Shirt Cake

Agatha ran up the stairs of the guest house as fast as her dress would allow, whispering curses and tapping frantically at her phone.

One of the bridesmaids had gone and gotten breathtakingly sunburnt (and drunk) the day before, and Agatha’s luggage containing her makeup kit for darker skin tones had been lost somewhere between Bradley International Airport and Čilipi Airport. The mother of the bride, in a fit of wildly disproportionate rage, declared the whole situation Agatha’s fault, and demanded that she procure makeup for the irresponsible bridesmaid.

And the ceremony was in under two hours.

As the guest house’s snail-paced Wi-fi loaded Agatha’s Google search for where the hell she could find makeup in Dubrovnik, she glanced up through a rough-hewn window upon reaching the landing. The sun was high in the cloudless, jewel-blue sky, the air heady and sweet; the courtyard below was charmingly overgrown, with lavish flowers and fragrant fruit vines threading through wood lattices. And, directly under the landing, out of sight but not quite out of hearing, the bride and her mother stood where Agatha had left them, having a vehemently whispered argument about—something.

In any other circumstance, this would all be enjoyable.

Agatha suppressed a sigh and turned to continue up the stairs—she still needed to wake the errant bridesmaid and slather the woman with aloe gel, and also get a clear picture of her skin tone—

—and slammed bodily into someone coming around the corner.

This was no polite screeching to a halt, not even a gentle, ultimately-harmless bump of clothing. It was a nose-squishing, toe-stubbing, full-frontal collision of flesh and bone and—something mushy?

Agatha stumbled back, momentarily stunned, and watched numbly as the man she’d collided with frantically juggled the remains of a towering chocolate cake.

For a moment, man and cake hung suspended in spacetime, in a bubble of hope, of maybe-this-won’t-end-horribly—but he tripped against the guardrail of the landing, and the bubble popped. The cake wobbled, then tilted, then careened over the guardrail, down toward where the bride and her mother were standing.

A moment of shocked silence—and then a duet of screams, welling up from the courtyard, promising bloody revenge.

The man pressed himself against the guardrail. “I’m so sorry, ma’am—ma’ams! I’ll be right down—"

Agatha yanked him back by the collar. “What are you doing?” She hissed. “Do you want to die?”

He blinked at her—big, kind, clueless eyes. “What? Shouldn’t we—?”

He was interrupted by an otherworldly shriek.

“You two!”

The bride had clambered onto a patio chair to get a better look at them, and was now jabbing a finger in their direction, red-faced and spitting with anger and covered in cake. “First the boxes of champagne, then the makeup, and now the cake!? I swear to god, I’m going to string you up by your—”

Agatha and the man glanced at each other, and an agreement was silently reached.

“Um—look!” He shouted, pointing over the bride’s head. “It’s—a cute cat!”

Agatha, not looking to see how the bride reacted, herded the man towards the stairs, and they scrambled up, slipping and sliding in the remains of the cake, as the bride’s mother yelled something unintelligible. They pounded down the hall, trailing chunks of cake and smears of frosting, and skidded to a stop outside the bridesmaid’s room.

“Oh,” the man wheezed beside her. “We’re visiting Kayla?”

Agatha, ignoring him, banged on the door. The stomping footsteps and shrill cries of the bride grew closer and closer. The door remained distressingly closed.

The man tried the knob. To Agatha’s surprise, the door swung open.

“Kayla always forgets to lock doors,” the man explained helpfully.

“Great,” Agatha replied, before shoving him into the dim room. He propped himself against the wall to catch his breath as Agatha slammed the door shut and made proper use of the lock.

The bridesmaid, Kayla, was sitting up groggily in bed, and froze when she spotted two chocolate-covered figures pressing themselves against her door. All three listened as the bride King Kong-ed down the hall, still crying bloody murder.

The footsteps and screams receded into the distance, and Agatha sagged against the door in relief. Behind her, the bridesmaid burrowed back under her blankets, mumbling angrily.

The man cleared his throat. “Er, do you happen to have a fork?”

Agatha turned to fix him with a stare. “What in God’s name do you need a fork for?”

The man looked around, spotted a fork lying next to a container of abandoned takeout, and, with a satisfied hum, snapped it up and began daintily eating cake off his shirt.

Agatha goggled.

The man paused in the middle of scraping frosting off his collar. “Oh, sorry,” he managed through a mouthful, and held up the fork. “Want some? It’s pretty tasty.”

“No,” Agatha cried, “I don’t want—shirt cake!”

“‘Shirt cake,’” he chortled. “That’s funny. You’re funny. And smart.” He swallowed noisily. “Thanks for holding me back, back there. I don’t know what Susanne would have done to me if she got her hands on me.”

“You’re welcome,” Agatha deadpanned.

“Are you sure you don’t want any of this cake? It’s delicious. The perfect thing after a close call with a bridezilla.”

“No.”

“‘Shirt cake,’” the man repeated, and giggled to himself.

“There is nothing funny about this situation,” Agatha grouched.

“On the contrary,” the man said lightly as he picked a large chunk of cake off his lapel. “This entire situation is hilarious.”

Agatha squinted at his suit. “Is that a groomsman’s suit you’re wearing?”

“Yep.” The man smiled a chocolatey smile, puffing his chest out.

“Isn’t rehearsal in ten minutes?”

He checked his watch. “Shit,” he exclaimed, eyes bugging out. “You’re right. I gotta go.”

He returned the fork neatly next to the takeout container, opened the door, and glanced ruefully at Agatha, the sentiment ruined partially by the frosting smeared across his jaw.

“Um, sorry about your dress,” he offered, before hurrying away, leaving her standing there with a mouthful of unspoken choice words.

---

“What was I thinking?” The bride groused. “Makeup professional. The phrase itself is an oxymoron.”

Agatha winced.

They were in the dressing room, frantically applying last touches to hair and makeup. The bride, Susanne, having procured a new white dress at the last minute from god-knows-where, was sulking in the corner like a brewing thunderstorm.

“Eight thousand dollars, that’s how much that dress cost. Did any of you know that? Eight thousand.”

Kayla glanced sympathetically up at Agatha.

“And the cake was six hundred,” Susanne continued. “Both of them, down the drain. Just like that. Makeup professional.”

“Now, now,” Susanne’s mother chided as she sashayed in, skin scrubbed clean, folded elegantly into a spare powder-pink dress. “It won’t do any good to be rude. You knew what you were getting into, hiring someone at minimum budget. I told you to call that girl who did up Helene for her wedding—”

“Helene looked like she stepped out of an early 70s circus,” Susanne sniffed.

“Now, just because Helene was crowned prom queen—”

“Mom! That has nothing to do with anything—”

A man’s voice hallooed just outside the open door. “Hey, the wedding planner guy wants to know if you all are ready. Oh—is this a bad time?”

The man from earlier—the man whom Agatha would now forever associate with chocolate cake, plastic takeout forks, and crippling embarrassment—stepped in, washed and stuffed hastily into a fresh suit, and narrowly missed being kicked in the face by the bride.

“Seriously, Bob?” Susanne shouted. “This is the ladies’ dressing room!”

“But I thought—the door was open—”

“I don’t know why Keith insists you’re such a great friend,” Susanne hissed. “As far as I can tell, you’re a bumbling idiot who drops everything you’re handed and barges into ladies’ dressing rooms uninvited—”

“Now, Susanne,” the mother drawled, examining a chipped nail, “calm down.”

“—you and that useless makeup artist,” Susanne barreled on, now glaring at Agatha.

“Hey,” the man, Bob, interjected. “I think your makeup looks pretty good.”

“Yeah? A minute ago, my face was covered in cake, thanks to you two! And my custom-made Ersa Atelier…”

“Us two?” Bob frowned. “Oh, no. The cake was totally my b.”

Agatha froze.

“What are you talking about?” Susanne demanded. “I saw the two of you on the stairs with my own eyes.”

“Yeah, but I wasn’t looking where I was going,” Bob replied. “The makeup artist lady—sorry, I don’t know your name?”

“Agatha,” Agatha squeaked.

“Agatha got there before me, and I just totally didn’t see her. I rammed right into her. I promise, it's all on me. The blame, that is. Not the cake. The cake got everywhere.” He grinned at the bridesmaids. "Including in my stomach. That thing was delicious, whoever made it has real talent—"

Susanne looked ready to blow.

“Susanne?” Someone else appeared behind Bob. “Procession is in five.”

“Jesus, what is it with people and open doors?” Susanne exploded, gathering up her skirts and nearly steamrolling Bob on her way out. “Just because a door is open—”

The rest of the women, Agatha excluded, followed suit, looking meek as sheep (or, in the mother’s case, faintly amused). Bob stepped aside to let the women pass, then resumed his position at the door. Agatha got to her feet and wiped her sweating palms on her shirt, before stealing a glance at Bob and finding that he was peering back at her.

“So that was some cute meet we had, huh?” He said, breaking into a smile.

Agatha narrowed her eyes at him. “It’s meet cute. And why did you do that?”

“Do what?”

“Take the blame for the cake incident. You know as well as I do that we were both at fault.”

“Oh.” He laughed. “You don’t want to get on Susanne’s bad side, trust me.”

“Then why not let me take the blame? I’ll probably never meet her again, whereas you are her fiancé’s friend.”

"She'd leave you the worst review of your life, believe me. Like, career-ending. And besides, I, um." He shrugged, suddenly uncomfortable. “I wanted you to like me.”

“...What?”

“I wanted to invite you to this nice little café I saw yesterday—”

“What?”

“—but I guess you could say we got off on the wrong foot…”

“Ah. So, in order to get on my good side…”

He grinned sheepishly. “Is it working?”

She turned away to screw the cap onto a bottle of foundation and pat the remains of finishing powder from her sleeve. She picked up her purse, flicked a stray strand of hair out of her face, and finally turned to squeeze past Bob, who was watching her with nervous anticipation.

“Ask me again after the ceremony,” she called over her shoulder.

“Cool beans!” He called back; she could hear the smile in his voice. “I'll bring an extra shirt in case they run out of plates!”

And for the first time that day, Agatha laughed.