Christmas Wedding at the Gingerbread Café (The Gingerbread Cafe - Book 3) (A Gingerbread Cafe story)

by Rebecca Raisin

  “You’re too finicky,” she says and eyes me as she places the cake on the bench. “I’m not throwing it out. That took me two hours to make.”

  While Mamma studies the recipe for the umpteenth time, I finish my fruit mince pies, by cutting a star shape out of pastry. They’re our biggest seller right before Christmas and I know folk around here will be expecting some of the delicious little morsels, wedding or no.

  Today is my last day in the café, and I want to make sure my regulars don’t feel as if I’ve neglected them. Mamma says I’m being silly and should just shut the café and enjoy the last afternoon before the wedding, but I can’t. This business means everything to me. It’s not just about making money; it’s about providing something for the town. They’ve come to rely on us, and I’d rather not leave them in the lurch right before Christmas. There are lots of folks who don’t have family here, and we make sure they’ve got all they need over the Christmas break. Besides, going home after the morning tea wouldn’t help. I’d sit there alone worrying over things I can’t change, like the fact I’ve caused a rift between Damon and his mother. Even if it’s no fault of mine, I still feel guilty.

  I walk with the tray of fruit mince pies to bake in the oven when I trip over something, the tray shoots out of my hands and crashes to the floor, the pies a squishy mess, as fruit scatters every which way.

  “Whoops,” Mamma says. “I shouldn’t have left those pots there. I was looking for one of those—” I stop her talking by holding up my hand.

  She studies the floor. “I don’t think they’re fixable, somehow.”

  I close my eyes and count to ten, one step away from losing my mind.

  “Lil?” she asks.

  I’m clenching my jaw tight so I don’t yell at her. “Don’t. Don’t say a word.”

  She shrugs. “It didn’t take you long to whip that up. Come on…” She squeezes my arm. “Start another, everyone will be here soon.”

  “Please. Go to the other side of the bench. Take your mess, all of it, and don’t move from that spot.”

  Mamma’s spread mixing bowls from one end of the bench to the other. Eggshells litter the floor where she’s knocked them off. She’s pulled out every single pot from under the bench and left them sitting in disorderly piles on the floor. The sink is stacked with dishes that she hasn’t put in the dishwasher next to her. For a completely orderly woman she is the extreme opposite in the kitchen.

  “OK. OK. Sheesh, Lily-Ella, you make it sound as though I’ve set the place on fire!” Just as the words leave her mouth I do smell fire.

  “Oh, my God!” I push past her and slam a tea towel down on the baking paper that has caught alight from being left too close the flame on the stove where she was boiling water.

  The baking paper falls to the floor, still smoldering. I stamp on the lick of flame as the smoke detectors begin to wail overhead.

  “Oh, dear.” She leans over my shoulder. “That’s quite loud. How do you make that stop?” she shouts in my ear.

  I take a stool and climb up to stop the fire alarm. My ears buzz from the noise. I step down, and hold my head in my hands. If only CeeCee could see this, she’d be laughing her southern haw, and finding the funny side. When I peek through my fingers, I bite back on manic laughter. The kitchen resembles a kindergarten, almost as if a child came in and painted the place with food.

  “So what’s next?” she asks innocently.

  I scoff. “Out!” I point to the door. I should’ve known Mamma would be no use. She’s downright dangerous in a kitchen, and, as annoyed as I am, I really should’ve expected it.

  “But…what?”

  “Out,” I say through clenched teeth.

  She manages to slip on the gooey fruit on the floor and I catch her arm to right her. I raise my eyebrows.

  She blushes, and runs a hand through her hair streaking blue icing through it as she goes. “It’s not as easy as it looks, this baking caper, is it?” With a grimace she rips a section of paper towel and wipes uselessly at her hair.

  “No.” I know she means well, but it’ll be easier if she’s out of the way so she doesn’t destroy anything else.

  “OK, darling, well, I just hope it’s cleaned up in time.” She pecks me on the cheek and grabs her coat off the rack and walks into the snowy day. “I’ll go see the girls, see if they need anything…” her voice is resigned.

  The doorbell jingles as I’m bent over scooping up the mess with a dustpan. “Won’t be a minute,” I call without looking up.

  “Did you have a food fight?”

  I glance up sharply to Olivia’s voice. As usual she’s immaculately dressed, her hair perfect, and here I am on my knees with cake in my hair, the kitchen a screaming disaster.

  She steps over pots and grabs an apron off the back door, sliding the tie over her head. “I’ll stack the dishwasher first.”

  My mouth is opening and closing like a fish out of water.

  It takes a minute for my brain to catch up with my mouth. “Umm, OK.”

  Without any fuss she piles the dirty dishes away, and wipes down the benches.

  When that’s done she clasps her hands together. “Right.” She picks up the recipe from the bench, and checks off the ingredients before adding them to a bowl.

  I tie my hair back and try to act as if I’m in control. Olivia appearing right when I need a hand without me asking her surprises me. There’s been no word from her since the confrontation in the café. I hope this means we’ll be able to work things out, but I’m hesitant too. I wonder if I can trust her after everything she’s done? And maybe she’s here to cause more trouble. I shake the negative thought away, until she proves otherwise I’ll play nice.

  “This won’t take long,” she says. “What shall I start afterwards?”

  “It would be great if you could make some gingerbread men.”

  “Easy. I used to make those when I was first married.” She’s wearing one of our old aprons, which looks raggedy over her stylish grey pant suit. As usual she’s coiffed to perfection, her hair clipped back into an elegant chignon, and her make-up naturally flawless. “We didn’t have a lot back then, so made do with whatever we had.” She shrugs, and gives me a small smile.

  “But…?” The Guthries have always had money; it’s gone back for generations.

  “Yes, there’s a shocking little skeleton for you. I was married before I met George.” She looks into the space past my head as she recalls the memory. “He worked hard for us. Neither of us had much, and nor did our families. But that didn’t matter a jot.”

  She was married before?

  She hunts through cupboards for ingredients before returning to the prep bench. “He worked in a factory, long hours for little money. But I took great delight in packing him lunch with whatever I could fancy up, so he felt like we had lots. No matter the weather, I’d stand outside and wave him off as he walked the three miles to work each day before dawn.”

  I’m too bamboozled to respond, and it seems Olivia has no intention of letting the story finish there. “We were childhood sweethearts. We fell in love before we even knew what the word meant. Straight out of school, we married, and in my simple hand-sewn dress I felt like the luckiest girl alive.” She lets out a hollow laugh. “But happiness can be taken away in the blink of an eye.” She clicks her fingers.

  “What happened?” I don’t know why, but I have the feeling Olivia’s story has a point, as if she’s trying to make amends with me.

  She measures flour into a cup before saying: “It was his twenty-second birthday, seems so young in retrospect, but back then we felt so grown up. I’d waved him off to work. Retreated inside and made an apple pie with fresh fruit stolen from the trees in a neighbor’s yard. There it sat cooling, waiting for nightfall for him to come home. But he didn’t. He didn’t ever come home again.”

  I gasp. “Why?”

  “There was an accident at the factory. He was rushed to the hospital. I sat in the dark at home, waiting
, wanting to walk outside to find him, worrying I’d miss him if I left the house. There was a knock at the door. And I just knew. He was gone. I could feel it. The light was dimmer. Something was missing from the world. He was missing. For a long time I sat at that kitchen table, night after night, hoping he’d come back. That it was some horrible joke someone had played on me and he was really alive. How could he be taken from me? It seemed like the worst kind of cruelty.” Her usual composure is gone, and her face crumples.

  “Oh, Olivia.” I place the bowl down, and move to hug her.

  She wipes under her eyes. “It was a long time ago.”

  “But you were married? You loved him,” I say, my voice soft.

  With a sad smile she says, “I loved him more than anything, still do. He pops into my dreams every now and then, making sure I don’t forget him. I guess, in a way it’s why I also pictured Katie and Damon together. That somehow they’d find that magic too being childhood sweethearts. But—” she laughs “—I had no idea she was gay. Damon kept that pretty close to his chest.”

  “Why are you telling me this, Olivia?” I can’t quite fathom how she’s gone from treating me like an enemy to now a confidante.

  “When I first met George, he sensed I was broken inside. I didn’t tell him about my first husband immediately. I didn’t want to tarnish the memory. He was so patient with me, so loving. I honestly didn’t think I’d be able to fall in love again, didn’t think I was capable, but George with his indefatigable patience and sweet soul was hard to resist. However his mother didn’t like me. In fact she did everything she could to stop the marriage happening, said I was only after the Guthrie money. But I loved George with all my heart, and the fact he was wealthy didn’t matter. Remember, I’d made do without much my whole life up until that point, and if he had to give all his money away to prove our love was real then that would’ve been fine by me. At first I didn’t spend a dime of George’s money, I was too scared to be labelled a gold-digger, but then we moved away from his parents, from Ashford altogether, and I became enraptured with the moneyed lifestyle. It wasn’t long before that girl who baked whatever she could scratch together to make her husband smile married another man, and lost her way. And then treated you the very same way my mother-in-law did me.”

  My mind spins with questions. “Does Damon know about your first husband?”

  Her eyes widen and she shakes her head. “No.” Her eyes are glassy with tears and I know she’s wondering whether she’s done the right thing trusting me with her confidence.

  I touch her arm gently, and say, “If you want to keep it between us, I’ll never say anything, Olivia.”

  Her face relaxes, and she loses the pinched look from a moment before. “I’d appreciate that, Lil. I really would. Seems like it’s stayed a secret for so long now, why not for ever?” She resumes adding ingredients into the bowl in front of her and I smile to myself. Yet again the magic of baking manages to distract her from her hurt.

  “My lips are sealed. I’m glad you shared it with me.” She’s more composed so I move back to my side of the prep bench and continue with another batch of fruit mince pies.

  Olivia takes a steadying breath. “I’m sorry it had to get to this. And I apologize again. I guess I didn’t realize I’d grown too big for my boots until Rosaleen came and gave me a piece of her mind.”

  My eyebrows shoot up. “Rosaleen?”

  Olivia leans against the bench. “Yes. We were friends a long time ago. She knew me when I first moved to Ashford, poorer than a church mouse.”

  “But she never said a word to me?”

  “Oh, Rosaleen knows how to keep a secret…”

  I go to speak, and then stop. If there’s one thing I wouldn’t associate with Rosaleen, it would be her ability to hold a confidence. “What did she say to you?” Surprise creeps into my voice, despite trying to keep it neutral.

  Olivia throws her head back and laughs. “All manner of things, enough to make me realize what a fool I’ve been. She told me I’d done wrong by the twenty-two-year-old girl that came to Ashford with nothing. Me. And it made me think. I spent a whole day mulling over what she said. And I realized she was right. Where did that happy-go-lucky young girl go?” Olivia drops her gaze and spins her wedding ring around. She’s silent for an age before glancing back up at me. “And what gives me the right to meddle in Damon’s love life? And it was never about you really, Lil It was more I wanted him home, closer to us, closer to Charlie.” She walks around the bench and takes my hand like a mother would do. “The way I’ve acted, it’s embarrassing. Like some kind of crazed fool for thinking I know what’s best, when I hadn’t even had five minutes with you.”

  Her face is a picture of remorse, and for the life of me I can’t dislike her. She’s been so honest, and in some small way I understand her reasons, even if I don’t agree with the way she’s gone about it.

  “I don’t know what to say…” I hadn’t expected Olivia would be so forthright in admitting her deception, and I especially didn’t think there’d be a story like that behind it.

  “I don’t expect you would. You should, by rights, kick me out of your lovely café, because that’s what I deserve. Some part of me just wanted Damon back in New Orleans closer to us when we’re there. We don’t see Charlie all that often any more because she flies here for school holidays… I guess I thought he was hiding out here after divorcing Dianne, and settling because he wanted to get away. I’m so sorry, Lil. I know how completely wrong I was. Damon gave me a piece of his mind. George isn’t speaking to me because he knows I sent the email to Guillaume. I left it open on the computer. When I invited the Guthries that you hadn’t, they said they wouldn’t come, that if you wanted a simple wedding then what right did they have to barge in? It seems that I was wrong on all counts.”

  I smile at Olivia; for the first time it’s genuine. “So where to from here?”

  “Well, we have a morning tea to host, and a certain little girl is en route from the airport with Damon’s cousin.”

  I can’t help beaming. I love Charlie like she’s my own child, and I’m beyond excited to see her. “She’s landed?”

  Olivia nods and returns my huge grin, sensing I think, how much Charlie and Damon mean to me. “Just before I came here. Damon’s gone home to meet them there.”

  An aura of silent forgiveness passes between us. I can’t help feeling overwhelmed with relief. “Well, OK. We better get these desserts done.”

  We set to work, my mind spinning with everything Olivia’s confessed. I can’t believe out of all the people to set things right it was Rosaleen. And it’s not like her to keep a secret — that she knew Olivia half a lifetime ago. Wonders will never cease.

  Olivia and I have just finished laying the trestle table with the finger food for the morning tea, when a squeal makes me jump. I swirl to see Charlie there, her blue eyes bright with excitement.

  “Lil!” she yells out and throws herself at me. I pick her up and hug her tight. “Daddy wouldn’t let me go in my bedroom! Says there’s a surprise in there but I have to wait for you!” She speaks in exclamations as her words tumble out.

  Her long blond hair tickles my face. “He made you wait?” I say, secretly glad he did. I’ve been desperate to see her face when she finds her flower-girl outfit waiting for her.

  “Yep!” She wiggles in my arms as she sees Olivia over my shoulder. “Grandma!” I place Charlie down and she runs into Olivia’s outstretched arms.

  It’s plain by Olivia’s cry of joy how much she loves Charlie. She rains kisses over the little girl’s face as Charlie squeals with laughter.

  “Where’s CeeCee?” Charlie says, scanning the café.

  “She’s helping a friend,” Olivia says. “I’m sure she’ll be along to see you just as soon as she can.”

  Charlie pouts. “But I was going to help her make a gingerbread house.”

  “Well,” I say, “did you know your grandma is a pretty good helper too? How about we
set you up now and you can decorate it while everyone’s here for the morning tea?”

  She gives me an impish grin. “OK.”

  Smiling, I go to the cabinet where we keep our gingerbread-house kits and take one out. I go to the kitchen and mix up a bowl of icing sugar, and take Charlie’s apron from the door. It never fails to make me smile, her child-size chocolate-colored apron Damon bought her last Easter, covered with a smattering of smiley-faced gingerbread men.

  I cover the coffee table with newspaper and set Charlie’s supplies along it. She’s chattering away to her grandma telling her all about the tree house my neighbors have, and the friends she wants to see in Ashford. For a seven-year-old she’s well adjusted to the huge changes that have taken place in her life, but I’m always wary that anything could upset that fine balance.

  Olivia’s like a different person in Charlie’s presence: her features are relaxed and happy; she doesn’t hold herself so stiffly. Maybe things really will be OK for all of us going forward.

  Charlie stands beside me, her hands covering her mouth as if she’s trying to stop the glee from falling out. Olivia crouches down, and begins to arrange the walls of the gingerbread house so Charlie can ice them together.

  The doorbell jingles and Olivia says, “You go, Lil. I’ll keep Charlie amused.”

  Charlie claps her hands and throws a cushion on the floor to sit on.

  I turn to the customer and see Walt. My heart leaps to my throat. A much older, faded-looking Walt. He’s without his usual threadbare earmuff hat, and looks wrong without it, as if he’s missing a part of himself.

  “Hey, Walt.” My voice carries the sadness from my heart.

  “Lil, how you doing?” His voice is gruff.

  “Good, good.” I usher him into the warmth of the café, immediately wanting to ply him with food and drinks because that’s all I know how to do in times of need.

  “I came in to pass on my congratulations, and to thank you for the baskets of food you’ve sent over. Janey and the kids surely do appreciate it. And CeeCee says your pie is almost as good as hers.