by Sue Watson
We were sitting in a dark cocktail bar surrounded by women younger, slimmer and prettier than me, but I was the lucky one because I was the one sitting next to Alex.
“I know it sounds like a line,” he said, looking into my eyes, “but I’ve got really strong feelings for you.”
“It’s not ‘a line’ to say you have feelings for someone,” I said, feeling an electric jolt pass through me. It was late and warm and I’d drunk three Tequila Sunrises. I felt like a teenager again.
“Alex, I feel the same,” I blurted. And we kissed and talked and talked and kissed, then went back to his room.
Our relationship was just like Brief Encounter (but he was better looking and less posh than Leslie Howard) and because we knew we were on borrowed time, everything took on an intensity I’d never felt before. On his final day we didn’t part, I even waited outside the Gents for him, which Lizzie said was a bit sick, even for me. When he left at 2am to catch his flight home we hugged outside the coach and he promised to call as soon as I got back to Britain.
After he’d gone, the place just wasn’t the same. I know it had only been three days and nights but I felt such deep loss. The days dragged, it was lifeless by the pool and the sunsets were washed out and pointless without him. Every song playing in every bar reminded me of Alex. I felt empty and at the same time elated, revisiting the places we’d been to feel his ghost, going over the things he said, the way he said them, the way he kissed, the way his eyes were constantly laughing. For the first time since Tom and I started going downhill I wasn’t lonely and just thinking about him was enough.
Then, the day before we left, the bubble burst. I was thinking about Alex as I sat by the pool and I watched idly as a young dad and his daughter were playing with a beach ball in the water. The dad reached up to catch a throw from his daughter and from that angle he looked so like Tom when we were younger that my heart nearly stopped. The memories of our family holidays came flooding back and Lizzie sat up in alarm as tears began to stream down my face. My fling with Alex had been fun and possibly what I needed to try and move on – but it wasn’t love. It wasn’t the love I had shared with the father of my child.
“What’s the matter, hon?” asked Lizzie, passing me a tissue.
“Oh, Lizzie. I had fun with Alex, and he made me feel so attractive, but…”
“He wasn’t Tom,” she finished, putting her arm around me.
“No,” I sobbed.
“I’ve been waiting for this since Alex left,” said Lizzie.
I wiped my eyes and looked at her in surprise. “Really?”
“Oh, sweetie. You had fun with Alex and he gave you confidence which is a really good thing. But you don’t just get over a marriage in the space of a holiday – even if you are in Ibiza.”
I covered my face as the tears began again.
“I’ll get us some drinks,” said Lizzie, fishing out her purse. “Come on, a vodka and some chips will make everything seem better.”
I nodded gratefully, feeling very lucky to have a friend that knew me so well (even though I wasn’t too convinced about the vodka). Lizzie went to the poolside bar and ordered and I did my best to compose myself. My time with Alex had been great – it was good to feel that kind of desire for someone again – but in my heart I knew that whatever Alex had said, he probably wasn’t going to call me and I wasn’t sure I even wanted him to. I needed to leave my thoughts of him here and move on.
21 - Brazilian Boys and Baking Blues
I arrived home at lunchtime, put Mum on her train back home and was in plenty of time to pick Grace up from school.
“Did you have a nice time, Mummy?” asked Grace, over a healthy tea of cheeseburger and chips at McDonald’s.
“Hmmm it was lovely,” I said, trying not to think about the more inappropriate moments whilst imbibing caffeine and burying my face in a McFlurry.
“Ew, gross! Mummy, that boy’s putting chips up his nose!” Grace shouted, pointing at him in deep disgust.
“So what have you and Nanny been up to while I was away?” I asked, grateful to change the subject.
By 9.30pm that night, Grace was sleeping soundly when the phone rang. “Hi love, it’s me. I got back safely. Thought you might be interested.” It was Mum. “How’s Gracie? Have you heard from that Tom?” I was tired and this was all I needed – a bloody interrogation.
“She’s fine and no I haven’t.”
“Good. Now, I met a very nice doctor today at the hospital. I took Beryl this afternoon, with her leg.”
Go away Mum, I thought. I need to go to bed.
“I’ve always thought you should have married a doctor or a lawyer. So reliable and intelligent – I wish you had,” she said with a sigh. “Anyway, Beryl’s doctor is from South America. He’s come to Britain because his daughter’s here, which is nice isn’t it? I told him you make lovely cakes. I said you were going through a divorce.”
“That’s great Mum. Now I must…”
“I gave him your mobile number.”
This wasn’t the first time she’d done this. Grace told me over tea that while I was away, Mum took it upon herself to log on to dating websites on my behalf in a desperate (and no doubt very confused) search for my soulmate.
“Mum, I need to get off the phone. And will you stop giving my phone number to complete strangers?” I grated, losing it ever so slightly.
“Beryl’s doctor’s called Diego,” she continued, ignoring me. “Lovely man, he’s going through a divorce and he’s got a daughter who will be twelve soon, I think.”
“I’m sure he’s very nice Mum, but you always told me not to speak to strange men. And I really don’t need any psychos in my life right now.”
“He’s not a psycho – he’s a surgeon.”
“Get off the phone!” I heard myself yell. “Grace is climbing out of the window and about to throw herself off the roof. I need to call an ambulance.”
“OK dear. Tell her to have a nice time and give her a kiss from me.”
I put the receiver down and rubbed my tired eyes. It was only just after nine thirty so I made a cup of coffee and thought about how coffee granules made delicious icing when you poured hot water over them and mixed with icing sugar. The sweetness of the sugar and rounded bitterness of the coffee beans always blended together so well. I watched the coffee swirl in my cup and felt a touch of the post-holiday blues. Even though I knew Alex would never call – and to be honest I wasn’t sure I really wanted him to – he had made me feel special, even if only for a short time.
The following morning, I was back to looking at the jobs section in the paper when the doorbell rang. It was Jessica’s mum.
“Stella, I’m so glad to catch you. I didn’t know when you’d be back from Ibiza” she said, stepping in and hugging me like a long-lost friend.
“I only got back yesterday. Come through to the kitchen. How was the cake?” I ventured, holding my breath.
“Well, that’s why I wanted to see you in person. We really didn’t expect anything quite like…”
“Oh no! I’m so sorry! I wasn’t sure. I knew I should have stuck with a whole cake, but, but…You hated the cupcakes?”
“They were the most beautiful birthday cupcakes I’ve ever seen,” she smiled, “and Jess was beside herself, she said it was just like the cakes you see celebrities eating in Hello!”
“Praise indeed,” I smiled, deeply relieved. I’d been worried they didn’t like them and had hoped Al would have left a message about her reaction when he’d dropped them off, but he hadn’t.
“Coffee?”
“Coffee would be lovely,” she sat down and began rummaging in her handbag while I made the drinks.
“When your friend Al dropped it off, I wasn’t home and he left it with my son who, typically, didn’t even peep in the box,” she smiled. “When I got home and saw it – I have to tell you Stella, I cried.” I handed her a mug of coffee and she cried again telling me all about how she’d cried at the
cake. I cried too.
“I have to rush, Stella – I’m on my way to work,” she said eventually, wiping her eyes, finishing her coffee and placing a white envelope on the table. “There’s the money for the cake,” she said, gesturing to the white envelope as she got up from the chair, “please let me know if it isn’t enough.”
“Oh, I just wanted to cover the ingredients. I’m sure it will be plenty, thank you,” I said, slightly embarrassed. When she’d gone, I went back in the kitchen and opened the envelope – it contained £200 – and I cried again.
Later that night, I put Grace to bed then sat at the kitchen table looking at the thank-you card from Anne and Jessica. I was so pleased that they had liked the cake. Since making Grace’s volcano it had been my biggest creative achievement. And as I sat in my warm, homely kitchen thinking about how lovely it had been to profit from my handiwork an exciting idea slowly started to form in my head. Shaking slightly, I rummaged through one of the drawers and found some of Grace’s felt tips and a piece of paper and sketched an oblong. Inside it I wrote ‘Stella Weston – Professional Cake Maker’ and drew a little picture of a cake. OK, so I would clearly need help with the business card design, but – why not? I loved baking, I needed child-friendly hours and I desperately wanted to enjoy my job. But as I looked at the badly-drawn picture my old friend self-doubt put in an appearance. I couldn’t even get a job at a check-out – how could I start my own company? I was hardly going to win ‘Businesswoman of the Year’. I folded the piece of paper up into a tiny square and stuffed it back in the drawer. I was just making myself a hot chocolate when the phone rang.
“Hi babes, just giving you a quick call, I’m packing my bags again hon.” It was Lizzie and apparently she’d been given the role of director on a new cookery programme filmed in Australia, called Barry’s Barbie.
“That sounds fab, Lizzie. Did MJ agree to it? I thought a plum job like that would have gone to one of her cronies.” I said.
“Mmm. I wondered about that too but I’ve heard Barry likes to work with female directors and let’s face it – how many of us are free to just drop everything and travel round the world in search of ‘barbie heaven’? I’m single with no ties, so MJ probably had no choice.”
“Well, you be careful out there,” I said seriously. “I’ll miss you.”
“I’ll miss you too sweetie. Ooh and Al’s got the assistant-producer job so he’s coming as well. Great news for us, but not much fun for you stuck here while we’re filming juicy meat on beaches around the globe.”
After she hung up, I called Al and congratulated him on Barry’s Barbie. He was happy about the job, but sad to leave Sebastian.
“Look after him for me, will you Stel?” he asked.
“Of course I will. Oh Al, by the way, I can’t thank you enough for lending me the money and delivering that cake. They paid me £200 for it.”
“That’s fabulous Stel. It did look gorgeous. I’m so proud of you.”
“Anyway, how are you?” I said changing the subject to one I knew he’d be happy to move on to. Having listened to Al’s current life story for some time I finally ended the call and went back to the job section when the phone rang again.
“Hi is that Stella Weston?” a woman’s voice said.
“Yes,” I mumbled, through crumbs.
“My name’s Emma, I hope you don’t mind me calling this late but Anne Jackson gave me your number – you make cakes?” My heart skipped a beat.
“My daughter Alice is having a tenth birthday party next week and I wondered if you would make the cake?” She continued. I had a moment of indecision. It was as if my fate was teetering on an edge and I finally needed to push it in the right direction. I reached for the kitchen drawer and pulled out my sketch.
“Yes, I think I can fit that in.” I said firmly, unfolding the paper and smoothing it out.
“Alice wants a cake like the one Ashley Cole gave to Cheryl on her 25th,” Emma started. “Now I don’t expect you to know what it looked like, but…”
“Mmm. It was a handbag with lipsticks and make-up, wasn’t it?” I knew there was a reason for reading celebrity magazines other than a puerile need for lascivious, cellulite gossip.
“Wow, I’m impressed,” she laughed. “Actually, we sort of know each other – well, our daughters do. My daughter came to Grace’s Hawaiian birthday party last year and I picked her up from After School Club for you a while back.” I remembered now, Emma was the woman who was having a hard time with her divorce at Grace’s party. “I heard about your problems,” she stuttered, “your husband leaving. Grace told Alice.”
“Yes. I suppose we’re both in the same boat now,” I said, feeling a little guilty about the way I’d brushed her off at Grace’s birthday party. Such a lot had changed; I didn’t have time for anyone then, especially sad losers who couldn’t keep their husbands. I was now Chairwoman of that club.
“Why don’t you come over and have a coffee one morning this week? Tomorrow would be good. We can look through some cake pictures and talk about Cheryl Cole’s man trouble,” I said.
“I love talking about other people’s man trouble,” she laughed. “I’ll be there about ten.”
Emma arrived the next morning and we Googled images of Cheryl’s cake and decided that if she couldn’t keep a man there was no hope for any of us. Emma told me about how her husband had walked out on her for his secretary three years ago. “Such a cliché,” she said. “I went to the office to surprise him on his birthday and take him for lunch and when I walked in, he wasn’t alone and his secretary was – well, you know the story.”
“Mmm,” I nodded, “giving him a birthday surprise.”
Emma is so attractive; slim with spiky black hair cut in a trendy short style complimented by a gash of bright red lipstick that only a truly perfect face could get away with. Even after all this time, it was clear to see she couldn’t talk about her ex without becoming tearful. I like her, I thought after she left, but I don’t want to be like her. I don’t want the rest of my life to be like a bed imprinted with the shape of the man who used to lie there. I needed to move on now.
A week later, Emma brought Alice over and the girls played in Grace’s bedroom while we shared a bottle of wine. I only drank one glass because I was icing and needed a steady hand but it was lovely to share a drink with a friend and have some company while I worked.
Emma, Alice, Grace and I all had input in the design and planning of the ‘sponge bag’ as Grace called it. The girls wanted fake lashes and hair-straighteners in sugarpaste but I wasn’t sure I could do it, so I convinced Alice that edible jewels and scarlet lipstick would be classier.
Anyway, we amalgamated our thoughts and came up with a huge sponge cake filled with jam and buttercream, covered in black and white sugarpaste and studded with edible jewels. I’d almost finished the handbag, which appeared to be open and contained a bottle of perfume, a lipstick, a pair of sunglasses – all edible save the jewellery (Emma’s surprise gift to Alice, a silver charm bracelet).
“It reminds me of a handbag Grace Kelly would carry,” Emma commented, as I pushed the tiny diamonds and pearls into glossy, patent-look black icing.
“Tom and I loved Dial M for Murder,” I said, suddenly feeling a pang.
“You seem so together Stella, considering what happened with Tom,” said Emma carefully. “Are you OK? Or is it just that you’re in denial?”
I sighed. “I’m not over it yet, after all it’s not been very long. I still have sleepless nights thinking about Tom and her. It’s the anger that keeps me awake, then the hurt, then the tears. It’s ridiculous really.”
Emma listened as I talked, and for the first time I felt someone really understood. It was good to spend time with someone who had been through a similar experience, even if it was over a giant, sponge handbag.
“Sometimes I want to hug him and say ‘come home Tom’, then other times I just want to kill him.”
“Ah, so many men, so few p
atios,” Emma said and we both laughed loudly, two scorned women united in their pain. Judging by the way she laughed, perhaps there was hope for Emma yet.
I arrived at Alice’s party, Grace in tow, with some trepidation. I was so nervous about the cake, more than I thought I would be. By the time we got to Emma’s house, a lovely old Victorian terrace with a sprawling back garden, I had convinced myself that no-one would like my creation. There were quite a few people there, and whilst the kids played in the garden supervised by Alice’s older brother the mums had a cheeky glass of wine in the kitchen and I started to relax. As I looked around, I saw the cake covered in a cloth in the centre of the dining table. I was outwardly cool but secretly delighted to hear the gasps when, after we’d been there about an hour, the kids were called in from the garden and the cake was unveiled. Alice discovered the charm bracelet and blew out the candles, while everyone sang Happy Birthday. It’s hard to be objective about your own stuff, but I have to say, it looked amazing.
After the unveiling, I was stood by the window when one of Emma’s friends rushed over to me and said “Emma says you’re responsible for the cake. I am loving the diamonds and the darling lipstick. Can we talk?” This was an odd comment, seeing we were already mid conversation, but I nodded politely.
“Sangita Singh,” she said, offering me a delicate and bejewelled hand. “I run Events Inc. We cover film premières, product launches, corporate events packages and themed parties.”
“So, you’re very busy?” I said, lamely, trying to keep the conversation going but panicking about what to say to this scary woman who talked like a corporate video.
“Absolutely, I’ve worked with Madonna, George Michael, Katie…”
“Price?” I said, gulping my wine, impressed but feigning nonchalance at this woman’s career and client list.
“What?!”
“Katie…you said Katie Price was on your client list?” I tried, hopefully.
“Oh my God no – Katie Cruise!” she said, looking horrified.
