On Borrowed Time

by Jenn McKinlay

  “The toffee push could have gone on all day,” I said.

  “It probably would have,” Viv agreed.

  “See? You did us a favor,” Fee said.

  “And now you’re trying to make me feel better for being a clumsy American,” I said.

  “You’re half British,” Viv reminded me. Like I could forget my charming mother, Viv’s mother’s little sister, that easily. The woman had all but demanded a vow of celibacy out of me after my last relationship implosion went viral on the Internet and had my dad, a pacifist, looking into buying a gun to shoot the rat bastard who hurt his baby girl.

  “I still don’t get it,” I said.

  “It’s just one of the many idiosyncrasies of being British,” Viv said. “You indicate you’re longing for something by rejecting it. Repeatedly.”

  “Now I see why you’re both single,” I said.

  “Was that nice?” Viv asked. “We’re just very polite.”

  “One might say cripplingly polite,” I said.

  “Huh, enjoy that toffee, yeah?” Fee said.

  I smiled. Maybe I was too brash and forward for my cousin’s sensibilities, but at least I didn’t spend my time pining or pretending I didn’t want things that I actually did.

  The doors to the front of the shop opened and in strode Harrison Wentworth. My heart did a little toe tap against my ribs, but I refused to acknowledge it. Okay, so maybe I did pretend I didn’t want something that I really did want just a little.

  “Afternoon, ladies,” he greeted us as he stood in the door and shook out his umbrella.

  “Hi, Harrison,” Viv and Fee greeted him in unison.

  “Hiya, Harry,” I said.

  His bright green eyes glittered when they landed on me.

  “It’s Harrison, Ginger,” he corrected me.

  Little did he know I liked hearing him call me Ginger, especially in that swoon-worthy accent of his. Although I had tried to get everyone to call me Ginger over the years, Harry was the only one who’d kept it up from childhood. Yes, I’d known him that long.

  Most of my school holidays had been spent in Notting Hill in Mim’s hat shop. My mother had insisted that I be well versed in all things British and palling around with Viv was never a hardship. She was two years older than me, and given that we were both the only children in our families, she was the sibling I had never had.

  Harry had been one of our brat pack, the kids whose families lived or owned businesses on Portobello Road, who ran amuck in the neighborhood. His uncle had been Mim’s bookkeeper just as Harry was ours. Of course, I had recently come to find out that he had bought a share of the business and was now technically my boss. Yeah, I was still chewing on that one.

  I couldn’t fault Viv, though. She’d gotten into financial trouble over a haul of Swarovski crystals, yes, like me she has impulse control issues. Unfortunately, I’d been so caught up in the drama that was my life at the time that she’d forged ahead and had Harry save the business when I should have been there to help. I still had guilt about it, but I was working through it.

  “What are you doing here?” I asked Harry.

  He raised his eyebrows at me and I realized my American rudeness was rearing its ugly blocky head—again.

  “Sorry,” I said. “Was that too abrupt?”

  “One does generally start with a comment about the weather,” he said. “Then you slowly segue into a softly pedaled interrogation.”

  I glanced at the window. “After three weeks of gloom, I am thinking any conversation about the weather would be redundant, but if it makes you feel better . . . ruddy wet out there today, isn’t it?”

  He grinned and then looked at Viv. “There’s hope for her yet.”

  Fee snorted. “Not if there’s toffee involved.”

  I was about to protest when the bells on the door jangled and a woman in a blue hooded raincoat entered the shop carrying a large plastic bag.

  She stood dripping on the doormat, and I took it as my opportunity to escape the discussion of my manners or lack thereof. I left the group at the counter and crossed the shop.

  “Hi, may I help you?” I asked.

  “Oh, I hope so,” she said.

  She opened the dripping plastic bag and pulled out an old hat box. It was white with thick blue stripes and a blue satin cord. On the top of the box in a swirling script were the words Mim’s Whims.

  I heard a gasp and realized that it came from behind me. I knew without looking that it was Viv and I knew she was reacting to the same thing that I was. This box was an old one of Mim’s before Mim had updated the shop’s boxes in the nineties.

  “Is there a hat in there?” Viv asked as she joined us on the mat in front of the front door.

  “Yes, it’s an old one that belonged to my mother,” the woman answered.

  She pushed back the hood on her raincoat and I was struck by how dark her hair was. It was an inky black color, thick and lustrous, the type you’d expect to see on a model. After I recovered from my spurt of hair envy, I noted that she was quite pretty with big brown eyes and an upturned nose. Mercifully, she was spared from being perfect, as her lips were on the thin side and she wore glasses, a nerdy rectangular pair with thick black frames.

  “I don’t want to drip all over your shop,” the woman said.

  “No, worries,” I said. “Here I’ll take the bag and your coat.”

  She handed me the dripping bag and shrugged out of her coat, freeing one arm at a time as if afraid to let go of her hat box. I hung her coat and the bag on our coat rack by the door. Usually we kept it in the back room, but so many people had been coming in with wet coats that we’d moved it out front for the interminable rain fest we had going.

  I hurried after them as Viv led the woman over to the counter where Fee and Harrison were watching the happenings with curious expressions.

  “Ariana, is that you?” Harrison asked. He looked delighted to see the young woman, and I felt the prick of something sharp, like the spiny point of jealousy, stab me in the backside.

  She looked up at him in surprise and then laughed. “Harrison, fancy meeting you here!”

  He stepped around the counter and swept her into a friendly embrace. “I wondered why Stephen asked me about this place? Was it for you?”

  This place? I turned to exchange a dark look with Viv, but neither she nor Fee was looking in my direction. Did they not see that Harrison had just insulted our shop?

  “Yes, I knew you did the books for a hat shop on Portobello and was so hoping it was the same one, and then Stephen said that you bragged that it was the best in the city and that the girls who owned it were—”

  “Yes, well,” Harrison interrupted her by coughing loudly into his fist.

  He glanced at me and I narrowed my eyes at him. What had he said about us? I opened my mouth to demand to hear it when Viv spoke first.

  “Do you know what year your mother purchased the hat?” Viv asked Ariana.

  “I do, it was 1983, in fact,” she said. “The hat was a bridal hat for her wedding.”

  “1983? Oh, that was a very good hat year. John Boyd was designing for Princess Diana. I loved the turquoise hat he made for her first foreign tour to Australia. It was a cap framed by matching ropes of silk with a net over the top and a matching flower at the back. I tried to re-create it during my apprenticeship but I could never match his artistry.”

  “He is a genius,” Fee agreed. “I adore the red boater that she wore perched to the side with the matching jacket.”

  “None of us were even born in 1983,” I said. “How is it you know what the hats looked like back then?”

  “Every milliner studies John Boyd and Princess Diana,” Fee said.

  “That and I did an apprenticeship in his Knightsbridge shop,” Viv said. “Mim loved his work. They were friends, you know.”r />
  I didn’t, but I didn’t say as much, mostly because I was too embarrassed to admit that although the name John Boyd sounded familiar, I wasn’t really up to speed on his work. The truth was I didn’t know much about the millinery business. I had studied the hospitality industry in college and my gift was more with people, which brought my attention back to the woman in our shop.

  “I’m sorry, Ariana, I didn’t catch your last name,” I said. I glanced meaningfully at Harrison, but he didn’t look embarrassed in the least.

  “Oh, of course, forgive me,” he said. “Ariana Jackson, these are the owners of Mim’s Whims Scarlett Parker and Vivian Tremont and their apprentice Fiona Felton.”

  “Ariana, what a pretty name,” I said. I gave her my most winning smile. “It suits you. Do you and Harrison go a long way back?”

  Harry raised his eyebrows, no doubt surprised that I hadn’t used his nickname. Well, just like he didn’t know that I liked the name Ginger, he also didn’t know that I considered Harry my personal name for him and I really didn’t want to share it.

  “Not at all, just a few rugby seasons,” Ariana said. She and Harrison exchanged a smile. “My fiancée Stephen plays on the same league team and when I said I wanted to get my mother’s hat fixed for our wedding, Stephen asked Harrison about Mim’s Whims. I was thrilled to find out you’re still here.”

  She put the old hat box on the counter. “I was hoping you might be able to help me. My mother’s hat needs some refurbishing and since it originally came from this shop . . .”

  “Let’s see what we’ve got here,” Viv said. She gestured to the box. “May I?”

  Ariana gave her a quick nod and Viv eagerly pried the lid off. Nested amid layers of pale tissue paper was a wide-brimmed white confection. Viv carefully reached into the box and gently pulled the hat free.

  I gasped. It was beautiful; a wide-brimmed, white silk hat swathed in tulle with a large silk bow and a lush organza rose nestled in the center. As Viv lifted it, a long organza train fell down from beneath the bow and spilled over the brim. Fee reached out and pulled the train free. It was long and delicate with embroidered edges. Even I could see our grandmother’s handiwork all over it.

  “Oh, Mim,” Viv said. Her voice sounded wistful and I knew just how she felt. To hold something our grandmother had made over thirty years ago brought her right back to us.

  The sweet scent of Lily of the Valley filled my nose. I glanced at Viv at the same moment she glanced at me. Mim. It was the distinct scent Mim had always worn. I glanced around the shop as if expecting her to appear, but of course she didn’t. Still, she was here or the essence of her was here. I was sure of it just as I was sure she wanted Viv to restore the hat.

  “I’d be happy to try and fix the hat,” Viv said. “No, I’d be honored.”

  Keep reading for a preview of Jenn McKinlay’s next Cupcake Bakery Mystery . . .

  DARK CHOCOLATE DEMISE

  Coming April 2015 from Berkley Prime Crime!

  “He looks really good in there,” Angie DeLaura said. “Peaceful even.”

  “You can’t say that about everyone,” Melanie Cooper agreed.

  “It’s all about the casket,” Tate Harper said. “You want to choose a lining that complements your skin tone in the post mortem.”

  Mel and Angie turned and gave him concerned looks.

  “How could you possibly know that?” Mel asked.

  “The funeral director at the mortuary told me,” he said. He threw an arm around Angie. “Since we’re engaged and all, maybe we should pick out a doublewide so we can spend eternity snuggling.”

  Angie beamed at him and giggled. Then she kissed him. It did not maintain its PG-13 rating for more than a moment and Mel felt her upchuck reflex kick in as she turned away.

  She was happy for her best friends in their coupledom, really she was, but sometimes, like now, it was just gag worthy.

  “Really you two, how about a little decorum, given the gravity of the situation?” she asked. She knew she sounded a bit snippy but honestly, some days they were just too much.

  “Of course, you’re right,” Tate said. “Sorry.”

  He and Angie untangled themselves from one another. He smoothed the front of his shirt and straightened his jacket while Angie fluffed her hair and shook out her skirt. Duly subdued, the three of them stood beside the casket that held their friend and employee Marty Zelaznik.

  Marty looked particularly spiffy in his white dress shirt and his favorite bold blue tie. His suit was black and Angie had tucked a blue pocket square into his breast pocket so that just the edge of it was visible. His features were relaxed and his bald head was shiny as if it had been waxed to a high gloss.

  “Hey.” Oscar Ruiz, a teen known as Oz, who worked alongside Marty in the bakery Fairy Tale Cupcakes that Mel, Angie and Tate owned, joined the trio by the casket. “So, we’re going with an open lid, huh?”

  “We think it’s for the best,” Mel said.

  “His tie is crooked,” Angie said. “We should fix that.”

  “Yeah, and his make-up is a little on the heavy side,” Tate said. “He has angry eyebrows.”

  “Anyone have a handkerchief?” Mel asked. “A little spit will take care of that.”

  At this, Marty’s eyes popped open and he sat up in his coffin and glared. “What am I, five? You are not spit-shining me!”

  “Ah!” Angie yelped and leapt back with her hand clutching her chest. “Gees, Marty, you scared me to death!”

  “Nice one.” Tate laughed as he and Oz high-fived and knuckle-bumped Marty.

  “What? Did you think I was really dead?” Marty asked, sounding outraged.

  “No!” Angie snapped. “I thought you were napping. You had a little drool in the corner of your mouth.”

  “I was, but that doesn’t mean you get to swab my decks,” Marty said as he shifted around and rubbed the dried spittle off of his chin. “You know, I have to say it’s pretty comfy in here. I may have to look into putting a deposit on one of these for the future.”

  “Way in the future,” Mel said.

  Marty glanced at the four of them. “So when do we leave for the zombie walk? I want to catch a few more Z’s. Oh, and by the way, the undead look you’ve all got going, yeah, I don’t want to wake up to that ever again.”

  Mel glanced at her friends. Tate and Angie were doing the undead bride and groom. In requisite tux and white wedding gown, they had topped off their look with gray make-up and faux partially rotted flesh. Tate had a fake knife lodged in his skull, while Angie had an axe sticking out of her back. They had already taken bogus wedding photos that Angie was seriously considering making their official wedding portrait.

  Being single and thinking this was going to become a permanent state, Mel had decided to go as an undead chef complete with her toque, double-breasted white coat and checkered pants. She wore her pleated hat back on her head to enhance the amazing latex scar Oz had adhered to her forehead. It was pretty badass.

  Oz had decided to wear his chef whites as well, but had changed it up by making the side of his face appear to be rotting off. Every time Mel saw his fake putrid skin flap in the breeze, she had to resist the urge to peel it off.

  Being the body in the casket, Marty had chosen to be less undead than the rest of them. He was pasty pale and sunken eyed but that was about it. Mel suspected because he was closer to his actual expiration date than the rest of them, dressing up as a dead man had less appeal for him. Overall, she had to admit, they were fabulously gruesome.

  “Sorry, Marty, but no napping,” Mel said. She grabbed him by the elbow and hauled him out of the casket, which was sitting on a trailer on the back of the cupcake van. “We’ve got to load up the van and get over to the Civic Center Park and set up our station before the undead descend upon us.”

  “Ooh, that sounded nice a
nd grisly,” Angie shuddered.

  “It did, didn’t it?” Mel said. She let go of Marty, ignoring the look of longing he gave the coffin. “Let’s move, people.”

  She hurried to the back of the bakery, where she’d left her rolling cart loaded with boxes of cupcakes. She pushed it beside the service window of the van and began to hand them off to Oz, who was inside.

  “What flavors did you create for zombie cupcakes?” Tate asked.

  “No new flavors,” Mel said. She flipped open the lid of one of the boxes to show off the cupcakes. “Just new names. In place of the usual suspects we have the Marshmallow Mummy—”

  “Hey, you made the frosting look like bandages on a mummy’s head,” Oz said from the window. “Cool.”

  “And it has a marshmallow filling,” Mel said. “We also have Vanilla Eyeballs, Strawberry Brains, and Dark Chocolate Demise just to round out the flavors.”

  “The eyeball one is staring at me,” Marty said. “I don’t think I could eat that.”

  “How about the brains?” Tate said. “How did you pipe the frosting in the shape of a pink brain?”

  “Fine pastry tip,” Angie said. “It was fun.”

  “Are those little candy coffins on the chocolate ones?” Oz asked. “I dig those. Get it?”

  “Aw, man, that stunk worse than rotting flesh,” Marty said. He closed the lid on the box, took it from Mel and handed it through the window. The others stared at him and he asked, “What? I’m just getting into the spirit of things.”

  “Fine, but please keep the rotten flesh remarks to a minimum when selling the cupcakes,” Mel said.

  “This from the woman who ruined a perfectly good cupcake by putting a bloodshot eyeball on it,” he said. He shook his head as if he couldn’t fathom what she’d been thinking.

  Mel lowered her head to keep from laughing. She didn’t want to offend Marty, as he took his vanilla cupcakes very seriously.

  “Melanie!” a voice called from the bakery. Mel glanced up to see her mother, Joyce Cooper, stride out the door. Joyce took three steps and stopped, putting her hand to her throat. “Oh, my!”