Cupcake Couture (40 page)

Nice house
.

Lovely party
.

You look dashing
.

Is my cake OK?

Did I do good?

Do you like it?

Should I leave now?

Dear God, what had happened to me?

I lifted my chin and watched him approach but suddenly three figures stepped in between us; Ant and Dec and the girl masquerading as Cheryl Cole. They embraced Zachary with hugs and kisses (from the girl) and slaps on shoulders (from the boys).

‘Hurry up bloody Antondec, bugger off now,’ I muttered.

I waited while they exchanged pleasantries and laughter and more pleasantries and I waited further while Zachary chatted animatedly and gestured around the room. I was still waiting when the girl went into a lengthy tale that involved waving her arms around and wiggling her teeny, tiny, so tiny I couldn’t imagine how she used it
for sitting on, bum and all the boys laughed. Zachary’s eyes glimmered so merrily I could see their green sparkle from where I still stood alone at the edge of the dance floor waiting for him to come and say hello to me.

Or alternatively waiting for the enormous fucking pink glitter ball to escape its chain, land on my head and end my misery.

I felt so weary I just wanted to go home.

I waited… and waited but when Zachary began telling a story that involved much hilarity and further waving of arms, I scooped up what pride I had left, turned on my squeaky heel and headed for the garden.

What had I expected? That the head of this esteemed family business (whom I had admittedly not treated too well from the beginning) would come running over to me, kiss me passionately, thank me over and over for making the best cakes he had ever seen and then ask me to marry him?

No but a simple hello and thank you might have been nice.

When I reached a second glass easel standing beside one of the marble pillars, I stopped and looked over my shoulder but Zachary was still engaged in his conversation, having clearly forgotten I was even there. One glance at the board resting on the easel told me it was the table plan for dinner. A second glance told me that Roxy and Thierry were seated with Gary Lineker, Peter Beardsley and a new popstar from
Britain’s Got the Pop Idol Factor
or some such show. My name was notable by its absence. I swallowed. I was the cupcake girl. I was part of the ‘hired help’ like the barmen and waitresses, only, unlike most of them, I could not have doubled for a Hollywood A-lister. I should have delivered the cake and scuttled out the back way to my dented car, sending my invoice on in the post. I should not have allowed Roxy to talk me into glamming myself up in a desperate attempt to fit in with
the rich, famous and gorgeous of the Northeast, all of whom were clearly friends, acquaintances and clients of Zachary and his brothers.

Why had a successful, influential man like Zachary given me the job?

I had pondered this question from the moment I had seen the countless entries about him and his brothers on Google.

The North East’s most sought-after party planners
.

Zachary Doyle, the driving force behind a booming business
.

3D Events brings hope and the party spirit to a nation under a cloud of austerity
.

Doyle parties help the rich, famous and successful keep face in the recession
.

Zachary and his brothers were the hosts with the most. They were hired by people like the guests in this room, who wanted to show the world they were not victims of the credit crunch. They were themselves survivors and winners despite the credit crunch, unlike me. Zachary, as I had discovered, was also kind and had a conscience. Many of his events raised thousands of pounds for worthy causes. He had come from humble beginnings and he had worked like a Trojan after his father had passed away. His father had lived a tough life in the ship building industry and, after Hurley’s accident and with the influence of the vibrant Malachy, Zachary had realised what mattered and had bravely changed direction and taken his brothers and mother on a more fun, more playful, more sparkly journey through life, planning parties for the rich and famous and giving to the less fortunate.

Zachary had given me the job, I concluded, because he saw a broken, unemployed, ‘less-fortunate’ woman crying on a Metro platform and he had decided my life needed some sparkle. He had felt sorry for me. I was one of his good deed projects. I was the best friend of his disabled brother’s girlfriend and there was no
doubt he adored Hurley and would do anything for him. Heidi and Hurley had probably talked him into helping me out. Zachary had pitied me, which was a sentiment I had always hated. I didn’t need pity; I was a survivor, a boardroom ball-breaker, a scared, forced to be independent kid who had grown into a determined, successful woman. Or so I had thought until my life had taken a sudden turn. After all, I had even
asked
Zachary to give me a job the very first day we met. He was clearly wealthy; he could afford to throw some money at a couple of hundred cakes to make me feel better then, as soon as I was out of the back door, he would cover up my amateur attempt and bring out the real cake from the real cake designer. He had not even bothered to come and find me and thank me for my work, which was how little he was interested in me now the job was done. Zachary was too busy air-kissing popstar looky-likeys and Antonbloodydec to bother with the unemployed recruitment consultant.

I blinked tearfully at the seating plan that did not bear my name, glanced down at my far from glamorous outfit and turned to look at the party. Not for the first time in recent weeks, I felt like an outsider. I had not found where I was meant to be, I was still in limbo, just a different level of it. I took a gulp of fragrant party air before stepping outside. The glass doors slid silently shut like the doors of that Metro train leaving me excluded and a little bit lost.

I found my car, which had been moved by the valet parkers and boxed in a corner of the immense gravel parking area beside a quadruple garage. Squashed beside two BMWs, a Bentley and a Mercedes sports car, my little Golf looked like a Mumbai slum dwelling surrounded by jazzy new skyscrapers. It took me a while to locate the men in charge, who were playing poker in one of the garages, sipping from pilfered
bottles of pink champagne, apparently safe in the knowledge that no-one would be as daft as to want to leave such a spectacular party before the end. They tried to hide the bottles when I walked in but I waved my hands and told them not to on my account.

‘Can you give me the keys to the Golf so I can get out of here?’

‘Oh, we didn’t think that was a guest’s car,’ the biggest of the four men sniffed.

‘I’m not a guest, I’m just the cake maker.’

‘Right, figures,’ he sniffed again, ‘trouble is, we thought it belonged to one of the staff who’d be here till the end so it’s right at the back and we’d have to move all the cars to get it, which would be a right pain in the arse, like. This is our break.’

Like the leader of a Trade Union, he looked meaningfully at his watch and then at his fellow poker players who all nodded in agreement. I sighed, knowing that it would take a stretch limo pulled by four stallions to move this lot.

‘Thanks a bunch,’ I growled.

I stepped forward and swiped a bottle of champagne off the table, glanced over the big man’s shoulder at his cards and said – ‘You’ll never win with that hand’ – before flouncing out.

CHAPTER THIRTY

Gradually add to butter mixture

I sat on a wooden sun lounger in a dark corner beside the pool, sipping straight from the bottle of champagne and listening to the water cascading over the edge of the infinity pool. The muffled sounds of the party reached me whenever the glass doors slid open and guests emerged to smoke or to talk on mobiles or to steal furtive fumbles when they thought no-one was looking. I saw one glamour model stick her hands down an actor’s trousers whom I knew from gossip magazines to be married. I heard a singer shouting at her manager down the phone about not getting her anywhere near the Christmas number one with only two days to go, which was apparently down to the manager being a ‘bloody twat’ rather than her song (in my esteemed and somewhat drunk opinion) being ‘bloody awful’. If I were a tabloid journalist or that way inclined, I could have sold more than one story the following day. I briefly considered it as a way out of my impending financial crisis, but I quickly decided that I couldn’t be bothered to give any of these people any more column inches than they already took up, which was generally too many (again in my esteemed, drunk opinion).

I heard exclamations of delight when the Teppanyaki chef arrived. I heard dinner plates being collected and then after-dessert toasts being made while my stomach gurgled unhappily. I may well have been too fat to fit comfortably in my trouser suit but I had also not eaten anything other than raw cake mixture and dollops of icing for the best part of two days and, due to increasing tiredness, I was now starving. I swigged from the bottle and I heard the glass doors slide open. The swish,
swish was beginning to irritate me now. Who had automatic glass doors in their house, for fuck’s sake?

The same stupid, rich people who had hand-dryers in the bathroom apparently.

I heard a man’s voice and a woman’s voice and then the sound of tyres on the decking. I peered through the darkness and saw the outline of Hurley in his wheelchair with a girl beside him. Judging by the enormous bow on the top of her head that made her look like the grand prize in a raffle, which she had obviously returned to Top Shop to buy, it was safe to say it was Heidi. She had come, I was glad. I smiled and then I remembered about her Charity Shop closing down. Damn, I had forgotten about it again. I was turning into a terrible friend. I put down the bottle and was about to stand up to walk over to them when Heidi spoke.

‘I think Chloe’s going to be really embarrassed actually, Hurley.’

‘Why?’

‘I just know what she’s like. Don’t be surprised if she runs out of the room.’

I clasped a hand over my mouth.

Even Heidi.

Heidi, who never swore and never had a bad word to say about anyone, had seen my cakes and was embarrassed for me. She knew I was such a perfectionist that I would be too. Why had I let my parents loose on my work when I had only ever seen them as fruit loops bearing paintbrushes? I must have gone mad.

I watched Heidi and Hurley kiss and then turn to go back inside.

‘Come on, I’ve got a surprise for you,’ said Hurley.

I glugged the champagne as the doors slid shut.

‘What the chuff are you doing out here you silly cow? You missed the free scran. The hot chocolate pudding nearly gave me a mouth-gasm.’

Roxy strutted across the lawn towards me with her skirts yanked up above her knees.

‘I have to say, this is the first party I’ve been to where I’ve had to be as sober as a nun but it’s not been as bad as I expected. I think I might last the whole nine months without getting bladdered like.’

‘Judge,’ I said glumly.

‘What?’

‘It’s as sober as a judge.’

‘Aye right’ – she stepped onto the terrace, wobbling on her heels as one slid down a gap in the wood – ‘most of the judges I’ve been up in front of were more pissed than the criminals.’

She crouched down with her bum resting on her heels and peered at me curiously.

‘So would you like to tell me what the fuck you’re doing out here, pet, when the city’s most glamorous party is going on in there and you’re a special guest?’

‘I’m not a guest, Roxy, I’m one of the staff.’

‘Well you’re not much of a team player then if you’re out here getting pissed by yourself on free champagne and they’re all running about like their arses are on fire tending to our every need.’

I tipped up the bottle to check it was empty.

‘I’ve done my bit. Not very well apparently.’

‘What are you talking about?’

‘The cupcakes. He’s covered them up and I heard Heidi say I was going to be really embarrassed. You didn’t even bother to make a comment, so they’re obviously rubbish and Zachary hasn’t come over to speak to me all night. He only gave me this job as his good deed. He felt sorry for me.’

‘Howay man, that’s not true. I’d like to say he gave you the job because you’re the only person in Britain who can bake cupcakes like but I actually suspect he gave you it because he wanted to help and he could help
and
because he wants to shag you pet.’

‘He does not. Look at all the glamorous women in there who would shag him in an instant, especially that bloody redhead.’

‘I thought you said he didn’t like “glamorous”’ – she wiggled her fingertips, adding with a hint of sarcasm – ‘Not that you’re bothered.’

‘Yeah, the bloody hypocrite, how can he not like glamorous when he
lives
it? The one night I make a big effort and get dressed up and go out with a footballer with a bum like a hamster chewing two golf balls and drink ludicrously expensive champagne…’

‘That is what every night should be like in my opinion,’ Roxy nodded.

‘… Zachary bloody Doyle gets all high and mighty and basically tells me to stop trying to be something I’m not and makes me feel guilty. I thought he didn’t like glamorous when actually he was trying to tell me to leave it to him and stay in my rightful position down the ladder with the hired help. Bloody cheek.’

I crossed my arms over my chest, squashing Roxy’s flower in my cleavage as I did so.

‘I don’t really know the fella to be honest, Chloe, maybe he likes glam, maybe he doesn’t. I’d say he’s a touch above Chavy tramp swigging champers alone from the bottle.’

‘I don’t care what he thinks to be honest, Roxy. I wasn’t on the seating plan so he doesn’t want me at the party and you’re all just so bloody glamorous and happy and loved up and successful, it’s pretty much exactly where I don’t want to be right now.’

Roxy rubbed her temples then reached into her clutch bag and pulled out a cigarette.

‘You can’t smoke, Roxy, you’re pregnant.’