View from Saturday (9781439132012) Read Free Page A

the layers. On the second, she constructed the cake, using cardboard bases and straws for supports, and made the basic icing to cover the layers. On the third day, she made the designer icing for the rosebuds and put the little bride and groom on top. Fact: The cake was beautiful.
    Fortunately, Grandpa Nate took its picture right after she finished it, so Grandma Sadie can remember how it looked for a little while.
    Allen Diamondstein would tell you that the red wagon was the problem, but I would say that it’s ironic that he should say so. It definitely wasn’t. He was. How else were we supposed to deliver the cake to the clubhouse? It was too tall to fit in the trunk of the car, and since on an average day the outside temperature in Century Village is body temperature, there would be a major meltdown before the cake got to the clubhouse where the wedding was to take place. That’s when I got the idea to load up the wagon with ice, put a sheet of plastic over the ice, put the cake on top of that, and slowly wheel it over there, with me pulling and Grandpa checking the rear.
    Grandpa Nate went to the Jiffy store and bought three bags of ice, and we loaded them into the wagon. Too much. Since we didn’t want the bed of the wagon filled right up to the edge, we emptied some, dumping it out on the cement of the patio. That’s where we were going to load the wagon so we wouldn’t have to wheel the wagon down any steps to get it to the meeting room.
    Just after we loaded the cake onto the wagon, AllenDiamondstein came over to Grandma’s. He said his father wanted him to pick up a prayer book, but I think his father sent him because he was making the groom nervous.
    No one answered when he rang the front doorbell because we were all in the back loading the cake into the red wagon, so he walked around back to the patio. Unfortunately, he didn’t see the wagon handle, so he tripped on it, slid on the wet concrete, fell in the puddle of melted ice and, unfortunately, toppled the wedding cake.
    The little top layer was totally smashed; it fell in the same puddle as Allen, and the little bride and groom were seriously maimed.
    So was Allen’s ankle. Which fact I detected when he grabbed his foot and started to moan while still sitting in the puddle on the patio. Grandpa Nate called 911. Grandma Sadie returned to the kitchen to whip up a repair batch of icing. Grandpa Nate took the remains of the cake to the clubhouse, and I sat with Allen until the ambulance came. He was not good company.
    The groom called to see what was taking Allen so long. I answered the phone, and I thought I would have to call 911 for him, too. “Don’t panic,” I said. “I’ll be your best man.”
    I did not tell Izzy what had happened to the couple on top of the wedding cake because people get very superstitious at weddings and no one wants a wounded bride and groom sitting on top of the cake with which they are to start a happy marriage. I had seen that sort of thing often enough in the movies: A close-up of the shattered little bride and groom floating in a puddle of melted ice signifying the fate of the real bride and groom. So although I had to tell Izzy Diamondstein what had happened to Allen, I didn’t say aword about the top of the wedding cake. I didn’t think I could convince him that having the little bride and groom fall into a puddle was ironic.
    He seemed to calm down when I volunteered to be best man, which was about the same time that we found out from the ambulance driver that Allen would be back at Century Village in time for the wedding even if he probably wouldn’t be able to walk down the aisle.
    As soon as the ambulance took Allen away, I ran over to Mr. Cantor’s place and asked him to please, please find another orchid for the top of the cake although it would be better if he could find two since the second layer was now the top layer and was bigger. Mr. Cantor found