Cupcake Couture (32 page)

‘Take it one step at a time, Chloe. I’m sure you won’t be stepping out on a limb here. I’m sure there will be people to help you.’

Help us, help you
read the sign in Blunts’ window above the boards advertising ‘situations vacant’. Well paid situations vacant in established businesses that had ridden up and down the dips during the recession and would make it through to the other side. Businesses with open plan, strip-lighted, non-descript offices painted in company colours that were neither plush nor cosy but were regimented, routine and safe.

I wrung my hands in my gloves, suddenly doubting myself.

‘Maybe this isn’t such a good idea.’

Zachary’s lilting laughter made the couple stop kissing long enough to take a breath and look at us. He reached out and touched my arm, which made me hold mine.

‘It’s only a few cakes, Chloe, you’re not investing your life savings in a company making roller skates for dogs.’

I laughed and looked up at him.

‘You have a funny way of looking at the world,’ I smiled.

The
BLUNTS RECRUITMENT AGENCY
sign buzzed and flickered behind his head before there was a fizzing sound and the neon lights went out. I opened my eyes wide.

‘Now that is a sign,’ I grinned, nodding over his shoulder, ‘or at least it was.’

Zachary’s forehead creased and he glanced behind him again at the couple. The man had his hand up the girl’s skirt and was rooting around as if he’d lost his car keys up there. When Zachary looked back around at me, his frown had deepened.

‘Is it?’ he said, clearing his throat.

I looked from his startled eyes, to the couple and then up at my old company’s sign that was now in complete darkness. I laughed and touched his arm.

‘No, not the drunken snoggers, I meant that sign there.’

I pointed. He looked back again and shrugged.

‘Where? I don’t see a sign.’

‘Exactly,’ I said, beaming.

Blunts was in the past and that’s where it was going to stay. I owed it to myself to give this venture, however pie in the sky a go. And let’s face it, this respectable, so-far reliable businessman of Irish descent wasn’t the worst guinea pig a girl could ask for. I outstretched my hand.

‘Zachary, it’s been a pleasure doing business with you and congratulations on becoming my first customer.’

‘Bloody hell, Chas man, the prozzers around here take their work seriously don’t they?’ grunted a man to his mate who passed by with half-drunk pints sloshing around in their hands.

‘I don’t know, like Baz, the outfit’s not the usual. I think I prefer it when they wear stilettos and suspenders.’

‘Hope you get what you’re paying for, man,’ the first one called out to Zachary.

‘Aye divn’y let her shaft you, like.’

‘I think he wants a bit of shafting, Chas, that’s the whole point.’

They burped and kept on walking.

Zachary snorted with laughter and accepted my handshake.

‘Will I get what I’m paying for?’ he said with a wink.

I shook his hand firmly and grinned.

‘With buttercream and a cherry on top.’

We let go and simultaneously glanced at our watches. It was approaching ten o’clock. I realised this man, who was doing me a huge favour… who in fact had done me nothing but favours… probably wanted to be at home in his lovely, warm house finishing his unfinished business and preparing for his Monday morning meetings, not standing under the Tyne Bridge talking about cupcakes beside two people who were now basically having sex on a bench.

‘I should go,’ I said, clapping my hands together.

‘Yes, yes, me too,’ he said, clapping his.

His gloves thudded and he stomped his feet on the spot.

‘Right well’ – I pointed towards the bridge – ‘I’m that way.’

He pointed in the opposite direction.

‘I’m this way.’

We paused and I wondered about the correct etiquette for such an impromptu ‘business’ meeting with my
sort of
friend/business acquaintance. I stepped towards him and held out my hand just as he stepped towards me and leaned in to kiss my cheek, which resulted in us banging noses and I punched him in the abdomen.

‘Oh, I’m sorry…’ we both stuttered.

He reached out his hand, while I stood on my tiptoes to kiss his cheek. We both missed for a second time.

I laughed, my cheeks burning despite the wind chill. Zachary blushed and raised his outstretched hand to brush his fringe away from his forehead.

‘Does your fringe not annoy you after a while?’ I said, tilting my head and squinting at him, ‘only you’re always brushing it out of your eyes.’

And what a damn shame it is to cover those eyes
.

He stopped himself brushing it back again.

‘Oh, not really, I guess I just do it when I’m nervous.’

‘Nervous? Why would doing business with me make you nervous? I thought you did this sort of thing all the time.’

He pushed his shoulders back and smiled.

‘Yes of course, business… I didn’t mean nervous, I meant to say tired.’

‘Right.’

We glanced at our watches again, even though only a minute had passed since we had last looked.

‘Well I should let you go, Zachary. Thanks for coming.’

This time, I kept my distance and held out my hand.

‘You’re welcome. Thanks for calling.’

He shook my hand politely.

‘I’ll call you tomorrow to work out the details,’ I said before I turned away to walk towards my car.

I glanced at the couple who were lying spread-eagled on the bench, the man having apparently fallen asleep mid-coitus. Coitus interruptus, apparently.

‘You know, you’re welcome to come back to mine,’ I heard Zachary say.

I turned back. He was looking awkwardly at the couple too.

‘To yours?’ I said slowly.

‘Yes, to um,’ he cleared his throat and moved to push his hair back but stopped his hand in mid air and tickled his ear instead – ‘to discuss the details of our arrangement.’

I pressed my lips together and my eyes found his. I felt a frisson of attraction pass between us, until the man groaned on top of the woman, before dragging himself to the edge of the bench and vomiting very close to her ear. The sound of diced vegetables in bile splattering on the icy pavement made my toes curl. I held my breath.

‘I’ll call you,’ I said.

‘Good idea,’ he nodded, holding his nose.

Deal done, we turned and went our separate ways.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

80g unsalted butter, softened

Where time had dragged itself along like a drunken tramp in the street while I had little to do to fill it, the days marched on with far too much purpose now that I had a deadline. Zachary and I talked on the phone on the first of December to discuss the details of the party for which I would be baking the cakes. It was the event company’s Christmas party for clients, friends and special guests and was to be held in Newcastle on December the eighteenth. He needed cakes for two hundred people, he said. I wondered whether he was being overly ambitious with the numbers. After all there were so many events in the lead up to Christmas, people rarely accepted every invitation. Then again I knew very little about his ‘clients’. I just hoped it wouldn’t be a stuffy affair. I couldn’t very well serve pink, glittery cupcakes to sixty year-old councillors in pinstripe suits. To get a better idea of what cakes I should design, I asked Zachary who my target cake customer should be. His response was that the company’s clients were so varied, he could not define a ‘type’. In what I considered to be a rather unhelpful response, he told me he trusted my instincts implicitly and that I should use my imagination and make something ‘exceptional’, ‘unforgettable’ and ‘fabulous.’

Simple.

‘Am I a self-employed cake designer? Or am I just an unemployed person with nothing else to do who is baking a few cakes to keep busy? What I’m saying is, am I being positive or just delusional?’

I posed the conundrum to Roxy while we were sorting through the dwindling stock in the Charity Shop the following Saturday.

‘He’s your client isn’t he?’ asked Roxy.

I nodded.

‘And you’re getting paid, like?’

I nodded again.

‘Then you’re a self-employed cake designer, man. What do you want, a badge from the Queen?’

‘That would be nice,’ I sighed. I raised my eyes to the ceiling. ‘Cupcakes by royal appointment to Her Majesty, that would shift a few.’

‘Now you’re being delusional,’ Roxy snorted.

‘I’m scared to start. I know the party is in less than two weeks now and I should be designing the cakes and testing recipes but I’m afraid to start the work in case I realise I can’t do it. Do you understand what I mean?’

Roxy flicked through a rack of clothes, her nose turned up as if she was likely to catch something from them.

‘Aye well, me and work never really did get on so I kind of get it,’ she shrugged. ‘Why you want to go baking hundreds of cakes for folk when you could’ve just gone out with a footballer is beyond me.’

‘I need a job, Roxy, a career, a focus, I need to make my mark on the world and feel as if I’m here for a reason.’

She looked at me blankly as if I had just spoken in Slovakian.

‘Jesus would you look at this thing.’ She held up a red and black, laced bustier. ‘Is Bridget turning this place into a sex shop instead of a childrens’ charity shop in a last ditch attempt to make money like?’

‘Don’t joke,’ I whispered, nodding my head towards the back room of the shop, ‘Heidi is gutted the shop has to close. She feels as if she’s failed.’

‘What’s she failed at exactly? Saving the entire world and all its disabled kids?’

‘Pretty much. It’s a difficult time what with it coming up to Christmas. She really wanted to get together enough money for the…’

‘Pressies for the kids, aye I know,’ Roxy interrupted in a bored tone before she glanced down at her stomach and added – ‘Maybe I could ask Thierry to ask the lads at Newcastle United if they can scrape something together.’

Oh my goodness, was my hard-nosed friend softening in more ways than physically?

‘That would be great, Roxy,’ I said. ‘I’m sure a bunch of millionaire footballers might be able to manage to “scrape” together a few pennies from behind their fifty grand sofas.’

She replaced the bustier and yawned.

‘Ours was only thirty,’ she said casually.

Heidi appeared from the staff room with a tray of biscuits and tea. She laid it down on a child’s table and chairs set in the middle of the shop. I perched on a lopsided red wooden chair, the seat of which was about six inches from the ground. Heidi chose the pink one opposite. She laughed and held her lower back as she pulled her knees up to her chin.

‘I think I’m getting old,’ she groaned.

Roxy flopped onto a zebra print beanbag beside us (after having sniffed it first).

‘I just think you’re getting some,’ she said, raising her eyebrows.

Heidi blushed but refused to comment. She bit into a chocolate Hob Nob and wiped crumbs from her lips. I hugged my mug to warm my hands because Bridget had decided the shop’s profit margin could no longer justify heating. I took a sip and balanced the mug on my knees.

‘So, Heidi, it’s been a week. How’s it going with Hurley?’

‘It’s fine, lovely, OK,’ she said with a shrug.

Roxy and I leaned in for more information but none was forthcoming. Heidi dunked her Hob Nob and took another bite. She chewed frustratingly slowly.

‘Heidi!’ I tutted.

‘What?’

She glanced at Roxy and I.

‘Fine, lovely, OK,’ I repeated. ‘Is that it? It’s your week anniversary.’

‘Aye pet, I’d have thought you’d have booked the church and ordered the puffy dress by now.’

Heidi hugged her knees and looked witheringly at Roxy.

‘I’m not one of those wedding-mad lasses, thank you.’

Roxy and I glanced at each other and both reached out for a Hob Nob. We crunched silently.

‘I’m not!’ Heidi protested.

‘Of course you’re not, pet,’ Roxy sniggered.

‘Not at all,’ I said, suppressing a laugh.

We all dunked and then chewed.

‘I mean,’ said Roxy, ‘that scrapbook of bridal gowns and veils and almonds in shite lacy bags and honeymoon destinations that you kept in your locker at school for five years and now have on the shelf in your bedroom was completely normal.’

I snorted tea through my nose.

‘And the fact that the lady in H. Samuel in town called the police because she saw you gazing in the window at the rings so often she thought you were casing the joint could have happened to anyone,’ I giggled.

‘And the box of wedding stationery under your bed is…’

‘OK!’ Heidi held up her hands. ‘So I have a healthy…’

Roxy coughed.

‘A healthy interest in the sacrament of marriage,’ Heidi said, shuffling her bum on the tiny chair, ‘but that doesn’t mean I’m going to marry the first man I have a mature, long-term relationship with.’

‘Are we classing this week as long term?’ I asked, wrinkling my nose.

Heidi sighed and I suddenly sensed all was not well in the Hurley department. Heidi was always the one out of the three of us to be sympathetic and lend an ear. Roxy was unlikely to offer a shoulder to cry on so it was down to me to step up.

I put my mug of tea on the table and dragged my little chair around to be next to Heidi.

‘What’s up, Heidi?’ I asked, wrapping my arm around her shoulders. The pink fur of her cardigan’s collar tickled my wrist.

‘I don’t know,’ she said with another sigh.

‘Can the crip’ not get it up?’ Roxy grimaced.

‘Can you stop using that word, Roxy? It’s really not PC.’

‘Alright then, keep your bloomers on. Can your leggily challenged BF not get it up?’

I shot her a warning look.

‘It’s not that,’ said Heidi quietly, ‘and for your information we haven’t even tried. We have only been seeing each other for seven days.’

Roxy frowned, bewildered. Seven days in her book would have equalled
at least
seven shags.

‘If it’s not that, Heidi,’ I said, ‘then what is it? You seem rather down.’