A Slice of Disaster

by Jessica Lancaster

  “Does he still do it now?” Bree asked.

  She shrugged. “Paul does what Paul wants,” she grumbled. “Drives me to my doctor’s appointments, but then I have to get the bus back because he’s busy in town at the bookies betting on horses.”

  Bree knew quickly, she’d touched a nerve with Cleo.

  “I’m going to get them valued later,” Bree said. “Sarah said they might have been grandma’s, but I don’t know why he’d keep them under the floorboards at the bakery.”

  Her mother shrugged. “Possibly, but your grandmother was probably buried with what she had,” she said, shaking her head. “At least that’s what I remember anyway.”

  “So, he probably bought these to eventually sell,” Bree said again. “And if I can get something for them, then I think it’ll be good for the business, maybe invest in some new equipment.”

  “And a cruise,” her mother said. “You know, something nice so I can scatter your father’s ashes.”

  “I don’t think he liked the sea,” Bree said, nodding to the mantel above the fireplace where the ashes were in a nice floral urn.

  “Everyone likes the sea,” Cleo said. “A nice beach, the fresh air, fish and chips.”

  “I don’t think they let you take urns on cruise ships anyway,” Bree continued. “So, you’re out of luck.”

  Her mother blew a raspberry in laughter. “It’s fine, most of it’s the wooden casket anyway,” she said, nodding to the urn.

  Bree’s phone buzzed in her pocket and a loud jingle boomed. She quickly stood and walked out into the hallway.

  Elijah. “Hello?” she answered.

  “It’s Elijah.”

  “I know, I have your number.”

  He chuckled. “Ah, I have the name of the place. It’s a small back alley shop. Prince’s Price. It used to be in the city, but looks like they relocated to Cranwell. So, shouldn’t be too far from you.”

  “Great! Thank you. Which street?”

  He hummed. “Mackel Street. 8 Mackel Street.”

  “Got it!” she said. “Thank you, again.”

  “Just save me one of those pies, and I’ll consider it a thank you.”

  “Maybe one free coffee, you’ve got to come for the pie at lunch.”

  He chuckled. “See ya.”

  Bree hung up, her mouth dry and her stomach queasy. She added the name and address of the shop into the notes section of her phone.

  “I’m going to get them valued later,” Bree announced, entering the room. “So, you’ll have to put them all back in the box.”

  “Can I keep one?” Cleo asked.

  “Oh, go on,” her mother said.

  “Let’s see what they’re worth first,” Bree continued, grabbing the box from the sofa. “If it’s not much, you can have it them, but I’m keeping the box.”

  They hummed, trying to hold out for Bree to change her mind. She didn’t, and they put everything back where it belonged, inside the wooden jewellery box.

  Bree took a seat again with a smiled. Her earlier thoughts of infidelity weren’t in question, neither her mother nor Cleo had thought either, so it couldn’t have been true. “I guess today is looking up. First, the fridge breaks, then I find these.” She took a sip of coffee.

  “Maybe you want to think about taking up more of the flooring,” her mother added. “Let’s see what else your father had squirrelled away.”

  “I hope it’s more of these,” Bree said.

  “We do too!” Cleo added enthusiastically.

  Before Bree left, she wrapped the box up in the plastic bag she’d arrived with. Her mother and Cleo were wrapped up in watching the television on mute, judging what the presenters were wearing without knowing what they were talking about.

  It must have made for a very entertaining experience.

  FIVE

  In the bakery, there were a couple customers, coming in for their morning bread. This was the usual, Bree nodded to each of them on her return to the shop.

  “Morning,” she said.

  Three elderly women, a small Yorkshire terrier, and the sleepy pub landlord browsed the glass case where products were shown on display.

  “How’s everything?” Bree asked Sarah as she walked behind the counter. “Busy?”

  “Just the usual,” she replied. “You headed back out? Elijah called here for you.”

  “Yeah, only to pop down Mackel Street. There’s a jeweller,” she replied, pulling her ponytail tighter on her head. “I’m gonna drop them off to be valued and then I’ll be back.” She planted the plastic bag with the box on the counter.

  “Ok, I’ll hold down the fort.”

  Bree made her way into the kitchen, smiling ahead to Jack and Lucy. “How’s things?”

  “Good!” they called back.

  Bree noted the checklist on the whiteboard. “Working well?”

  “Yeah,” Jack said, pouring out flour into a weighing scale. “When do you want us to make the Danishes?”

  “I’m not sure I—” Lucy hummed, turning off the electric mixing bowl.

  “Sarah will show you,” Bree said, “or she’ll make them.” Bree had intended on making them herself, but given the excitement of what she’d found, it was unlikely she’d be able to focus on baking much. She wanted to know what they were worth, and whether or not she could sell them. “Is there anything you need from me?”

  Lucy shook her head, turning the electric mixer on once again.

  “Think we’re good,” Jack said.

  As much as it left Bree uneasy to have both of them inside the kitchen unsupervised, she also had a lot on her mind and thinking about two teenagers wasn’t high on the priority of things to care about.

  “You’re doing a good job,” she said back at them, as if throwing a bomb out and leaving again, flying through the kitchen door.

  “Off in a hurry?” Sarah chuckled.

  “Just want to get through everything on my plate,” Bree replied. “In fact, I know you’ve already given them their plan of action for the day, but I was thinking, my father and I used to have these recipes. We’ve got a little book, and I was wondering if you could whip up a batch of something.”

  Sarah glanced ahead at the customers, waiting in line to be served. “When we have some free time.”

  “Great!” Bree grabbed the plastic bag with the box in from the counter. “The book is on the desk in the office. Just pick one from it. I’ll be back in fifteen.”

  Sarah didn’t another word in before Bree left, and the customer repeated their order once again.

  Mackel Street was close, it was an offshoot road from the main road which served as the way through Cranwell. It wasn’t large enough to fit a car down. It was an alley, with enough space to drive a motorcycle at the largest.

  Down Mackel Street, there were a few businesses in operation, accountants, solicitors, and others in need of office space. These were cheap places to hire, given they were outside of the main city.

  All the way at number 8, there was a metal sign above a dark and dusty window, almost blacked out. The sign read ‘Prince’s Price’, as the name should from what Elijah had told Bree.

  Entering, the bell above the door rang out, and to Bree’s surprise, the jewellery shop was very bright with a large antique chandelier above in the centre of the ceiling. White light reflected and glistened from the crystals, sending a kaleidoscopic trance of shape and colour around.

  “Morning!” a man called out from behind a counter, pooling Bree’s attention to look forward. The man had a magnifying glass attached to one eye from the band at the back of his head. His face was flushed red with a thick greying moustache tickling his top lip.

  There were metal bars covering the windows and doors, keeping in place the black wood covering them in darkness. There were also metal bars behind the glass window at the desk, going across the stretch of the floor. The walls were lined with wood and glass cases, each filled with jewellery; rings, necklaces, earrings. And lights beaming up
from small spotlights inside the cases.

  “Good morning,” Bree said back, her head overwhelmed with everything in the store, turning left and right, glancing up and down. “You’ve got a beautiful shop.”

  “Oh, thank you,” a softer voice came as a woman revealed herself from the side of the man. “I’m Dolores Prince,” she said. “This is my husband, Finnegan.” Her hair was up and coiffed, dark but also with many greys tucked behind her ears.

  “How can we help you?” Finnegan asked, approaching the glass window which separated the back room from the shop floor. He pulled away the magnifying glass from his eye. “Looking to buy?”

  “A wedding?” Dolores asked.

  Finnegan scoffed. “Men buy the rings.”

  “We’re not in the eighties anymore,” she grumbled. “So, how can we help you?”

  Bree approached, planting the bag on the counter. “I need some jewellery pieces valued,” she said. “My father recently passed. John Dalton, from the bakery around the corner.”

  “Oh, sorry to hear. We’ll have to stop by sometime,” Dolores said. “Do you make jam tarts?”

  Bree nodded and smiled. “We certainly do.” She peeled back the plastic bag, revealing the box. “I found these, stashed away, typical of my father.”

  There was a shallow gap in the counter, serving as a place to transfer objects between jeweller and customer.

  “Don’t mind this,” Finnegan said, nodding the gap. “We’ve got to be cautious, and our insurance premiums go down if we can take extra precautions.”

  Bree pulled the jewels out from the box, laying them inside the hold to transfer over. “I want to know what they’re worth, if there’s a market, and how much I can get for them.”

  “We don’t deal with pawning, but I can certainly value them,” he replied. “It’ll take me about—”

  “I’ll leave them with you, and then I’ll come back before you close,” she said. “I’ve got the bakery to run.”

  “Absolutely,” Dolores said. “We close at five, so if you come by around half-four, Finn will have looked at them.”

  With the now empty box, Bree placed it back into the plastic bag. “And if you know where I can sell them, that would be good too.” She chuckled.

  Dolores hummed. “They’re very pretty, I might need him to buy from you.”

  That would’ve been ideal for Bree, now that she’d ruled out heirlooms and gifts for her mother, it was clear they were things he’d collected to eventually sell—it was a habit he had—buy low, sell high.

  Finnegan took the jewels and slipped a business card to Bree, listing their telephone number, e-mail address, and business name. “I’ll let you know what I find out.”

  “I really appreciate it,” she said.

  Dolores cleared her throat into a fist. “Sorry, love, I didn’t get your name.”

  “Bree Dalton,” she replied. “Dalton’s Baked Goods, on Landale Road.”

  “Ahh!” she snapped her fingers. “Excellent.”

  To Bree, it was excellent. She was very happy with having handed the jewels over, now she could relax and wonder about how she would eventually spend the money coming in from the sales.

  Before Bree left, she admired the walls. “How long have you been open for?”

  “Since nine,” Finn said.

  Dolores whacked her husband’s arm. “It’s been a family business for years,” she said. “We’ve been from Cranwell, to Landale, a short stint in Presham,” she rolled her eyes, “and then we were in Peck, but everyone wanted to haggle there. So, we came back to our roots.”

  “My roots,” Finn said.

  “And we’re married,” Dolores said, smacking her husband’s arm again. “So, they’re ours.”

  Bree chuckled. “Right, I’ll be back around four-thirty.”

  They waved her off with a smile as the door jingled behind her.

  SIX

  Bree found herself back in the bakery with a kick in her step and the pep of the events from the morning. A huge smile painted across her mouth as she walked inside, waving at Sarah and the old lady peering over her glasses into the counter, a plastic shopping bag swinging from her arm.

  “Good news?” she asked.

  “Just left them, I’m going back to pick them up at half-four,” Bree replied. “It’s such a dark place from the outside, never would have thought there’s a jeweller.”

  Sarah hummed. “Can’t say I’ve been myself.”

  Bree clicked her tongue. “Give me a sec to freshen up and I’ll be back out front.”

  “We decided on a recipe,” Sarah said as Bree trailed off into the back through the kitchen.

  The old lady tapped a finger on the glass, as if in a zoo, trying to startle an animal behind the enclosure. “These fresh?”

  “Which ones?” Sarah asked, dipping to see where her finger was pointing. “The brownie?”

  “Yeah.”

  “No, they’re discounted,” she said. “On offer, they didn’t sell yesterday. But if you want fresh, you can come back in an hour and we’ll have a new batch out of the ovens.”

  “Oh no, that’s fine,” she said. “I’ll take the rest of them.”

  There were four pieces left, the end pieces from the brownie batches. Also known to some as the undesirable parts. Sarah smiled, grabbing the metal tongs to bag the items.

  Bree was back five minutes later, her hair in a net and an apron tied around her waist. She moaned with delight. “I see what they’re making in there,” she said.

  “The trio bars?”

  She nodded back with excitement. “Do you remember those?”

  The bell above the door rang as two more customers walked in.

  Sarah smiled. “That’s why I chose them,” she said. “Chocolate chip cookie, brownie, and marshmallow Rice Krispies, you best believe I remember them.”

  The lady in the shop gasped. “Sounds delicious,” she said. “My daughter would love those.”

  Sarah reached Bree’s shoulder. “I best go back and oversee them.”

  “I told them you’d be making the Danishes too,” Bree said in a whispering mumble.

  “Will do.” Sarah left through the swinging kitchen doors.

  The old lady tapped on the glass. “When will you have those other things ready?”

  “Not a few hours, I don’t think,” she replied. “They were one of my favourites as a kid. My father used to make them all the time.”

  She sighed and nodded. “Aw, yea, I’m sorry to hear about his passing.”

  Bree was still becoming acquainted with everyone in the village. While she had grown up here as a teenager, she’d spent many years in London doing her own growing, and somehow everything and everyone she knew from her childhood was replaced with mental maps of the London underground and different neighbourhoods.

  “Thank you,” she said. “Did you know him?”

  “Well, we’ve been coming here for years,” she said. “You must be the daughter he spoke about.”

  “Must be,” Bree chuckled back. “Bree.” She extended a hand over the counter to the woman.

  “Diana Paulson, and my mother, Viv,” she said, nodding to the older woman doing a squint at the food in the glass case. “We did wonder why you were closed a couple weeks back.”

  This was the third week of operations under Bree, the third week and a half after the death, it had been shut, and many questions about whether or not it would even open again had been gossiped over.

  “My father was very loved, I can see,” she said, trying not to forget their names within the three seconds of being told them. “It’s was nice to meet you both, Diana, Viv. Anything I can get for you today?”

  Diana hummed in thought. “Those treats Sarah talked about sound divine.”

  “Well, maybe in an hour or two, depending on whether or not they look edible, you can come back for one,” she replied. “It’s part of a new plan to honour him, my father, he inspired me to bake as a child, and we created a
lot of different things together.”

  “Oh, really,” she said. “He always seemed like such a traditionalist; we never had any surprises when it came to buying from him.”

  Bree knew exactly what she meant, her father didn’t mix it up, he knew what worked and he would go through with it until his death bed—which was unfortunately how it had all gone down.

  * * *

  The early afternoon rush began; pies, pasties, and mini quiches were brought through from the kitchen, piping hot and put out for sale. It was when most people arrived to buy their dinner for the afternoon, or even just a snack.

  Bree had divided the trio bars into small squares and placed them on a plate beside the counter as taster samples. They hadn’t made a big enough batch for sale, and Bree’s business savvy knew they would have people asking about buying full bars.

  “Can I get uh—uh—” a stout man mumbled, wobbling on his feet, glancing back and forth from Bree to the glass counter. He glanced to the coins in his hands. “Meat and potato pie,” he said, wavering on his heels.

  “That everything?” she asked.

  “You don’t sell beer, do you?” he asked, squinted at Bree and wincing his rotund red nose.

  “No, no,” she chuckled back. “The pub should be opening soon.”

  He scoffed, his lips turning into a smile. “Thanks.”

  The majority of people during the rush were either office workers in the local area, or those wanting something before getting into the pub down the road—although some people didn’t appear sober at all.

  After the man was served, a woman in a pencil skirt and white blouse arrived with a list in hand. “Three meat and potato, one steak, two pasties any, and—and—and--” she hummed, pulling focus from the list to the glass case. “Four assorted cupcakes.”

  Bree nodded, noting the order. Having items listed off quickly brought her back to when she was in the high-pressure environment working in restaurants, having to get plates out through the kitchen door as soon as humanly possible.

  The rush died down around half-one, when most of the savoury foods had been sold. The odd visitor came in, sighing into their own dismay about their current lack of choice.