The Next Forever

by Alix Kelso

  “We got it!” he yelled.

  Alison’s eyes flew wide. “We got it? We got the house?”

  “We got it!”

  Alison whooped in delight, and Chrissie and Irene laughed as Gregor grabbed his girlfriend and his little daughter into a huge hug, prompting excited squeals from Poppy.

  “We’ve got our own place!” Gregor released them both and threw his arms out in triumph…

  …and knocked The Crooked Thistle wedding cake off the counter and on to the floor, where it landed with a dull, terrible splat.

  Stunned silence descended. Chrissie stared in disbelief at the mound of broken sponge and ripped royal icing and shattered sugar roses that lay spilled all over the floor.

  “Oh, no!” Gregor whispered. “Chrissie, I’m so sorry.”

  But Chrissie barely heard him over the buzzing sound that had begun filling her ears as panic threatened to seize her.

  “Oh my God, Gregor!” Alison wailed. “What the hell’s the matter with you? Look at this!” She pointed to the destroyed cake and Poppy began crying.

  “There’s no point shouting and screaming,” Irene waded in. “You’re just upsetting Poppy.”

  “It’s Gregor’s fault she’s upset!” Alison cried.

  “Enough!” Chrissie yelled over the racket. Everyone fell quiet, even poor little Poppy, and Chrissie drew in a breath. “Gregor, I could rip you limb from limb for what you just did, but I don’t have that kind of time.” She glanced again at the mess on the floor and then at the clock.

  “What shall we do?” Irene said, her calm voice giving Chrissie encouragement. There was a solution here, somewhere. There had to be.

  “A bride will be turning up at her wedding reception in less than two hours,” Chrissie said, “and I won’t let her down by failing to provide the wedding cake she not only deserves, but that was ordered and paid for in good faith.” She took one final look at the mess on the floor before pointing to the wedding competition cake that stood on the other counter. “We’ll give her this cake instead.”

  Alison and Irene gasped in unison. “But what about the competition?” Alison cried.

  “That doesn’t matter,” Chrissie said. “I won’t disappoint that young bride.” She glanced around the kitchen and spied the iced sponge that still awaited the football-themed decorations she had designed. “I can repurpose that cake and take it to the competition instead. I’ve got a little time to whip something together, and I can bake another sponge for the customer later on.”

  “Wait!” Alison said. “Can’t you take that cake to The Crooked Thistle and keep this cake for the competition?”

  But Chrissie shook her head. “The bride wanted a heart-shaped cake, and I’m not about to disappoint her by giving her a plain round one. I only hope she won’t mind having this four-tiered spectacle instead.”

  “But Mum—”

  “Your mother’s right,” Irene said, laying a hand on Alison’s arm. “She can’t disappoint a bride, not on her wedding day.”

  Chrissie saw understanding finally dawn on Alison’s face as the pieces clicked together, and she gave her daughter a kind smile.

  “I can enter a cake competition any time I want,” Chrissie told her. “A bride only gets one chance to make her wedding day perfect. And I won’t risk the reputation of my business by letting down a customer on what should be the loveliest day of her life.”

  Alison nodded. “Okay, I understand. What can we do to help?”

  Chrissie smiled to see her daughter and her mother and even a sheepish-looking Gregor waiting for her instructions. “First, we box this cake, take it to the pub and assemble it. Then, I’ll rush back here, decorate this birthday cake as best I can – thank God it’s got white icing and not coloured – and then take it over to the competition.”

  Irene stepped forward. “Chrissie, I’m the one who talked you into this wedding competition. But given what’s just happened, if you don’t want to go ahead with it, I completely understand, and—”

  “No, I want to do it,” Chrissie said and shrugged. “I’ve come this far. I’ve got a cake I can use so I might as well use it. It won’t win, there’s no chance it can win, but… well, let’s see what happens.”

  Irene smiled. “That’s my girl. Never give up.”

  Gregor stepped forward. “What can I do to help?”

  Before Chrissie could say anything, Alison handed him Poppy. “You can take Poppy home and we’ll see you later.”

  Gregor lifted Poppy into his arms and blushed. “I’m really sorry,” he said, Poppy waving over his shoulder as they left.

  “I don’t know how you’ll put up with that menace of a boy once you’re living with him by yourself again,” Irene said as she grabbed a stack of cloths and began scooping the spilled wedding cake into the bin.

  “I don’t know either,” Alison said and laughed softly as she rested her hand on her belly.

  Chrissie turned to the beautiful four tiers of wedding cake and began settling them inside their boxes for the short journey over to the pub.

  “Mum?” Alison said. “Can we get this done in time?”

  “Of course we can,” Chrissie said. “We don’t have any choice.”

  33

  Big Kev had said it would be a small wedding, and Keith now saw he’d meant it. There were only twenty guests gathered, spread between the bride and groom. Not that either of them appeared to have noticed their guests so far. Since the ceremony had begun, Big Kev’s gaze had been fixed on his bride and hers had been fixed on him.

  Keith was touched, and a little amused, by just how much the two of them seemed to adore one another.

  “…marriage is a wonderful commitment,” the minister was saying, “a decision between two people to make a life together that would be better and richer than one spent apart…”

  A wedding ceremony was indeed a beautiful thing, Keith thought. His own had been beautiful, all three of them, each in its own way. The first wedding he’d assumed would be the only one, the two that had followed he’d assumed would be the last. But life, he now knew, was a strange, unpredictable thing, and what you hoped for wasn’t always what you got.

  “…when we find love, and when we are graced by love, we must open our hearts to it, always…”

  Keith had told Janice that he was done with romance and that those days were now behind him. She hadn’t believed him, but somehow Keith knew that it was true. Three weddings, three marriages, three divorces. That was enough for any man. He’d always wanted a companion, had wanted someone to share his life with, and had searched for love for so long, only to be thwarted and disappointed time and time again. He’d assumed that his next forever was out there somewhere, waiting for him to find her. Now he wondered if maybe that had been his problem all along.

  “…a bride and groom come together to make a life-long commitment, promising to be together always, promising to be together forever…”

  Keith found himself thinking about the time he’d spent with Chrissie and that one night they’d been together. A gentle peace had settled over him the moment she’d got into the car for the drive north. And Chrissie had seemed to like him. After all, she’d come to his room that night, hadn’t she? She’d sought him out. That had been a beautiful night, one that Keith would never forget.

  But still, she’d run from him.

  She’d run because she thought he wanted more than she was willing to give. Now he saw what Chrissie must have seen that night – a thrice-divorced man, perpetually unlucky in love, asking her to throw caution to the wind and embark on endless travelling adventures with him. No wonder her alarms bells had been ringing. She’d lived her life alone, by choice, and now here was a man jumping all over her and demanding she share her time with him.

  How could he have been so stupid? No surprise that she’d used her family emergency to jettison him before he suggested any more hare-brained ideas.

  “…the most precious thing about a wedding ceremony is t
hat we get the chance to see two people who are in love and who are making a commitment to each other, and in seeing that, we can reflect on our own lives and the people who are most important to us…”

  Chrissie was important to him, Keith knew. He didn’t have to travel anywhere with her. He didn’t have to visit some secluded picturesque beach with her. Hadn’t they been perfectly happy sitting together on that bench in the park beneath the cherry blossoms? Maybe that was enough for both of them. No talk of the future, no talk of relationships, no talk of travelling somewhere, no talk of any big plans that might lie ahead – just the two of them, on that bench, enjoying the moment in which they found themselves. Could that be enough?

  Keith knew it could be enough – more than enough.

  “…and now we come to the exchange of rings…”

  Big Kev turned, grinning, and Keith reached into his pocket for the wedding rings. As he watched his young friend slip the gold band on to his bride’s finger, Keith thought about Chrissie and whether they might still have a chance at something wonderful.

  34

  Chrissie arrived at the wedding fair venue with hardly a moment to spare. Breathless from the awkward rush from the car, running with the cake box in her arms and trying not to jiggle it around, she showed her paperwork to the attendants at the door and followed their directions to the judging podium at the far side of the exhibition space, Alison and Irene hurrying along behind her.

  The hangar-sized room was filled with every wedding-related item imaginable – dresses, veils, shoes, bouquets, mother-of-the-bride outfits, elaborate hats, hair and beauty products, favours, wine and champagne… Chrissie wished she could stop for a moment to soak it all up. But there simply wasn’t time to do anything other than get herself and her cake to the judging platform.

  With Alison and Irene struggling to keep up, Chrissie finally found a woman with a clipboard who was directing the competition proceedings.

  “You’re very late!” the woman barked as she ticked Chrissie’s name off her clipboard and pointed to a free spot at the long trestle table that was set up on the podium. “The judging begins in five minutes, so you’d better hurry up.”

  Chrissie raced on to the podium, Alison and Irene hot on her heels. She removed the cake from the box and set it up on the cake stand that was already in place on the table and checked that the little sugar flowers she’d managed to cobble together back in her shop kitchen hadn’t been damaged in transit. Alison cleared the cake box out of the way while Irene removed a tiny piece of fluff that had got caught on the cake base. Chrissie adjusted the cake to ensure it was centred.

  And as far as set up was concerned, that was all there was to it. The cake was pretty, but it was also simple – embarrassingly simple now that she could compare it to the other cakes that were waiting to be judged. The sugar roses gave her cake a little flair, but there were so few of them – she’d had time to make only a tiny handful – that she wondered if she ought to have left them off altogether.

  There were around two dozen cakes waiting for the judging to begin, and each and every one of them was spectacular. None had fewer than three tiers, most incorporated extraordinarily intricate sugar work designs, while those competitors who had opted for a simpler look had paid so much attention to detail in the icing and fresh flower finishes that you couldn’t really describe their cakes as simple at all. In contrast, Chrissie’s cake looked as if she hadn’t really tried and as if she didn’t really care. It would taste good, she knew that for certain, but it lacked the visual punch of its competitors.

  Chrissie found herself wishing she hadn’t turned up at this event after all. Since the moment Gregor had destroyed the wedding cake destined for The Crooked Thistle, her main concern had been to avoid letting her business reputation suffer by disappointing a client. Now, she wondered if she’d overlooked the possibility that her business reputation might suffer after all, by her mindlessly turning up at this event and putting a cake on show that would surely fail to impress.

  Chrissie glanced around the wedding fair. People were already gathering to look at the cakes that were on display, and some were even picking up the business cards set alongside many of them. No one had taken any of her own business cards, though. Chrissie couldn’t understand how she’d failed to see the risk she’d run. Amongst these other wedding cakes, her own made her look like a rank amateur.

  “Competitors!” shouted the clipboard woman. “Judging is about to begin. Step back from your cakes.”

  With a sigh, Chrissie stepped down from the podium. While Alison and Irene chattered away, talking about the other competition cakes as the judges made their way along the table, Chrissie could only watch in deepening despair. The judges inspected, sliced, tasted and made notes. They paused for a long while over the most impressive creations – a pale pink three-tier cake covered in iced hearts, and a square white iced cake decorated with bright orange lilies, and were especially taken with a champagne-coloured asymmetrical tiered cake with icing that was exactly the same as that used by Chrissie on her cake.

  Of course, that cake now sat inside The Crooked Thistle. Keith hadn’t even been there to see it when Chrissie had arrived, and the bar staff had informed her that he’d already left for the wedding. Just as well, she’d thought. Given the terrible turn of events, there’d been no time to talk to the man and try to explain things.

  “Mum, that cake looks just like yours!” Alison said, pointing to the champagne-coloured cake on the podium.

  Irene sniffed and elbowed Alison. “Your mother’s was far nicer.”

  “Thanks, Mum,” Chrissie said, smiling.

  “And anyway,” Irene continued, “I think you’re in with a real chance to win this thing.”

  “You’re sweet to say that. But there’s no way I’ll win. My cake is completely out of its league, poor thing.”

  Alison looked unhappy. “I’m really sorry Gregor’s such an idiot and that he destroyed your cake.”

  “Stop saying sorry,” Chrissie said. “There were too many people in the kitchen and I should’ve seen it coming. We are where we are, and…”

  Chrissie fell silent as the judges approached her cake. Her heart began to race. There was no way she was going to win, and yet it felt strangely exhilarating to be here in uncharted territory. The judges peered at her cake and made some notes. They didn’t seem terribly impressed by what they saw, and Chrissie felt her cheeks colour in embarrassment. One of the judges cut into the cake and all three sampled a small piece before making more notes on their pads.

  Then they moved on. The whole thing lasted barely a minute, far less time than the judges had spent on any of the other cakes.

  Chrissie let out a breath she hadn’t even realised she’d been holding. So that was that. The cake had failed.

  But then one of the judges took a step back towards her cake, cut another small piece and popped it into her mouth. She chewed thoughtfully and gave a nod, then picked up one of Chrissie’s business cards and slipped it into her notebook before moving on.

  “Look!” Irene said. “They loved it! At least, that judge loved it. She came back for another helping.”

  “It’s a hit!” Alison cried.

  Chrissie laughed. “One judge liked it enough to want a second bite. That doesn’t mean it’ll win. And it won’t win, not with these other cakes to choose from.”

  Once the judges had completed their circuit around the competing wedding cakes, they huddled together at the side of the podium for a few moments, and then talked to clipboard woman, pointing back at the cakes as they discussed things. Finally, clipboard woman stepped towards a microphone and announced the results in reverse order.

  Third place – a heart-shaped blush-iced chocolate cake.

  Second place – a three-tier ivory-iced orange-blossom cake.

  First place – the champagne-coloured asymmetrical cake covered in the same icing style that Chrissie had used for her own original design.

  �
��They’re mad!” Irene announced when Chrissie’s name failed to be heard as the results were read out.

  “They’re really not,” Chrissie said.

  “That winning cake looked an awful lot like your cake, Mum,” Alison said, once more looking unhappy.

  Chrissie wrapped an arm around her daughter’s waist. “Which makes me relieved I didn’t bring it along. How embarrassing, turning up with a cake that isn’t original.”

  Alison laughed. “Maybe next year you’ll win.”

  “Maybe I will.”

  Clipboard woman hurried the competitors back up on to the podium to remove their cakes from the table – the wedding bouquet competition was scheduled to begin in fifteen minutes and she made it clear she intended to keep to time – and Chrissie quickly repacked her cake into its box. Having only a single tier of cake made the process remarkably easy, she thought with a wry smile as she watched the other competitors trying to disassemble their cakes under the beady eye of the tyrannical clipboard woman.

  Chrissie stepped off the podium and was on her way to join Alison and Irene at the exit when someone grabbed her arm from behind.

  “Are you Chrissie’s Cakes?”

  Chrissie turned to see one of the cake judges, the one who’d gone back for an extra sample of her cake.

  “Yes, I’m Chrissie.”

  The judge smiled apologetically. “So sorry you didn’t win.”

  “Let’s just say I had a bad day at the office and I didn’t expect to win. The cake I brought along was an emergency substitute after the first one had an accident.”

  “Ouch,” the judge said and looked thoughtful. “What happened to it?”

  “My daughter’s boyfriend happened to it.”

  The judge laughed. “Still, I have to say the sponge in your cake was really wonderful.”

  “Thank you, I appreciate that.”

  The judge held out her hand. “Claire Thompson. I run a catering company that does a lot of VIP and corporate events and we’re looking for someone like you, someone who can bake a sponge cake like the one I just tasted. We’re inundated with requests right now for afternoon tea catering and the bakers I’ve worked with aren’t good enough, to be perfectly frank. The cakes they’re providing look nice, but they don’t taste very good, and I need to do better for my clients or they’ll start looking elsewhere. When would be a good time to call and talk?”