Tearra’s Bio:

Tearra Rhodes began her interest in creative writing in elementary school, but did not consider it more than a minor hobby until she got her first taste of affirmation after winning a local one act playwriting contest her sophomore year of high school. Having graduated from Canisius College with a minor in English (major Communication Studies), she is working towards making creative writing more than just a hobby. She lives in Buffalo, NY, where she has boxes and boxes of unfinished short stories and plays. Her next project will be pulling out one of those boxes and dusting off a potential masterpiece.

I Began Baking a Cake

By Tearra Rhodes

 

He said his name was Boyd, and that he was here to make me pay for Earl’s sins. Apparently, my former fiancé killed Boyd’s baby brother back in 2003.

I told him that I was sorry for whatever happened to his family, but Earl and I were broken up, so hurting me wouldn’t really be hurting him at all. He’d moved on.

I guess I didn’t call the police, because I didn’t think he was serious, even though I could always feel him watching me. This was something out of the crime shows I’ve become such a fan of.

And yet he was there at my door, this morning, forcing his way in and sitting at my kitchen table, his 9mm set casually between the stainless steel salt and pepper shakers.

“You shouldn’t have come, Boyd. I know why you did, but you shouldn’t have.”

I should have tried to call the police, but instead I begin baking a cake.

It’s his move now.

I reach above me into the cupboard over the sink for the vanilla extract.

“I brought your mail in.”

I jump a little when I hear the slow, easy words tumble through Boyd’s large laser-whitened teeth.

I pour nearly the whole bottle of extract into the fresh cake batter and stir vigorously. The vanilla scent crawls through the air.

I turn and hold out the spoon.

“Wanna lick it?”

He laughs as he gets up, the chair scraping my newly tiled floor. He leaves his gun on the table. My whole body trembles as he walks towards me. He doesn’t stop until he has me pinned against the counter. He reaches around me and sticks his whole hand into the batter. He cups some and drinks it down.

Yellowy droplets spill from his hands, dribbling out of his smiling mouth, rolling down his flannel shirt, splattering onto the floor.

“You ruined my cake,” I say as I push past him.

He continues to grin, and then he starts breathing heavily. He’s hunched over, leaning on the kitchen table for support. His face is all flushed, veins popping out. He clutches at his throat and collapses to the floor smudging the mess that he’s made of my would-be cake.

He doesn’t reach for his allergy injector thingy, because it’s in his truck. He always leaves it in his truck.

I’ve done some following of my own.

There’s one last choking noise and then the kitchen is still.

I can hear my heart beating.

I grab the kitchen phone and my finger hovers over the ‘9.’ I could call, in hysterics, telling them that he just collapsed.

But, I just stand there with my finger hovering—and then I start to get an idea. Granted, it’s straight out of TV, but it’s something. I begin to turn slowly, surveying the room.

I put down the phone and grab a pair of rubber gloves from underneath the sink. I get the mop and clean up the batter. I put the baking utensils I used and the detachable mop head into a garbage bag. I remove Boyd’s shirt and toss it into the bag too. I scrub down the sink and counter. Then I go upstairs and change into some old work clothes. Hiding my short hair under one of my old softball caps is no problem. I add the maxi dress I was wearing and the rubber gloves to the garbage bag and stuff it into a duffel bag that I have otherwise filled with a few toiletries and underwear. I can buy new clothes when I get wherever I’m going.

And go I do, right out the back door, cutting over Mrs. Jackson’s bushes and to the main road behind the house. I leave the gun on the table and my cell in my bedroom.

It takes me almost an hour to walk to the bus station. I buy a one way ticket to Phoenix—cash. I don’t know why Phoenix.

So, here I am on the bus, sitting next to the toilet—disappearing into the mid-afternoon.

The first stop is Nashville. I dump the clothes.

In Little Rock, the utensils.

In El Paso, the detachable mop head and rubber gloves.

Finally, in Phoenix, in the bus terminal rest room, I reach into my pocket and remove the little bottle of vanilla extract. I pour it down the drain, the smell of vanilla and peanuts filling my nostrils.

***