We scooped more cake onto the table and crouched again.
‘And why you noticed Miss Snooty Boots’ Kurt Geiger boots on the Metro.’
He nodded, scooped up cake and we both stood.
‘Can we stand still for a minute? I feel like a Jack in the box.’
‘Or a Zac in the box,’ I snorted.
I nervously played with the squashed cakes, pushing the buttercream we had collected into a miniature mountain.
‘You don’t have to help me clean up by the way.’
‘I want to, it’s fine.’
‘Really?’
‘Yes, I often clean up after events. I find it therapeutic.’
I frowned.
‘Are you sure you’re a man?’
He laughed.
‘A man with a mother who would kick us into next week if we didn’t clean up after ourselves, believe me.’
‘Hallelujah for her,’ I whooped.
‘She’s great but now I’m starting to think maybe she did too good a job of teaching us to be in touch with our feminine side.’
‘What do you mean?’
I bent down for the Tupperware boxes. When I stood up, I saw Zachary reclining with his bum cheek on the edge of the table.
‘Well she’s got Malachy who is as camp as Butlins and flits around Ma’s house filling vases with giant lilies, Hurley who’s a big mammy’s boy at heart and puts on these big doe eyes so women fawn over him right, left and centre and then there’s me. I’m the eldest so she thinks of me as the man of the household. Wait till I tell her the girl I thought I was coolly flirting with actually suspected I was gay.’
My stomach somersaulted and my jaw stuck open.
Coolly flirting with me? Did he really just say “coolly flirting with”?
I smiled a wide-eyed smile and whistled along to Winter Wonderland (or in the case of this particular CD Shearer Wonderland.)
‘Was it my love of handbags?’ he said with a grimace.
‘Well that and the strawberry scented pink tissues.’
‘Hey I explained those at the time!’
I shrugged, playing along.
‘Your male date at the restaurant added to the intrigue.’
‘My brother.’
He peered across the market.
‘Don’t worry,’ I said, ‘Hurley will be fine with Heidi. She’s the most caring person I know.’
He attempted a nonchalant shrug to pretend he didn’t care but I could tell he did. He was so kind and responsible, my heart flipped again. Any more flipping and I would be squeezing a lemon on it and serving it up on Pancake Day.
‘I’m sure he will be, he’s a big boy. In fact it’s your friend I’m worried about. He might whisk her off on his wheelchair never to be seen again, the boyo that he is.’
‘A ride home in a wheelchair would be an upgrade from her car, believe me.’
We laughed together then fell silent and my thumbs began to twiddle until I spoke again.
‘So, Zachary Doyle, the pink tissues, the knowledge of beautiful leather goods and the date you’ve accounted for, but none of that explains your love of fairy lights.’
I nudged him playfully.
He nudged me back.
‘Hey, who gave girls the monopoly on sparkle?’
His eyes twinkled as he said it. I wriggled my toes in my boots, feeling like a schoolgirl at a disco.
A very cold Christmas disco with a terrible DJ.
And I really wanted to dance.
I hopped from one foot to the other and rubbed my hands together.
‘Are you cold?’ he said.
‘Yes.’
No. It’s just if I don’t do something with my hands they might just reach out and start unbuttoning your coat!
Zachary reached up to his chest and started unbuttoning his coat. I hopped faster.
‘Here, have this,’ he said, undoing a second button.
‘No, no, honestly, I couldn’t, not your beautiful coat, I’m covered in cake.’
I watched my hands reach out as if they belonged to someone else. I held my breath as they hovered above his hands and I gasped as they came into land, my palms against the backs of his hands.
Did I really just do that?
They froze in position despite the heat shooting up my arms. I popped my lips nervously. My eyes flickered from my hands to his face, settling on his mouth. As if in response to the sudden attention, the tip of his tongue poked out and moistened his top lip. I lifted my gaze and our eyes locked. I inhaled sharply. Zachary’s face was hard to read, his brow creased into what could have been an expression of either confusion, lust or pain. I smiled and relief flooded through me when he smiled too, his eyes shining.
We didn’t move for what felt like minutes but must only have been seconds. I wanted to have the courage to just lean forward and press my mouth against his. To feel those full lips touching mine, to take his warm hands and wrap them around my body. To slip between his legs and press up against him as he sat on the table. I felt the blood rush to my head, filling my ears with white noise.
Kiss him! my brain urged.
Just do it!
Be bold, be like Roxy, be impulsive.
My heartbeat quickened, my hands still pressed against his. I glanced from his hypnotic eyes down to his lips, down further to our hands and his broad chest, his tight stomach, to his thighs parted ready to welcome me inside as he reclined on the table in his lovely, soft, cashmere coat.
‘Zachary?’ I gasped, the word catching in my throat that was suddenly as dry as a packet of All Bran.
‘Yes, Chloe?’
‘You’re sitting in the buttercream.’
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Bake 20-25 mins or until light and golden
While Zachary concentrated on trying to scrape the pink, yellow and green buttercream from the backside of his expensive cashmere coat, I continued to clean up our stall before Sylvia could slap an ASBO on us for bringing her respectable flea market into disrepute. Thankfully, Zachary showed himself to have a sense of humour about the whole affair, commenting glibly – ‘Now if only you’d used orange colouring instead of pink, I would be sporting the Irish flag in icing on my arse.’
I tried to laugh along but all the while I was kicking myself. Arse was the appropriate word for what I was.
You’re sitting on the buttercream.
You’re sitting on the fucking buttercream?
Why did I have to speak? Why couldn’t I just be quiet and mysterious and silently irresistible instead of feeling the urge to fill awkward silences? I had been the same since puberty. The first time Stephen Gibb, (aged thirteen, blond flat-top, skinny legs, big kicker boots that made him look like a human golf club) had puckered up and leaned towards me for what would have been my first ever snog, I had panicked, stuck my hand in his face and squeaked – ‘Your sweatshirt’s mega, where did you get it?’
I ended up with a faded red sweatshirt several sizes too big with BarclayPlus embroidered in gold stitching on the right nipple area (his Dad was a bank manager), no kiss and a reputation for being a sweatshirt-wearing lesbian. I had never learned.
Flirting I wasn’t bad at, sexual tension I could do to a point, but just at the pay-off, when the audience scooted to the edge of their seats waiting for the kiss, my mouth would open and out would come something to ruin it. There was breaking the ice and there was smashing it to pieces with a bloody great sledgehammer dipped in buttercream.
Angry with myself, I cleaned ferociously, fitted Tupperware boxes inside each other, unscrewed the cake stands, wiped the PVC tablecloth and packed everything into bags, including Roxy’s designer goodies, which were now coated in the remains of my cupcakes.
Somewhere in the distance I heard Sylvia announce – ‘Bag those bargains très vite lovies, this ship will sail in trente minutes!’
We Wish You A Geordie Christmas began to play from the speakers.
‘I’ve heard this CD a million times alr
eady this year around the city,’ Zachary laughed. ‘If I’m not mistaken, Geordie Bells is next.’
He was right, Geordie Bells sent the last of the day’s customers merrily on their way, followed by a football chant rendition of Hark The Toon Army Sings. It was dark by the time I folded up the table and declared our cake stall officially closed.
‘Where the hell is Roxy? I thought she was only going to the toilet,’ I growled, glancing around the market as the stallholders dismantled their stalls, ‘she is such a slacker. Zachary, please don’t feel obliged to stay with me if you want to go and find your brother.’
In some ways I wanted him to leave so that I could wallow in my own awkwardness. In other ways I wanted him to stay… very close beside me… perhaps with his tongue down my throat… or something.
‘I can’t leave you here on your own with those sinister looking women,’ he replied. He nodded at the dolls that George was helping to pack away into velvet boxes. Jessica had jumped ship from doll world to World War II and was now enjoying a ride in a replica of a German Panzer Tank. ‘Besides, Hurley will come here to find me. He knows I have a thing for your cakes.’
I clamped my mouth shut to prevent myself blurting out something inappropriate.
With nothing to lean against and nowhere to go until Roxy and Heidi came back to collect our belongings, Zachary and I stood like awkward statues smiling at each other, peering across the station for a glimpse of our companions and studying our own feet. The Geordie CD finished and Chris Rea began singing about his drive home again.
‘I wish he’d hurry up and get there,’ I said, raising my eyes towards the speaker.
‘I know what you mean, he’s forever banging on about that drive. As for the driver next to him…’
‘He’s just the same,’ we chorused.
Zachary laughed and reached into his pocket. He pulled out the paper bag containing the solitary cupcake that had survived the battle. He extracted the cake from the bag, held it in his palm and peered at it. Reaching out with his index finger, he poked the sugar football on the end of the fondant footballer’s foot.
‘What is that made of? It looks like glass.’
He held it up to his eye, turned to look at me and peered through it.
‘Blown sugar,’ I said. ‘It’s a difficult technique.’
‘But one which you have apparently mastered.’
I shrugged off the compliment.
‘Not enough to sell any unfortunately.’ I scuffed my foot along the ground. ‘I was only trying to do a good deed and make money for Heidi’s disabled children’s charity.’
I glanced at Zachary. His lips were squeezed tightly together.
‘My Ma always told me doing a good deed a day will make you a better person, so I’ve always tried to follow her rule.’
‘Is that why you stopped that day and gave me the tissue?’
‘I suppose.’
‘And why you brought my handbag back?’
He shrugged.
Because I was your good deed for the day girl and not because you wanted to jump my bones? I thought morosely but did not enunciate.
‘So you’re a do-gooder too, Zachary. Honestly, being a do-gooder is way harder than I thought. I only made a pound.’
Twenty-one pounds.’
‘Pardon me?’
‘You made a grand total of twenty-one pounds.’
I crossed my arms.
‘No I didn’t. I sold one cake to Sylvia with a discount and I had to pay for the stall. Roxy sold a couple of bags but she’ll squirrel that money away and what? What are you waving that cake at me for? Oh!’
My hand flew to my mouth. I thrust the other one in my pocket and pulled out Zachary’s twenty-pound note.
‘I stole your money!’
His face broke into a huge grin.
‘Now this is one expensive cake,’ he laughed. ‘I told you they are the best cupcakes in the world. They’re also the most expensive.’
I held out the note but he shook his head. I tried to shove it into his pocket but he dodged my hand.
‘Take it, Zachary, it’s yours.’
‘No, no, keep it, please. Give it to your charity.’
‘Zachary please,’ I said, exasperated, ‘you can’t just give me twenty pounds.’
‘It’s for charity. It’s tax deductible,’ he winked, waving the cake at me again before adding – ‘and it’s worth it for this.’
Defeated, I stopped flapping the twenty around.
‘I assure you it’s not worth it. My cakes don’t sell. I doubt I could even have given them away.’
Zachary swept his arm around in a circle.
‘Your stall was not best placed for maximum sales. That awful stench and the freaky dolls would turn most stomachs. I’m surprised a business woman like you didn’t put your foot down and tell the organiser to move you.’
‘The business woman that I used to be,’ I mumbled.
Zachary dipped his head to engage my lowered eyes.
‘She’s still in there somewhere. You don’t change that much in three weeks you know. You just have to be confident.’
‘Really? You say that but honestly I can hardly remember what I was like in my old life. They say losing your job is equivalent to grieving and it’s right. I feel as if that focused, fierce, organised, driven woman was someone else occupying my body and the day I was made redundant, she died and just left this.’
I motioned up and down my body with my hands.
‘Looks good to me,’ Zachary said, ‘and just as good as that first day I met you in this very station. I always think about you whenever I get the train here and wonder if I might bump into you. I’m glad this time you weren’t sobbing on the ground.’
I felt my cheeks flush like two rose cupcakes. Roxy’s words about having a boyfriend to keep me occupied while I found a job came into my mind.
The thought of having this caring, handsome, adorable man’s presence in my empty flat on a dark, snowy night to share my troubles, my dinner and my bed, didn’t seem like too shabby a plan. After the weeks I had had and a day on my feet manning probably the most unprofitable stall in the history of the flea market, I felt suddenly weary. I wanted nothing more than to rest my head on his shoulder, to curl my body against his, to walk me home, open a bottle of wine, pull off our clothes, pull back the covers, tumble into bed.
I drifted away from reality as the fantasy began to play out in my mind.
‘Chloe?’
‘Hmm?’
‘Chloe? Are you OK?’
I jumped, startled by the cupcake he was wafting in front of my nose.
‘Sorry, I was miles away.’
He nodded to my left and I turned to see Sylvia beaming at me like the Cheshire cat on cocaine. I could swear she had been drinking.
‘Good day for gateaux, darlings?’ breezed Sylvia who, despite her generous frame, seemed to fly around the market faster than the wind.
‘Not really,’ I said with a tight smile. ‘Stinky poo corner rather defeated our plan to sell sweet delicacies to the masses.’
Sylvia grimaced and ran her hand down Zachary’s arm.
‘Oopsy daisy, another unhappy customer,’ she hiccupped.
‘At least you had customers,’ I grumbled.
Sylvia honked with laughter.
‘Customers are overrated ma chérie.’ Cupping her hand around her mouth, she hiccupped again before adding – ‘Bloody pain in the arse most of them to be honest, but as long as they continue buying the tat, I’ll continue letting you lovely people flog it.’
Zachary raised his eyebrows at me and smiled wryly. Sylvia glanced at her wrist even though she wasn’t wearing a watch.
‘Zut alors is that the time? Ding dong, the witch must be gone!’
She flapped her kaftan, kissed the air beside my cold cheeks, enveloping me in the scent of whiskey, grabbed Zachary’s face with both hands and planted a smacker on his puckered lips.
‘Adieu, darl
ings, till next week,’ she cooed and swept away across the platform leaving Zachary staring after her with his mouth open.
‘She kissed you,’ I gasped.
Zachary wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.
‘Was that what it was? I thought she was trying to extract my fillings.’
Out manoeuvred by a frizzy haired pensioner in Jedi robes. Bloody typical.
‘Well,’ I huffed, ‘at least she got her money’s worth out of the day.’
Zachary turned to face me, still holding the cake in his palm. He blinked, pausing before he spoke.
‘Chloe,’ he said, running his hand through his floppy fringe, ‘I wanted to ask you something.’
‘Yes!’
‘Would you…? Er, I was wondering if you had…’
Just spit it out man!
I was cold, tired, hungry and fast losing my patience. To be frank, I just wanted him to cut the crap and kiss me.
Zachary glanced once more at the cake, lowered it and looked at me. There was a beat before he said – ‘So, how is your date from the restaurant? The footballer.’
My face fell. I had not been expecting that.
‘Oh, Carlos you mean?’
‘Carlos,’ he said with a little laugh, ‘yes, that would be right.’
I poked him in the arm.
‘Ouch, what was that for?’
‘That seeing as you decided to bring it up, was for being rude to me at the restaurant.’
Zachary’s mouth dropped open.
‘I wasn’t rude. I said you looked glamorous.’
‘You said “glamorous”,’ I said, making quotation marks in the air.
Zachary shook his head.
‘And don’t shake your head, you know what I mean.’
He tilted his head towards me, his mouth creased into parentheses at the corners.
‘Well at least my comment was masked as a compliment, Chloe. You said you hoped I discovered a sudden nut allergy half way through the pecan pie.’
I shuffled my feet.
‘Oh, you heard that?’
‘Yes I heard it.’
I itched the back of my neck.
‘Right, I suppose that was rather rude. Sorry about that.’
‘You’re forgiven.’
Cupcake Couture Page 19