue and pink flowers clashed with her fluffy purple slippers as she steadily snapped green beans from a brown paper bag into the yellow bowl in her lap.
Ella parked under the huge oak tree, grabbed her purse, and climbed out, the humidity stealing her breath. Whew. Paris got humid, but not southern US humid. She climbed up the stairs, loving that the porch floor was painted a deep aqua while the ceiling above was a familiar but welcome haint blue. "Good afternoon." "You''re late." Aunt Jo dropped some green beans into the bowl in her lap. "I expected you last week.
" Ella dropped her bag beside a faded wicker chair and sat. "Sarah told you I was coming." "She never said a word." Aunt Jo snapped a bean in half with a bit more force than necessary. Although she was sitting in the shade, she shone with dampness, the humidity dewy on her dark skin. "You Doves aren''t the only ones who know things." Ella nodded toward the two glasses of lemonade sitting on the side table. "I hope one of those is for me.
" "One is. This heat is something else." Aunt Jo pulled a handkerchief from her pocket and wiped her shiny brow, her eyes twinkling. "They say the water''s so hot in Lake Fontana that the fish are jumping into boats fully cooked." Ella laughed and took a sip of the lemonade. The drink was the perfect combination of tart and sweet. No one knew flavors better than Aunt Jo. "Don''t order lemonade in Fra.