Cupcake Couture (22 page)

By midday, we had lost all feeling in our extremities and had sold one cake to Sylvia who, to be fair, looked like she was not in the habit of passing the food stalls untouched. She evidently felt guilty for allocating us the worst possible pitch for a cake stall but not guilty enough to stop her asking for a discount. Four hours and we had made one pound.

‘I’m sure this après-midi will pick up for you, darlings,’ Shirley chirped, smiling under a moustache of buttercream frosting.

‘Have you not seen
Location Location Location
?’ I said through gritted teeth. ‘Kirsty and Phil would have a field day with us. It’s like opening a cake shop next to a sewage treatment plant.’

‘Don’t lose faith, lovies, it’s just a bit of fun and there’s always next week.’

‘Fuck that,’ said Roxy, ‘if we survive this week I will pay a million pounds of my boyfriend’s entire salary not to be here next week.’

But Sylvia had already swanned off to test the wares on the samosa stall primely located next to the train ticket machine. I suspected favouritism when she greeted the dashing Indian owner with a kiss on his nose.

At one o’clock, we sold two of Roxy’s clutch bags to a girl who was so full of cold she had no sense of smell, but who also declared there was little point in her buying a cake because she had lost her appetite due to – ‘the river of mucus running down the back of my throat’. Her unnecessarily detailed description managed to put off the only other customer we had attracted that hour. Heidi looked close to tears, Roxy pocketed the cash and I punched a doll in the face.

By mid afternoon, we had all lost not only the feeling in our entire bodies but also the will to live as we watched doll woman sell her freaky comatose children one by one and George part ways with bullet casings and dented helmets to a variety of weirdos while our stall remained resolutely full. Our chance to make any sort of useful profit was fading faster than the winter daylight.

‘I’m a failure,’ I groaned.

‘What?’ Heidi sighed. ‘You are not a failure, pet.’

‘I am. I’m jobless, I’m single and the one thing I thought I was good at other than being a boring old recruitment manager turns out to be a myth. I always prided myself on being able to bake cakes. I looked down on Shirley and Janice. I criticised their bakery. I even boasted about my cakes at work. But look’ – I pointed at the depressingly full cake stands – ‘they’re obviously crap, otherwise people would be queuing up to buy them.’

Heidi gently rubbed my arm.

‘But they haven’t even tried them so they don’t know how great they taste. It doesn’t mean they’re crap.’

‘It might do,’ said Roxy.

‘Roxy, you are not helping,’ Heidi hissed. ‘Why don’t you go and cheer yourself up somewhere else?’

Roxy scowled like a teenager.

‘Alreet, there’s no need to get arsey like, Heidi, I was only trying to give both sides of the argument.’

‘Well don’t.’

Roxy blew a bubble and pushed over a doll.

‘Sorry,’ she shrugged to the shocked stallholder.

The mood was so strained, I gripped my head, which was starting to pound.

‘Oh God, I’m like one of those contestants on
X Factor
who’s been told by all her family and friends that she can sing like an angel just because they are either too tone deaf to know otherwise or they feel sorry for her. Then when she starts singing, she sounds like a cat being pushed through a shredder and the judges start laughing hysterically and Simon says - “Listen, darling, singing is not your thing” in that really condescending manner and she is gobsmacked as her dreams of being the next Mariah Carey go up in smoke. I’m her, I’m the Mariah Carey wannabe who can’t sing for toffee.’

A sob erupted from the back of my throat. I felt the air in ‘stinky poo’ corner close around my nose, smothering me until I was gasping for breath. Heidi grabbed a Fendi clutch bag and fanned my face while Roxy handed me a paper napkin to breathe into, which was not altogether effective.

‘I can’t bake the best cupcakes in the world. I was only trying to help raise some bloody money for charity and I can’t even do that. What’s happened to me? In three weeks I’ve gone from successful, confident businesswoman to complete no-hoper.’ I said tearfully.

Heidi stroked my arm again and said softly, ‘I’m so sorry, I wish I’d never asked you to do this for me now. It was supposed to be fun.’

Roxy helped herself to a Christmas cupcake and lifted it towards her lips.

‘Aye says the girl who thought Chemistry was a hoot at school. I could have told you it would be a shite way to spend a Saturday. Oh no, wait a minute, I think I actually did.’

‘Roxy, can you click out of this mood? You’re really not helping.’

Heidi lifted her mitten covered hands in a questioning manner and spun around to look at Roxy but, as she did so, her right hand connected with the cupcake and propelled it straight into Roxy’s face. Her button nose vanished into the vanilla buttercream and a juicy Moreno cherry leapt off on a snowboard of chocolate sprinkles and slid down the beautiful fabric of her Armani jacket, leaving a snowy trail of frosting. We watched it descend in slow motion, our mouths dropping open. It carried on sliding down one leg of her leggings and then came to rest on the toe of her expensive boot.

There was a moment of suspended animation before Heidi clasped her hand over her mouth, Roxy cried out as if in pain and I exploded with laughter.

‘Oh, Roxy I didn’t mean to…’ Heidi began, before a rose petal cupcake thrown by Roxy bounced off her bobble hat, splattering pink buttercream across the wool.

‘What the…?’

‘At least it matches,’ I laughed, ‘Roxy looks like she’s been run over by a giant snail.’

‘Shut it, Mariah!’ said Roxy.

I stopped laughing when a fondant sausage hurtled towards my face. I dodged it and instead came into contact with a well of strawberry jam in the centre of a breakfast cupcake that was still attached to Roxy’s fist. I gasped and almost inhaled a
fondant bacon rasher. Roxy sniggered while wiping cream from her face. Heidi had taken off her bobble hat and was trying to suck icing from the pompom. I looked at both of them and they looked at me. Roxy had a glint in her eye and Heidi’s mouth twitched at the corners. There was a beat and a brief glimmer of hope that we would be far too mature to do what we were about to do, before we all dived for the cupcakes, armed ourselves and went into battle.

Intricately decorated cakes that I had spent hours proudly making flew through the air, exploding on the table, the walls, each other and neighbouring stalls like George’s unexploded grenades. A direct hit with a football cupcake sent Jessica the doll flying, landing legs akimbo and bloomers on view upside down in her owner’s packed lunch. Roxy launched a football cupcake at Heidi who, with surprising panache, kicked it with her left welly and sent it whizzing past George’s head, scoring a direct hit in an upturned gas mask. George immediately reverted to his past battle glory, donning a helmet and arming himself with a hardback book of warplanes as a shield. With a grin visible through his beard, he advanced on our stall, helped himself to some sugary ammunition and went into battle himself. His first target was Lilly the scary ginger doll, followed by her floral owner, who let out a shrill exclamation when a rose cupcake bounced off her ear, scattering crystallised rose petals across her décolletage. This led to a momentary stunned ceasefire until it became clear that George had been trying to woo the doll owner for some time. The way she smiled coyly at him while removing a white sugar flower from her cleavage, I had the feeling we had witnessed the first throes of romance.

We hooted, hollered and hurled cakes at each other until our ammunition dwindled. Heidi giggled uncontrollably and reached out for the table to take a rest but slipped on a Santa cake and almost did the splits. She toppled over into a mound of
mushy sponge, still laughing as she lay on the station floor and tried to catch her breath. Roxy doubled over with laughter then reached out to try and pull Heidi up. I lifted my gunk-covered hands to my face and gingerly tried to wipe the globules of frosting that hung from my eyelashes.

‘Well, I think our profit margin just vanished, girls,’ I chuckled, squeezing my eyes shut as icing congealed in my tear ducts.

‘I think you might be right there,’ said a male voice that sounded chillingly familiar.

With my hands frozen in mid-air, I slowly turned, opened my eyes and stared at the man standing inches away from me. He was wearing a black cashmere coat that emphasised his broad shoulders, slim fit black jeans skimming his muscular thighs, a grey cashmere scarf tied fashionably around his neck under a dusting of stubble framing smooth lips that curled into a lopsided smile. I gulped and looked down at his pair of black leather brogues, slightly worn at the toes, resting on a carpet of mulched cupcake. My focus moved slowly up his body to his dazzling green eyes sparkling at me beneath an ebony fringe. His left eyebrow slowly arched beneath the locks of shiny hair.

‘It’s grand to see you took my advice and went into business, Chloe,’ he said with a bemused tone, ‘but I think your business plan may need a little refining.’

He chuckled and glanced towards the table. I slowly turned my head to see what resembled one of George’s war zones (only prettier and I imagine a damn sight sweeter). A single remaining football cupcake balanced unsteadily on the top tier of a vintage cake stand. Roxy pulled up Heidi and the pair of them grinned at me as I cleared my throat and turned back to face him.

‘You’re very fortunate,’ I said, jutting my chin in the air, ‘we’ve done a roaring trade today, haven’t we girls?’

‘Roaring,’ Heidi sniggered behind me.

‘Aye, a total roar,’ said Roxy.

‘So we only have one cake left,’ I said firmly.

‘I see that,’ said Zachary, his eyes darting from the cake to the many martyred cakes splattered about the vicinity.

He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a well-worn wallet.

‘Then I better grab that solitary cake before some other lucky customer snaps it up.’

‘I wouldn’t rush,’ Roxy muttered with a snort.

She mouthed – ‘Who’s the hottie?’

My cheeks flushed red under the remnants of cake sticking to my skin.

‘No-one,’ I mouthed back.

‘Introduce us then,’ Roxy hissed. I turned away and busied myself putting the cake in a bag.

‘I’m sorry we don’t have any more left,’ I said over my shoulder, ‘but they are so delicious as you know.’

When I turned back and held out the cake, I saw firstly Zachary’s crisp twenty-pound note and secondly, a wheelchair being manoeuvred through the cake avalanche by the young man from the restaurant. I felt the muscles spasm in my cheeks as I tried to maintain my professionally pleasant expression.

‘Don’t worry about it, we’re used to sharing in our house,’ said Zachary with a smile in my direction and a nod towards his stylish male friend.

‘I bet you are,’ I growled, ‘how sweet.’

I let him take the cake from my hand before I was tempted to shove it in his annoyingly handsome face.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Spoon into 12 cases up to two-thirds full

‘You’re the bag snatcher!’ said Roxy bluntly.

‘Er, I…’

Zachary looked from me to Roxy and back again. I grimaced and waved the twenty-pound note like a surrender flag.

‘I’m afraid we don’t have change.’

Roxy stood beside me and pointed a bony finger at Zachary, which she wiggled as if she were casting a spell.

‘You’re
Zah
-kary,’ she carried on sarcastically, ‘the gay crush!’

I lowered the surrender flag in defeat as Zachary’s spare hand touched his chest and he coughed.

‘The what?’ he laughed uneasily.

I nudged Roxy in the ribs.

‘Ignore her,’ I snorted, wafting my hand in Roxy’s direction, ‘she’s pregnant, and she’s got pregnancy brain.’

Zachary made an ‘o’ with his lips. Roxy scowled and nudged me back, except her nudge had more effect due to the boniness of her elbows.

‘At least I have sex,’ she said.

I threw Roxy an - ‘I will kill you later’ look. She winked victoriously. Zachary’s ‘o’ became an ‘O’.

‘Ignore these two, they’ve been at it all morning, as you can probably tell from the state of our stall. I’m Heidi.’

To redeem the situation, Heidi stepped forwards and offered her hand to Zachary who shook it heartily.

‘Lovely to meet you, Heidi.’

Heidi then offered her hand to Zachary’s friend who lifted his chin to look directly at her and parted his full lips in a heart-melting friendly smile.

‘We’ve actually met before,’ he said with a surprisingly husky tone to his voice.

‘Have we?’

Heidi retracted her hand and pressed two fingers to her lips. She tilted her head at him for a moment before a flash of recognition passed across her face, lighting up her eyes.

‘No way! Hurley? Hurley Doyle?’

‘The very same!’

The young man’s face lit up and they beamed at each other like two bright moons in a dark sky. I had a sudden feeling that time was standing still in their respective worlds. What was it with myself and my friends and this handsome homosexual couple? It seemed Zachary and Hurley Doyle had the ability to…

Wait a minute…

Zachary and Hurley
Doyle
?

I narrowed my eyes at the two beautiful men in front of me. The two beautiful men with hair the colour of a stallion’s coat (even if Hurley’s was shaved close to his head, accentuating the cheekbones that were prominent in both men), jet black eyebrows, an angular jaw, a dusting of designer stubble and, what had to be the giveaway, hypnotic green eyes, the colour of which I had never seen before I had met Zachary. Now there were two pairs blinking at me with a bewildered innocence.

‘You’re brothers,’ I said breathily, more of a statement than a question.

Somewhere beneath my jeans and thermal underwear, I felt a stirring. (It could have been stray crumbs from the cake fight but judging by the heat spiralling towards my knees, I guessed otherwise.)