The safe house was a converted lighthouse on the coast of Maine, chosen for its isolation and its complete lack of surveillance cameras—or so Gaga had assured them. Catherine Zeta-Jones sat at a round oak table, her reading glasses perched on her nose, studying a set of blueprints that had been procured through means she preferred not to investigate. Rihanna stood behind her, arms crossed, the rosella Penelope preening on her left shoulder while Gerald the king-parrot dozed on her right.
Lady Gaga paced before them, clad in a black turtleneck and matching beret that made her look like a glamorous burglar from a 1960s heist film. She had a laser pointer in one hand and a cup of tea in the other.
“Ladies,” Gaga began, clicking the laser pointer at the blueprints. “Welcome to Operation Meringue. The target: Taylor Swift’s Rhode Island estate. The date: December 26th. The time: approximately 3:00 AM, when the post-Christmas food coma is at its peak.”
Catherine adjusted her glasses. “Let me get this straight. You want us to break into Taylor Swift’s home, infiltrate one of her nine kitchens, bake a lemon meringue cake, and then leave? That’s the entire plan?”
[Menu]
“That’s the entire plan,” Gaga confirmed, beaming.
Rihanna uncrossed her arms and stepped closer to the table. “And why, exactly, are we doing this?”
Gaga set down her tea and placed both hands on the table, leaning forward with the intensity of a woman about to deliver a sermon. “To prove to Taylor Swift that, even without meat, cake can taste fantastic.”
Silence.
The birds exchanged a glance. Penelope chirped softly, as if to say, Did she just say that?
Gerald the king-parrot shook his head slowly.
Catherine removed her glasses and pinched the bridge of her nose. “I’m sorry. Did you say ‘without meat’? Who is making cake with meat?”
“Taylor Swift,” Gaga said darkly. “I have it on good authority—Kevin from Hoboken, you remember Kevin—that Taylor has been adding beef tallow to all her baked goods. Her lemon meringue cake is legendary, but it’s also a lie. A meaty, greasy, carnivorous lie.”
Rihanna stared. “Kevin from Hoboken. The timeshare salesman. The same Kevin who told you Taylor was a plumber.”
“The very same,” Gaga said, nodding sagely. “And he was right about the plumbing, wasn’t he? I mean, we all know that’s true.”
“We don’t know that,” Catherine said flatly. “We know nothing. We’ve just been told a cat named Plumber is going to revolutionize the plumbing industry.”
“Plumber is a separate matter entirely,” Gaga waved her hand dismissively. “Focus, ladies. The mission: we enter through the chimney.”
Rihanna squinted at the blueprints. “That’s not a chimney. That’s a decorative cupola. It doesn’t even connect to the interior.”
Gaga squinted at the blueprints. “Well, that’s a design flaw on Taylor’s part. Very poor architecture. I’m not responsible for that.”
“Then what’s our entry point?” Catherine asked, exasperated.
Gaga traced her finger along the blueprints, muttering to herself. “We go in through the cat flap. No, too small. Through the doggy door? She has a doggy door. I’ve seen photos of the doggy door. We’ll need to grease ourselves up.”
“Absolutely not,” Rihanna said. “I’m not greasing myself up to crawl through a doggy door at three in the morning.”
“Then what do you suggest?” Gaga demanded.
Catherine pointed at the blueprints. “There’s a service entrance here. Unlocked, according to your intel. We walk in like normal people.”
“That’s too easy,” Gaga complained. “Where’s the drama? Where’s the theatricality?”
“There’s no theatricality in breaking and entering,” Catherine said. “There’s just breaking and entering. And prison. I’d like to avoid prison, Gaga.”
Gaga sighed dramatically. “Fine. Service entrance it is. But I’m keeping the beret.”
“Fine,” Rihanna said. “Now, the kitchen. Which one of the nine?”
Gaga’s eyes lit up. “The fifth kitchen. It’s the baking kitchen. It has three ovens, a marble island, and a walk-in pantry that’s bigger than my first apartment. We’ll have everything we need.”
“What about ingredients?” Catherine asked. “Do we bring our own? Does Taylor keep a well-stocked pantry?”
“Taylor,” Gaga said, “has seventeen different types of flour. Seventeen. She’s a flour collector. It’s pathological. We’ll find everything we need. Lemon zest, sugar, eggs, butter. And absolutely no beef tallow.”
“And if we’re caught?” Rihanna asked, raising an eyebrow.
Gaga smiled, a slow, wicked smile. “If we’re caught, we improvise. We tell her we’re a traveling baking competition. We tell her we’re an independent watchdog group concerned about her over-reliance on animal fats. We tell her we’re her fairy godmothers, here to save her from the tragedy of meat-based desserts.”
The birds chirped skeptically.
Penelope let out a low, doubtful trill.
Gerald shook his head again, more emphatically this time.
“Your birds are very judgmental,” Gaga observed.
“Your whole plan is very stupid,” Rihanna countered.
“It’s not stupid,” Gaga insisted. “It’s bold. It’s daring. It’s—”
“It’s Christmas,” Catherine interrupted. “December 26th. Everyone is exhausted. Everyone is recovering from family gatherings. This is the most vulnerable time for a celebrity. Taylor will be sleeping off a turkey-induced coma, blissfully unaware that three of the most famous women on the planet are in her kitchen, baking a cake.”
“Exactly,” Gaga said triumphantly. “She’ll wake up, go to her kitchen, and find a lemon meringue cake with a note. ‘Dear Taylor, meat has no place in dessert. Love, your fairy godmothers.’ She’ll be confused. She’ll be intrigued. She’ll never use beef tallow again.”
“Or,” Rihanna said, “she’ll call the police and we’ll all be arrested for breaking and entering.”
“Not if we leave the cake,” Gaga said. “The cake disarms her. The cake is our peace offering. The cake is—”
“The cake is a lie,” Catherine muttered.
“What?”
“Nothing. Just thinking about a video game.”
Gaga looked between them, her beret slightly askew. “So are we doing this or not? Because I already have the cake stand ready. It’s a very nice cake stand. Vintage. Hand-painted. It cost me more than most people’s cars.”
Rihanna exchanged a long look with Catherine.
“Fine,” Rihanna said finally. “We’ll do it. But if we get caught, I’m telling the police it was your idea. And I’m telling them you named your cat Plumber.”
“I would be honored to have that on my record,” Gaga said, already packing the blueprints into a leather satchel.
Catherine sighed, pulled on her gloves, and stood. “December 26th. Three in the morning. We’re doing this.”
The birds chirped in resignation.
And somewhere, far away, Taylor Swift slept peacefully, blissfully unaware that a lemon meringue cake was about to become the most important dessert of her life.
Gaga paused at the door and looked back at her accomplices.
“One more thing,” she said. “We should probably have a backup plan if the kitchen is locked.”
“And what’s that?” Rihanna asked.
Gaga grinned. “I have a contact. His name is Kevin from Hoboken. He can get us through any door.”
Penelope the rosella let out a long, mournful sigh.
Gerald the king-parrot buried his face in Rihanna’s hair.
And Catherine Zeta-Jones realized she had never, in her entire career, done anything quite this absurd.