Free Ali in Wonderland: And Other Tall Tales by Ali Wentworth Page B

to sleepaway camp or getting a job. I felt I was too old for collecting patches based on my fire-starting skills and yet too young for any substantial employment like D.C. mayor or editor of the Washington Post . My mother offered me a job filing in her office, but I make it a point not to mix business with non-pleasure. I was sitting on the sofa of our Mark Hampton–designed blue-and-white chintz guest room, scraping out the middle of a gooey wheel of Brie, when I had a revelation. I thought to myself, “What are my summer goals?” Well, that was easy; I wanted money and fame. But what else? What was I passionate about? And then it hit me—chocolate. I love chocolate. It was that flicker of genius that led me to become the neighborhood Cake Boss.
    I recruited my friend Christina to partner with me. Christina was basically sunbathing on the roof of her house all day, and this adventure saved her from atrophy, and probably skin cancer. The startup was easy. We would walk to the corner grocery where my mother had an account and charge eggs, flour, sugar, bittersweet chocolate bars, some sandwiches for lunch, a pint of coffee ice cream, and some Milk Duds. The fantastic thing about my business was that there was zero overhead, which put us ahead of the game before we sold our first cake. After quick pit stops at the Gap and 7-Eleven (for Big Gulps), we would make our way back to my house and begin our respective chores. I would mix and sift and bake while Christina made prank phone calls to boys she liked. And thus, much like the profitable and innovative Ben & Jerry’s, a successful partnership was formed.
    My mother has always been helpful in discreetly giving success a little pat on the rear. She began calling friends to advertise the fact that culinary masterpieces were being created in her own kitchen, and wouldn’t they want to (have to) buy one? Within two weeks, I was knee-high in melted chocolate. There were so many calls coming in for cakes, Christina had to reduce her prank calls to no more than nine an hour. Luckily, there were soap operas. Just when we were teetering into confectionery doldrums, someone on All My Children would be raped and, like a shot of B12, it would give us enough energy to finish the orders for the day. We were even beginning to receive long-distance orders, the problem being that these cakes required shipping. My mother received lemon Bundt cakes in round reindeer tins every Christmas from a billionaire friend, but these were obsolete in the middle of June. I ended up buying cardboard moving boxes, dropping a cake in, duct-taping it shut, and marching it over to the post office. The socialites from Sacramento or Chicago were too polite to complain about a smashed box full of crumbs.
    O ne sweltering August day Christina and I were invited to a make-out pool party, which resulted in Christina spending the whole workday spray-tanning her feet and holding a tray of tin foil under her face in the backyard. Meanwhile inside I was Durga, the Hindu goddess with eight arms, shoving pans in the oven and double-boiling chocolate chunks. We had one last delivery in the neighborhood, which I made solo while Christina headed to her house to mousse her hair and pick out a revealing blouse. All our deliveries were made on foot, so if the cake was not bound for somewhere within a ten-block radius, we had to beg one of our parents to drive us. The night of the party, the delivery was so close, I decided to just drop the cake off en route. After all, I wasn’t that excited about the party; it would be the same old people, I can’t drink tequila upside down, and I was exhausted. My hair was spackled with flour, and my blue-and-white-checked apron was Jackson Pollocked in chocolate.
    And then he sauntered in. Chad was what every prep-school girl coveted. He was naturally blond and blue-eyed, with a body perfected by the St. Paul’s crew team, Mick Jagger lips circa 1961, a sun-kissed face, and cheekbones