A Recipe for Disaster

by Belinda Missen

  Baking sugar-filled packet-mix muffins in a school canteen had not been what I’d envisaged for my life, but that’s exactly what happened about six months after Oliver left. With the rising cost of fuel, and suddenly looking after a mortgage on one wage, I had little option left but to find work closer to home. My solution popped up in the way of a four-day week at the local primary school.

  Above all else, I loved the convenience of it. Gone was the daily three-hour commute. I could walk to work, which was bliss, and was back in my pyjamas by three o’clock each afternoon. As much as I didn’t want my own kids, I laughed at the sight of the lunchtime zombie apocalypse, students climbing over each other to be the first in line for food. But – there was always a “but”.

  The menu was atrocious. Jamie Oliver wouldn’t just have a heart attack if he saw the type of food on offer. There was every chance he’d declare the four horsemen of the apocalypse arrived, and start a weird basil-infused cleansing ceremony on the doorstep of the school, all the while screaming at us to repent.

  It wasn’t just pink sludge nuggets, but every other red alert food we were advised to avoid. I’d spent so much time reading about food guidelines I’d started ignoring my own pantry for fear a government official might jump from a shelf, wrap my house in an E.T.-style bubble, and declare it a health hazard.

  Each night, I stank of deep fryer. The oily scent clung to my hair and clothes, and I was sure there was a small deposit of kitchen muck lodged up my nose. Not since I’d worked at McDonald’s as a teenager – an event that lasted all of four weeks before I got my apprenticeship – had I smelt this bad.

  In my spare time, I’d created a healthier menu. It showcased homemade products and fresh produce, cut down on waste, and had the potential to turn the canteen into a profitable business. Currently, it ran at a huge loss. I’d spoken to the school principal, at length, even taking over an interview for the promotion to rail about my plans. What could I say? I was excited by the prospect of a bit of autonomy, a slice of creativity, and enacting change. I’d even wrapped my application with samples and a new, laminated menu I’d created.

  When Richard summoned me into his office on the Monday, I bounced in ready for the good news.

  ‘Hey, Lucy.’ Richard pushed himself off a filing cabinet where he stood, reading, and walked to his whiteboard like a country boy on a catwalk.

  Richard was everything you’d see in an R.M. Williams catalogue. He was perfectly styled strawberry-blond hair and designer stubble, overpriced plaid shirts and moleskin pants, topped with pointy-toed boots that had never seen a day’s work on the land. Looking at him, I wondered when moleskins got to be so tight? Jesus. It certainly wasn’t offensive, and he was popular with the school mums, but …

  ‘Come in.’

  ‘You rang?’ I asked.

  He waved me in. ‘Come, come. Sit down.’

  Good thing, too, because I’d been on my feet all day. I flopped into the chair opposite his desk like an inflatable air dancer at a car yard sale and threw my head back. Richard laughed and closed the door with a quiet click. His office was everything I remembered about being in school. Awards covered the wall, along with drawings, notes on the whiteboard, and a roll of scratch and sniff stickers on his desk. Grape was my favourite sticker.

  ‘How was your day?’ Richard breezed past and sat down. His chair squeaked as he leant back, arms behind his head.

  I yawned.

  ‘I’m hearing you.’ He laughed. ‘It’s been one shit fight after another today. Parents here, broken windows there, throw in a few detentions just to keep me on my toes.’

  ‘No, it’s good.’ I waved a hand. ‘It’s just been a big weekend.’

  ‘Mine was a madhouse.’ He shuffled papers, before handing me a menu. ‘So, the school council went through the new menu submissions Friday night last.’

  ‘I’ve been thinking about that.’ The menu I held wasn’t the one I’d produced, nor was it the one we’d been using this week. A sinking feeling settled in my stomach.

  ‘You have?’ he asked.

  ‘Well, not just the menu, really, the whole process.’ Talk, Lucy, talk. Sell it to him like you used to sell cakes.

  ‘Okay.’ That had caught his attention. Pen clicking, he leant in and opened to a page of his diary. I took a deep breath and jumped.

  ‘You can’t implement this. You discuss healthy eating in classrooms, and looking after our bodies, but then you pick a menu with doughnuts, cakes, slices, lolly bags, pies and pasties. Even if we’re offering apples, or a single grainy sandwich, I don’t know any kid who would pick the healthy option over a doughnut. Hell, I wouldn’t even pick the brown bread.’

  Richard scribbled notes quickly. ‘Right.’

  ‘My menu is all healthy, low sugar, homemade, and it’s low waste, which helps the budget—’ I pulled out my phone to remind him.

  ‘Luce.’

  ‘—and it’s helping to promote the guidelines we teach. I’m really excited about everything it can do for us.’

  ‘Lucy. It’s been decided already.’

  ‘What?’ I asked.

  ‘We’ve already given this the go-ahead.’ He opened the document I’d emailed him. ‘Yours was described as … too much of a radical change.’

  ‘That’s not bad, though, shaking things up.’ I sat a bit taller. ‘It’s good. Change is good. Who Moved My Cheese? and all that.’

  ‘It’ll involve a lot of training,’ he reasoned.

  ‘Won’t somebody please think of the children?’ I joked. I was bombing, badly, a deflated balloon washing down a dirty drain somewhere.

  ‘Lucy, we can’t.’ Richard sat back. ‘As much as I admire your work, I just can’t. We’ve gone with Elouise for head of canteen, and this is her menu.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Luce. I know you worked hard on it.’

  ‘No problem.’ I nodded. ‘That’s understandable.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  Not really, I was about an inch away from throwing a shoe. ‘It’s fine, really.’

  This was a sign.

  Things had to change. After Edith’s cake and the breakup with Seamus, this was beginning to look a lot like bad luck arriving in threes. Except, if I chose to look at it differently, it was the universe lining circumstance up and pushing me in a direction that made me little bit tingly, excited, and a whole lot nervous. Making decisions on the spur of the moment was not my thing. In fact, it frightened the life out of me. However, people do like to tell us we should do something that scares us every day.

  After sitting quietly for a few moments, Richard looking on as if he wanted me to say something, anything, I stood and handed him back the menu.

  ‘Richard, thank you for allowing me this job for the past three years,’ I said.

  His face fell. ‘No, Lucy, that’s not what this is at all.’

  ‘That’s fine,’ I said. ‘But I think my time here is done.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I’m probably ready to move on to other things, so it’s good timing, really.’

  Richard wasn’t convinced. ‘Well, could we maybe catch up and talk about this over a drink? Outside the more rigorous confines of the school? I’m sure we could work something out.’

  ‘Perhaps not.’ I smoothed my shirt down and clasped at the door handle. ‘Goodbye … and thank you.’

  Relief washed over me as I skipped out the front door. I felt like I now had all the time in the world, and a thousand plans to enact. I wasn’t worried, but excited. My brain was awash with possibilities. Recipes I’d once cooked regularly were flipping up on rotation like an old jukebox as I turned left down High Street towards the general store.

  A jacaranda tree, which did its best to hide the local church, smelt sweeter and seemed a brighter purple today. Even leaf litter on wet and muddy footpaths couldn’t dampen my mood. Cars pootled past slowly, in and out of the farm supplies shop, and on towards the general store, where I was heade
d. I threw a few dollars over the counter for coffee and a newspaper, collected my mail, and headed home.

  With a diary, pens, pencils, and paper, I spread myself across the lounge-room floor and scribbled out a rough plan. Not that it was hugely elaborate and, really, amounted to writing, “See what happens” on a piece of paper, but there were some things that needed doing.

  One of the best things about this house was the kitchen. Small, yes, but it was functional, and we’d been able to secure a commercial permit about eight months before Oliver left. It had since lapsed, but I made a note to get everything operating again. If I was truly going to succeed at this cake business, I was going to need that first and foremost.

  I called those who’d made enquiries, chatted about designs and dates and, soon, had a few bookings in the diary. The fact they were all friends, or friends of friends, didn’t bother me. After all, word of mouth was the best form of advertisement, good or bad.

  Later that night, I woke to a knock at the front door. I’d fallen asleep on the floor, pencil in hand, pizza and garlic bread stuck to my cheek. A slice fell back into the box unceremoniously, and I scrubbed at my face with a napkin as I opened the front door.

  ‘Oliver.’ I stepped out onto the veranda, which creaked under foot. ‘Hey.’

  ‘How are you?’ He fiddled with an orange envelope in his hand. His hands were crusted with paint and stain, fingernails full of dirt.

  I nodded. ‘Not bad.’

  ‘Were you sleeping?’ he asked, the briefest hint of a smile, pleased that he still recognised that look on my face.

  I pointed at my face. ‘Pizza stuck to me. It’s great fun.’

  ‘Well, if you’re going to sleep with something, may as well be pizza.’

  ‘True enough.’ I smiled. ‘Thanks for the car, by the way, and the flowers – they were lovely.’

  ‘Ahh, you’re welcome. Have you used the car since?’

  ‘Yeah, when I grabbed dinner.’

  ‘Okay. Good. It was just the battery, nothing major.’

  We stood about awkwardly for more moments than I wanted to count. I couldn’t think of anything to say, not after the last few days, and Oliver looked like he wanted to spit out everything that came to mind. He looked around nervously, and took a deep breath.

  ‘Look, I know things haven’t got off to the best start between us. I wanted to, I don’t know, give you a bit of space. I’ve been thinking about what you said to me the other night. I’ve been thinking about it a lot, actually.’

  ‘Me, too.’

  ‘You have?’ he asked.

  I nodded.

  ‘Okay.’ He chewed his bottom lip and silenced the phone that rang in his pocket. ‘You mentioned divorce, so I went to my lawyers and got an agreement drafted up. I’ve also organised a lump-sum payment for you. As you rightfully mentioned, I haven’t done my part in the mortgage business. I want to make that right.’

  ‘Thank you,’ I said quietly as he passed the envelope over in a moment that was proving more emotional than I wanted it to. Or maybe that was the financial relief. I couldn’t be sure.

  ‘Don’t thank me – you make it sound like I’m doing the right thing.’ Again, he silenced his phone, this time switching it off completely. ‘How are you? I heard you quit your job today?’

  I think I smiled. ‘News travels fast.’

  ‘I was actually thinking about that, too.’ Oliver reached up with his left hand, scratching behind his right ear, perfecting the look of pure innocence that often got him out of trouble. ‘You got a few minutes? Can I come in? Would that be okay?’

  ‘Sure.’

  We sat across from each other at the dining table, one at which we’d always, always sat next to each other. I placed the orange envelope of destruction on the bench, out of sight, and out of mind, flicked on the kettle, and turned the radio on low.

  ‘Like I said, I’ve been thinking a lot recently. I know that money will help you, or at least I hope it will.’

  ‘It will, thank you.’ Elbows on the table, I leant my chin in the palm of my hand. ‘Help get some stuff fixed.’

  Oliver nodded. ‘There’s something else.’

  ‘Oh?’ Right now, as I sat, I was waiting to be told he had a small army of children or some such coming to stay.

  ‘There’s a job for you at Murray’s. If you’re interested, that is.’

  I cringed, and I think I recoiled involuntarily. ‘Do you think that’s a good idea?’

  Oliver shrugged. ‘It’s certainly not my worst idea.’

  ‘I don’t think we should. I think we should just close this chapter off and move on.’

  He took a deep breath and dropped his chin onto his chest, almost deflated. ‘I’m happy to hold off on the opening date to accommodate your needs.’

  ‘No,’ I said. A final push back to what would be the easy option. ‘I’m going to concentrate on my cakes, and see where that takes me.’

  ‘All right. Okay.’ Oliver wiped his hands on his pants and stood up. ‘You’ll get that paperwork back to me whenever you’re ready?’

  ‘Will do.’

  ‘Goodnight, Lucy.’ He stopped by the front door. ‘Good to see you.’

  ‘You, too.’

  I didn’t move from my seat as he closed the door behind him, offered a brief wave, and slipped into the night. I picked up my phone and fired off a lunch request to Zoe. She’d know what to do.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Inverleigh Pub welcomes her patrons into the older part of town as you cruise down a gully, past an inconspicuous police car with reflective writing that stands out like a neon light at midnight. It’s just over a rickety bridge that makes you pray you didn’t get sideswiped by a log truck doing far more than the requisite sixty kilometres per hour speed limit. If you survived the gauntlet, you were due a beer in the heavily renovated watering hole.

  I walked through the bistro door to find Zoe already scribbling on the butcher paper tablecloth with a handful of supplied pencils. She summoned me over with a demand that I tell her everything, which I tried, in one hundred and forty characters or less. Super condensed.

  Even though I’d rejected Oliver’s offer, it was still a ridiculously tempting, generous thing for him to suggest. Since he’d visited, I’d written list after list of why it was a bad idea. And it still seemed like a bad idea as I sat at a wobbly table in the corner of the bistro.

  Zoe rearranged her cutlery. ‘You’re not accepting his job.’

  ‘What?’ I asked.

  ‘At least not yet.’ Her head zinged about, looking for someone to come and serve us. ‘We should eat. I’m hungry – are you hungry? What about a vino?’

  ‘Absolutely.’ I took the menu she’d shoved under my nose. ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because Lucy is a tough, strong, independent woman. Your walking in there now is the same as you saying, “Oliver, it’s completely okay to treat me like dirt, roll back into town like a tumbleweed, and I’ll bend over to forgive you”.’

  ‘Do you think so?’ I asked. Pizza looked great. Then again, so did the savoury tasting plate, full of meats, cheeses, and local spreads.

  She leant in to the table theatrically. ‘I know so.’

  ‘But I just quit my job.’

  ‘Yes, you did. So go make some cakes. You’ve had enquiries, right? Get yourself sorted there. Start with the few you have already and see how you go.’

  ‘If that fails?’ I asked.

  ‘If that fails,’ she said, ‘then you can go back to Oliver and say you’ve had time to think about it. Don’t tell him you’re desperate. Boys can smell desperate; it’s like pheromones.’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘Running to him now tells him you can’t do it without him. And, if that’s the case, what the hell have the last three years been for?’ She shrugged. ‘Huh?’

  Once again, Zoe came armed with a bag full of truth. Perhaps leaving the school hadn’t been the smartest thing to do, and maybe I could still walk back in
there and tell Richard I’d had a brain snap, but I’d committed. Now, I had to see it through.

  ‘Basically, you want him to sweat.’ Zoe waved her hand about. ‘When people really want something, they work for it. You just give it to them, well, more fool you, because they won’t appreciate it. Trust me on this one.’

  * * *

  Getting the cake business back up and running wasn’t as easy as my romantic little brain had imagined. Sure, the Instagram and Facebook went up, and a small smattering of followers appeared, but what good were they when it looked like they were simply other cake shops – more competition than customer? Worse still were the random people trying to sell bust enhancers or male performance pills.

  With the few events I delivered cakes to, I was often invited to join the celebrations. The questions came, but the bookings didn’t. Sure, phone numbers were swapped, and I laughed at jokes about Mates Rates, but that’s where it ended. I’d get in my car and drive home, spying a quickly forming Murray’s on my way through the main street, and return home to plot my next move.

  After the first surge of cakes, I was left with only one or two phone calls. Brief enquiries and follow-up calls led to unanswered voicemails. My Instagram feed didn’t look quite as sexy as some of the other bakers out there, try as I might to emulate them. Doubt crept in.

  Murray’s, on the other hand, looked great. One evening, with the awnings up and a warm yellow glow from the front windows, I spied an exhausted Oliver polishing the floors. Up and back, up and back, pushing his hair off his face, on the phone, off the phone, and back to it. He was nothing if not committed to the cause. Watching him that night, it was an odd sensation to realise just how used to having him in the same town I was becoming, even if we’d not spent any more time together. But something still bothered me.

  Determined to succeed on my own, I applied for any job I was even mildly qualified for. It took a solid week of letters, résumés, and follow-up phone calls, but I ended up working in a hip new doughnut shop. Doughnuts and coffee, nothing else on the menu. It turned out, as fun as that idea was, it was brain-dredgingly boring. It was the same routine, day in, day out. My boss was completely clueless, and the only variety in my day was deciding whether today’s special was going to be Nutella crunch, lemon meringue, lamington, choc-orange, custard, or bubblegum-flavoured doughnuts.