“So today,” I said into the live television microphone, “I’d like to present our ‘Hometown Hero’ with an invoice for all the cakes she took from my bakery and sold for a profit.”
Her name was Brenda, a local mom-blogger who built her brand on “supporting small business.” For me, that support looked like demanding extravagant, expensive cakes for her parties, all for free.
She promised me “exposure.” What I got was a pile of bills and the sick feeling of being used.
Every time she wanted a cake, I lost money and sleep. I was a baker with a family to support, not a charity, but I was too scared of her thousands of online followers to say no. This happened again and again. She’d smile, make her demands, and I’d just take it.
She thought her biggest prize would be a thousand-dollar unicorn cake, but she never imagined the receipt would be hand-delivered during her big moment on the evening news.
The Weight of a Promise: The Price of Sugar and Dreams
The smell of caramelized sugar and yeast should have been comforting. Tonight, it smelled like impending doom. I rested my forehead against the cool stainless steel of the prep table, the hum of the commercial refrigerator a low growl in the silence of my bakery. “The Sweet Rise.” It had felt so hopeful when I signed the lease three years ago. Now it just felt ironic.
On the counter, next to a half-finished batch of macarons, sat a pile of envelopes. The one on top, with its stark red lettering, was a second notice for our property taxes. $3,450. A figure so specific and so impossibly large it felt like a joke without a punchline. Mark and I had been dancing around it for a week, talking about payment plans and shifting funds that didn’t exist.
My phone buzzed, the vibration skittering across the steel. I picked it up, my thumb hovering over the notification. It was a DM on Instagram.
BrendaL_BestLife: Hey girl! Hope you’re having a fab week! Got another amazing opportunity for us to collab on! So excited!
I closed my eyes. Opportunity. Collab. The words were so bright and shiny, but they left a metallic taste in my mouth, like cheap glitter. Brenda was a local mom-blogger, a self-styled influencer whose “platform” consisted of a curated feed of tastefully beige home decor, expensive children’s clothing, and effusive praise for local businesses who gave her free things.
“Who’s that?” Mark asked, emerging from the back with a crate of empty flour sacks. He saw my face and his own expression tightened. “Don’t tell me. Her.”
I didn’t have to answer. The fluorescent lights of the kitchen bleached all the color from the room, making us both look tired and worn. The tax bill gleamed under the light. Brenda’s message glowed right next to it. One was a demand for money I didn’t have. The other was a demand for product I couldn’t afford to give away. It felt like being trapped between two closing walls.
A Taste of Exposure
“Just ignore it,” Mark said, his voice low. He started breaking down the cardboard boxes with sharp, angry movements. “Just for once, Elara. Let it go to voicemail, metaphorically speaking.”
“It’s not that simple,” I sighed, sinking onto a stool. “She has sixty-thousand followers, Mark. All local. All moms who buy birthday cakes.”
“And how many of those sixty-thousand followers have you converted into actual, paying customers after her last four ‘collabs’?” he countered, not unkindly. He had a point. He always had a point.
The first time, it was for her son’s fourth birthday. A simple but elegant Paw Patrol cake. Brenda had called my work “divine” in a nine-photo carousel post. The post got over four thousand likes. My bakery’s Instagram page got fifteen new followers. Zero new orders. Then came the cake for her sister’s baby shower, a two-tiered floral monstrosity that cost me nearly a hundred dollars in Swiss meringue buttercream alone. Then her own anniversary party. Then a “just because” cake for a giveaway she ran on her page.
Each time, I’d held my breath, waiting for the promised flood of “exposure” to translate into cash flow. Each time, all I got was a trickle of likes from people who lived for freebies. It was like trying to fill a bucket with a leaky faucet.
“Maybe this is the one,” I said, the words feeling thin and foolish even as they left my mouth. “Maybe this time it catches. We just need one good month to get ahead of that tax bill. One good month.”
Mark stopped his work and looked at me, his expression softening. He knew this wasn’t just about the money. The Sweet Rise was my baby, the one I’d birthed from a decade of saving and dreaming. Admitting that my strategy of hopeful giving wasn’t working felt like admitting my dream was a failure.
“Okay,” he said softly. “What’s the ‘opportunity’?”
I typed a reply, my fingers feeling clumsy. Hey Brenda! Sounds great! What do you have in mind?
The three little dots appeared instantly, as if she’d been waiting, phone in hand.
The Unicorn Mandate
The reply came not as text, but as an image. I tilted my phone so Mark could see.
It was a cake that defied physics. Four tiers of shimmering, pearlescent fondant, cascading down like a waterfall. It was adorned with intricate, hand-piped golden filigree and clusters of sugar flowers in pastel rainbow hues. The top was crowned with a magnificent, spiraling unicorn horn that looked like it had been carved from a solid piece of crystal. It was less a dessert and more a piece of gallery art. A piece of art that probably had its own structural engineer.
Beneath the photo, her message popped up.
BrendaL_BestLife: Aspen is turning 10! It’s a HUGE milestone. We’re doing a big enchanted forest theme. So I was thinking something just like this! I know, it’s major, but the guest list is insane. The editor from City Family Magazine is coming! This could be your big break!
I stared at the screen, a cold pit forming in my stomach. She wasn’t asking if I could make it. She was telling me what she wanted, as if she were placing an order from a catalog. The horn alone would require pounds of isomalt, a finicky, expensive sugar that was a nightmare to work with. The gold leaf she wanted was real, edible 24-karat gold, and it cost a fortune.
“No,” Mark said flatly. “Absolutely not. That’s a thousand-dollar cake, Elara. That’s not a donation, that’s a car payment.”
He was right. I knew he was right. But my mind was already snagged on her words. City Family Magazine. The one publication in town that could actually move the needle. The one placement that could fill my order book for the next six months.
Was I really going to let that chance slip away? Was I willing to bet the bakery on the hope that this time, Brenda’s promise wasn’t hollow? The silence in the kitchen stretched, filled only by the low hum of the fridge and the frantic calculations running through my head.
The Cost of Saying Yes
I spent the next hour with a pen and a notepad, the fun part of my job twisted into a grim accounting exercise.
Flour, sugar, butter, eggs for four tiers: $85.
Premium vanilla bean paste: $30.
Forty pounds of high-quality fondant: $120.
Edible gold leaf and dust: $75.
Isomalt for the horn and gems: $50.
Specialty food coloring gels: $40.
Cake boards, dowels, support structures: $35.
The ingredients alone came to $435. That didn’t even touch the labor. Sculpting the horn would take half a day. The flowers, another full day. Baking, stacking, icing, detailing… I estimated it would take me, working alone, about thirty hours. Thirty hours of skilled labor. For free.
I clicked off the kitchen light and walked through the dark dining area. The little tables and chairs I’d picked out at a flea market looked like lonely ghosts in the moonlight. I was putting in eighty hours a week and we were still drowning. This cake wouldn’t just be a donation; it would be an anchor, pulling us down faster.
When I got home, the house was quiet. Mark was asleep. I peeked into my daughter Lily’s room. She was nine, just a few months younger than Aspen. Her walls were covered in her own unicorn drawings, all vibrant and magical. She had a stuffed unicorn tucked under her arm, its yarn horn frayed from countless hugs.
Seeing her, a fresh wave of guilt washed over me. I was so stressed about money that I barely had the energy to play with her anymore. Making this cake for another little girl, a girl whose mother was exploiting mine, felt like a special kind of betrayal.
But then, the other thought crept in. City Family Magazine. If I could just land that, I could get ahead. I could stop worrying about the taxes. I could take a Sunday off and take Lily to the park. I could breathe.
I pulled out my phone, my reflection a pale, tired mask on the dark screen. With a deep, shaky breath, I typed the words that felt like a surrender.
Me: It’s incredible! Of course. I’d be honored. When do you need it?
BrendaL_BestLife: Amazing! You’re the best! Saturday pickup works. XOXO!
I set the phone down, face down, and leaned against the doorframe of my daughter’s room. I felt a profound sense of dread, the kind you feel when you’ve just willingly stepped off a cliff, praying you’ll learn to fly on the way down.
The Art of the Transaction: An Unanswered Invoice
For two days, I let the dread marinate. I sketched out the cake’s structure, ordered the gold leaf, and felt my resentment build with every click of the mouse. This wasn’t right. I was running a business, not a charity for the socially well-connected.
Mark found me staring at the sketches, my jaw tight. “You’re still doing it,” he said. It wasn’t a question.
“I have to,” I said, my voice clipped. “I already told her yes.”
“So tell her no. Tell her you ran the numbers and it’s not feasible. People change their minds, Elara. It’s allowed.”
His logic was so simple, so clean. It made my own paralysis feel even more pathetic. But the fear of what Brenda would do, the bad-mouthing, the subtle campaign of negative reviews from her followers, was a physical weight in my chest.
But he was right. I had to try. Bolstered by his conviction, I spent twenty minutes crafting the perfect email. It was polite, professional, and apologetic. I praised her vision, reiterated my excitement for the “collaboration,” but explained that a cake of that scale was beyond the scope of a simple donation. I offered to create a stunning, simplified two-tiered version for free, or, if she had her heart set on the four-tiered masterpiece, I could offer it at a 50% discount—my “influencer rate.”
I hit send. My heart hammered against my ribs. I felt a wild, terrifying flicker of empowerment. For a full day, there was only silence. No reply. The quiet felt louder and more ominous than an angry response. I started to hope she’d just drop it, find another baker to bully.
I should have known better.
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