Cupcake Couture (23 page)

Zachary’s tongue curled up over his front teeth.

‘Er yes, what did you think we were?’

‘Hmm?’

I forced a smile and waved one hand dismissively.

‘Oh nothing, I just thought you were, well I didn’t think anything at all actually. I don’t just go around thinking about you if that’s what you think.’

Roxy snorted with laughter.

‘Cool, Chloe man, very cool.’

Zachary smiled and glanced down at his brother who wrinkled his face.

‘I do believe the lady thought we were of our brother’s sexual persuasion, dear Hurley,’ he said in a mock Shakespearian style.

‘But bejaysus, Zachary, wouldn’t our poor father drop dead with the shock of it?’ Hurley mocked in response.

‘He would that if he weren’t already dead,’ said Zachary.

I pressed my lips together and prayed the cake-strewn ground would open up and swallow me.

‘I’m sorry I…’

‘I suppose we should be flattered,’ Zachary carried on, ‘Malachy is more stylish than both of us put together.’

Now that I would like to see
.

‘Mind you, I’d like to think if I did decide to go down Malachy’s route, so to speak,’ Hurley said with a smile, ‘I’d have better taste.’

Zachary pretended to gasp and clutched the paper bag containing the cupcake to his chest.

‘Ooh you bitch. Well you’re not getting half of my cupcake now!’

I blushed and looked at Roxy who muttered with a sly smile – ‘On your marks, frigid girl, get set, go!’

I tutted and turned to look at Heidi but she was gazing at Hurley as if he had metamorphosed into an Andrex puppy in front of her, which provided a perfect opportunity for me to deflect the embarrassment from yours truly.

‘So, Heidi, how do you two know each other?’

‘We met at the rehabilitation centre,’ said Heidi, adding for professional clarity – ‘He wasn’t my patient, mind. We just got chatting a few times when he came in for sessions.’

‘What was it,’ Roxy sniffed, ‘drugs?’

We all looked at Roxy to check she was joking. She wasn’t.

‘What?’ she said with a clueless shrug.

‘No, Roxy, it was rehabilitation for Hurley’s paralysis after his motorbike accident,’ Heidi explained slowly.

‘The wheelchair is a bit of a clue,’ Hurley grinned.

Heidi brushed a finger over her fringe beneath the rim of her bobble hat.

‘So how are you now, Hurley?’ she asked kindly.

‘Heidi man,’ Roxy whistled, ‘I think it’s obvious isn’t it? He’s hardly jogging about the place. Are you qualified or not?’

Heidi reddened and gawped at Roxy while I sucked air nervously through my teeth and then mouthed - ‘sorry’ – at Zachary but Hurley threw back his beautiful head and burst out laughing.

We all started breathing again and laughed along.

‘That’s what I like about Geordie girls,’ Hurley said, still laughing, ‘as blunt as a mallet on the back of your skull.’

He rubbed his hands together in his narrow lap as if to warm them and cleared his throat. He looked back up at Heidi, letting his eyes linger for a moment too long. I felt a crack of electricity flash between them. Roxy noticed it too and nudged me again. I hoped she would get fat elbows during pregnancy.

‘It’s chilly in here today,’ said Hurley, blowing on his hands, ‘do you fancy coming with me to find a coffee?’

Heidi rubbed her mittens together and dipped her knees as if curtseying to the Queen.

‘I’d love to.’

‘Great,’ Hurley beamed. ‘Zac here thinks if he takes his eyes off me for a second and leaves me on my own I might just roll under a train.’

Zachary rolled his eyes good-naturedly as Hurley tipped the wheelchair back and spun it in a circle. He winked at Heidi who laughed and skipped to his side.

‘You can be my minder for a while, Heidi, you’re much better looking.’

Heidi blushed the colour of her bobble hat until her head resembled a giant berry. She gave us a coy little wave before the pair of them were swallowed up by the crowd of bargain hunters in the station. There had, in fact, been a steady crowd all day but they had remained at a safe distance as if a force field prevented them from approaching our stall. A force field of stench, judging by the way Zachary was jutting
out his chin and wiggling his nose in the air like a dog that had just picked up the scent of a rabbit on the wind.

‘Wow, I must admit I was distracted by the sight of three grown women hurling cupcakes at each other in a public place,’ said Zachary before cupping his mouth with one hand and saying quietly aside, ‘not to mention by the old soldier bringing up the rear wearing a metal helmet…’

‘That’s George,’ I said.

‘Now I’m sticking my neck out and assuming it’s not coming from you two but I must say the smell in this corner is something that should not be endured by the human nose. What is it?’

‘The odour of war and destruction,’ I replied breezily.

Zachary nodded uncomfortably and pulled his scarf up closer to his mouth.

Lucky scarf
.

‘As for the dolls,’ he carried on, ‘the look in their eyes would have Damian the Omen running for his mummy.’

I glanced around at the stallholder who was now deep in conversation with George. She cradled a rather dishevelled looking Jessica as if she were a real baby and laughed at something George said while he demonstrated how to wear a gas mask. It was an unexpected coupling but it appeared to be bringing both of them joy. I smiled; at least our disruptive presence had not been entirely in vain.

‘They gave us the heebie jeebies too but over the course of the day I have to admit we’ve all become like a little dysfunctional family in our stinky poo corner. It’s been surprisingly fun.’

Roxy grunted while trying to balance and extract cake from her stiletto heel.

‘Speak for yourself, Chloe man. You won’t catch me flogging shite in public again. I wasn’t born with nails like this so I could break them all working for a living.’

‘You weren’t born with nails like that, Roxy, they’re fake.’

Roxy rolled her eyes at Zachary.

‘She’s so liberal.’

‘You mean literal,’ I said.

‘Aye exactly.’

Roxy bent her right leg up until her foot was touching her left hipbone and carried on removing the skewered cake from her shoe. I watched Zachary glance at her twice before she reached out and inadvertently steadied herself by grabbing his arm. He blushed and ran his other hand through his hair, his eyes darting more than once to the tiny sex bomb balanced like a flamingo beside him. He looked awkward, whistling silently, yet unwilling to move away. I sighed, turned around and set about clearing up the considerable amount of mess we had made with our childish antics. I hummed the umpteenth rendition of the Newcastle version of
Frosty the Snowman
(with the catchy chorus
Frosty The Geordie
) from the market’s Christmas CD while I worked.

‘Right then, I’m off to have a piss in the restaurant,’ Roxy whistled behind me.

I spun around and tried to shake my head without being too obvious that I didn’t want her to abandon me but Roxy was oblivious. She slapped Zachary on the arm and smiled up at him, looking like a doll beside his manly frame.

‘As Chloe kindly let you know, I’m up the duff,’ she said, ‘which, judging by current form like, seems to mean I have to spend the next few months in the bog
because that’s all I seem to want to do all day. It’s either that or turn myself into a walking bloody water feature.’

Zachary’s smile froze to his face. She slapped him on the shoulder again and winked.

‘Glad we sorted out the whole gay crush thing. My work here is done.’

My jaw dropped open and stuck there as Roxy wiggled her fingers at us and then strutted away, crossing one foot in front of the other like Kate Moss on a catwalk. I watched her go, as did every other pair of eyes in the vicinity. Including, I noticed sullenly, Zachary Doyle’s eyes that were trained on her petite bum. But of course they were. Why wouldn’t a dashing, now interestingly heterosexual, red-blooded man of Irish descent choose my tiny, confident, brash but unquestionably gorgeous friend over me? Not to be cringingly self-deprecating but if I were he, I would choose Roxy over me. In fact, I’d be worried about hormone imbalance if he didn’t.

I would, however, like him to stop gawping quite so obviously
.

Now please
.

OK, now then
.

I turned back to my cleaning while the jealous part of me silently prayed Roxy would gain so much weight during her pregnancy, she would begin to sympathise with us normal girls whose bum cheeks actually rested on the backs of our thighs (and sometimes a little way down our thighs) rather than defying gravity. I pouted, glanced down at a clump of cake sticking to my jacket sleeve, raised my arm and shoved it in my mouth.

‘She’s a force of nature isn’t she?’

Zachary appeared beside me and leaned against the table, his eyes still focused in Roxy’s direction. I smiled curtly.

‘She is definitely that, despite her size.’ My eyes flicked towards his face for a reaction. ‘She’s tiny isn’t she?’

‘Hmm?’ He ruffled his hair and pursed his lips. ‘I’d say she’s a thirty-six.’

‘Bloody hell’ - I crossed my arms and glared at him - ‘did you decide on the cup size too while you were at it?’

‘The what? Cup size?’

Zachary and I rounded on each other, his eyebrows tilting down and up so quickly they seemed to have a life of their own.

‘Cup? No, no, nooo.’

He lifted both palms and waved them at me. I reversed behind the table and crossed my hands tightly over my chest.

‘And you can put those hands away right now.’

‘I wasn’t talking about her breasts,’ he stammered then there was a beat before he added, ‘not that I don’t like breasts of course, I do, very much, but…’

I backed towards George’s cache of rusty weapons.

‘What I mean is,’ Zachary blustered, shoving his hands deep into the pockets of his coat, ‘I like them as much as the next man but I wasn’t even talking about…’

He dipped his head towards my chest. I dipped mine, looked at my breasts and then glared back at him.

‘Stop staring at them then.’

‘I’m sorry, I don’t mean to, you’ve just got me flustered. You always seem to get me a little flustered to be honest.’

I relaxed my grip on my chest a little at the compliment. He smiled weakly.

‘I wasn’t talking about breasts’ – he silently mouthed the latter word – ‘when I said size thirty-six.’

‘Well you couldn’t have meant hips because she definitely doesn’t have size thirty-six hips.’ I paused. ‘And if you think she does then God knows what size you think mine are.’

He glanced at my hips now and the sensible part of my brain said –
For fuck’s sake, Chloe, will you stop drawing attention to the parts of your body you would rather not draw attention to?

I slowly bent my knees to lower my hips below the cake stand.

‘Yours are a very lovely size,’ he said so naturally it made my knees crumple until I was almost kneeling on the ground behind the table.

‘Just cleaning this floor,’ I squeaked.

Zachary crouched down and smiled at me underneath the table.

‘You might not believe me but I was talking about your friend’s boots.’

‘Her boots?’

We both gathered handfuls of cake and deposited them on the table top.

‘What is it with you and boots?’ I asked, crouching down for more cake.

Zachary followed.

‘I used to be in leather sales before I became an event organiser.’

I stood, he stood, then I crouched back down for more cake and he did the same.

‘Leather sales?

‘Yes, luxury leather items from boots to bags.’

‘Ah now that would explain your appreciation of my Tod’s bag.’

‘Exactly.’ He breathed in and closed his eyes as if inhaling an expensive perfume. ‘That leather is as soft as marshmallow.’

We scooped more cake onto the table and crouched again.

‘And why you noticed Miss Snooty Boots’ Kurt Geiger boots on the Metro.’

He nodded, scooped up cake and we both stood.

‘Can we stand still for a minute? I feel like a Jack in the box.’

‘Or a Zac in the box,’ I snorted.

I nervously played with the squashed cakes, pushing the buttercream we had collected into a miniature mountain.

‘You don’t have to help me clean up by the way.’

‘I want to, it’s fine.’

‘Really?’

‘Yes, I often clean up after events. I find it therapeutic.’

I frowned.

‘Are you sure you’re a man?’

He laughed.

‘A man with a mother who would kick us into next week if we didn’t clean up after ourselves, believe me.’

‘Hallelujah for her,’ I whooped.

‘She’s great but now I’m starting to think maybe she did too good a job of teaching us to be in touch with our feminine side.’

‘What do you mean?’

I bent down for the Tupperware boxes. When I stood up, I saw Zachary reclining with his bum cheek on the edge of the table.

‘Well she’s got Malachy who is as camp as Butlins and flits around Ma’s house filling vases with giant lilies, Hurley who’s a big mammy’s boy at heart and puts on these big doe eyes so women fawn over him right, left and centre and then there’s me. I’m the eldest so she thinks of me as the man of the household. Wait till I tell her the girl I thought I was coolly flirting with actually suspected I was gay.’

My stomach somersaulted and my jaw stuck open.

Coolly flirting with me? Did he really just say “coolly flirting with”?

I smiled a wide-eyed smile and whistled along to
Winter Wonderland
(or in the case of this particular CD
Shearer Wonderland
.)

‘Was it my love of handbags?’ he said with a grimace.

‘Well that and the strawberry scented pink tissues.’

‘Hey I explained those at the time!’

I shrugged, playing along.

‘Your male date at the restaurant added to the intrigue.’

‘My brother.’

He peered across the market.

‘Don’t worry,’ I said, ‘Hurley will be fine with Heidi. She’s the most caring person I know.’