by Fiona Grace
“I’m going to need to make up a new batch soon,” Ali continued. “If you could get all the ingredients measured for me that would be really helpful.”
“No problem,” Piper said.
She hurried off to the kitchen to prepare Ali’s ingredients for her.
A man stepped up to the counter, wearing a crisp gray business suit, with slicked back hair. He was far from the usual clientele Ali’s store attracted. He looked more like the sort of people Hannah associated with than Ali.
“Morning,” he said. His cell phone started to ring. “Twelve, please.” He answered the call and started talking rapidly into his phone in a foreign language.
“Twelve macarons, coming right up,” Ali said, taking it upon herself to make a selection of ten random flavors. She boxed them up and put them on the counter for the man.
He glanced from his phone call to the two boxes Ali had placed on the counter for him. He frowned and covered the mouthpiece on his cell with his hands. “Twelves boxes,” he said, before removing his hand and continuing his telephone conversation in a different language.
“Twelve bo—boxes?” Ali stammered to herself. Did he really mean that? Surely he was confused! But he was too busy to ask for clarification, so Ali filled twelve boxes—the last of the macarons—and placed them on the counter.
The man ended his call and strode over. “Great,” he said. “It’s my turn to bring the cakes to the office. Do you sell totes?”
Flabbergasted, Ali nodded slowly. The branded totes had been Delaney’s idea, since they were environmentally friendly and easy to upscale using the simple printing press machine she had at her store. Ali hadn’t actually sold any of them yet; she’d had no real need to.
“They’re ten dollars each,” she said.
“Okay,” he replied, with a nonchalant shrug.
“And they hold four boxes each. So you’ll need three.”
The man flung two crisp hundred-dollar-bills onto the counter. “Sure.”
Ali blinked with astonishment, and hurried to bag the boxes up. She could hardly believe it. She’d never made one hundred and fifty dollars in a single sale before!
She took the notes and tapped the sale into the till. As she turned to give the man his fifty-dollar change, she realized he was already halfway across the bakery with his goods, his cell phone wedged between his ear and shoulder, talking loudly in yet another foreign language.
“Your change!” Ali cried.
He glanced back over his shoulder. “Keep it,” he said, and with that, he left.
Ali couldn’t quite believe what had just happened. A fifty-dollar tip. A one-hundred-and-fifty-dollar sale. It was beyond her wildest expectations.
Piper suddenly appeared beside her, making her jump.
“Everything’s measured and laid out for you. The oven’s preheated. The butter is out of the fridge and not microwaved into a puddle.” She flashed her a smile.
“Perfect timing,” Ali said. “I just sold the last of the batch.”
“How long should I tell people until the next batch is ready?” Piper asked.
“Thirty minutes,” Ali said, impressed she’d taken the initiative to preempt the question.
“And should I suggest they have a coffee while they wait?” Piper added.
Ali felt a swell of pride. “That is an excellent idea,” she said.
Finally Piper was getting the hang of things, Ali thought as she hurried to the kitchen to make the next batch of macarons.
Piper had neatly measured and laid out all the ingredients on the preparation table; the sieved almond flour and sugar; the separated egg whites, the room temperature butter. Ali was so glad she hadn’t listened to Delaney or Teddy now. She’d never have been able to get a second batch of macarons made up so quickly without her help.
Ali got to work, quickly baking a brand new batch and carrying them out to the bakery floor. A handful of people were sitting at the tables with coffees, clearly waiting for the batch to be done, while a bunch more had left and were now returning.
The first to the front of the queue was an older-looking man, with white hair and wrinkles. “I hope these are as nice as your coffee,” he said, as she sold him a plate of three colorful macarons.
“I’m sure you won’t be disappointed,” Ali replied with a grin.
The man returned to the window seat to enjoy his macarons with his coffee. But far from looking delighted by them, the man’s face contorted with disgust.
“This is disgusting!” he cried, loudly.
All the customers inside the bakery turned to him with shock.
Ali floundered. “What? What do you mean?”
“It tastes like salt!” the man shouted.
Ali looked over at Piper, her eyes wide. The blood drained from Piper’s face.
“I—I think I made a mistake with the ingredients,” Piper said.
Ali sighed heavily. The whole batch was ruined. And with a crowd of people gathering outside, it would be left to Ali to break the news to everyone.
She braced herself. This was not going to be pretty.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Ali headed outside to where a large crowd of people were waiting.
“I’m very sorry, but the next batch of macarons won’t be ready for another forty-five minutes,” she announced.
The waiting crowd did not hide their disappointment. They groaned loudly and folded their arms, frowning with frustration.
“We do sell other pastries,” Ali tried. “And whole bean organic coffee.”
It didn’t work. Everyone was there for macarons. Ali was worried she might have a mutiny on her hands.
Just then, Emilio came over from his pizzeria. “How about you come and try my brand new meat feast pizza while you’re waiting!” he announced. “Ten percent back off your final bill for anyone who can show a receipt proving they purchased a macaron for dessert!”
That seemed to catch people’s attention. They started wandering over to Emilio’s, taking the seats in his large outside patio area.
Marco, not to be outdone, blustered forward. “It’s twenty percent back if you come here! Plus, we put fifty percent more meat on our meat feast pizzas!”
A bunch more people in the crowd headed over toward his store.
Spotting that a few of the patrons who’d already sat down were now standing and heading toward Marco’s, Emilio glowered at him.
“Actually, we’ve recently added spicy chorizo to our meat feast pizza!” he announced. “Which means you get far more variety over here!”
Ali knew where this was going. Before long, one of them would be selling an entire rotisserie chicken on top of their pizza.
Still, their competitive plot worked. Her disgruntled prospective customers began to fill up the two pizzerias’ seats.
Ali nodded her gratitude to the Italian twins for helping her out of a sticky situation.
She headed back into the bakery to discover Piper being shouted at by the angry customer who’d eaten the salty macaron. The poor girl was weeping mercilessly.
“Hey!” Ali shouted, marching up to him. “Can you please calm down?”
The man turned his fury on her. “You could’ve killed me. I have dangerously high blood pressure, and too much salt could trigger a cardiac arrest.”
Ali gulped. That was actually terrifying. She’d thought of Piper as klutzy before. It hadn’t occurred to her that she might actually cause serious harm to someone. Still, that was no excuse for this man to scream at her and berate her. And besides, the buck still stopped with Ali. She was the owner. She should’ve done a taste test.
“I’m extremely sorry,” Ali said. “I’ll get you a refund right away. Is there anything else I can do to make up for it?”
“You could fire her,” the man grumbled.
Piper wailed and buried her face in her apron as she ran off into the kitchen.
“I take full responsibility,” Ali told the man. “I’m the boss. The buck sto
ps with me.”
“Then fire yourself,” the man barked.
Ali turned on her heel, grinding her teeth with frustration as she marched over to the till to fetch the man’s refund. This really was the last thing she could handle right now. The morning had gone so well, but now it seemed to have fallen spectacularly apart. With her anxiety over Nate and the horrible telephone call with Hannah percolating in her brain, it was taking all her strength not to blow her lid at this rude customer hell bent on giving her grief.
She fetched the money and returned it to the man, along with a gift voucher for a future purchase.
He took one look at the voucher and scoffed. “As if I’d ever come back here!”
Then he marched away.
Ali flopped forward onto her arms. But then she remembered poor Piper crying in the kitchen, and hurried to comfort her.
“Piper?” she called as she entered the kitchen. “Are you okay?” She looked around. Piper was nowhere to be seen. “Piper?”
Just then, the store cupboard door opened a crack and Piper emerged. Her eyes were red and swollen. In her arms was a bag of sugar. “This was what I was supposed to use, wasn’t it?” she said, morosely.
Ali nodded. “Yeah. But it’s okay. Don’t beat yourself up. All the customers are eating pizza, so Marco and Emilio are thrilled, and we have plenty of time to make up the fresh batch.”
Piper snuffled loudly. “But that man said I could have killed him.”
“Could’ve but didn’t,” Ali said. “No actual harm was done to anyone.”
“Aren’t you mad I wasted all those ingredients?” Piper asked in a meek voice.
Though the macarons did take some expensive, fancy ingredients for all the various flavors, Ali simply shook her head. With the amount of profit they’d turned that morning, she’d be callous to rake Piper over the coals for wasting ingredients. Just as long as they could make the next batch up quickly and get back to selling, then the salty batch would fade into insignificance.
“Let’s put it behind us,” Ali said softly. “And make up the next batch together.”
Piper smiled gratefully, and the two women got to work on a new batch of macarons.
Just then, Ali’s phone began to ring. She checked the screen and saw Delaney calling. It wasn’t usual for her friend to call in the middle of the workday, especially since they saw each other every morning anyway. She couldn’t help but worry.
“Piper, I need to take this,” Ali said as she cleaned the muck from her hands. “Have you got everything covered?”
The bulk of the mixing had been done. It was just a few flavorings left to add, and Ali was certain she could handle it.
Piper nodded. “I’ve got it.”
Satisfied, Ali paced away and answered the call. “Delaney? Is everything okay?”
“I thought I should give you a heads-up,” her friend’s voice came in her ear. “He’s here.”
“Who’s here?” Ali asked, frowning.
From where she was pulsing flavorings into the almonds and sugar, Piper’s head suddenly darted up. Her eyes widened with anticipation.
On the other end of the line, Delaney announced, “Brandon Lennox! The YouTuber! He’s heading down the boardwalk now! He just went past Bookworms.”
“Bookworms? Already?” Ali exclaimed. “He’s so close! I have to go!”
She ended the call.
“Is it him?” Piper squealed. “Is it Brandon Lennox?”
“Yes,” Ali said, starting to feel panicked. “And he’s heading this way.”
Piper immediately overcame her earlier weeping fit. She brushed the tears from her cheeks and straightened herself up. “How do I look? Do I look like I’ve been crying?”
“No…” Ali said, though her eyes were still bloodshot.
“Do I look hot?” Piper asked, turning on the spot.
“Sure,” Ali replied.
“How hot? Like totally hot?”
Ali had had enough of the pointless interrogation. “Come on. Let’s get these macarons in the oven and go and see if we can see him.”
They quickly finished, then hurried across the bakery to the door, peering out like two meerkats. Suddenly, Piper grabbed Ali’s hand with a viselike grip.
“Oh my god, I can see him, I can totally see him!” she squealed.
Ali squinted into the distance. Sure enough, there was a rabble a little farther up the boardwalk. There appeared to be a group of giggling teenage girls all huddled at the window of a store. Then, suddenly, someone was propelled out the door of the store and into the hordes of onlookers. Baggy jeans. Backwards baseball cap. It was Brandon Lennox.
Ali craned her head, trying to see which store it was that Brandon had been forcibly propelled from, but it was impossible to see through the hordes. They were like zombies, grabbing and clawing at Brandon. And the whole time, a skinny guy holding a small handheld camera filmed the commotion.
Ali drew back from the window, a feeling of dread overcoming her. She really did not want him coming to her store, if whatever he’d just done was enough to cause the vendor to throw him out!
She could only pray that he wasn’t interested in visiting a cute bakery with a pink cartoon mascot on its sign.
“I think he’s coming this way!” Piper suddenly squealed.
Her stomach dropping, Ali looked back out the window. Brandon was pointing in her direction, not at the bakery, but at the two large salami statues outside the pizzerias. Of course the silly statues would catch his attention!
“Oh no!” Ali groaned, as he came bounding in their direction, cameraman and entourage in tow.
“Okay, he’s coming this way,” Piper said, readjusting her bra and pushing her shoulders back. “Act cool.” She flung open the door.
“Piper, don’t!” Ali exclaimed. “I don’t want him coming here!”
If two sausage statues could lure the foolish man over, then what would happen when he saw Piper standing there looking all blonde and ravishing? He was basically a grown-man version of the skater dudes who flocked around Piper like moths to a flame.
Either Piper didn’t hear her, or she didn’t care, because she continued with her prostrating.
Brandon reached the first statue and began pretending to pole dance with it. He then twerked on it. His whole group was in absolute stitches. Ali grimaced.
Then Brandon Lennox’s gaze found Piper and his eyes went as round as dinner plates.
“Great,” Ali muttered. She was doomed.
Her stomach knotted. This was literally the last thing she needed today.
Brandon and his cameraman beelined for the bakery, or, more accurately, the hot babe dangling herself out of the bakery’s door. Ali couldn’t help but imagine how this footage would be later portrayed. There’d be a whole load of comical noises added to it, and she cringed inwardly at the thought.
Brandon pulled a huge wad of blue-black gum and stuck it right onto Mr. Macaron’s face, then slicked back his hair and came swaggering up to Piper. Ali grimaced at the sight of his disgusting gum glistening on poor Mr. Macaron.
“Hey, gorgeous,” Brandon said, sidling up to Piper. “I was wondering if I could get a little taste…of your macarons?”
Everyone fell about laughing. Everyone but Ali. Brandon’s comment had confirmed to her that this was definitely going to be as bad as she’d anticipated.
CHAPTER NINE
Forcing a smile onto her face, Ali carried the tray of macarons from the kitchen and across the bakery floor, to where Brandon Lennox, the popular YouTuber, was sitting, legs splayed, on the window seat. She knew she should be serving this batch to all the customers waiting outside, but she also knew from her time working in LA that the only way to get rid of a jerk like Brandon Lennox was to let them cut the queue.
Brandon was busy flirting with Piper. At least, Ali assumed him doing animal impressions was some form of flirting.
He was busy bleating like a goat when Ali reached the table, feeling unc
omfortable under the scrutinizing glare of the camera turned on her.
“Your macarons,” she announced, placing the tray of rainbow-colored desserts in front of him.
In person, Brandon Lennox wasn’t much to look at. He must have a good editor, because Ali hadn’t spotted the sheen of sweat on his forehead in his video, nor the pasty, grayish color of his skin. To Ali, he looked unhealthy. Which didn’t surprise her, considering he made a living from stuffing his face with spicy chicken wings until he barfed. That sort of constant abuse of your body would surely take its toll eventually. They must color-correct him during the editing process.
“These look nice,” Brandon said.
For a second, Ali was taken aback that he’d actually complimented her.
That was, until he looked up and loudly said, “NOT!”
She rolled her eyes. Brandon really was working at kindergarten-level humor. She was so relieved all her customers were too busy eating pizzas piled with ludicrous amounts of meat to pay any attention to what was happening inside the bakery. She was squirming enough as it was.
“You should’ve seen how many people I pissed off today,” he said loudly to Piper. “I thought the guy from the donut kiosk was going to punch me!”
The cameraman laughed. “Yeah, you totally licked like ten of his donuts before he noticed!”
Piper giggled, though she was looking into the camera for her moment in the limelight.
Ali felt like she was suddenly surrounded by lunatics.
“Is that what you’re planning on doing with my macarons, then?” she asked. “Lick them? Or do you have a more inventive idea?”
Brandon looked at his cameraman. “Cut for a second,” he said.
The camera man lowered his camera, and the mood suddenly sobered. Ali narrowed her eyes with skepticism.
“Look,” Brandon said to Ali, in a normal voice. “I know my videos might look dumb, but a huge amount of planning and creativity goes into them. I’m a real person, doing a real job, and I don’t deserve to be insulted by you implying my ideas are uninventive.”
Ali blinked with complete astonishment. She wasn’t expecting Brandon to know so many big words, or be able to string such a comprehensive sentence together.
