Christmas At The Cupcake Cafe (11 page)

You didn’t meet many men in the cupcake shop, though. Well, you did, but not very useful ones. Some fat, some gay, some buying for their wives or girlfriends. (That was the worst, if they were nice. Imagine having a husband who also bought you cakes. Kelly-Lee sometimes had trouble finding a guy who would buy her a drink, even if
they’d only just met.) And some obviously feeling sorry for something they’d done and hoping the cupcakes would make up for it, which, in the case of a woman, very much depended on whether they were on a diet or not. Kelly-Lee was always on a diet. She had to try the new cupcake recipes at the beginning of every month, but she always made sure she restricted each one to a mouthful, and spent an extra ten minutes at Aquabike Extreme.

Her mother wanted her to go back to Wisconsin for Christmas. It would be about ten degrees below zero, snowed up to the windows, and her relatives would spend the entire time banging on and on about her amazing life in the Big Apple and was it really like what they saw on TV, and then they’d all fall out about gay marriage and her mom would say something that was meant to be conciliatory, like how she knew Kelly-Lee wasn’t quite married yet, but if she wanted to bring a boy home, they could probably overlook the sleeping arrangements, and Kelly-Lee would look at her prom queen picture (truly, her proudest moment at the time) and want to scream. She sighed. Then the doorbell had rung and she’d hopped up to her perky best.

‘What can I get you today?’

Foreigner, she thought. Cute, but a bit rumpled-looking.

‘Uhm, hello,’ said Austin, blinking and taking off his glasses.

Ah, thought
Kelly-Lee. English. So probably drunk. Still cute, though. She checked his finger automatically. No ring.

‘Are you looking for something sweet?’ she asked, cheekily. She liked Englishmen, you could have a laugh with them. Not like American men; they always took you seriously, then carried on talking about themselves anyway.

Austin smiled. ‘I just liked the smell.’

‘Have you been in New York long?’

‘About two days,’
said Austin. ‘It’s been a long two days though.’

‘It’s confusing at first, isn’t it?’ said Kelly-Lee. ‘When I first got here, I just stared upwards all the time. I nearly fell down a manhole.’

‘Oh no,’ said Austin. ‘Well, it could have been worse. A giant anvil could have fallen from the sky.’

‘Are you looking for some cakes?’

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘My girlfriend runs a cake shop.’

Kelly-Lee liked the word girlfriend. It could mean anything. It could mean girl I just met, someone I know in passing, near ex. It didn’t mean fiancée or wife.

‘Which one?’ she asked happily.

‘Oh no, you wouldn’t know it. It’s in London. London, England,’ he clarified needlessly. She smiled.

Better and better, thought Kelly-Lee.

‘Oh no,’ she said. ‘So you’re all the way over here and she’s over there? Are you going to be separated for long?’

‘Hmm,’ said Austin. ‘I’m not sure. I hope not. You know how things go.’

Kelly-Lee did.

‘Coffee?’

Austin did want a coffee, to clear his head a bit. ‘Yes,’ he said.

‘So do you like running a cupcake café here?’

Kelly-Lee had learned long ago that moaning was not considered very attractive in a woman. Men liked perkiness and happy girls.

‘I LOVE it,’ she said. ‘It’s amazing! The smell of cinnamon in the morning! The first cup of coffee! Trying out all the new amazing flavours.’

‘Do you bake them yourself?’ Austin asked.

Kelly-Lee frowned. She had always considered it the hallmark of a sophisticated New Yorker to be unable to turn on her own oven.

‘Well, kinda,’ she said. ‘The van drops them off, you know, half mixed? Then I just kinda heat them up. Like Mac and cheese.’

‘But you like baking?’

‘Love it,’ smiled Kelly-Lee. ‘Hey, you know, we deliver.’

‘To London?’

‘Sure! We’ve got a sister shop there. I can call them right away, they’ll be there in half an hour.’

‘Really?’ This struck Austin as a fantastic idea. And it seemed there was absolutely nothing to stop Issy coming over here
and baking if he took up a job. There were plenty of shops. It would be great!

He bit into a chocolate and vanilla that Kelly-Lee had put out for him. He hadn’t protested, even though after the lunch he’d just had, he’d have put money on not eating again for about a week. It wasn’t bad – a little sweet for his taste, and it didn’t have the warm, fresh out-of-the-oven taste that Issy’s cakes had. But that was fine; good in fact. Maybe she could come over here and make them even better! She would like that.

‘Send a dozen,’ he said boldly, thinking he was behaving like a New Yorker already. Kelly-Lee took down the address and promised to call it through.

‘Well, I’m so glad you like us!’ she said, smiling at him appealingly. But it was wasted on Austin. Sitting back after his second bite of the cupcake, in the cosy, familiar-seeming fug, he had fallen straight into a deep sleep.

Back in London, Issy unwrapped the box in disbelief.

‘What the heck?’

Under the ribbon on the green box was emblazoned the large flower-embossed logo of a huge, internationally successful cupcake chain. And sure enough, inside was a selection of a dozen cupcakes in different flavours. They did look, it was fair to say, absolutely exquisite, all perfectly piped, and decorated with glitter, tiny stars and iridescent raspberry dust.

‘Wow,’ said Caroline. ‘They are so chic. Look at the attention to detail.’

‘That’s because they’re made in a factory,’ said Issy darkly. ‘You need a few wonky ones here and there to know they’re home-made.’

‘Why would he send you those?’ said Helena. ‘I don’t understand. Are you sure they’re from him?’

‘Yes, look,’ said Issy.

The card said, ‘To Issy from Austin’. No kisses, nothing. It was very strange. It was less strange if you knew that Kelly-Lee had had only the barest of details to go on when she
called in the order over the head of a profoundly fast asleep Austin. And possibly an ulterior motive when it came to not putting kisses on the card.

Issy shook her head. ‘But why would he? I don’t understand.’

‘Maybe he’s trying to show you they have better cupcakes,’ said Caroline, helpfully.

‘Maybe he’s the least imaginative gift-giver ever and knows you like cupcakes,’ said Helena. ‘I mean, come on, he works in a bank. He’s hardly going to be a super-romantic soul, is he?’

‘He’s perfectly romantic,’ said Issy, going slightly pink. ‘When he wants to be, and when he isn’t running late or too busy or just generally a bit distracted because Darny’s playing up.’

They all stared at the open box.

‘Ooh, are those your new range?’ said a customer. ‘They look amazing.’

Chadani cruised over from the sofa, stuck a podgy little paw into the box and started smooshing the cakes all up together. For once, Issy didn’t think Helena needed to say anything to her, which was just as well, as Helena was watching her daughter admiringly, as if feeling sorry for anyone whose baby wasn’t as good at bashing up cakes as hers.

Pearl came past carrying a pile of empty dishes. She sniffed.

‘What are you three all hanging around for?’ she said.

‘Austin has
gone completely insane,’ said Caroline. ‘He’s obviously trying to put Issy off him for some reason. Don’t worry,’ she said, touching Issy on the arm. ‘I know break-ups can be messy. My divorce was just horrible. Awful. So I can help you through this.’

Normally Issy could laugh Caroline off, but this really was a bit odd. She bit her bottom lip. Pearl noticed immediately.

‘Oh for goodness’ sake stop being a big bunch of divs,’ she said. ‘He’s thinking about you. Obviously.’

‘But why send something so insulting?’ said Issy.

‘Because he’s a man,’ said Pearl. ‘I said he was being thoughtful. I didn’t say he wasn’t being a total and utter idiot.’

‘Hmm,’ said Issy. ‘I think I am going to go and knead some panettone.’

Pearl and Caroline exchanged glances.

‘You do that,’ said Pearl.

Issy turned to go downstairs. Then she turned back. She sighed crossly.

‘Well, I’d better try them, I suppose.’

She broke a bit off one of the big sparkly ones in the middle. It did look immaculate, there was no doubt about that; all the cupcakes perfectly even and exactly the same height. She took a bite and her nose wrinkled up.

‘Oh, yuck,’ she said.

‘I think they say “gross” in America,’ reproved Caroline.

‘Too
sugary,’ Issy pronounced. ‘And they’re not using all butter. You can tell. There’s a horrible oily aftertaste. That means industrial quantities, not hand-milled. This is raspberry extract, not real raspberry. And the crumb is too dense. Bleurgh.’

‘There you go,’ said Pearl. ‘He obviously sent them to you to point out your clear superiority over them.’

‘Or else he can’t tell the difference,’ said Issy, worried.

‘Or perhaps he thinks these are better,’ said Caroline, who always managed to go one worse than everybody else.

‘Thanks, Caroline,’ said Pearl pointedly. Issy turned away and stomped down the steps to the cellar bakery.

Doti the postman was finishing off his Christmas round outside the Cupcake Café. He liked to come to them last, especially on cold days. Partly because he had a sweet tooth, and partly because he had a soft spot for Pearl and liked to flirt with her. Pearl had Benjamin to contend with, but liked Doti very much.

Today, however, Doti was with someone else, a definite first. She was, Pearl noticed, rather pretty, in her thirties, long dark hair tied back in a ponytail, large hooped gold earrings and very white teeth. It was hard to tell what her figure was like in the unflattering postal uniform and fluorescent vest, but Pearl was putting money on pleasantly curvaceous. She sniffed. They were laughing together as they jangled through the door.

‘Hello,’
said Pearl, stiffly. Doti smiled.

‘Ah, beautiful Pearl. This is beautiful Pearl,’ he said to the woman.

‘Hello, beautiful Pearl,’ said the woman, nicely. That annoyed Pearl even more. Nice pretty people made her feel uneasy.

‘This is Maya,’ said Doti. ‘She’s my temporary Christmas postie.’

‘Oh, hello,’ said Pearl, trying not to sound narked. She shouldn’t sound narked. It was just that Doti was the first person who’d shown the slightest bit of interest in her since Louis was born. Still, they couldn’t be together, so she couldn’t expect to be surprised if he liked somebody else. He was probably too old for Maya anyway. And they were only working together.