Vegan Baked Alaska (Auntie Clem's Bakery Book 9) Read online

  Vic’s brows pressed together. “I never really thought about it. I’ll ask him. But he wouldn’t have said yes if he wasn’t allowed to leave the country.”

  “He might not have thought about it. If he’s never had a passport before… I just don’t know. There’s probably nothing to worry about and I’m just being silly…”

  “I’ll ask him.”

  Erin nodded. “Good. I don’t want to run into any surprises!”

  The man was short and skinny. Erin was not a tall woman and carefully watched her weight, but she thought that he probably weighed less than she did. He came into the bakery toward the end of the day as people were stopping in to get their last-minute supper baking and desserts before she closed up. Then she and Vic would need to balance the till, clean up, and prep the next day’s doughs and batters so that they could soak overnight, one of the many tricks that Erin had discovered greatly improved the gluten-free baked goods.

  The man also wore a hat. Most people didn’t wear hats. Sometimes the teenagers wore ball caps, usually backward. Some of the older women had floppy-brimmed sun hats to protect them from the Tennessee sun. But other than that, people didn’t go around wearing hats. Especially not fedoras or pork pies or whatever it was the little man was sporting. Erin was quite sure that she had never seen him before.

  “Hi, how can I help you?”

  The little man looked around. He pushed up the brim of the hat a little to look at her, and higher yet to look at Vic. “Which one of you would be Erin Price?”

  “That would be me.”

  He looked back at her again and smiled. “I am Enzo Dimarco. From the Animal Rights Society.”

  Erin looked at him nervously. She didn’t need any militant animal rights people in her bakery demanding to know what animal products were in all of the baking or spray-painting her window because she normally used milk and eggs. The ARS people were well-known for highly-visible, high-handed methods. They were not the kind of people she wanted sticking their noses into her business. Erin glanced out the front window to see if she could spot Terry. He wasn’t in sight. Erin saw Vic’s anxious look toward her and knew Vic was thinking the same thing. Don’t make these people angry. But get him out fast.

  “What can I do for you, Mr. Dimarco?”

  “It isn’t what you can do for me, it’s what I can do for you!” He gave her a big smile, waiting expectantly.

  Erin shook her head slowly, waiting for the punch line. She had no idea what he was there for and what he thought he was going to do for her. Rewrite all of her recipes? While Erin was sure to always keep a few baked goods that were free of eggs and dairy to satisfy anyone who was vegan or had allergies to eggs and dairy, she wasn’t going to make her whole lineup vegan. A lot of the gluten-free recipes she used relied heavily on the protein structure of eggs and dairy to replace that of the missing gluten. Vegans who didn’t know anything about gluten-free cooking were always complaining about the amount of eggs or dairy used in gluten-free cooking.

  Not that there were a lot of vegans in Bald Eagle Falls. Erin had known one, and she wasn’t even really a vegan. But Erin ran into them in online forums frequently, decrying the fact that there were so few really good gluten-free vegan baked treats available.

  “I am here to give you your tickets for the all-expense-paid Alaskan cruise that you won at the Fall Fair!” he announced loudly, pulling the tickets out with a flourish. He didn’t have a very big audience, but he was making the best of it.

  “Oh, thank you.” Erin reached out to accept them. “I hadn’t realized that they were donated by… your organization.”

  “Just one of the many methods we are using to try to spread the good word about the importance of an animal-friendly society.” Enzo beamed at her, but still didn’t hand her the tickets.

  “What a great idea.” Erin waited.

  He didn’t hand them over.

  Erin realized she was going to have to wait until he was finished his spiel, however long that might be. “I’m really excited about this cruise.”

  “You are going to be treated to a world-class vegan banquet. People don’t realize just how tasty and satisfying animal-free food can be.”

  “A vegan banquet?” Vic drawled. “Isn’t that sort of an oxymoron?”

  At Enzo’s blank look, she clarified.

  “That’s one of those phrases that contradicts itself. Like jumbo shrimp?”

  He continued to stare at her.

  “Vegan banquet?” Vic prompted. “Can you ever really have a real banquet without any animal products? You can’t call rabbit food a banquet.”

  He gave her a scathing look and turned back to Erin. “I do hope that you will be more open-minded than your friend. I assure you that you can indeed eat very well on a plant-based diet.”

  “I’m sure you can,” Erin agreed. She didn’t want to draw the event out by arguing with it anymore, but she did have her doubts about what a vegan banquet would entail. It would appear that was why the ARS had sponsored the prize for the Fall Fair. They wanted to spread the word about the delights of vegan cookery. “Now, unless you’re here to buy something, there are other people who are waiting for a chance to make their purchases before the bakery closes…”

  Enzo turned to look at the women hovering behind him, waiting. He had lost a bit of the wind from his sails and was looking rather deflated.

  “I do hope that you will enjoy your cruise,” he told Erin, finally reaching over to hand her the tickets. “A great deal of effort has been put into making it a premier cruise.”

  “We’re really looking forward to it,” Erin said encouragingly, feeling bad for him.

  “Maybe you’ll even get some ideas for your baked goods here.” Enzo raised his brows, looking at the food in the display case. “A plant-based diet is a very healthy way to eat.”

  “I’m sure it is.”

  He nodded, said goodbye, and left the bakery. Vic turned, cocking her head at Erin.

  “All I can say is, I’d better not get back from our cruise looking like that. Guy doesn’t look like he’s eaten in a month.”

  “He probably just has a fast metabolism.” Erin didn’t want to spread the idea that all vegans were scrawny little weaklings, even if she was a little worried about the fare they were going to be faced with on the cruise.

  “That, and he never lifts anything heavier than cruise tickets,” Vic agreed.

  Erin smiled and shook her head.

  Even if they did have a vegan banquet on the cruise, there would be plenty else on offer. That was just one meal, and from what she understood about cruise ship food, there was always a wide variety of food available at any hour of the day. If they didn’t like what was offered at the banquet, they could just visit one of the other restaurants and have whatever they wanted.

  But even more important than that, she kept in mind what Mary Lou had told her when she had talked to Erin about winning the cruise.

  “At least you won’t be stumbling over any bodies on an Alaskan cruise.”

  Chapter Three

  T

  here was a lot to be done before their cruise, and not a very long time to do it. Erin wished that she had been able to pick her own cruise date instead of having to go with the one that the ARS had picked out. That would have given her more time to get everything into order before having to leave. But Terry was probably right when he said that given the chance, she would just keep putting it off, waiting for the perfect time, and would never actually go on the cruise. She did tend to overplan, and heading into something new and unfamiliar like an Alaskan cruise, she felt more than the usual amount of anxiety over how she was going to get everything done and make sure that they had the perfect cruise experience.

  Starting a bakery had been hard too, and she had done that without anyone else’s help. And so was reopening the bakery after it was burned to the ground, but at least she’d had other people to help her by that point.

  Charley, Erin’s half
-sister, told her that everything would be fine while she was gone. Charley was a perfectly capable partner who could keep things running for a couple of weeks. Erin didn’t need to worry that she was going to come home to a disaster. Everything was running smoothly and would continue to run while she was gone.

  “But what about the animals?” Erin asked Terry, heavyhearted when she realized she was going to have to leave them alone for two weeks. There was no way they could come on the cruise. Terry might be able to get permission to bring along K9, being a trained police dog, but Erin didn’t have much hope that they’d let her bring a cat and a rabbit along for the ride. Besides that, even if they had allowed the animals along, Orange Blossom tended to be very loud and would probably not have enjoyed a sea voyage. She would have had to deal with constant complaints from the cat and the neighboring suites. Marshmallow wouldn’t make any noise, being a rabbit, but he and Orange Blossom were fast friends and Erin didn’t want to think about how depressed they would be if she had to separate them, taking only Marshmallow on the cruise.

  But with all of the planning and preparation Erin had to do, she hadn’t anticipated the problems that Vic would run into.

  Erin was sitting in the living room looking through her lists and trying to decide what to tackle next when she heard Vic open the back door and enter. Vic’s loft apartment was over the garage just across the back yard, and Erin was used to her coming and going as she pleased.

  “Hey Vicky,” she greeted, without looking up.

  There was a loud sniffle from Vic. Startled, Erin pulled her eyes away from her plans to actually look at her friend. Vic’s eyes were red and swollen. “Vic? What’s the matter? What is it, sweetie?” Erin shot to her feet and put an arm around Vic, then helped her to sit in the comfy arm chair.

  “What is it? What happened?”

  Vic wiped at her eyes with the backs of her arms and hands. She sniffled loudly again, obviously well into her cry. “I just…” Vic sobbed and shook her head. Erin stared at her, searching her expression for some clue as to what had happened to upset her. “I don’t think I can go on the cruise,” Vic said. She wiped her nose again and hiccupped.

  “You can’t go on the cruise? Why not? Everything will be okay at the shop. They can do without us for a little while. And Willie said he’d go, right? So, what…?”

  “My passport.”

  “What about it?”

  Vic gulped. She tried to hold back the sobs. “I haven’t legally changed my name.”

  “Oh.” Which meant, Erin understood immediately, that Vic’s passport would have to be issued in the name of James Victor Jackson instead of Victoria Webster. “Well… I get why that would be upsetting to you. We can’t get it changed before then?”

  “It’s too soon. And even if we could get a quick name change through… There’s a whole pile of paperwork and a big long procedure for getting them to change the gender from male to female.”

  Of course there was. Erin was grateful that there were any procedures in place at all to allow a transgender woman to change her documentation, but society wasn’t yet to the point where it was quick and painless. There would be all kinds of doctor’s reports and affidavits and explanations about the transition that Vic had gone through before they would allow her to change her gender on her passport. Not something that could be done in the brief time they had before their departure date.

  Erin sighed. “I’m really sorry about that, Vic. I never even thought about it. Do you think… do you think you could manage to go with your passport in your old name and everything? Or is that asking too much?”

  “That’s not who I am!”

  “I know. But the paperwork doesn’t change who you really are. It’s just words on paper. You wouldn’t have to be a different person. You don’t have to answer to James or dress as a man. Do you think…?”

  Vic sniffled. Her sobs were slowing now that she had gotten the dreadful news out. But she was still not happy about the prospect.

  “I—I don’t know.” She sniffled and thought about it. “Does that mean I have to go by James when I’m on the cruise?”

  “No, it just means you have to have it on your passport whenever you cross a border. They can’t force you to go by James on the boat.”

  “And…” Vic wiped the corners of her eyes. “What about when I get the picture taken for the photo?” Erin could see where Vic’s mind was going. “Do I need to look like a boy for the photo?”

  “We’ll talk to Terry and see what he thinks. But I don’t think so. They’ll want the photo to look like you, won’t they? If you look like a boy on the photo and like a girl when you’re trying to cross the border, it’s going to cause all kinds of delays. But if you look like the picture in the photo, they’re not going to care whether you’ve got long hair and makeup. They just want to make sure you really are the person you say you are.”

  Vic looped her hand around her hair, gathering it together and pulling it all behind her head so that it didn’t look so disheveled. She nodded. “Yeah. They don’t care what I look like, right…?”

  “I don’t think so. I’ve never heard of anyone having to look like the gender listed on their passport. There are plenty of people who are transgender, this has to have come up a million times before.”

  Vic was quiet for a while, just breathing, her sobs slowing down. She cleared her throat a few times before attempting to speak again.

  “Okay. I’ll ask the passport office some more questions about getting my passport under my legal name. But when we get back… I’m going to start the paperwork to get it changed.”

  “Yes.” Erin touched Vic’s face and pushed a damp tendril of hair away from her cheek and over her ear. “I think that would be a really good idea.”

  Vic nodded again and swallowed. “Thanks.”

  Vic’s fight with the passport office wasn’t the last bump in the road, of course, but it was the biggest one. Whenever Erin ran into any other issues, she just measured them against Vic’s fight to be the person she really was, and they seemed small by comparison.

  In a few short weeks, they were on a plane, headed northwest for Vancouver, Canada. They had all arrived at the airport extra early, prepared for delays to be caused by the apparent discrepancy between Vic’s legal information and her appearance. But the officials who had checked their paperwork and questioned them simply looked Vic over and asked the usual questions before allowing her to continue. No one seemed to be the least bit concerned about her gender identity.

  Erin had also been a little worried about the cast on Vic’s arm and the one on Willie’s leg, concerned that they would be considered a security risk, but the Canadians seemed to take it all in stride.

  Once they were through all of the security checkpoints and waiting for the plane, Vic was practically giddy with relief, and so was Erin.

  Erin looked around at their little group, breathing a sigh of relief. “I can’t believe we’re doing this! We’re actually going on a cruise! In a few hours, we’re going to be in a different country, and then we’re going to get on a boat and go all the way north where there’s ice and snow the whole year ’round.” Erin shook her head. “I can’t believe it.”

  “Are you going to relax?” Vic teased. “Or do you have a list of all of the things you have to see while we’re on the tour?”

  Erin hesitated, not answering. Vic broke into peals of laughter.

  “You do, don’t you? You have a checklist of what to do while you’re on the tour. See whales. Eat vegan feast. Touch snow.”

  Erin’s face got hot. She covered it with her hands, grinning in embarrassment. “Maybe!”

  Willie and Terry joined in the laughter. Terry put his arm around Erin’s shoulders and squeezed her. He bent down so that he could whisper in her ear. “I have a few things I’d like to add to your checklist.”

  Erin’s face got hotter still. They all laughed, relieved and happy to be together, embarking on a new journey. It was going to b
e the best vacation ever.

  Chapter Four

  T

  hey were picked up from the airport in Vancouver by a shuttle bus for the hotel where they would be staying for the first few days, as the tour included an exploration of Vancouver, Victoria, and some of the surrounding areas for the first few days. Erin had been to a few big cities before, so she was undaunted by Vancouver, though the traffic there was something she was glad she didn’t have to face herself. Vic had never been outside of rural Tennessee, never even having been to Nashville or Memphis. She said that she had been to Chattanooga a couple of times, but she stared around at the tall office buildings and congested roads of Vancouver with wide eyes and shook her head in amazement.

  “It’s like New York!” she exclaimed. “I never thought I’d see a city as big as this!”

  Erin laughed and shook her head. “It’s the big city,” she agreed, “but it’s no New York!”

  “At least they drive on the right side of the road,” Vic observed. “I thought they’d drive on the left, like in England.”

  Erin had to admit that she hadn’t been sure about that fact either, but she wasn’t going to voice it.

  “And I thought it would be snowy.” Vic looked around in rapt attention at the green trees and beds of brightly-colored flowers. “It’s cold, but there isn’t any snow. The leaves aren’t even changing color.”

  “Vancouver stays pretty warm all year,” Willie offered. “It’s temperate because it’s right on the ocean. They rarely get snow, and when they do, it tends to shut down the city. It will get colder as we move farther north. We’ll still see ice and snow, but not this far south.”

  Vic shook her head, bemused. “It seems crazy to call this south. This is the north! It’s Canada!”

  Erin laughed and nodded her agreement. “It seems strange. But we are in southern Canada. Some of British Columbia is actually farther south than parts of the contiguous United States.”