What Baking Can Do | OC Teaser Part 1

:warning: Trigger Warning: Implied drunkenness. Please do not read if that will be triggering or upsetting to you :warning:

•

•

•

•

•

•

“Come on Jenna, time to go into the kitchen!” Jenna’s mother said, her voice strained as she heard her husband smash his way into their small cottage as he always did after having been out for the evening. She shut the kitchen door behind her and her nine year old daughter, muffling the noise her husband was making. Turning around, she watched as Jenna pushed herself to be seated on the on the white marble of the kitchen counter, kicking her feet in their brown suede button boots against the cabinet beneath. “Is daddy angry today?” The small blonde girl said while pulling baking ingredients from the uppermost cabinets. “Don’t worry about that muffin. Now, I think that today we can make lemon meringue pie.”

❝We’ll make it sour and serve with lemon wedges❞

Jumping down from the counter, Jenna raced around the kitchen like a tornado, gathering up everything that they needed as her mother flipped through the battered old recipe book. The woman had made this treat so many times she really didn’t need to, but she felt a great deal of nostalgia when she smelled the old pages that were stained and looked at the drawings of the many desserts that she had created the recipes for over years. It was a book that held memories of happier times, when she herself was a young child learning how to bake for the first time. “Watch it Jenna!” She laughed as her daughter almost dropped a large sack of flour on the floor in her haste. “Set it down over here and we’ll get started.” She said, clearing a space on the kitchen island.

Almost three hours later, the kitchen timer dinged as a sweetly sour scent filled the small kitchen. The timer broke the silence that had only been filled by the rain battering the cobbled street outside and her husband’s snores in the room beyond. She was glad she had gotten Jenna away into the kitchen and distracted before her husband had returned, as she in no way wanted her daughter to see him in such a state. Leaving Jenna to slice the pie and plate it up, she walked into the living room to find her husband slumped across the sofa, a football game blaring at her from the tv. She shook him awake as she plastered on a smile, hoping against hope that she could fix him, at least for a short while.

❝I can fix this, I can twist it into sugar, butter covered pieces

Never mind what's underneath it❞

”Wakey wakey!” She said, in a simperingly sweet voice she always tended to use around her husband. “Come see what Jenna made” she smiled as her husband huffed and grumbled, making absolutely no effort to move at all. She swept back into the kitchen, looking on as Jenna put the last piece of pie into a plastic box, placing it in the fridge for later. “Now then muffin, shall we see what daddy thinks of your pie?” She said, lifting a plate that was adorned with a very large piece of the pie. “Is he angry?” Jenna whispered, biting her flour covered nails nails as she away did when she was scared of upset. “He’s okay muffin, don’t worry.” Jenna’s mother said, stopping in the doorway to answer her daughter. Dropping her voice to a whisper she added “But give him a big bright smile muffin, he always loves that” as she left the kitchen.

❝So with flour on my hands, I'll show them all how

Goddamn happy I am!❞

Giving the pie to Jenna, her mother watched as she stepped through the threshold of the room, dodging around the stupid amount of mess her husband had managed to create in what had been a spotlessly neat room in the short hours he had been there. The woman leaned against the door frame and watched Jenna present the pie to her father with a big smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes and said “Tell me if you like it daddy!” Watching her husband carefully as he ate the pie, she gave Jenna a thumbs up and smiled at her daughter.

Thank fully a massive smile over took her husband’s haggard face, almost disguising the fact he most likely hadn’t bothered to sleep in days. “This is amazing Jenna! So so good brownie......wait that’s not it. Lollipop? What is it you call her Gracie?” Jenna’s mother tensed at this, as her name was not Gracie, although he was clearly to out of it to that. “Muffin.” she said through gritted teeth, directing her eyes toward the carpeted floor. By this point her husband appeared not to care, and tossed his dirty plate onto the floor. Jenna however, was absolutely beaming, clearly elated that at least to her, her father had loved what she had made. The woman heard her daughter pad past her on the way into the kitchen, carrying her father’s dirty plate and whispering

❝Mama, it’s amazing what baking can do❞

Author’s note

This is the first of a three part series of teasers that will introduce my new OC Jenna, who is based around the story of the character Jenna in the musical Waitress. All three teasers are based around songs in the musical, this one being based around What Baking Can Do. I will link part two below when it’s up.