I bake and decorate wedding cakes. I think my new client may be a serial killer.

I bake and decorate wedding cakes. I love my job, and you can tell, because all the couples I work with rave about my attention to detail, my perfectionism, and my ability to bring their dreams to life. <br><br>I was chopping pecans to make a nutty praline when the call came in. I answered with my usual pleasant tone. <br><br>“Hey there! This is Sweet Treats. How can I help you?”<br><br>“Hi. I think I’d like to schedule a cake tasting. For my wedding.”<br><br>“Oh! Congratulations! A spring/summer wedding, I presume?”<br><br>“Yes. We’ve booked the venue for the second weekend in September.”<br><br>A September wedding is a spring/summer wedding where I’m from. That was all the information I really needed to schedule the appointment.<br><br>“I’d love to have you come in for a tasting! Office hours this week are Tuesday through Thursday, from ten in the morning, to seven in the evening. Are you here in town, or are you coming home to get married?”<br><br>I always prefer to work with local clients. “Commuting” brides always make me nervous. It’s rather difficult to get your wedding cake from another city/state when you have no family here to accept delivery and hold it til the wedding. I’d just rather avoid the issue.<br><br>“I’m here. My fiancé lives here. I just haven’t actually been in the area for years. My mom is taking care of a lot of this stuff.” There was a long pause, and then she said “The only thing I really wanted to be involved in was finding someone to do my cake. And my dress.”<br><br>“That’s so sweet! I think a lot of brides forget - after the wedding, you have photos, and you remember the taste of your cake. That’s it. I do consider it a great honor that you’ve chosen me to preserve this special memory.”<br><br>We made the appointment for the following Tuesday, and I spent the rest of the morning and most of the afternoon making that delicious praline cake and concommitant ice cream. After all, I was meeting a potential bride on Tuesday, and I always let them taste everything I have on hand. I was really hoping to get this job, and tasters are the best way to do that. I had the display case full of cupcakes, the fridge had stupid amounts of ice cream, and I’d just managed to get the last of the cake in the oven when I had to close up for the night. <br><br>I’d done so much baking that I didn’t have to do any the day she was coming in, so I spent the day making custards and syrups, and carefully preparing everything. The bake that wasn’t already done was the cookies that I made and threw in the oven as soon as she arrived. That was what I was doing when she walked in.<br><br>She wasn’t alone. She had a man with her. I assumed this was her fiancé, but he didn’t seem happy to be there. He looked around the office space, but didn’t seem terribly interested, even when I pulled out the first set of tasters. He didn’t seem to be enjoying them, and he lingered by the door, as though thinking about making an escape.<br><br>I didn’t want to offend him, but I had to ask, “I’m so sorry, but is there something you’d like me to try? Maybe something your mom used to make, or something you had somewhere else?” He just shook his head, so I turned my attention back to the bride.<br><br>She, on the other hand, was very nice, and seemed very happy with every flavor I offered her. She was so excited by the time I gave her a cookie that she was actually tearing up a bit. <br><br>“This is perfect. This is what I want. I want four tiers. I want a kiss of chocolate on each tier. I want the white buttercream to be swirled. I want her to be bare on top of the bottom tier, and fully dressed on the top of the top tier. And I want her surrounded by each tier.”<br><br>“Ma’am. I’m going to have to ask you for some clarification. Who are you referring to when you say ‘her’?”<br><br>“Eve, obviously.” She seemed to be growing a bit confused.<br><br>“Ma’am, I don’t know if you’re familiar with the story of Adam and Eve. She was fully dressed in the garden. Naked only after she left the garden.” My client tipped her head to the side, and tilted her eyes at the ceiling.<br><br>“Oh,” She said.<br><br>“Well, we could hire a professional model maker to do the figures. And you can choose whether you want Eve to be naked in the garden, or after she leaves, but you only get two, remember.” She nodded. <br><br>“Fine. Naked in the garden, and fully dressed at the top.” I said “Okay,” and started typing all this information into the order on my computer. She stopped me. <br><br>“I don’t want you to make the figures.”<br><br>“Oh? Are you making yourself, then?” I asked.<br><br>“No. Jeremy’s making them.” She gestured behind me, and I turned, but he was gone.<br><br>“Ma’am? I don’t think he’s in here. Did he step outside?”<br><br>“No. He’s right there.” <br><br>I looked in the direction she was pointing, but saw no one. “Where?”<br><br>“There. He’s standing right there.”<br><br>“Ma’am, I don’t see anyone.”<br><br>“Yes you do. But that’s fine. You don’t need to talk to him anyway. I just need you to make the cake.”<br><br>“Okay….well, then, shall we talk price.”<br><br>“Mom is taking care of that, don’t worry.” And with that, she flitted out.<br><br>She didn’t leave any contact information, and I had no idea who “Mom” was, or how to reach her. I was a bit frustrated, but I had a lot of other work to do, and I was also secretly giving away a lot of cake that weekend, so I needed to get everything ready for that.<br><br>By the time Saturday rolled around, I had completely forgotten about the weird bride who couldn’t see her fiancé and wanted a naked woman on her wedding cake. And then she texted me. <br><br>“I changed my mind. I want it naked at the top, and fully dressed at the bottom. Please tell Jeremy.”<br><br>“I do not see anyone named Jeremy. But I will make the adjustments. Please call me if there are any other changes.”<br><br>“I don’t see him either. None of us do. But he’s always there. He sees and remembers everything. Tell him, and he’ll remember.”<br><br>“Okay.” I replied, and then I sent her a draft of the invoice. Like I said, she claimed she wasn’t paying it, so I didn’t expect her to pay attention, but I still needed to send her something that I could send to whoever *was* paying it. <br><br>She replied almost immediately. “This is so expensive! I don’t want to pay this much!”<br><br>“If you read my website, you will see that the price for a custom wedding cake is \[list the numbers\] per tier, and an additional \[list the numbers\] per figure made. Since you have asked for four tiers, and two figures, this is the price. And, as previously stated, your mother said she was taking care of this.”<br><br>“She’s not my mom.” Was all the reply.<br><br>And that was it. I didn’t hear from her again, and she didn’t come in for her second tasting. I was starting to get a little worried, but she’d said she was only in town for the venue, and she didn’t seem to know the area at all. I figured she’d just gone back wherever she was from, and that her mom would be in touch.<br><br>It was almost two weeks before I heard anything back, and when I did, it was the bride texting me again. <br><br>“I changed my mind. She needs to be completely naked on all four tiers, and I don’t want the swirl on the bottom three.”<br><br>Once again, I reminded her that this was going to be more expensive, and once again, she said her mom had said she’d take care of it. I started to get frustrated, and told her so. <br><br>“Listen….I don’t know what your name is, or who your mom is. I don’t know who is paying for your cake. I don’t even know where you are, or when you’ll be back in town. I have sent you the invoice, and I’ve kept it the same price, because you haven’t called me to ask me to change it. When you want to come in and finalize your cake, please let me know.” <br><br>I thought that was the end of that, and if she didn’t get in touch with me, she was going to be out of luck. I couldn’t block her, because then I wouldn’t know when she got back in touch with me. And I did really want to work with this client. She was so sweet, and I do love to help design the perfect wedding cake for my couples. But the back and forth was just getting to be too much.<br><br>“Elaine is my name. And my mom is coming in tomorrow.”<br><br>“Thank you, Elaine.” Was all I replied. <br><br>Her mom came in and paid for the cake the next day. She also paid the extra for the changes that Elaine had made. <br><br>“Ma’am? I think you should know that I don’t think your daughter is happy with this cake.”<br><br>“She’s not. And neither am I.” She said, as she signed the papers. “But she wants it, and it was her idea, so she can have it.”<br><br>We chatted for a few more minutes,