Meet Me at the Cupcake Café (13 page)

‘That’s our job,’ said Keavie, with the simplicity of someone who knew her vocation in life. Issy envied her.

Emboldened, Issy marched back into her flat. It was a wet Saturday night and obviously she didn’t have a date and Graeme hadn’t called, that scuzz, and anyway he often didn’t see her on Saturday nights because he’d be out with the lads or up early for squash, so it hardly mattered, she told herself, nevertheless conscious of how much she missed him. Well, she wasn’t going to call him, that was for sure. He’d tossed her out on the street like garbage. Swallowing heavily, she went into the cosy sitting room to find Helena, who was another dateless wonder but never seemed to mind about it quite so much.

Helena did mind, of course, but didn’t think it was particularly helpful to add to Issy’s woes at this particular point in time. She didn’t like being single at thirty-one any more than Issy did, but she didn’t want to lard on the misery. Issy’s face was tense enough already.

‘I’ve made a decision,’ Issy announced. Helena raised her eyebrows.

‘Go on then.’

‘I think I should go for it. For the café. My gramps thinks it’s a great idea.’

Helena smiled. ‘Well, I could have told you that.’

Helena did think it was a good idea – she had no doubt about Issy’s ability to bake the most delicious cakes, or the skills she’d bring to working with members of the public. She worried a little more about Issy handling the responsibility of her own business, and the paperwork, seeing as she’d rather watch
World’s Goriest Operations
than open her own Visa bill. This bothered her a little. Still, anything at the moment was better than moping.

‘Just for six months,’ said Issy, taking off her coat and going into the kitchen to make some chocolate-covered popcorn. ‘If it fails, I won’t be bankrupt.’

‘Well, that’s the spirit,’ said Helena. ‘Of course you won’t fail! You’ll be brill!’

Issy looked over at her. ‘But …’

‘What?’

‘It sounds like you want to put a “but” in there.’

‘Then I shan’t,’ said Helena. ‘Let’s open some wine.’

‘Can we call someone?’ said Issy. She had seen so little of her friends recently, and had an inkling she was about to see a lot less. Helena raised her eyebrows.

‘Well,’ she said. ‘There’s Tobes and Trinida, moved to Brighton. Tom and Carla, thinking of moving. Janey, pregnant. Brian and Lana, got the children keeping them in.’

‘Oh yes,’ said Issy, sighing. She remembered when she and Helena and the gang had all met, back at college. Then they were all in and out of each other’s houses, breakfast, lunch, dinners that lasted all night, weekends away. Now everyone was settling down, talking about IKEA and house prices and school fees and having ‘family time’. There wasn’t much popping in any more. She didn’t really like the sense that since they’d all turned thirty, there seemed to be two tracks opening up, like a railway line out of a junction; lines that had been parallel were now drawing inexorably further apart.

‘I shall open the wine anyway,’ said Helena firmly, ‘and we can make fun of the TV. What are you going to call it, by the way?’

‘I don’t know. I thought maybe Grampa Joe’s.’

‘That makes it sound like a hotdog stand.’

‘Do you think?’

‘Yes.’

‘Hmm. The Stoke Newington Bakery?’

‘There is one of those. It’s that little place on Church Street that sells dusty Empire biscuits and jumbo sausage rolls.’

‘Oh.’

‘You’re selling cupcakes, aren’t you?’

‘Definitely,’ said Issy, her eyes shining as the corn started popping in the pot. ‘Large and small. Because, you know, sometimes people don’t want a great big cake, they want something tiny and delicious and delicate that tastes of rose petals, or a little lavender one that just explodes, or a tiny cupcake that tastes like a blueberry muffin and has a huge blueberry inside that bursts, and—’

‘OK, OK,’ said Helena, laughing. ‘I get the picture. Well, why don’t you just call it the Cupcake Café? Then people can say, “Oh, you know, that place with all the cupcakes,” and they’ll say, “I can’t remember what it’s called,” and you can say, “It’s the Cupcake Café” and everyone will say, “Oh, yes, let’s meet there.”’

Issy thought about it. It was simple and a bit obvious, but still, it felt right.

‘I suppose,’ she said. ‘But lots of people don’t even like cupcakes. How about the Cupcake and Other Things, Some Savoury, Café?’

‘Are you sure you’re cut out for this?’ said Helena, in a teasing voice.

‘I have a head for business and a body for sin,’ said Issy. Then she glanced down at the popcorn on her lap. ‘Unfortunately, the sin appears to be gluttony.’

Des was trying to cope with what was supposedly colic but mostly meant Jamie arching his back and screaming to get away from him. His wife and his mother-in-law had gone to the spa for some ‘me’ time when Issy rang, and at first he found it a little hard to concentrate. Oh yes, the impulsive one who was just wandering past. He hadn’t really expected to hear from her again; he’d thought she was just killing time. Anyway, that other lady had called him too … Damn it! His train of thought was interrupted as Jamie gummed him hard on the thumb. God, he knew babies weren’t capable of being vindictive, but this baby in particular didn’t seem to have got the memo.

‘Oh right. Only that other woman’s come back and made me a firm offer.’

Issy felt an instant let-down. Oh no, surely not. She had a vision of her dream being dashed before it had even begun.

‘I’ve got a few other places I can show you …’

‘No!’ said Issy. ‘It has to be that one! It has to be there!’

It was true, she had fallen in love.

‘Well,’ said Des, sensing a win. ‘She did offer less than what the landlord was asking for.’

‘I’ll make an offer too,’ pleaded Issy. ‘And I’ll be a very good tenant.’

Des jiggled Jamie up and down in front of the window. At last, the baby was giggling. He wasn’t, thought Des, such a bad little chap really.

‘Yes, that’s what the last four people said,’ he replied. ‘And they all shut down within three months.’

‘Well, I’m different,’ said Issy. The baby laughed, and warmed Des’s mood.

‘OK,’ he said. ‘Let me talk to Mr Barstow.’

Issy hung up, feeling slightly mollified. Helena went into her bedroom and brought out a bag.

‘I was going to save this to give you as a proper gift-wrapped present,’ she said. ‘But I think you might need it now.’

Issy opened it. It was a copy of
Running a Small Business for Dummies
.

‘Thank you,’ she said.

Helena smiled. ‘You need all the help you can get.’

‘I know,’ said Issy. ‘But I’ve already got you.’

Chapter Six

Lemon Getting What You Want Cake

4 oz self-raising flour, sifted

1 tsp baking powder

4 oz softened butter

4 oz caster sugar

2 large eggs

grated zest of 1 lemon

juice of 1 lemon

Icing

2 oz icing sugar

2 tsps water

1 tsp lemon juice

Preheat oven to 325°F/gas mark 3. Grease loaf tin. Sift flour and baking powder, then add all the other ingredients and beat well, or use a hand-held mixer. Spoon into loaf tin.

This is the important bit:

Cook for twenty minutes. This is not quite long enough. The cake should be yellow, not brown, but not damp inside. Salmonella poisoning is rarely useful for getting what you want.

While the cake is
still warm
, apply icing. The icing should react to the warm cake and separate slightly, oozing into the pores of the cake itself. It should appear almost translucent.

Now, to all intents and purposes, your cake will look like an ugly disaster. When people see your lemon cake they will feel sorry for you. They will sneer at your poor baking skills and take a piece because they feel sorry for you. Then they will taste the soft moist spongy flesh of your cake imbued with lemon icing. Their eyes will pop open with delight. And then, they will do anything you want.

Issy shook her head. Gramps seemed back on form. And actually, this wasn’t such a bad idea. Lull everyone into a false sense of security then hit them with it. Just to show what she was capable of. She’d put some pretty spun-sugar things in as well, of course. She stared at her face in the mirror, trying to convince herself that she was shop management, run-your-own-business material. She could. Surely she could. Helena had to rap on the door.

‘Are you doing pouty face?’ she hollered.

‘No,’ said Issy, remembering Helena’s teasing when it used to take her two hours to get ready for dates out of nerves. ‘Kind of. No. This is worse than a date.’

‘Well, it is a date,’ said Helena. ‘You never know, the landlord might turn out to be cute.’

Issy stuck her head round the door and made a frowny face.

‘Stop it.’

‘What?’

‘Let me get one disastrous area of my life sorted out at a time, OK?’

Helena shrugged. ‘Well, if you don’t like him, pass him over to me.’