‘What am I doing?’ I said out loud.
Chris Rea’s Driving Home For Christmas began to play as I heard a train approaching my platform. I could jump on this train and be at Roxy and Thierry’s gorgeous, swanky, warm apartment in half an hour, where I would drink champagne and eat foie gras and be a gooseberry along with Thierry’s Maman. I had friends and family who loved me. If there was ever a time, then Christmas was the time to celebrate with them.
I bit my lip and wondered what to do. Chris Rea started singing.
‘Driving home for Christmas…’ he sang.
I stomped my feet in agitation.
‘Oh I wish you would just hurry up and bloody well get there you stupid man!’ I shouted up at the crackling speaker. ‘And as for the driver next to you, well…’
‘He’s just the same,’ laughed a singsong voice behind me.
I whipped my head around. There stood Zachary with a bemused expression on his face and a lopsided smile. He shoved his hands deep into the pockets of his grey, wool coat and tilted his head, his eyes flashing.
‘Poor Mr Rea,’ he chuckled, ‘he’s just merrily driving along, singing his song and he’s getting heckled by a girl in wellie boots and a bobble hat who looks every bit the merry Carol singer only without the smile.’
I couldn’t help but smile. My toes wriggled on cue inside my boots and I lowered the cake box from my chest.
‘Oh, I, er… hi, Zachary, I brought you something,’ I said breathily.
‘And I you,’ he replied.
I watched his hand wiggle inside his pocket and I waited for a wrapped up box with a bow on it or at the very least a card.
He pulled out his hand and held out my mobile.
‘I’m sorry it took me so long to bring it back, I’ve been up to my eyes this week.’
Your lovely, peridot eyes.
‘I did manage to pop around once but you didn’t answer and I didn’t want to break it by shoving it through the letterbox.’
When I was in the shower, I remembered. Had he kept it because he wanted to see me face to face?
‘I love party planning but it can get a bit much at Christmas you know. All the glamour and glitz. Would you believe, I dream about things being normal and natural and not quite so’ – he made quotes with his fingertips – ‘“glamorous”.’
‘I see,’ I nodded, ‘is that where I fit in then? Am I your normal, natural friend?’
He shoved his hand back into his pocket and shrugged one shoulder.
‘I guess so.’
I sighed inside. The ‘friend’ had been a test and he had not even flinched.
‘Unless,’ he continued, ‘you get so carried away with all those messages on your mobile there that you become a cupcake diva.’
I glanced at my phone and then back up at him. He ran his hand through his fringe.
‘Sorry, Chloe, it’s like the diary thing and reading your list, I couldn’t help myself. I recognised some of the numbers as belonging to my clients and it hasn’t stopped ringing. You’ve had more than one call from Cheryl Cole.’
I gasped and clutched the phone as if it might suddenly fly out of my hand and under a train, taking my aspirations with it.
‘Really?’
He laughed and nodded.
‘Yes, I think between you and I, you are going to be a very sought after cupcake couturist.’
‘Couturière, I think the word is, according to Thierry.’
‘Well he would know. Then you are going to be a very sought-after couturière.’
‘Thanks to you.’ I tilted my head, ‘and thank you for the lovely comments in the paper.’
He said nothing. I pressed on.
‘I’m very glad I met you here.’
There, I had said it.
He tilted his head.
‘As am I. It’s been interesting. I just gave you a nudge in the right direction and’ – he cleared his throat – ‘I’d like to continue helping if you wouldn’t mind. I know you have great business acumen but I could help with investment in packaging, marketing, ovens and premises as the business expands perhaps.’
I drummed my fingertips on the cake box.
‘A business arrangement?’
He nodded.
‘Is that why you wanted to see me? To meet me where we first met to show me how far I’ve come since that day and hope I’ll go into business with you?’
I held my breath again.
He nodded once more.
‘Yes.’
I looked sadly down at the cake box and wondered whether or not to give it to him as my heart sank into my wellies. Zachary Doyle was a businessperson through and through, as I had once been. I supposed he had to be; Hurley was the technical one, Malachy added the glitz and Zachary was the solid, focused one, up to his eyes in business on Christmas Eve. I purposefully did not look into those eyes as I held the box out towards him. I felt awkward, I had read the situation wrong, but he knew I had brought him a gift so what else could I do?
‘I hope your girlfriend doesn’t mind me giving you this but it’s just a thank you for everything you’ve done for me.’
His smooth hands closed around the box.
‘My girlfriend? I don’t have a girlfriend.’
‘The girl at the party with the’ – I motioned in front of my chest – ‘and the’ – I mimed big hair – ‘and feeding you cake.’
He threw his head back and laughed.
‘Her? Oh God no, she’s awful. I’m just too polite to get away from her.’
‘But she was on the top table with you.’
‘That, Miss Baker,’ he said with a wry smile, ‘was your seat but you were outside glumly drinking champagne, or so a little bird told me.’
My mouth formed an ‘O’.
‘I was supposed to be sitting beside you?’
He nodded.
‘I didn’t look at the top table seating plan.’
‘So you effectively ditched me.’
Mortifying.
‘And the girl with the’ – he mimed big breasts – ‘and the’ – he mimed big hair – ‘happily filled that ditch.’ He paused. ‘Like a grave-digger.’
I sniggered.
‘She’s one of the Blunt family, you may know them?’
I gasped.
‘Terrible social climber and she’s on the lookout for a rich husband. I think her dad’s recruitment company is going down the pan, probably because she’s spending all the family money on fake breasts and the like. She wouldn’t leave me alone but no, no, she’s far too “glamorous” for me. In a bad way.’
I grinned.
‘That’s better news than you can imagine,’ I said.
‘So, may I?’
Zachary held up the cake box. I nodded and he untied the ribbon while studying the hand-painted card, seemingly taking in every detail before opening the box. His eyes lit up when he saw what was inside.
It was a single, giant chocolate cupcake decorated with pink strawberry frosting whipped into a peak. Into the frosting, I had placed hand-made fondant shapes: a tiny Metro train, the Tynemouth Metro sign, a handbag with a broken strap, a pink tissue made of strawberry rice paper, tear droplets forming a string of fairy lights, a coffee cup spilling its contents, a twenty-pound note and one fresh strawberry sprinkled with edible glitter.
He lifted the cake carefully out of the box as if handling a new-born kitten and placed the box down on the ground. I felt suddenly silly and exposed. I had got so carried away designing and making the cake, I had not entirely worked through the process and thought about how it would feel to stand here in front of him at the station with Chris Rea warbling away while he stared at a sugary depiction of our ‘relationship’ thus far. (References to Carlos were noticeably absent. I thought that was for the best.)
I scuffed my feet and rubbed my hands together in as business-like a manner as I could muster.
‘It’s nothing really, it’s just a little something I threw together with
the ingredients I had left over.’
He raised one eyebrow and I could tell he saw straight through my weak lie.
‘Really?’
‘Um, yes.’
‘And is it too good to eat or does it taste as good as it looks?’
‘Try it if you want.’
Zachary raised the cupcake to his lips, opened his mouth and closed it around the sponge. He took a bite, then closed his eyes and chewed slowly. I wondered whether I could run away before he opened his eyes again but there they were, open and staring at me, rooting me to the spot. He shook his head.
‘What’s wrong?’ I said.
‘There’s definitely something missing from this cake.’
This was really not working out how I had imagined.
Ever the perfectionist, I felt mortified for having exposed my feelings for him and angry. Angry with this bloody handsome man for making me feel this way and for having the gall to criticise a giant cupcake I had spent all my Christmas shopping time making for him. I crossed my arms over my chest.
‘I put all the necessary ingredients into that cake and I’ll have you know, Zachary Doyle that I am a sought-after cupcake couturière. I do not make mistakes, or very rarely, so if you’d like to tell me what you think is missing from that cake then I will happily tell you you’re wrong.’
I screwed up my face as Zachary took another bite and his tongue ran across his lips, moistening them until they shone.
‘No, there’s definitely something missing,’ he said again.
‘What are you talking about? What’s missing?’
‘One final, magic ingredient,’ he said, ‘to make it perfect, to make it taste even sweeter.’
My lips pursed as he smiled and lowered the cake. He leaned towards me and then kept on leaning until he was so close, I could no longer see my breath in the air between us.
‘What are you…?’ I began but his finger reached up and pressed against my lips.
I shivered. Zachary cupped his hand around my cheek. I blinked up into his breathtaking eyes, I inhaled his oaky scent. He moved closer still and pressed his soft lips against mine. I gave in to the sweetest kiss I had ever tasted.
Zachary was right; we had found the perfect recipe.
EPILOGUE
Share with the one you love…
I awoke on Christmas Day and rolled over under the Egyptian cotton duvet to see what Santa Claus had left me while I slept. It was the beautiful man lying beside me, his eyes closed, a smile playing on the lips I had kissed until my own had almost gone into spasm. The expensive duvet cover had been pulled down by his bare arm to reveal a broad, shapely chest that was even more edible than I had imagined. I ran my hand down his arm and smiled.
From the first sweet kiss, I had known I wanted him. Our kisses on the platform had become more urgent and more passionate. In fact, if I had been watching myself I would have grimaced and muttered – ‘Get a room’ – under my breath, which very soon afterwards we did.
I climbed out of the enormous bed that was big enough for a family of four (my parents would have loved it), pulled on my clothes, scribbled Zachary a note and slipped as quietly as I possibly could in wellies and a puffa jacket, out of the room. I found the back staircase leading down to the courtyard and the quadruple garage, where I located my little Golf with the ignition key resting in full view on the windscreen wiper. There was no danger, I supposed, of any of the Doyle neighbours stealing the sort of car they only saw on Crimewatch.
My parents looked both shocked and, I was glad to note, delighted when I arrived at their home in Embleton.
‘Merry Christmas,’ I called out as I opened the boot and began to extract bits of wire and feathers, ‘I brought your tree back.’
Together, Jango, Jemima, Julian and I rebuilt the tree I had hated every year at this time but which had now become instrumental in changing my life. I had made six cupcake decorations, which I placed on the branches, two for each of them. One was simply iced with their name and a heart, the other I had decorated personally. Julian’s had a map of Sri Lanka on the top, Jango’s had a paintbrush and easel, while Jemima’s had Madonna and a spliff.
‘Didn’t we say your aura was yellow?’ my father nodded knowingly when I kissed them goodbye at the door and left them to their dinner of nut roast, curried lentils and hash cakes, ‘Hopefulness, new ideas and positivity. You see, it came true.’
I nodded, conceding the point.
‘Yes but today, it’s different again,’ said my mother. She wafted her hands around my head. ‘It’s more bright pink.’
‘Oh really and what does that mean?’ I smiled wryly.
‘Sensitivity, sensuality, a sexual revival,’ she laughed, wiggling her eyebrows.
‘Merry Christmas!’ I cooed, hiding my blushes as I bolted down the path.
I ate Christmas dinner with Zachary and his family at the Doyle mansion. Mrs Doyle was the true matriarch but very welcoming and delightful company. She fed me twenty different types of potatoes and would have kept on feeding me until I exploded had Malachy (who had come dressed as Snow White) not decided to clear the table and dance on it. Hurley spent most of the day either talking about Heidi (who had spent Christmas with her parents as her last one before she would herself become Mrs Doyle) or talking to Heidi on the telephone, while Zachary spent a lot of the day sneaking kisses from me whenever the others weren’t looking. We played games, sang songs and Hurley showed us his new wheelchair dance routine that he had been working on with Diversity. I was made to feel part of the family, which was wonderful for two reasons; 1) because I suspected I would belong to this family for quite some time to come and 2) because it made me realise every family has its quirks. Whether it be serving every form of potato known to man while the middle male child dances on the table dressed as a Princess or whether it be ‘adopting’ a young man from Sri Lanka and holding life drawing classes for stoners in your living room.
There was no ‘normal’ or ‘perfect’ family. Families were just a group of human beings with different hopes, dreams and personalities trying to get through life and find their way, at best as great friends, at worst without killing each other. Jango and Jemima had done their best, just as Roxy and Thierry would try and do their best by their baby, and Heidi and Hurley would hopefully have the chance to do with the four children they dreamed of having, and Zachary and I…
Please, my imagination was running wild but not that wild.
I had finally reached the point in my life where I could accept my family and stop blaming them for being themselves. Nevertheless, I didn’t suddenly leap up from the dinner table and drag Zachary out to Embleton to meet Jemima and Jango Baker. That moment would wait until I could guarantee that Zachary liked me enough not to run a mile when he saw the penis doorknob and that my mother could be trusted not to start fashioning a naked sculpture of him out of Plasticine while we was there.
In May, Roxy gave birth to a baby girl, whom she called Dixie. I made cupcakes for the baby shower before the birth and then I made a stunning cake installation for the christening three months later when I also stood at the font between a Vicar and my (until then) atheist friend, and vowed to be, perhaps not perfect, but the best Godmother I could be.
Roxy then floored me by asking if she could work for me from time to time as a sales person for Cupcake Couture. She said she wanted to be a better role model for her daughter than just being a WAG. How could I say no? It was Roxy’s first proper job. In reality, she often failed to turn up and when she did she spent most of the time doing anything but selling cakes, but I was impressed with her desire to be a good mother and her endless banter and sarcasm kept me entertained and with my feet firmly on the ground.
I was becoming a better cupcake couturière by the day as orders flooded in and my business expanded into the kitchens of the Doyle mansion. Mrs Doyle had had quite enough of rattling around ‘like a pea in a maraca’. She was great with her hands, having been a seamstress and she wa
s a talented cook, so she was also there to lend a hand with weighing, mixing, whisking, decorating and, of course, tasting. We held regular cake tasting groups both at her home and at my flat, which Heidi, Roxy and my neighbours attended every fortnight. It was like the book groups that had become fashionable everywhere, only we ate cakes and talked about cakes and then drank wine and, of course, gossiped until we were hungry enough to eat more cakes. Charlie’s basil plants supplied the herbs for many of my savoury cupcakes and Ching’s Cantonese recipes inspired a whole new line of Asian flavoured sponges.
I was already onto my third notebook and Zachary was in the final talks with a publisher about publishing the first of many Cupcake Couture recipe books, containing my own drawings, scribbled notes and coffee stains, just like the ones I used at work. Every book would have a pocket inside the back cover to contain the reader’s own clippings and inspirations and the books would tie with a ribbon just like mine. I could hardly believe the scribbles of my childhood would soon be gracing bookshop shelves. A fact that I thought I might keep secret from Jango until (please God) he sold a piece of his own art. With Jango and Jemima’s help, however, Julian was fast becoming a renowned artist and sold his work regularly. My parents did not officially adopt him but he did become a real member of our family.
My gorgeous flat of course remained my sanctuary but it was perhaps less pristine than it had once been, with the comings and goings of the neighbours and the regular presence of a broad-shouldered man of Irish descent who left muddy shoes by the door and socks under the bed and wet towels on the uneven floorboards of the bathroom. I wouldn’t have changed it for the world.
Cupcake Couture Page 36
