Cupcake Couture

by Davies, Lauren

A card. He wanted a card. I handed him a card.

  Good job, Chloe.

  ‘Right, this appears to be Danny Doughballs’ card.’

  Bad job, Chloe.

  I snatched the card back and opened my mouth just as Roxy decided to save me.

  ‘She ran out of cards, Alan, she’s been asked for so many lately, but Thierry here will give you the details and we’ll sort that out for you.’

  Shearer’s face broke into a smile.

  ‘Thanks, Roxy. Great news about the baby by the way.’

  He kissed Roxy on both cheeks, shook Thierry’s hand and then shook mine.

  ‘I look forward to tasting your cakes,’ he said with a polite nod before striding through the doors.

  The crowd of fans outside the training centre erupted as I finally exhaled and Roxy exploded with laughter.

  ‘Nice one, Chloe,’ she laughed, wiping her eyes, ‘you floored him with that sales banter, pet.’

  I clasped my cake boxes to my chest and groaned.

  ‘I wasn’t ready. I mean it was Alan Shearer and I wasn’t wearing a suit and I don’t have any business cards or even a name. I’m not even a proper cake business yet, I haven’t even completed my first order and I’ve only ever sold two and oh my God, I just feel a bit out of control with all this and… damn, was I completely bonkers?’

  They looked at each other, looked at me and nodded.

  Roxy was still laughing when we reached my car. While Thierry signed autographs for adoring fans, Roxy turned me around and held my shoulders. She peered into my eyes, her false eyelashes so long and thick they acted like fans on my skin when she blinked.

  ‘You don’t need a suit anymore, Chloe, you’re not in that stiff office now. It’s about networking and getting people to taste your cakes. You’ve got to grab the opportunities by the balls, fly by the seat of your pants a bit, let loose. You’ve got a product that people want and that’s all you need. Well, that and the ability to speak when spoken to would help.’

  I groaned again, inwardly and out.

  ‘Maybe you need me more than I thought,’ she laughed.

  ‘Thanks, Roxy, you seem surprisingly adept at this stuff despite the fact you’ve never had a real job.’

  ‘I applied the same idea to getting myself a fella,’ she shrugged, ‘I didn’t get all this from not grabbing opportunities… and fellas, by the balls.’

  She laughed, flicked both hands out beside her shoulders and gestured to the car park that was dotted with six figure price tag cars. I looked around.

  ‘You’re right, Roxy. Here I am at Newcastle United holding a cake tasting session for hunky footballers and bumping into Alan Shearer when just weeks ago I would probably have been in a meeting with Russell bloody Blunt helping him make money for Daddy’s company that the clueless, dim-witted brat will inherit. Who’d have thought?’

  ‘I would,’ Roxy said with a shrug of the bejewelled shoulder of her Dolce and Gabbana coat.

  ‘Really? I just can’t believe I’ve got real orders for cupcakes. Imagine if I get to make the cakes by order of Alan Shearer! That would be even better than by appointment to Her Majesty in this city.’

  ‘Dare to dream, Chloe man,’ said Roxy, ‘I told you dreams don’t stop coming true just because we turn thirty.’

  ‘I feel like this is one big dream and I’m going to wake up in a minute and realise I’m just unemployed and none of today actually happened.’ I balanced the boxes on my thigh as I unlocked my car and then placed the boxes on the back seat. ‘Mind you, if I don’t get home and get on with Zachary’s order, it could very soon turn into a nightmare. I’ve got three days to make two-hundred and forty cakes.’

  ‘How will you fit all them in the oven?’

  ‘Well obviously not all at once. I can fit twenty four in at a time comfortably.’

  ‘Ee, so you’ve got to do like…’ - Roxy screwed up her nose – ‘like five… loads of ovens full.’

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘You’re going to need a bigger oven, pet.’

  ‘Maybe one day. Right now I can just about afford the ingredients. OK, I’m off, wish me luck.’

  ‘Good luck.’

  Roxy kissed my cheeks again then turned and saw Thierry signing an autograph for Rara who was swinging her side ponytail so manically I was surprised it didn’t swing right off her head.

  ‘Fucking slapper must have enough of his autographs to wallpaper her bedroom with. She probably sells them on e-Bay,’ Roxy growled. She cupped her hands around her mouth and hollered – ‘Thierry, man, your mam called, she’s making your favourite smiley faces and beans for tea!’ I sniggered and she turned nonchalantly back to me. ‘Right, Chloe, call me before this do on Friday because we’re going to have to help you.’

  ‘You’ve already done enough, Roxy and I can’t expect you to carry two hundred cakes there in your condition.’

  Roxy laughed and waved her hand repeatedly from my head to my feet as if casting a spell.

  ‘I’m not talking about carrying bloody cakes, pet, get a skivvy to do that. I’m talking about you, we’ll have to get you ready. Clothes, hair, shoes, make-up, glamour. Thierry and I are invited so we cannot have you turning up to your first client’s do looking like something dragged off Coronation Street.’

  I gasped, peered at my reflection in the car window and fiddled with my hair.

  ‘Coronation Street? Well I admit I may have let my hair appointments slip a bit since I lost my job but I didn’t think… I don’t need to be glamorous, Roxy, I’m just the cake maker. And Zachary doesn’t really like “glamorous”’ – I made inverted commas in the air – ‘not that I’m bothered what he likes. Besides I’m not even sure it’s a glamorous sort of party, it’s just Zachary’s work Christmas do. They arrange conferences and corporate stuff I think. At least it will be a good practice before the big Newcastle United gig, hey?’

  Roxy pursed her lips and raised a plucked eyebrow.

  ‘Then you obviously haven’t spoken to Heidi.’

  ‘No, why? What did Heidi say about it?’

  ‘Did you not Google him?’

  I frowned.

  ‘Google who? Zachary? No, why would I want to Google him?’

  Roxy flicked her ever-glamorous hair over her shoulders and raised her palms.

  ‘Nothing, don’t worry about it, just go and make the cakes.’ She shooed me into the car.

  ‘But I am worried now, what did Heidi say? Do you always Google people? Have you Googled me?’

  Roxy shut the door. I rolled the window down.

  ‘Howay, Chloe, why would Mr Google waste time writing about you?’

  ‘Charming.’

  ‘Look, just do the manual labour, pet, make the cakes and then call me,’ she said. ‘The glamorous bit is my department.’

  She blew me a kiss and strutted away on her killer heels to drag her famous footballer back into line. I rolled up the window and felt my stomach churn uncomfortably. Dear God, I hoped it wasn’t down to the cake mixture.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  1 cup fresh strawberries, puréed

  Two-hundred and forty cakes, twenty four per oven, ten oven loads, seventy-two hours to go, one-hundred and twenty dark chocolate and raspberry, one-hundred and twenty vanilla and strawberry, forty eggs, forty tablespoons of fine strawberry jam, three thousand two-hundred and fifty grams of self-raising flour, five blocks of butter, five tubs of soft margarine, twenty tablespoons of cocoa powder, two-thousand four hundred grams of caster sugar, ten tablespoons of vanilla, ten tablespoons of milk, four punnets of fresh raspberries, two hundred and fifty grams of high quality dark chocolate, silicone cupcake cases, ten hours of electricity, immeasurable elbow grease, three days of brain ache, blood, sweat and tears, and that was even before I started on the toppings.

  I questioned the sanity of my decision to accept a job from Zachary to bake so many cakes as my first step on the ladder as a Master Baker when I had only ever made small batches of cakes for
my friends before. The ingredients cost a small fortune, which I had not considered when I had proudly told Zachary over the phone to pay me at the end of the job. I was sure builders did not fork out from their own pocket to build an entire house before the client coughed up any funds. Granted I was not building a house but, at times over the days leading up to the event, it felt as if I had agreed to build a skyscraper built entirely of sponge cake.

  My usually pristine kitchen was covered in flour, dollops of mixture, splatters from the whisk, crumbs and jam and the wooden worktops were almost buckling under the weight of the cakes cooling on wire trays and plates and baking sheets and anything I could lay my hands on to free up the oven trays and keep the conveyor belt of production functioning. Twelve cakes bit the dust (flour dust on the filthy floorboards to be precise) when I backed out of the oven too quickly with a fresh batch of chocolate and raspberry cakes only to knock the previous batch off the worktop with my elbow. I admit I briefly toyed with the idea of brushing off the dirt and replacing them in the production line but even the thought of my subterfuge made me glance guiltily into the corners of the room in case Zachary had had the craftiness to break into my flat and plant webcams to watch me in action. I threw the cakes in the bin, safe in the knowledge that I did not want to end up on one of those programmes exposing dodgy workers, Bakers from Hell or some such show.

  My contingency of cakes was swiftly reduced to twenty-eight and then soon after to twenty when I forgot to set the timer for a batch of vanilla and strawberry cupcakes, eight of which emerged looking more like the chocolate ones in colour. Four I decided I could just about get away with under the toppings. Where previously I would revel in the cracking of eggs, the weighing, the whisking, the folding, the scooping, while singing into my wooden spoon and dancing around the kitchen, suddenly I felt under pressure, stressed, uncertain, tired and very very hot. I felt as if I were the lone worker in a sweatshop, only with pretty utensils, a view from the window, music, a well-designed kitchen and a plug-in room freshener.

  It was not exactly a sweatshop, but it was a frantic, over-loaded, under-prepared cottage industry and I was the only worker, as well as the boss. I could feel the strain of the self-employed person having to drum up self-motivation and confidence from somewhere because no one else was going to step in and save the day. It was all down to me to make this order and, where I had once imagined myself swanning around a sunlit kitchen like Nigella Lawson in a pretty pinny, tasting my delicious mixtures, marvelling at my hand-made delights and waxing lyrical about the joys of baking, I looked more like Kate Bush with wild hair and crazed eyes shrieking at the oven and at myself as the clock ticked down to my deadline and cupcakes came out of my steaming ears. Was this really my childhood dream?

  Cupcakes were all I could see and think of. The scent of vanilla and seventy-five percent cocoa chocolate lined my nostrils. When I tried to sleep, I dreamed about ingredients and burning cakes. King Alfred made an appearance on more than one occasion, along with a giant chicken laying enormous eggs into a monstrous mixing bowl. By the time eleven o’clock on Thursday rolled around, I was bleary-eyed and slightly mad. Mad enough that when I opened my fridge and the last carton of milk fell out and exploded on my slippers, I burst into tears and stamped in the puddle because I desperately needed a milky cup of tea to make me human again. Looking sourly down at my milk-soaked feet and tracksuit bottoms, I turned off the oven and trudged across the living room, leaving a trail of milk like a cow with leaky udders. I pulled on a navy pea coat and boots, grabbed my keys and left the flat to make the short walk into the village.

  At the local mini mart, I hung a basket from my arm and filled it with semi-skimmed milk for my tea and full-fat milk for the remaining cakes. I bought several more blocks of butter to be sure I didn’t run out when the shops had closed and maltesers for my mid-morning snack because I could not face eating cake. They were lighter than ordinary chocolate, unless purchased in a one-hundred and seventy-five gram bag, in which case they weighed the same as one-hundred and seventy-five grams of anything. Weights and measures were hurting my brain.

  I lifted the local newspaper from the small pile left over from the previous day and read it while I waited in the queue, which was taking an unconscionably long time because the only girl serving was texting on her mobile in between scanning every item. Whatever she was texting about was apparently hilarious, which made the wait all the more enjoyable as my deadline drew ever closer.

  I glanced over my shoulder when the edge of a wire basket jabbed me in the back of the leg. Shirley stood behind me wearing a baker’s hat and her white and burgundy checked tabard over a brown PVC mini-dress, making her look like a walking table. Janice stood a little behind Shirley’s left shoulder wearing a matching tabard and white hairnet pulled tight over the tops of her ears. Shirley pursed her lips, the smoker’s lines around them forming an asterisk. She glared at the contents of my basket.

  ‘Unusual ingredients for elevenses wouldn’t you say, Janice?’

  ‘I would aye, Shirley, unless she’s having maltesers sandwiched between blocks of butter and a glass of milk.’

  ‘I wouldn’t be surprised like, she’s blocking my view of the till,’ Shirley chuckled.

  I took a deep breath and shuffled forwards as the girl finally succeeded in completing a sale. Shirley continued at top volume.

  ‘Looks like she should be adding some dandruff shampoo to that basket, Janice, from the white powder on her coat.’

  ‘And her trousers, Shirl’.’

  I instinctively turned and brushed my shoulders before I realised Shirley was referring to the fine coating of flour that had settled on my person over the past two days. It was in my hair, on my clothes and under my fingernails. Shirley narrowed her eyes. Her blue eyeshadow creased into the crevasses of her crêpey skin. I held her gaze for a moment, feeling like a first year at a new school being bullied by the fifth formers, which was a feeling I had at one time been all too familiar with.

  ‘I think someone’s been baking in secret, Janice,’ Shirley said with a raspy tone.

  ‘Frosted cupcakes I expect,’ Janice replied with a hiss as if they were accusing me of boiling up children in a giant pot in my kitchen.

  I shuffled forwards and finally deposited my basket on the cash desk.

  ‘How did the last ones sell then?’ Shirley persisted.

  I ignored her and unpacked the basket while the girl at the till scanned them with the urgency of a slug. She continued texting with the other hand.

  ‘They’ll never catch on,’ Janice assured Shirley, ‘not around these parts, will they Shirl’?’

  ‘Never,’ Shirley said with a sniff.

  The girl tried to pack a carrier bag with one hand while her thumb worked overtime on her phone.

  ‘Thinks she can buy some fancy cake moulds and become a baker overnight.’

  ‘She hasn’t even got a tabard.’

  ‘Or a hair net.’

  ‘Well I haven’t got a hairnet on, Janice,’ Shirley scolded, ‘I don’t want to mess up my hair.’

  ‘Your face does that for you,’ I muttered under my breath.

  I grabbed the carrier bag and slammed my money on the counter.

  I flounced towards the exit and called out, ‘I’ll let you taste a cupcake when I’m done, Shirley. If there’s any left after Alan Shearer’s had his pick!’

  I had made all the sponges. Two-hundred and twenty light and dark cupcakes decorated every available space in my kitchen and filled the air with a sweet scent. It was dark outside, the lights from the street and the boats passing by on the Tyne framed by the window. I drew the curtains, switched on the fairy lights, opened a bottle of cold, white wine and stood back to admire my work. Now that the cakes were done, I felt a weight lifting from my shoulders. Baking the sponge was where disaster was most likely to strike and it had admittedly been a battle but now, as I sipped from my glass and peered at the rows and rows of light, puffy topped little so
ldiers, I felt like I had almost won the war. Flavour was where I excelled, according to Julian and flavour was the most important thing. Decorating the cakes was the fun, creative part. Quite literally it was just the icing on the cake.

  I allowed myself a smile for the first time in days and brushed my arm across my floury brow. The knot of stress in my stomach unravelled with each sip of wine and the anxiety turned into relief and then excitement. It was as if I had come through the pain of giving birth and was now enjoying the rapture of the other side. Admittedly I hadn’t a clue how I was going to decorate the cakes yet but whether it was just different coloured buttercream or fondant Christmas shapes, I was positive they would be good enough for an office Christmas party in Newcastle. I had just under twenty-four hours to do the icing, which was plenty of time once I had settled on my theme, so I was going to enjoy this moment.

  I was pouring a second glass of wine and listening to the soothing sound of Chris Martin’s voice singing Fix You when my mobile rang. I tracked it down stuck to one of the work surfaces with congealed strawberry jam.

  ‘Chloe, it’s Zachary here, Zachary Doyle.’

  ‘I guessed the Doyle part. Hi, Zachary, how are you?’

  The sound of his laughter warmed me inside. I wandered to the window seat and sat down, pulling my knees up to my chin.

  ‘I’m grand, Chloe, thank you and you?’

  ‘Great. It sounds noisy there, where are you?’

  He groaned as if he was lifting a heavy object.

  ‘Oh I’m sorry I haven’t been in touch but honestly this event has swamped my time I have to say and despite our best endeavours, it’s still a bit chaotic here. We’re just putting the final touches to the party room.’

  ‘Blowing up balloons, decorating the tree?’ I laughed.

  He paused.

  ‘Yes, something like that. In fact the tree nearly didn’t make it over from Norway, something about it being too big for the ship but Hurley got on the blower and sorted out that drama thank God.’

  Too big for the boat? Were they bringing it from Norway in a dinghy?