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August 8, 2005
It started, as so many things do, with a birthday.
Henry Mills was turning four, and he had apparently requested the presence of the entire town at his upcoming party at Granny’s, according to the flyer stuck to Mary Margaret’s door. Mary Margaret wasn’t sure how to feel about that. She knew Mayor Mills didn’t particularly like her. Just this morning, in fact, Mary Margaret had bumped right into Mayor Mills on the street, and when she’d stammered out an apology, the Mayor had just rolled her eyes and kept walking. The prospect of attending a birthday party for Henry when Regina was sure to be there, glaring away at her, was more than a little daunting.
On the other hand…Henry was such a cute kid. She couldn’t not go to his birthday party. That would be unthinkable.
So, not without some trepidation, she RSVPed in the affirmative.
Oh, how she would come to regret it.
August 15, 2005
Mary Margaret showed up at Granny’s in her best summer cardigan and with a painstakingly-wrapped gift under her arm.
“Hi Mary Margaret!” Henry rushed over and hugged her legs. Mary Margaret leaned down to give him a one-armed hug.
“Happy birthday, Henry,” she said warmly.
“Ms. Blanchard,” said Mayor Mills, approaching her like a leopard might approach a housecat who had intruded on its territory. “How nice of you to come.” She smiled in a way that was somehow worse than any frown.
Mary Margaret swallowed her nerves and held out the gift she brought. “For Henry,” she said, somewhat unnecessarily.
Regina’s gaze seemed to soften just the slightest bit, although that could’ve been Mary Margaret’s imagination. She had a terrible habit of imagining things. “Thank you,” the Mayor said, and then prompted her son, “Henry, what do we say?”
“Thank you, Mary Margaret!” Henry chirped. The Mayor smiled, for real this time, and for reasons Mary Margaret couldn’t hope to explain, she felt sad at the sight, as if she had lost something.
The party went reasonably well, to Mary Margaret’s relief. Henry was very excited by her gift of Lilo and Stitch on videotape. Regina raised an eyebrow at the Disney logo on the box, but she seemed to relax a little after Mary Margaret explained the plot to her.
And then came the cake.
Granny brought it out from the diner’s refrigerator. It was a strange-looking thing, not the kind of cake Granny normally had on the menu, but Mary Margaret didn’t believe in being judgmental, so she told Granny, “It looks good!”
Granny looked apprehensively at Regina. “The Mayor made it,” she said. “What kind of cake did you say it was?”
“Pineapple upside-down cake!” Henry crowed excitedly.
“Yes, exactly,” said Regina, ruffling Henry’s hair. “It was Henry’s request.”
“Oh, how nice,” said Mary Margaret, squinting at the cake. Now that she looked closer, she could see a definite hint of pineapple. “I didn’t know you baked.”
Mayor Mills glared at her. “There’s a lot you don’t know about me,” she said sharply, which Mary Margaret had to admit was true, but it still seemed a little uncalled for.
Granny cut and distributed the cake, under Henry’s keen supervision, and soon enough Mary Margaret had a piece of her own sitting in front of her. She took a cautiously optimistic bite.
It was the worst cake she’d ever eaten.
“Well?” the Mayor asked, once most of the attendees had taken a mouthful of cake. “How is it?”
There was an awkward silence. Mary Margaret saw her own pained expression reflected back at her from the faces of everyone else in the diner. It was clear that no one else liked the cake, either.
But Regina was the Mayor. Everyone knew what happened if you crossed the Mayor. …Well, okay, no one actually knew what happened if you crossed the Mayor, because no one ever had. But it was probably really, really bad.
So Mary Margaret put on her best schoolteacher smile. “It’s great!” she said.
“Yes,” Granny echoed. “It’s a fine cake. I wish I’d made it myself.”
“Mmmm,” said Leroy – a bit of a lazy effort, if you asked Mary Margaret, but then, no one ever did.
“Most excellent,” Archie chimed in.
“The best cake I’ve ever had,” said Sidney.
“I think it’s awful,” Henry said.
There was a profound silence. Nobody moved. Mary Margaret wished, not for the first time, that she could become a little beetle and scurry out the door unnoticed.
“What?” said the Mayor at last.
“It’s horrible,” said Henry. “It’s soggy, and it’s weird, and it doesn’t taste like pineapple at all.”
Archie valiantly attempted to intervene. “Now, Henry,” he said, “your mother worked very hard on this cake – ”
Regina held up a hand, and he instantly fell silent. The whole diner watched her, waiting on her next move. Mary Margaret couldn’t read her facial expression at all.
“Is it really that bad?” the Mayor asked, and Mary Margaret was surprised to hear a quaver in her voice.
“It’s worse,” proclaimed Henry solemnly, in the way only four-year-olds can.
The Mayor’s face collapsed entirely. “Oh, Henry,” she said, kneeling down to be at his eye-level. She looked as if she might be about to cry. “I’m sorry. I’ve never made this kind of cake before.”
“I can tell,” said Henry, not unkindly.
The Mayor smiled a little, and kissed his forehead. “Would you like ice cream instead?”
Henry thought about it, then nodded. “Okay,” he said.
Regina summoned Granny with an imperious wave of her hand. “Ice cream, please,” she commanded. Regina had a way of making ‘please’ sound like a threat.
Granny fetched ice cream for Henry, and slowly, the birthday party attendees began to relax, Mary Margaret included. The pineapple upside-down cake incident, stressful though it had been, was over. It was nothing more than a blip in the townspeople’s lives, something that would be forgotten by the morning. Everything was going to be just fine.
August 16, 2005
The next morning, there was a knock on her door.
Mary Margaret opened it to find, to her surprise, Regina standing on the other side. “Mayor Mills,” she greeted her, confused but still trying to be friendly. “What brings you here?”
The Mayor shoved a covered plate into her hands and stepped into her loft without waiting for an invitation. “I need you to try this,” she said.
“Try…this?” Mary Margaret tentatively lifted the cover on the plate. Underneath it was, to her great dismay, a pineapple upside-down cake.
“I need to make a better one for Henry’s next birthday,” said Regina by way of explanation.
“Oh,” said Mary Margaret, trying and failing to smile with enthusiasm. “That’s so sweet.”
The Mayor’s scarred lip twisted in a way that suggested she didn’t appreciate the compliment. Or maybe she just didn’t appreciate Mary Margaret. It was hard to tell, with the Mayor.
“Anyway,” Regina huffed, “I need you to taste-test my new recipe.”
Mary Margaret looked down at the cake she was holding with a horrible sinking feeling in her gut. She highly doubted Regina could have learned how to bake overnight. Part of her thought maybe Regina knew it, too, and was making Mary Margaret be her guinea pig just to punish her for – well, Mary Margaret still wasn’t sure exactly what the Mayor’s problem with her was.
Still. You didn’t say no to the Mayor. And in the end, it was for Henry’s sake.
So she cut herself a piece of the cake and (rather bravely, she thought) dug in.
It was worse than last time. Nonetheless, Mary Margaret couldn’t quite bring herself to say so. Regina was looking at her expectantly, almost hopefully, and Mary Margaret realized that she had been wrong before. The Mayor genuinely thought this cake was going to be better than the last. Mary Margaret couldn’t break her heart by telling her the truth.
“Well?” Regina demanded.
Mary Margaret swallowed and forced herself to smile. “Mmm,” she said. Maybe she had been too quick to judge Leroy yesterday. “It’s…good.”
Regina looked surprised, and for a moment it looked as if she might actually smile. “Really?”
Mary Margaret nodded. “Oh, yes,” she said. “It’s quite nice.”
The Mayor gave her a skeptical look. “You said the cake was good yesterday,” she said. “I want your honest opinion this time. Do you really think Henry would like it?”
Mary Margaret paused. Lying to Regina about Henry seemed tantamount to hugging a lightning rod during a storm. “Well,” she said slowly, “it might be a little too…unusual for his palate.”
Regina’s expression soured. “It’s not bad,” Mary Margaret rushed to assure her, even though it was. “It just needs more…” She fished wildly for what might help this absolute nightmare of a cake. “Sugar, maybe?”
Regina raised a thoughtful eyebrow. “More sugar,” she said, and it occurred to Mary Margaret that this might be the first time the Mayor had ever considered taking her advice. “I can do that.”
Regina abruptly stood and snatched the cake plate from Mary Margaret’s counter. “You’ve been most helpful, Ms. Blanchard,” she said as she made her way to the door.
“Please, call me Mary Margaret,” said Mary Margaret, hustling after her.
Regina paused with her hand on the doorknob. “Good day, Ms. Blanchard,” she said, and shut the door behind her.
Mary Margaret sighed. She really, really hoped the sugar would work.
August 17, 2005
The sugar did not work.
The third cake was, impossibly, worse than the previous two. Mary Margaret truly didn’t know how Regina did it. The Mayor watched her intently as she chewed the pineapple monstrosity. Like a hawk, Mary Margaret thought, except that hawks didn’t generally take great interest in pineapple upside-down cakes.
“Well?” Regina said.
Mary Margaret cleared her throat. Then she cleared her throat again. “Maybe…a little less sugar?” She offered the Mayor a tremulous smile.
“Hm,” said Regina, and, cake in hand, swept out the door.
August 22, 2005
By the time the eighth cake rolled around, Mary Margaret had come to expect the knock at her door. That was no surprise. Nor was Regina placing yet another of her pineapple upside-down creations in front of her. What still did manage to surprise her, however, were the many new and exciting ways Regina had found to make pineapple upside-down cake taste truly awful.
“It’s,” said Mary Margaret, trying to find a word that wasn’t actively insulting, “unique.”
Regina narrowed her eyes. “In a good way or a bad way?”
“Oh, a good way,” said Mary Margaret. “Definitely. Just…maybe…”
“Yes?” Regina prompted.
“Not quite so much black pepper?”
August 29, 2005
“Hm,” said Mary Margaret, pondering the aftertaste of the fifteenth cake. “That’s, um. That’s a lot of turmeric.”
“Too much?” asked Regina.
Mary Margaret coughed. “Yes,” she said, reaching for a glass of water, “perhaps just a little too much.”
September 10, 2005
“Mustard,” Mary Margaret exclaimed as she tasted the twenty-seventh cake. “How nice.”
“So it’s good?” asked Regina.
Mary Margaret made a noise which she hoped sounded affirming. “Oh, well, certainly,” she said. “But it’s not very sweet. I’m not sure it’d be to Henry’s tastes.”
Regina sighed and took out a pad of paper, on which Mary Margaret saw a neatly-written list of various foodstuffs, most of which had now been crossed off. Taking out a pen from her coat, Regina painstakingly crossed off the word Mustard.
“All right,” the Mayor said, grabbing the remaining cake and heading for the door. “Let’s try spinach, then.”
September 26, 2005
Mary Margaret blinked in puzzlement at the slice of cake before her.
“Where’s the pineapple?” she asked, somewhat hesitantly.
“I got rid of it,” Regina declared. “It was causing more trouble than it was worth.”
“You’re…trying to make a pineapple upside-down cake without the pineapple?” Ever a schoolteacher, Mary Margaret did her best not to make her words sound too discouraging, but it was a little difficult given the concept she was being confronted with.
“Just try it, would you,” Regina huffed.
Mary Margaret dutifully took a bite, which she chewed for some time.
“Well?” the Mayor demanded.
Mary Margaret coughed. “Well,” she said, as diplomatically as she could, “if I’m being totally honest…”
“Please do,” said Regina.
“In my personal opinion…”
“Yes?” said Regina, sounding impatient.
“And to be clear, I think it’s a perfectly fine cake,” Mary Margaret said, which was a lie, “but I think maybe pineapple upside-down cake ought to have a little bit of pineapple in it.” She offered a hesitant smile. “Wouldn’t you say?”
Regina looked sour, but she sighed and took the forty-third cake back. “I was afraid you’d say that,” she said.
“It was worth a shot,” Mary Margaret tried to reassure her.
Regina gave her a Look. “No,” she said, “I rather suspect it wasn’t.” And she swept out of Mary Margaret’s apartment as suddenly as she had arrived.
October 13, 2005
Storybrooke schools were closed on Yom Kippur, so Mary Margaret settled into her couch for a day-long movie marathon. She’d never been terribly observant, but she’d always felt guilty about it, so she’d settled on a compromise in which she afflicted herself by watching lots of movies that made her cry. She was just about to press play on her well-worn Bambi VHS when there was a foreboding knock at her door.
“Chag sameach,” Regina said when Mary Margaret opened the door. “Am I correct in thinking you don’t observe the fast?”
Mary Margaret considered lying and saying she did, but she supposed it would only postpone the inevitable, and anyway there was a very conspicuous bowl of popcorn nestled into the couch right next to where she had been sitting.
“Right as ever, Madame Mayor,” she said, wondering as she did how Regina would know such a thing – was it really so obvious, written all over her face? – and Regina set the sixtieth cake down on Mary Margaret’s kitchen counter.
“I really think this is the one,” said Regina. Mary Margaret conjured what she hoped was a convincing smile and got out a knife and fork.
The cake resisted being cut in a way that suggested it had inherited some of its maker’s stubbornness, and also suggested that it was not, in fact, the one. On the bright side, Mary Margaret supposed, eating one of Regina’s dreadful pineapple upside-down cakes was more of an affliction than fasting could ever be. So she didn’t have to feel guilty about that, at least.
She took a bite and, as usual, instantly regretted having done so. It was dense this time, almost frightfully so, with a flavor that seemed to comprise every seasoning known to man.
“Mm,” Mary Margaret said aloud. “It’s good.” She tried to look thoughtful. “Maybe a bit, um, chewy?” There was still, in fact, cake stuck in between her teeth. It felt as if she’d just eaten a brick of molasses.
“Chewy,” Regina repeated, eying the cake left on Mary Margaret’s plate. Then she nodded. “I’ll see what I can do.” And, as always, she grabbed the rest of the cake and turned to go. And, as always, Mary Margaret sat and watched.
She wasn’t sure why she did it. Honestly, she wasn’t sure why she did half the things she did. But as Regina’s hand closed around the doorknob, Mary Margaret blurted out, “Can I ask you something, Madame Mayor?”
Regina turned and raised one perfectly judgmental eyebrow at her.
Mary Margaret bit her lip. “Have I ever…done something to offend you? Or hurt you, in any way?”
She swore she saw Regina’s eyes narrow, like a jungle cat on the hunt. But when the Mayor spoke, it was with a pleasant-sounding calm. “What a strange question,” she said. “Why do you ask?”
Mary Margaret shifted her feet. “Well, I mean, it is a day of atonement, after all,” she said. “If there’s any way in which I’ve done you wrong, I’d like to atone for it. Try to make things right.”
Regina stared at her. Mary Margaret had the sudden feeling that she was being studied, like a rat in one of those awful science laboratories where they experimented on innocent little rats who hadn’t done anything to anyone.
After an excruciating minute, Regina cleared her throat and adjusted her grip on the cake in her arms. “No,” she said. “There’s nothing you’ve done to hurt me, Ms. Blanchard.” She looked straight at Mary Margaret and smiled, and the smile didn’t reach her eyes. “Nothing at all.”
October 20, 2005
Mary Margaret frowned as she mulled over the aftertaste the sixty-seventh cake had left in her mouth. “It’s…spicy?”
Regina’s brow furrowed. “It’s not supposed to be spicy,” she said.
“Well,” Mary Margaret amended, “not spicy, exactly. Tingly, sort of.” She eyed the rest of the cake in the Mayor’s hands. “What’s in it?”
Regina shrugged. “The usual ingredients. Plus I added walnuts this time.”
Mary Margaret froze. The tingly feeling in her mouth intensified. “Walnuts?” she said.
“Yes,” said Regina.
“Regina,” said Mary Margaret, “I’m allergic to walnuts.”
Regina blinked. Then she frowned. “No, you’re not.” Which was, Mary Margaret thought, a seriously odd thing to say.
“Yes, I am,” said Mary Margaret, wondering if the tickling feeling in the back of her mouth was a sign that her throat was about to close up.
“But you used to love walnuts,” said Regina, which was true, but Mary Margaret had no earthly idea how the Mayor would know that.
“I loved them as a child,” said Mary Margaret, “but I developed a rather severe walnut allergy in my early twenties.”
Regina’s face twisted in disdained confusion. “People can do that?” she said, sounding almost offended. “Just…suddenly become allergic to things, out of nowhere?”
“Um, yes?” said Mary Margaret.
“Hmph!” Regina walked over to the telephone and picked it up. For a second Mary Margaret thought she might be calling the Almighty himself to lodge a complaint about the human body’s fickle immune system and demand a complete overhaul of the entire project.
Instead, after only one ring, Mary Margaret heard a faint voice saying on the other end of the line: “911, what’s your emergency?”
“Yes, hello, this is the Mayor speaking, Mary Margaret Blanchard is having an allergic reaction to walnuts and may go into anaphylactic shock,” said Regina. “Kindly dispatch an ambulance to her apartment immediately.” She rattled off the address and then hung up the phone and addressed Mary Margaret again. “I don’t suppose you have an EpiPen?”
Mary Margaret shook her head. The Mayor sighed and started walking around the kitchen, opening and closing cabinets and drawers.
“When I first adopted Henry, I did quite a bit of reading on how to handle severe allergy attacks,” she said, almost conversationally. “Thankfully, I have yet to have cause to actually implement any of that knowledge.” She opened another drawer and withdrew a kitchen knife. She studied it before closing the drawer, knife still in her hand. “Did you know epinephrine is just another word for adrenaline?”
Mary Margaret blinked, baffled by the question and still fighting the itching in her throat. “Yes, actually,” she said. “As part of my training – ”
Before she could finish the sentence Regina had grabbed her from behind and held the knife to her throat. She made a gurgling noise of surprise. “What are you doing?!”
“Name all the elements of the periodic table in the next three minutes,” Regina said, “or I’ll slit your throat. Quickly, now, dear. Don’t make me make a mess of your counter.”
“Regina!” Panic swelled in her chest. “Please, you – you don’t want to do this!”
“Oh, but I do,” purred Regina. “You have no idea how many times I’ve dreamed of closing my hands around your pretty little throat. Of digging a knife in and watching your blood drain out of you bit by perfect bit. Of sending you into an eternal sleep from which you’d never, ever awake.” She leaned closer as Mary Margaret let out a sob. “Of course, if you could prove yourself a valuable future educator for my son, I’d have to let you live. Henry comes first, after all. So.” She pressed the knife harder against Mary Margaret’s neck. “The periodic elements, please, Ms. Blanchard.”
Mary Margaret fought to think clearly through her tears. “Um – um – magnesium, uh, helium, hydrogen – ” She let out a gasping sob. Was her throat closing up for good? Were these really to be her final moments? “Uh, sodium, potassium – um, argon – ” What were the other elements? She couldn’t think. She had a poster of them in her classroom, but she’d never memorized them all. She wasn’t a chemistry teacher. She was just Mary Margaret. Poor, pitiful, pathetic Mary Margaret, who would die in her kitchen, throat slit by the woman who’d just fed her a terrible pineapple upside-down cake, and no one would even blame Regina for doing it, because Mary Margaret was so useless and small and alone –
There was a knock at the door.
“Oh, good, they’re here,” said Regina, and released Mary Margaret, who was still gasping in fear. The Mayor set the knife down on the counter and strode over to the door. The EMTs entered, one of them brandishing an EpiPen.
“Have you administered an EpiPen, Madame Mayor?” he asked.
“No, she didn’t have any on hand,” said Regina.
“Got it,” he said, and twisted off the cap and stabbed Mary Margaret in the leg.
The rest of the afternoon was a blur. They took her to the hospital, and eventually she went to sleep. When she woke up, Dr. Whale was hovering over her, making notes on his clipboard.
“You’re awake,” he said, sounding uninterested.
Mary Margaret’s throat felt dry. “Am I going to die?”
Dr. Whale shrugged. “Yes, eventually,” he said. “Everyone does. But probably not today.”
“Oh,” said Mary Margaret. That was good, at least. It had been pretty touch and go for a while there. “Regina held a knife to my throat,” she remembered aloud.
Dr. Whale looked at her with slightly more interest. “Really?” he said.
She remembered something else. “She said something about adrenaline.” She frowned. “Do you think maybe she was trying to…help me, somehow? Boost my adrenaline until the EMTs could get there?”
Dr. Whale shrugged again. Mary Margaret hated to think it, even in the privacy of her own mind, but he was not the most comforting doctor a patient could ask for. “It’s possible,” he said. “I mean, the level of adrenaline needed to bring someone down from anaphylactic shock far exceeds the amount that the human body normally produces, even as a stress reaction, but hey, any bit helps, so, whatever works, I guess.”
A strange feeling washed over her, as if she’d just recalled something she knew all along deep inside of her. “So she saved my life,” Mary Margaret said wondrously.
Dr. Whale paused, then conceded the point with a nod. “Well, I mean, she called 911, so, yes, she did,” he said.
And the thought put a smile on her face that nothing, neither the poking and prodding of Dr. Whale nor the lingering memory of Regina’s awful pineapple upside-down cake, could wipe away.
October 21, 2005
The next day Regina was at her door again, cake in hand as if nothing of note had happened yesterday. A bit nonplussed, Mary Margaret let her in without a word.
Regina must have noticed and misinterpreted her staring, because she said, “Don’t worry, no walnuts in this. And I disinfected the kitchen before making it.”
Mary Margaret shook her head. “Regina,” she said, “you saved my life.”
Regina gave her an odd look, then shrugged. “Well,” she said, “I was the one who poisoned you in the first place.”
Mary Margaret waved her off. “You didn’t poison me on purpose.”
Regina paused. “No,” she murmured, “I suppose I didn’t.” Which was an incredibly strange thing to say, really, but Mary Margaret wasn’t about to judge the person who’d saved her life just the day before, so she ignored it and moved on.
The cake was, of course, just as awful as all the other cakes had been, if not worse. But Mary Margaret chewed through the monstrosity with a smile on her face, and it was only partially fake.
October 31, 2005
Mary Margaret opened the door and immediately had to step back to avoid getting whacked with a lightsaber as a child’s voice called out, “Trick or treat!”
“Henry, be careful,” chided Darth Vader in Regina’s voice, standing behind the tiny Jedi who was waving his blue lightsaber around with wild abandon.
“Sorry, Mary Margaret!” Henry grinned up at her. “Do you like our costumes?”
“Of course,” said Mary Margaret, offering him her bowl of candy. He took one piece, and then reached for another.
“Just one, young padawan,” the Mayor intoned. Henry pouted, but dropped his hand.
“You make a very handsome Luke,” Mary Margaret told him.
Henry scrunched up his face. “I’m not Luke. Luke’s boring. I’m Leia.”
Mary Margaret squinted. So that was what was going on with his hair. “Oh, yes, I see that now,” she said. “Well, either way, I’m very impressed by your lightsaber skills.”
Henry puffed out his chest. “Thanks,” he said. “I’ve been practicing.” He swooshed the saber around some more.
“Yes,” said Regina, sounding regretful. “He certainly has.”
Mary Margaret chuckled. “Well, I hope the both of you have a very happy Halloween,” she said.
“You too!” said Henry.
“Yes,” said Regina, placing a shopping bag at Mary Margaret’s feet, “a very happy Halloween to you too, Ms. Blanchard.”
“Oh,” said Mary Margaret, who didn’t have to look inside to know there would be a pineapple upside-down cake in the bag. Henry was looking at the bag curiously, so she said for his benefit, “A Halloween gift. How thoughtful of you, Madame Mayor.”
“Of course,” said Regina through the Darth Vader mask. “Do call me later and let me know what you think, Ms. Blanchard. Come along, Henry.”
Henry skipped after her, still slicing and dicing the air with aplomb. “What’d you get Mary Margaret for Halloween?” he asked as they retreated.
“That is a secret known only to the Sith,” Regina replied, cape trailing on the ground behind her. “You will have to join the Dark Side to learn the answer.”
“Never!” cried Henry, and the two walked off into the night.
Back inside her apartment, Mary Margaret sighed as she took the seventy-eighth pineapple upside-down cake out from its bag. She had long since given up hope on the possibility that any of Regina’s attempts at what one could generously describe as baking might turn out to be good. For a brief moment, she contemplated trashing the whole thing and then just making up a random critique of the cake when she called Regina. It wasn’t as if her usual reviews were particularly honest, anyway. But that felt like outright deceit, and Mary Margaret didn’t like the idea of lying like that. So, not without some reluctance, she took out a knife and fork and dug in.
An hour later, she rang up Regina.
“Yes?” the Mayor answered.
“It’s not bad,” said Mary Margaret. “But…well…”
“Spit it out,” Regina said.
“I’m not sure you really need the chicken?”
November 8, 2005
If you asked Mary Margaret later why the eighty-sixth cake specifically was the one that broke her, she wouldn’t have an answer for you. It was bad, of course, perhaps the worst yet, but not memorably so; a week later she couldn’t even tell you what was so wrong with it, exactly. But in the moments after the cake hit her tastebuds, something in her just…snapped. And suddenly she saw her future laid out in front of her: taste-testing Regina’s horrible pineapple upside-down cakes forever, doomed like Sisyphus for a crime she had no memory of committing, with no escape in sight. Just terrible pineapple upside-down cake, every day, for the rest of her life.
“Well?” said Regina, hovering beside her as always. “What do you think?”
Mary Margaret looked up at her, a strange hollowness filling her soul, and said, “It’s the worst thing I’ve ever eaten in my life.”
Regina reared back, looking offended. “What?” she snapped.
It was as if a dam had broken. Mary Margaret felt herself tearing up. “It’s so bad, Regina!” she exclaimed. “They’re all so bad!” She pushed the hideous concoction away from her with a force that surprised her. “I’ve been trying so hard to be nice, but I just can’t do it anymore! You can’t bake, Regina! You’re terrible at it! And I’m done being your guinea pig, you hear me?” She was shouting now, all her pent-up disgust at the eighty-six pineapple upside-down cakes she’d eaten over the past few months boiling over into a rage she never knew she had inside her. “I know you think you can push me around and feed me your horrible baking experiments, but I am done letting you! I’m not eating any more pineapple upside-down cakes from you, you understand? Not. A. Single. One!”
Regina stared at her. Mary Margaret was breathing heavily, shocked by her own outburst. She hadn’t known she could speak like that to anyone, least of all Regina, and from the expression on the Mayor’s face, Regina hadn’t known either.
But then the most peculiar thing happened. The edge of Regina’s mouth curled up just the teensiest bit, and the wrinkles around her eyes softened ever so slightly. If Mary Margaret didn’t know better, she’d say the Mayor looked almost…proud.
Mary Margaret was about to apologize for her overreaction when Regina spoke. “Very well,” she said, and fetched the rest of the offending cake. She paused at the door, turning to look back at Mary Margaret, and there was that strange glimmer in her eyes again, as if Mary Margaret were an old friend she was just now seeing again after years apart.
“Have a good day, Ms. Blanchard,” Regina said, and then she was gone.
November 22, 2005
It had been two weeks since Mary Margaret had seen Regina. As bad as she felt about blowing up at the Mayor like that, she had to admit it had been a welcome relief the first day she went without one of those awful pineapple upside-down cakes, and a fortnight into her new pineapple-upside-down-cake-less life, her future was starting to look pretty bright.
Then there was a knock at the door.
Mary Margaret took a deep breath and steeled herself against the inevitable, and then she opened the door. As expected, Regina stood on the other side, holding a suspiciously cake-shaped item wrapped in foil.
“Regina,” Mary Margaret said weakly. “What a nice surprise.”
“May I come in?” Regina asked, which was a step up, Mary Margaret supposed, from her usual method of inviting herself in.
Mary Margaret hesitated. She hated to be rude, but – “I’m not going to try any more cakes for you, Madame Mayor,” she said. “I said it and I meant it.”
Regina looked away, possibly a bit embarrassed, Mary Margaret realized, before drawing herself up to her full height – which was slightly shorter than Mary Margaret’s full height – and saying, “Just one more? Please?”
It was the ‘please’ that did it. Ever the schoolteacher, Mary Margaret could not resist rewarding basic manners. She sighed and gestured for Regina to come in.
Regina laid the foil-wrapped plate down on the kitchen counter and, gingerly, removed the foil. Mary Margaret eyed the uncovered pineapple upside-down cake with trepidation. It looked, admittedly, far better than any of Regina’s previous attempts. But looks could be deceiving.
Cursing herself for her own too-accommodating nature, Mary Margaret cut the cake and served herself a slice. She shut her eyes, screwed up her courage, and took a bite.
Her eyes blinked open.
“It’s…good,” she said.
Regina huffed. “You said that about all the other ones,” she said. “Be honest. What’s it actually like?”
Mary Margaret stared at the piece of cake in front of her. She could hardly believe her tastebuds. She took another bite. Then another.
“Regina,” she said, gazing up at the Mayor in wonder, “this is the best pineapple upside-down cake I’ve ever eaten.” She laughed in disbelief. “Actually, this is the best cake I’ve ever eaten.”
Regina blinked. “Really?” She grabbed a fork and tentatively cut a piece of her own, then tasted it herself. “Oh,” she said. “That is good.”
Mary Margaret shoveled more cake into her mouth, savoring the sweet and tangy mix of the cake and pineapple on her tongue. “Mmm,” she said, and this time she meant it. “Wow.” Soon she’d finished the piece on her plate, and she put down on her fork and looked at Regina and smiled. “You did it.” She giggled and threw her arms around Regina. “You actually did it!”
Regina cleared her throat and gently pushed Mary Margaret away by the shoulders. “Thank you, Ms. Blanchard,” she said, sounding a bit miffed, but Mary Margaret couldn’t be bothered to care. “You have been…helpful.” She smiled tightly, as if it pained her somewhat to say it.
Mary Margaret rolled her eyes in amusement. “Please, Regina,” she said, “you can call me Mary Margaret.”
Something in Regina’s eyes seemed to shutter. “I should be going,” she said, and adjusted her coat around her shoulders. For once, she didn’t take back the rest of the cake, instead leaving it on Mary Margaret’s counter. “Enjoy the cake, Ms. Blanchard,” Regina said from the door, and then Mary Margaret was alone again.
Mary Margaret sighed. No matter what she did, the Mayor just didn’t seem to like her. But, she supposed, at least the pineapple upside-down cake fiasco had finally come to an end, and a happy one at that.
August 1, 2006
Many months had passed since Mayor Mills had had cause to come a-knocking at Mary Margaret’s door. That didn’t mean they hadn’t interacted, of course. Just this morning, in fact, Mary Margaret had collided headfirst into Regina on the street. She’d tried to apologize, earnestness oozing out of her very ears, but the Mayor had simply sighed and walked away. How strange, Mary Margaret had thought. But then, she supposed, there were worse things to be in this world than strange.
So it was quite a surprise to Mary Margaret when, upon hearing a knock at her door, she opened it to find Regina standing there, holding a plate covered in foil.
“Regina?” Mary Margaret said. “Can I help you?”
“Henry’s birthday is in two weeks,” Regina said. She pushed the covered plate into Mary Margaret’s arms. “I need to make him a cake, and I need you to taste-test it.”
“Oh, yes, of course,” said Mary Margaret, setting the plate down on her counter. “Your famous pineapple upside-down cake.” So Regina just wanted to make sure her recipe was extra perfect. That was fine, then.
But Regina shook her head and unwrapped the foil around the cake. “Oh, no,” she said, lifting it off entirely. “This year he wants chocolate.”
Mary Margaret stared at the chocolate cake looming in front of her on her counter. She gulped. Regina held up a knife and fork. If Mary Margaret’s eyes weren’t deceiving her, she swore she saw just a hint of a smirk on Regina’s lips.
“Well, come on, Ms. Blanchard,” Regina said. “Dig in.”
Mary Margaret sighed. It was going to be a long two weeks.