Cake Mistake
By Francis DiClemente
Peggy is close to finishing her shift at the supermarket on a Friday night. She sweeps the area behind the counter, near the long table where she rolls out dough every day to make bread. She’s looking down at the dust and crumbs collected in the crevices of the cracked tile when she hears the “ding” of the bell on the counter. She sets the broom down and sees a Black woman in her forties with a younger Black woman standing next to her near the counter.
“Can I help you?”
“I’m here to pick up a cake,” the older woman says. “The name is Nicholson.”
“Right,” Peggy says. She remembers the order—a sixteen-inch marble cake with chocolate frosting for a graduation party. “So, you must be Bethany?” Peggy says to the teenage girl. “Congratulations.”
“Thanks,” Bethany says.
“Let me go grab it,” Peggy says, and she turns around. She enters the walk-in cooler, scans the three cakes lined up on a shelf, and finds the Nicholson order. She opens up the top of the box and sees Bethany’s name written in yellow frosting, surrounded by lavender and pink flowers. She reaches under the cake box, wraps her arms around it, and carries it out to the service area.
“Here you go,” she says, setting the box down on the counter. “Are you going to pay up front?”
“Can I take a look first?” the older woman says. “I want to double-check it.”
“Sure.” Peggy opens the top of the box and angles it down so the woman can see the lettering.
The woman grimaces. “No, no, no,” she says, a gold cross dangling from her neck jingling as she shakes her head back and forth. “This is wrong. I’m not paying for it.”
“What’s wrong?” Peggy says, looking down.
“You spelled congratulations wrong. There’s no d in congratulations.”
Peggy sees her mistake. “Oh no. I’m so sorry.” Peggy doesn’t know if she should close the box yet, so she holds it open.
Bethany leans over the counter, looks down at the cake, and then smiles at Peggy. “Really, it’s OK, I don’t mind.”
“Well, I sure do,” the older woman says. “Your friends and their parents are coming over for your graduation party tomorrow. We’ll look like idiots.”
“Come on, Mom. It’s no big deal,” Bethany says, rubbing her mother’s back. “And besides, once we cut it up, no one will know.”
“I will know.” The woman moves her torso so her daughter’s arm falls off her back. “This is ridiculous. I’m not serving a cake with a spelling error on your graduation day.”
“You’re the one being ridiculous,” Bethany says. “Besides, it’s not like there’s a spell check for cake decorating.”
“No, but you’d think the people making them would have a high school diploma at least.”
“Jesus, Mom, don’t be rude,” Bethany says. She turns to Peggy and says, “I’m so sorry.”
“It’s OK.”
The woman shakes her head again and closes the box. Looking up at Peggy, she says, “I’m sorry I said that.”
“Well, I can understand your frustration. And it’s my mistake.”
“Do you think you can fix it?”
“I can try.”
“Please do. Try.”
“We have other shopping to do,” Bethany says. “We’ll come back in a little bit.” And as the two women turn around and start to walk away, Peggy can hear Bethany whispering, “Mom, why are you so mean sometimes?” The mother looks over her shoulder and sees that Peggy is watching her. She whispers something to Bethany, and Peggy loses sight of them as they head down one of the aisles in the store.
Peggy grabs the box and moves over to the preparation area.
She pulls the cake out of the box, sets it down on the table, and examines her mistake. “Congradulations. What a moron,” she says to herself. She recalls taking the order. She remembers the woman’s voice and her specific, detailed instructions. “It’s Bethany with only one e. Read it back to me please,” the woman had said.
But when it came time for Peggy to process the order, the deli was short-staffed and she was helping out, rushing back and forth between the two departments. So obviously, she hadn’t paid enough attention when she used the piping bag to decorate Bethany’s cake.
Now she faces the ramifications of her carelessness. It’s fitting, she thinks. Carelessness and lack of education have brought her here—fifty-two years old and working at a grocery store for thirteen bucks an hour.
She goes inside the walk-in cooler where she had placed the leftover yellow frosting and finds it on the shelf. She grabs an icing spatula and places a small amount of frosting in a piping bag. Standing over the cake, she scrapes away the d with the spatula, then dribbles the yellow frosting, forming a small t. But in reviewing her work, the lettering looks lopsided, the t jammed in the middle as an afterthought. If you weren’t paying attention, you might miss the mistake. But a captive crowd of partygoers would notice.
“Bernice, can you come over here for a second?” she says to her co-worker. Bernice, a woman in her sixties with frizzy salt-and-pepper hair and slouching shoulders, has worked at the store for more than twenty years—all of that time in the bakery department.
“What’s up, Peggy?” Bernice says, wiping her hands on her apron.
“Can you take a look at this? Does it look all right?”
Bernice lifts her glasses, which hang on a chain around her neck, puts them on, and looks down at the cake. She smiles, then removes her glasses, letting them hang around her neck again, and says, “It looks to me like you misspelled something and you tried to fix it.”
“I know, shit. I put a d instead of a t. Do you think people at a party would notice?”
“They will if they’re looking at it up close, that is if they’re not too drunk. But once you serve it, who cares, right?”
“Well, the woman who ordered it cares. She’s a little pissed.”
“Ask Tim what to do. He’ll know.
“Thanks, Bernice.”
“Don’t worry about it. It’s not the end of the world.”
“Thanks.”
“I’ll send Tim over,” Bernice says as she starts walking away.
Peggy closes her eyes as she waits. She takes a deep breath. Her back, shoulders, wrists, and fingers ache, and she just wants to make it to seven o’clock, when she can punch out and go home, lighting up in the car when Mark picks her up, eating some leftover pizza, taking a shower, and sleeping for about nine hours.
“What’s up, Peggy?” Tim says as he nears the preparation area.
“I screwed up this woman’s cake, and she’s a little pissed.”
“Let me take a look.”
Peggy steps out of the way so Tim can look down at the cake.
He shakes his head. “Sorry, Peggy—it looks like you butchered it. The Congratulations, right?”
“Yeah, I put a d where a t belongs. I’m sorry.”
“It’s OK, these things happen. But we have to be a little more careful.”
“I know. But what do we do now?”
“Ask the lady when her party is. If it’s in the afternoon, you can make a new one when you arrive for your shift tomorrow morning. Otherwise, give her this cake at no charge.”
“Thanks, Tim.”
“No problem. And don’t worry about it, Peggy. I haven’t made this same mistake before. But I did leave the h off Birthday once. Needless to say, the customer wasn’t happy with his Birtday cake. It happens to the best of us.”
As he walks away, Peggy picks up the cake and places it in the box. She then carries it to the front bakery counter area, where the woman is waiting with her daughter.
“I tried to fix it,” Peggy says, “but it doesn’t look so good.”
“Well listen, first I owe you an apology. I don’t know why I said what I did, but it was wrong. I guess the stress of my baby graduating high school has my nerves on edge. Anyway, I’m sorry.”
“Thanks,” Peggy says. “I appreciate it.” She then lifts the top of the box and says, “Here, take a look.”
Peggy holds the box at an angle so the woman can see it. The woman curls her lips and shakes her head. “Thanks for trying,” she says, “but it still looks like a mistake.”
“I know, I’m sorry. I did try. But listen, I talked to my manager. He says you can take this cake at no charge. Or if your party is in the afternoon, I can bake you a fresh one when I get here in the morning. It should be ready by about 10 a.m.”
“OK, that’s fair. Why don’t you do that. The party’s not until 2 p.m., so that will work out perfectly.” She reaches across the glass counter, extending her hand, and Peggy shakes it.
“I’m Marilyn, by the way. And again, I’m sorry.”
“I’m Peggy, and thanks for ...” Peggy says, but she doesn’t know how to end the sentence. Words form in her head, but she does not say them aloud: “Thanks for yelling at me and then coming to your senses. Thanks for not demanding I get fired.” She then says to Marilyn, “Thanks for understanding.”
“I’ll see you around ten,” Marilyn says.
“I’ll have the cake ready.”
“Good, and remember now, Peggy,” Marilyn says. “It’s Bethany with only one e.”
“Got it,” Peggy says.
“Come on, Mom, let’s go,” Bethany says. She looks in Peggy’s direction and says, “Take care.”
“Bye. And congratulations again on your graduation.”
As Peggy finishes cleaning up, Bernice approaches her. “So, what was the verdict?”
“Oh, the woman didn’t want it, so I’m baking them a fresh one in the morning.”
“Good idea. Keep the customer happy.”
“Right. But what should I do with the mistake cake?”
“Ha,” Bernice says, letting out a burst of laughter. “Mistake cake. I like it. Why don’t you take it home to Mark and the boys? It’s a shame to throw it out.”
“I don’t know, but I kinda don’t want to be reminded of it,” Peggy says.
“Ah, it’s no big deal,” Bernice says. “Plus, your husband and sons won’t even notice it.”
“That’s true,” Peggy says. “Thanks, Bernice.”
“No problem,” Bernice says, placing a hand on Peggy’s shoulder. “Don’t sweat the small stuff, kid. After all, it’s only a cake. When you get down to it, really, it’s just groceries.”
When the clock hits seven, Peggy punches out. She places her purse on top of the cake and wraps her arm around the box, carrying it to the car. The humid air hits her face as she crosses the parking lot. The outdoor lights hum and the wheel of a cart squeaks as a female customer pushes it toward the store entrance.
Mark is waiting in his idling 2008 red Jeep Grand Cherokee. “Hi,” he says when Peggy opens the back door. “What’s that?”
“It’s a graduation cake,” Peggy says as she sets it down on the back seat.
She slides into the passenger seat and closes the door.
“Why do you have a graduation cake?”
“Let’s just drive. I’ll tell you about it.”
“OK,” Mark says.
As they pull out of the parking lot and enter the flow of traffic, Peggy says, “Someone screwed up the spelling of the word Congratulations.” She then points to herself—“Me.”
“Oh, honey,” Mark says.
“Yeah, I put a d where a t should be in the middle of Congratulations.”
“Well, it’s an honest mistake.”
“Not really, more like careless. But I was covering the deli when I worked on the order.”
“Don’t beat yourself up over it. Did Tim give you a hard time?”
“No, he was good about it. The customer was pissed off at first, but it turned out OK. I’ll
make her a new one in the morning.”
Mark reaches over and pats Peggy’s knee. “Forget about it, honey. Just relax tonight.”
Peggy cracks the window and lights a cigarette, then takes a few quick puffs, and emits the smoke into the humid night air.
“Look on the bright side—the family has cake for dessert tonight,” Mark says.
“Yeah, I guess,” Peggy says. But as she takes another puff of her cigarette, she wonders how she’ll be able to fit a sixteen-inch sheet cake in her cramped refrigerator.
Francis DiClemente (he/him) is an Emmy Award-winning filmmaker who lives in Syracuse, New York. He is the author of multiple poetry collections, most recently The Truth I Must Invent (Poets’ Choice, 2023) and Outward Arrangements: Poems (independently published, 2021). His blog can be found at francisdiclemente.com.