He seems both apologetic and frustrated. “I figured we could split it. I’m too hungover for anything but a cab home. Or possibly still drunk. I’m not actually sure. And since we’re going in the same direction, I thought I’d be gentlemanly and share the cab. I figure it’s the least I can do, since I get to go home and die while you have to go and be a productive member of society.”
I stop stuffing things in my purse and give him a once-over. He looks adorably horrible. His hair is smooshed at odd angles, his eyes are barely open and the sleeve of his shirt has a lovely stain from the first bottle of wine. His tie is loose and hanging all askew.
And if his head is pounding a beat anywhere near as viciously as mine, he deserves a medal for staying upright.
“Yeah, you’re right. It’s the least you can do.” I give him a wink, pick up my bag and head for the door.
He grabs his jacket off the chair and follows me. Just as I’m locking up, the cab pulls up to the curb. Stepping out from the cover of the awning and into the sunlight might be the most painful thing I’ve ever experienced. A wounded squeak escapes me, and a groaning hiss leaves Ben.
We climb into the car. I give the driver the address and collapse into the seat, closing my eyes tight against the brutal rays of the morning sun.
“I will say,” I offer up as we pull away from the curb, “as terrible as I feel—and make no mistake, I might possibly be dying—there’s some comfort in you going down with me, Cleary. Misery loving company, and all that.”
“I’ll be sure to feel extra guilty when I go home and go right back to sleep. Because I’m gonna. All damn day. I’m thirty-two. I’m too old to get that smashed.” We ride in mutually nauseated silence for most of the trip, but as we hit the inner part of the city, he blinks against the hateful sun and looks at me. “How late do you have to work today?”
My expression turns into a reflexive sad face. “Six.”
“That’s cruel.” He shakes his head. “Just unfair.”
We pull up to the shop. “I brought this on myself.” I sigh. “Go. Sleep for those of us who cannot.”
“I’ll willingly make this sacrifice.”
I open the door and step out. “And uh, thanks for the, well, hideous drunken awkwardness that was last night?”
He smiles, then winces, pressing his palm to his forehead. “Anytime, Kat.”
I shut the door, flinching when the loud sound ricochets through what I assume are the now hollow places in my head where my brain used to be. I turn and run for the shop. Normally I come in through the back entrance reserved for employees, but today is special and I’m late as hell, so it’s a matter of getting in the damn door as quickly as possible.
We’re still in the middle of our morning rush, and there are dozens of customers lined up for coffee and pastries. Shannon, Butter and Liz all give gasps and looks of shock when they see my appearance, but thankfully they are too busy dealing with the crowd to stop and demand an explanation.
I race past them into the back room, stow my bag on the desk, grab my apron, throw it on, wash my hands at warp speed and head out front.
I’m going to fake it until I make it. If I can survive the rush without vomiting on a customer, I am going to treat myself later by crawling inside a cup of coffee and drowning.
Saturdays are always surprisingly busy, with people coming and going from the moment we open until right after the usual breakfast hours. Not that I’m a particularly lazy person, but I can’t imagine getting up at dawn on a Saturday unless I was required to by job or law.
We keep our shop closed on Sundays to give the staff one promised day off a week, and I’m always grateful for it. Sundays are for Zen time, I don’t care who you are. You don’t get up at dawn on Sunday. It’s unnatural. If I had to be up serving people cupcakes with the sun on a Sunday, I don’t think I’d have very good customer service skills to go with them.
See? This is good. By ignoring the pounding in my head, the horrible gurgling in my stomach and the weird furry sensation on my teeth, and focusing on making sure each person I talk to has a pleasant experience, I am almost certain I’m not going to fall over dead or anything. This is good.
“Are you okay?” Shannon hisses in my ear as she reaches around me for a chocolate fudge with strawberry compote.
“Mistakes were made,” I whisper back. “Too much wine.”
“You look like death,” Butter says as she walks by. “Literal death.”
I shake my head. “Thank you, Butter. You mean figurative, but thanks. That’s super helpful.”
Butter shrugs and hands a bag of muffins across the display case to a customer with a smile.
Liz pops up beside me and starts filling the coffee machine with fresh grounds. She asks in a barely audible voice, “So, did you...you know? With Ben? Did it work?”
Shannon and Butter are both with customers, but I can see them both listening, as well.
I huff. “Guys, we can talk about that later, okay? Maybe when there aren’t twenty customers waiting for our attention?”
Liz puts her head down and stares at the coffee machine with way too much focus as she fills it, Shannon raises an eyebrow at me, and Butter puts a hand on her hip.
“I can help the next customer,” I say with more cheer than I thought was physically possible in my current state.
A woman I know I’ve seen in here before comes up looking annoyed. This can’t be good.
“I’d like to speak to a manager,” she says tersely.
“How can I help you?” I ask, taking in a soothing breath.
The woman straightens up and stares me down. She looks very polished, very prim. Her hair is smooth and shiny and pulled back in a low ponytail. Her clothing is pressed and perfectly tailored. She is a sharp contrast to my unbrushed hair and teeth and 30-proof breath, and I’m pretty sure she knows it, too.
“Last week I ordered two hundred cupcakes for my son’s fifth birthday, and I found them to be unsatisfactory. I would like a refund, please.”
She slaps her receipt down on the counter in front of me, and I pick it up.
“Oh, I remember this order. I actually made these cupcakes. What was the problem?”
“When I placed the order, I specifically requested that each cupcake needed to have at least one hundred sprinkles, and I’m not convinced they all did. At the party yesterday, while the cupcakes where on the table, I saw that some of the cupcakes had more sprinkles than the others, and it looked horribly uneven.” She pulls her phone out, and I can’t help but note the Burberry case on it as she opens the screen to a photo of a child’s birthday party. Sure enough, there are the two hundred cupcakes I’d spent a good chunk of Thursday making, looking perfectly sprinkly. “I took two of the cupcakes, and I counted. One had eighty-seven sprinkles, and the other had one hundred forty-three.” She swipes her phone, and there is a picture of a napkin with two piles of sprinkles. My jaw flops open. “This is unacceptable. When I placed the order with her—” she points to Shannon “—I was assured this would be handled. It ruined the ambience of the entire party, and I would like a refund for my order.”
I stare at her. I just stare. I can’t even blink. I feel everyone within earshot staring, as well. I look down at her receipt. I look over at Shannon, who is trying to bag a scone up for someone else while the wheels are spinning in her head. Butter is pouring a coffee beside me and stiffening up. Liz is at the register and shrinking down to appear as invisible as possible.
“Are...are you serious?” I finally say. “You want a full refund on an entire cupcake order, which I am assuming was eaten, because of a two-cupcake quality control sprinkle test? In real life, you want that to happen?”
The woman bristles. “Yes! What kind of customer service is this? I made a very specific order request, and it wasn’t met! My son’s birthday was ruined!”
My mouth drops open again, and I can feel a torrent of profanity building on my tongue. I look back to Shannon, who is either having a stroke or blinking out a message in Morse code. The other customers, most of whom are regulars, are watching with a dedicated rubbernecking fascination.
I know what I want to say, and there is a poetic combination of swear words heard only within the confines of a lumberjack convention within that speech. And I would, too. Fuck this woman. But in my head are the potential online reviews that would hit just as we are set to present to the Coopertown Ravens, and I picture Shannon’s tots as they see their dreams of hugging Mickey Mouse whisked away. Butter resigning herself to Skyping with her Noni. Liz spending her honeymoon at the motel off Route 15 instead of somewhere tropical or Parisian.
But really, though, fuck this lady.
“Ma’am,” I say quietly. I take in another deep, calming breath, swallowing down any four-letter words with it. “I apologize for any inconvenience my inadequate sprinkle-counting skills may have caused on your son’s special day. However, you did examine the order with our other manager when you picked them up—I was there for said inspection—and at that time, you gave your approval for the cupcakes and the number of sprinkles contained upon said cupcakes, and because you did, in fact, use all the cupcakes for their intended purpose, I’m afraid I am unable to refund your entire order.”
“This is ridiculous!” the woman shrieks. The sound feels like barbed wire in my ears. “Do you know who you’re talking to?”
“No.” I stop her, holding up a finger. “No, I don’t, nor do I care. And what’s ridiculous is you expecting me to refund you literally hundreds of dollars for a product you used. What’s ridiculous is that I’m standing here with a raging hangover, and somehow that’s less painful than the idea of you sitting at your son’s birthday party counting out sprinkles on cupcakes. Because I’m sorry, lady, that’s freaking weird.
“But I respect that this was important to you. And I’m sorry you were unhappy with your experience. Although mostly, I’m hoping to end this so I can go find some aspirin and silence. So how about we jump away from the absurd notion that a small business is going to essentially pay for your kid’s party because you think the customer should always be right, and I offer to refund twenty-five percent of the costs for the sprinkle suffering we have caused? Deal?”
The front room of the shop has gone completely silent. The woman glares at me. “This is appalling customer service, and this is not the last you’ll hear from me. I’ll not be shopping here again.”
“That’s fine,” I say with a shrug. “Try The Cakery. They seem more your type.”
18
“Has she posted a nasty review yet?” I ask again as I stack up clean mixing bowls.
Shannon rolls her eyes. “Will you stop asking? Who cares? That woman was horrible.”
“And if she does,” Butter says, rinsing off her piping tips, “I’ll just go in and post what really happened. The damn troll.”
Liz shrugs as she closes the storage door after putting away the fancy wedding cake she’s currently decorating. “I think you handled that really well. I would have cried.”
“I would have punched her,” Shannon mutters.
Butter ponders this for a moment. “I think I would have done both.”
“I believe you,” I say and rub my forehead. “I just don’t want us having any bad press right now. Ugh, that awful woman. Her ‘this isn’t the last you’ll hear from me’ crap. You know she’s just sitting somewhere counting the sprinkles in those photos as she polishes a three thousand–word Yelp review.”
Butter waves her hand, dismissing the wench. “She was just trying to get a free meal. Forget her. Let’s talk about you.”
I drop my head. “Let’s not.”
Shannon wheels around in the chair at the desk where she’s been tallying up the day’s invoices. “No, let’s. You’ve been stalling all day. You show up late for work looking like you got hit by a vodka truck, and that’s after a massive breakdown yesterday saying you were going to give Mr. Cleary the special tour. Spill, woman.”
I drop onto the stool by my station and want to cry, I’m so tired. “For starters, it wasn’t vodka, it was wine. A hell of a lot of wine. And there was no special tour, thanks to excessive wine. That’s it, really. It was the most awkward, embarrassing encounter that has ever happened—we drank three bottles of wine in about fifteen minutes and got pass-out drunk. Woke up on the couch when you called. All in all, a tremendous and humiliating failure.”
“So, no sex?” Butter asks sadly.
I shake my head. “Alas. I’m starting to think it’s not meant to be. I’m never going to have sex. And if I’m making a list, I don’t think drinking is in my future, either. And spas. I don’t think I’ll be frequenting spas anytime soon.”
Butter comes over to me, a pot of edible glitter in her hand, and calmly dumps some on my head.
“Butter. What...just what the fuck?”
She tilts her head, stares at me for a second and gives her shoulders a quick shrug. “I don’t know. You looked like you needed it.”
“I looked like I needed you to dump sugar on me?”
Shannon chokes on giggles over at the desk, and Liz is staring with her mouth open. Butter is unrepentant. “Think of me as your Glitter Godmother. It’s like a fairy godmother, but more sparkly. You’re looking pretty dreary today. I thought you needed the shine.”
I shake my hair and watch as the glitter comes cascading down. “This is what my life has been reduced to. I’m so without hope that people resort to throwing garnishes at me.”
“You do look a little more optimistic with the sparkles,” Liz offers.
I nod. “I’ll keep this in mind for emergencies.”
“So, what happened with Ben? Are you guys okay?” Shannon asks, staring at the glitter pile on the floor at my feet.
“I think so? He was pretty destroyed this morning, so he went home to sleep. The lucky bastard.” My phone buzzes in my apron pocket, and I reach for it, desperate for this conversation to be over.
“When are you going to see him again? I mean, it sounds like you guys have a lot to talk about.”
My eyes go wider than they’ve been capable of being all day, and I make a little strangling sound. “Um. Apparently, right now.” I read the text I just received out loud. “As promised, I’m not entering, but I do happen to be on the sidewalk if you have a moment. Crap.”
“Why crap?” Liz asks.
Shannon pokes her head out the door and makes a squealing noise. “I see him. Can I let him in?”
I sigh. “Crap because I just spent the day sweating and oozing out pinot and not showering. But yeah, you can let him in.” Shannon flees to the front room, and I hear her unlocking the door.
“On the plus side, you’re very glittery now,” Butter points out. “So, that’s a big improvement.”
“True.”
A moment later, Shannon comes awkward-dancing back into the kitchen alone, and we all stare at the door, waiting for him to appear. “You can come back here,” she calls to Ben.
His head sort of floats into view. “Are you sure? I don’t want to intrude.”
“It’s really fine,” I say, and wave him in. “Welcome to where the cupcake magic happens. And not that I’m unhappy to give you this very detailed tour, but what are you doing here?”
He hands me a giant to-go cup from one of the fancy coffee shops over on Bleeker. It smells so good, I could weep. “I felt bad that I got to spend the day nursing myself back to functionality, so I thought I’d bring you this and check to see if you lived.”
“See, now, that’s just considerate,” Butter says with a giant smile. Ben flushes a bit, but returns the grin.
“Thank you,” I say, taking it
from him. “How’re you feeling, by the way?”
“Better. You?”
“Worse.”
He tries not to laugh, but I see it dancing in his eyes. “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize you had to work today. I really do feel bad. Can I make it up to you?”
“You’re forgiven, really,” I say, holding up the coffee as evidence.
“Actually,” Shannon says, stepping forward, “you barely had time to eat today. And nothing fixes a hangover like something greasy and delicious, right?”
“Is that a thing?” I ask. “I don’t think that’s a thing.”
Shannon elbows Butter in the ribs. “Oh, yeah. It’s a thing. Yep. Food. You should go have food. Together.”
“We can finish clearing up!” Liz trills in a bizarre, strangled voice.
“You guys suck,” I say, taking a drink of my coffee. “And you’re not even kind of subtle.” Ben snorts and looks down at his feet. “I don’t know what you’re laughing at,” I say. “You should be terrified standing in here. You know what we talk about in this room, man.”
His head pops up, and he looks from woman to woman. The panic hits their faces, as well. Liz squeaks and hides her face behind a mixer. Butter starts whistling, and Shannon tries to smooth out her apron.
I smile. “Okay, that was fun.” I wink at Shannon. “All right, I’ll see you ladies Monday.” Walking over to the desk, I grab my bag and make my way past Ben through the door to the front room. I look back at him. “Are you coming?”
He looks around. “Am I?” I stare at him. “I am.” He turns back to the kitchen. “Um, it was nice to see you ladies. Thanks for the shop tour.”
I head to the door and hear him close behind me. The gals all call good-nights behind us.
“Exactly how much do you enjoy watching me squirm?” he asks with a hint of a grin. “Just so I can know for reference. Is it a lot, or more of a casual, occasional thing?”
“I’d like to say casual,” I say and take a drink. “But it’s just so easy to do, and hard to reel it in sometimes.”
The Awkward Path to Getting Lucky Page 12