Your Face on the Frozen Cookies

There sometimes comes a moment late in the day, when the kitchen is hot and perfumed with the scent of browning bread, that I find myself staring deep into the oven, oblivious to the world outside. To my knowledge, batter and dough have not yet shown any proof of sentience, yet I see them come alive at 450 degrees. They shrink and grow, turn golden as they undergo a chemical revolution in the span of minutes.

I wish I could change just as quickly. Transform myself, with the right amount of mixing and heat, just like that.

Standing in front of the oven, zoned out with ruddy cheeks after a long shift, I snap my fingers. Like that.

“Need something, Thom?” asks Pragya as she walks by carrying a tray of macarons.

“Huh?”

“You snapped your fingers at me.”

My face grows hotter as my body finds another reservoir of blood to send up. “Ah, no. Sorry. Wasn’t snapping at you.”

“Right,” Pragya says, shuffling past me to put the macarons out on display.

I think I’m a good boss, but no matter how good you are, zoning out and staring into an oven makes your employees question things. They wonder if the business is going downhill, if their jobs are safe.

The thing was, the bakery was doing fantastic. We had regulars. Catered weddings, retirements, banquets. People like what we made. Enjoyed my recipes. As a pastry chef, there’s only so much you can really hope for, and I had it.

But there was someone who had more.

***

I walk home to my apartment, letting the cool evening air soothe my skin.

I should have taken the train.

His face lights up a billboard two blocks away from the bakery, and a twisted part of me feels like he made them put it there on purpose. But he lives off in a prettier city, and I can’t imagine he’s bothered to find out where I ended up.

At home, I open my freezer, close my eyes, and let the cool air drift over me. After I start to feel guilty about wasting energy, I open my eyes and stare right into his. A thin layer of frost covers the cardboard. The Photoshopped image looks eerie in the dim freezer light.

Buying the product was an ordeal. I put on my most nondescript clothes and drove to the furthest corner of the city so nobody would see me purchasing frozen cookies. That’s the kind of thing that can shut down your business, you know, if someone sees you. People suspect everything you’re selling came packaged and preserved.

I always wondered how much he had to do with the actual recipes of his brand’s frozen food. I tried every flavor. They were okay. Nothing like the real thing, what he could do without the preservatives and freezer burn.

I remembered everything he ever made me.

***

My Aunt Nadine once asked me whether I had purposefully chosen to become a pastry chef as a “gay thing,” as though I surveyed a list of careers and circled only the ones in which I could most flamboyantly fulfill a stereotype. Nobody else in my family ever mentioned this, though I suspected Nadine may have been the only one obtuse enough to bring it up in front of me.

The truth was, I just liked the rhythms of baking, the way the hours seemed to cushion themselves around me and insulate me from the outside world when I was in the kitchen. That was why I went to culinary school. There weren’t really more queers there than any other place in the world.

But there was Luis.

He was the first person I noticed when I stepped into class, likely because he was so tall. Nearly six-foot-four with a goofy grin, like he was the first person in the world to crack open a cocoa pod. He always shaved his head because he could never be bothered to do his hair. He thought it made him look tough.

But he was one of the least intimidating people I ever met, especially considering how he towered over everyone. Quick to laugh and loose with compliments, he made all our classes over those six months sparkle. Even when he got distracted and absolutely incinerated the croissants he was making, forcing us all to run outside as the fire alarm went off. It was impossible to be angry with him.

I was the only one in class who could keep up with Luis. You can be taught exactly how to prepare a textbook flan or compote, but there are some people who just understand, who can taste through their fingers and recreate a dish without a recipe after taking one bite. That’s what we were like. It’s like being born with perfect pitch—maybe we had perfect taste, a perfect conception of how to utilize all the flavors and textures in the world.

It went to our heads. Perhaps we should have been rivals, trying to outdo each other. We did try to outdo each other. But there was something deeper. We spent all our time outside of class together. Practicing what we had gone over earlier at school, dreaming about the bakery we would open. Lying in bed early in the morning, dreading leaving each other’s arms but excited knowing we would still spend the entire day together. It was all saccharine, too excessively sweet to last. Candy apples. You can only stomach so much.

***

Luis would make me cinnamon rolls at any time of the day. They’re my favorite, an obsession I’ve clung to since childhood. I like how they’re gooey and messy and supposed to be a breakfast food even though there’s nothing nutritious about them at all.

You can eat them whenever you want. They always taste good. Warm glaze oozing over the top and sides, a perfect swirl of dough.

I would make him cake. That was his childhood favorite. Chocolate, simple but open to interpretation. It was decadent. I made it rich but fluffy, and his eyes would roll back in his head.

It was so intimate. The apartment would smell like cinnamon and chocolate all day.

***

I turn on the television and flip to the food channel. There’s a competition show on, six people grilling the fattest steaks I’ve ever seen. They are outside of what looks like some sort of rodeo. There are trucks everywhere. It’s not my style, but I keep watching because I know what comes on next.

After the steaks are grilled and tasted, his show comes on. One of his shows. A new program, though it’s just another competition. He’s judging pastry chefs who are creating all sorts of cakes, pies, cupcakes—you name it. They are intricately decorated and styled, so much so that the show is more about construction and fondant than it really is about the art of baking.

He would have ridiculed that, once upon a time. Now his eyes open wide as the cakes turn the corner, six feet tall, vaguely in the shape of Mount Everest, with little cake figurines climbing it.

I just know it tastes terrible.

Luis says the cake is “marvelous.” He does not actually comment on the taste, the texture, how it feels when you take a bite.

I think about applying for the competition. I could probably get on. Walking up to him with whatever travesty they’ve asked for. My chocolate cake recipe inside. His lips closing around a modest sample.

I will never apply.

***

We made it almost a year after culinary school ended. It was easy for us both to find work. We were good enough to work in any restaurant, any bakery. The sweetness started to wear off a little, but I thought that was healthy. We were settling into our lives.

One day, he woke up much earlier than normal and scurried out of the apartment before I really knew what was going on. A couple hours later, a friend texted and asked why I did not tell her that Luis was going to be on TV.

I flipped on the morning news to see Luis demonstrating an easy pie recipe that was, apparently, a fantastic autumn treat. The hosts cooed over him. They loved how tall he was, how gracefully he moved around the on-set kitchen. He glowed on camera, his smile transfixing.

He never told me how he got the job in the first place. He never told me much about it, to be honest. I think he thought I would be jealous. Maybe I would have been—but we had never been like that. We weren’t rivals. At least, that’s how I saw it.

He started appearing on the morning show once a week. I got angry because he never included me. I wanted to help him with the recipe, give him feedback. But he ignored me. That was when the jealousy came.

When he got offered his own TV show, I knew we were over. He had to move, and it was obvious he did not want me to come with him.

I should have been proud to open my own bakery. But if that had not been enough for him, how could it be enough for me?

***

The cinnamon buns hurt. Splayed out in the grocery store, a grim-looking woman of about eighty handing out free samples on paper plates. I tried one. They were nothing like the ones he made me. They were sticky, not gooey, and there was barely any cinnamon at all.

I knew someone else had designed these. His brand was now just an empty shell, throwing out the kind of junk you buy and leave in your freezer in case your in-laws drop by unexpectedly.

There was no part of me left with him.

***

At the end of the TV competition program, Luis turns to the camera and explains that he’s opening a bakery in Los Angeles at the end of the month. He promises everything there is his own personal recipe, but I doubt it.

I lie awake all night.

The next day, I tell Pragya that I’ll be taking a couple days off. She’s going to be in charge, and she is delighted.

I book the flight to Los Angeles.

***

Three weeks later, there is a line-up around the block. I know I am lost in the crowd, invisible. But I can see Luis, standing by the front door, making a speech about how excited he is. He cuts a ribbon and invites everyone inside.

By the time my turn to go inside arrives, Luis is long gone. Their inventory is depleted, and a sense of exhaustion hangs about the employees.

I spot what I want and pay for it, tipping well.

Wandering away from the still-hectic bakery with a little box and a compostable fork, I find a park to sit in.

The slice of chocolate cake has been slightly crushed by the box, but I don’t care about the presentation.

I dip my fork in, as nervous as the first time I baked for Luis.

The cake is rich, decadent—but fluffy.

My recipe.