Considering she's "as short as a little bit of nothing whittled to a point," the cake is disappearing at an impossible rate.
"My two weaknesses are chocolate and cheesecake," she sighs, "and when they're together -- "
She doesn't finish the statement, just grins. Outside it's sunny, with a little pineapple breeze.
A few months ago, in May, Rachel Bayly was married to vendor John Bayly, their wedding a simple get-together in the Seattle Center. They stood side-by-side, John at 6'4" and his bride a foot and a half shy of that, and it was good. As on the day I interviewed her, it would have been impossible on her wedding day to know that a kind of stormcloud had lifted.
Rachel's first visit to Washington was an indeterminate number of years ago, at the age of 16, when she came here from California to have her baby.
"In Washington, they actually helped me," she says, remembering a peculiarly Californian brand of apathy. After the birth, she returned home to Anaheim (to "no rain and sunshine"), and finished growing up. Around last Christmas, Rachel Martin lost everything she owned when the hotel where she was staying burned to the ground. So, remembering the care she'd received giving birth, Rachel came back to Washington, thinking life on the streets might be easier in the Emerald City.
"I was appalled," says Rachel of her return. The streets here, as we all know, are no place to sleep.
But Rachel met John, and whatever thing that happens happened: the two were engaged within a month of dating. Now they stay in Everett's low-income housing (though their camp in Seattle was swept a few times before that).
Still, it would be a lie to say that the clouds have just rolled on. In that funny way that apartments have up here, Bayly's Everett studio is being converted into a condo next year.