by Daisy James
‘Go on, take a seat.’ Matt gestured to the driver’s seat. Lucie stared at him and he simply smiled back, nodding enthusiastically, his ginger eyebrows raised behind his curls.
She moved past him, stumbled over the gear stick, slid her legs behind the steering wheel and plonked herself down. Peering out of the windscreen, she realised how high above the road she would be. The elevation delivered an unexpected sense of safety, of stability, of superiority almost, as she could see everything from her perch above the traffic. She knew in an instant that she would have no difficulty mastering its controls. The little van nudged up a level in her estimation.
Matt slid into the passenger seat, his eyes shining as he scrutinised her reaction. ‘Well, do you think it could work? I know the back needs a bit of a scrub – okay, a lot of a scrub – and you’ll need to invest in the right equipment for what you have planned. As soon as you told me what your new business was going to be, I wondered about this, but I wasn’t sure.’
He swivelled round to look her in the eye. ‘You don’t like it, do you? Before you reject it, though, I just want you to press that button there.’ He pointed to a round silver knob.
‘Why?’
‘Press it and find out.’
She leaned forward and did as instructed. Immediately, the tuneful tinkle of ‘Greensleeves’ floated into the afternoon air. She had to admit the van possessed a certain enchantment, encircled by its pastel-pink-and-cream paintwork, like an ice-cream sundae on wheels. Her thoughts scuttled back to the treats her mother had promised her and Jess on their annual trip to the seaside and the huge Knickerbocker Glory she had always ordered. She loved the title given to the dessert. Perhaps she could devise a cupcake to resemble her childhood favourite! As she took in every corner of the van she was enveloped in a veil of comfort and serenity and her heart melted. She turned back to face Matt and a sudden impulse to hug him proved irresistible.
‘I love it! Totally, completely love it! It’s so what the Travelling Cupcake Company is all about; about nostalgia, about sugary dreams, about eccentricity and not the blandness of shop-bought offerings. And what a quirky marketing hook! A mobile cupcake business from an ice-cream van – delicious! I don’t know about you, but for me it really evokes memories, happy memories, from my childhood days. I can just picture me and Jess squeezing the buttercream toppings from those dispensers onto our cupcakes and dousing them with a handful of sprinkles.’ She looked over her shoulder into the back. ‘It does need some elbow grease, but that’s easy. I don’t know how to thank you, Matt, but before I get too excited I have to ask you whether I can afford it.’
She dreaded hearing the price. Now that she’d begun to invest in its possibilities the ideas were flowing, not to mention the coil of excitement whipping around her abdomen.
‘Jess warned me of your maximum price bracket before I even suggested it. This little beauty is within your budget. I’ll check the tyres and give the engine a final once over. The rest, as they say, is up to you. Oh, and maybe you could spare a box of those cupcakes you intend to bestow upon the good people of Richmond for the lads in the garage?’
‘Done!’
Tears smarted at her eyes and a lump the size of a golf ball lodged in the back of her throat. Matt, in one fell swoop, had handed her more than the opportunity to buy a second-hand ice-cream van – the mobile bit of her cupcake business. He had given her an injection of self-confidence. She intended to throw every ounce of her energy into making this venture work. She would crush her wayward emotions into their box and turn the key. If this was going to be her business it was time she showed some professionalism.
‘Thank you, thank you, thank you. After the Livid Lucie Twitter fiasco, you’ve really restored my faith in human nature.’
She met Matt’s eyes and watched as the realisation dawned. She saw him raise his index finger and open his mouth as though he was going to say something but thought better of it. He clamped his lips tightly shut but his eyes remained widened. Sadly, the curiosity became too much for him and he burst out, ‘You’re Livid Lucie? Hey, man, that was some meltdown.’
With her hands resting on her hips, she prepared herself for the inevitable guffaws and the ribbing. However, as she waited for the heat of humiliation to descend again, Matt did not laugh. He scratched at the stubble on his chin before placing a huge calloused hand gently on her shoulder, his face for once serious, the scatter of freckles across the bridge of his nose more noticeable than previously. He lowered his voice as though there was an audience.
‘That was an awesome way to answer your critics, Lucie. Kudos to you.’ He offered his palm to her and she glanced down before smiling and taking it. ‘Good luck with explaining your decision to Jess!’
She stared out of the side window at her sister, who had emerged from the garage with her nephews in her wake. They were running towards the van, their faces alight with excitement. She opened the door and jumped down to the tarmac. Jess’s face was a picture Lucie wished she could frame as she waited for her verdict. Her sister seemed to be standing on her tiptoes, anxious to get a good look at the vehicle.
‘Well?’ she asked. ‘What do you think of the “travelling” bit of our new business?’
‘Oh my God, I love it! Can I have a look? It’s exactly what we need – and isn’t the colour adorable?’
She dragged Jess to the passenger’s side door and helped her to climb on board. The two of them slid back the window and leaned out over the counter.
‘Screwball anyone?’ they giggled.
Their excitement proved too much for Lewis and Jack. They followed in their mother’s footsteps and joined in with the exclamation of delight, laughing as Lewis sat in the driver’s seat and pressed the music button.
‘I’m in!’ announced Jess, her smile stretched across her cheeks. ‘But I have one stipulation. We have to rethink this music. What about a bit of Take That?’
‘Agreed!’
They explored every cupboard and shelf and took it in turns to examine the stainless-steel dispensers. Lucie had laughed when Matt confessed to having dismantled them, given them a polish and reassembled them.
‘It’ll take me a week or so to get the documents sorted. Why don’t you come by next Sunday and I’ll have everything ready for you,’ said Matt.
‘Yay!’ the girls squealed in unison, grasping each other’s forearms and dancing round and round in a circle like seven-year-old schoolgirls in a playground.
Lucie experienced the warm glow of contentment seep through her veins at being part of such an exciting enterprise. She had to fight the urge to roll up her sleeves there and then and get her hands dirty.
Chapter Ten
‘Okay, shall we have a little music to speed us along?’ suggested Lucie as they gathered around the marble island unit for a third day of marathon baking experiments. The previous day they had just about got the cake pops at the correct flavour, colour and consistency to form the internal shapes without them disintegrating when they dipped them in the candy melt.
‘How about some eighties tunes in homage to Mum? I know she’d love to be part of all this. Hang on while I take some photos to email over to her.’
‘Yes, Chef!’ giggled Lucie as she tucked her hair behind her ears and rolled up her sleeves. ‘Does Abba’s Greatest Hits qualify?’
‘Perfect.’
Jess dashed off to locate the CD leaving Lucie to contemplate the conversation she’d had with her mother the previous evening when she’d called her in Andalucía to enthuse over her plans for the Travelling Cupcake Company. The familiar insecurities had coiled through her stomach as she listened to a pep talk about how embarrassing it was to have a daughter who had been so publicly fired from her job. Apparently some of her mother’s more obliging friends had alerted her to the tweets and YouTube videos. No matter what she did, she never quite felt she lived up to her famous mother’s expectations of her. She wondered why she was still trying. At least she knew Jess was proud
of her and understood the pressure to excel in their chosen fields weighed heavy.
The first few notes of ‘The Winner Takes It All’ wove into the kitchen. Probably not the best choice Jess could have made, thought Lucie, as she ditched her foray into her anxieties left over from childhood and meandered down a more recent flint-strewn path. What was Alex doing at that very moment? And more to the point, who with? Did he ever think of her or had he been relieved to cast her from his life without a backward glance? Had he achieved the partnership he craved so much? She resolved to call Steph and ask, but in the meantime she had a batch of cake pops to design.
‘Before we start I wanted to give you this,’ Lucie said, handing a ribbon-tied package to her sister.
‘What is it?’
‘Open it and see.’ Lucie watched as Jess tore the pale-pink tissue paper from her gift and her heart ballooned when she saw the look of delight appear on her face. ‘I’ve got one too. Look.’
‘Oh, Luce, it’s fabulous. Thank you.’ Jess hugged her and they stood back to admire themselves in their matching aprons embroidered with the words ‘The Travelling Cupcake Company’ and crowned with a cupcake with a cherry on the top.
‘It’s not much but I feel as though I’m really going to do this! We need to look as though we mean business. Come on, let’s get beating!’
They spent the morning creaming butter and sugar, cracking eggs and jokes, as well as dancing to ‘Mama Mia!’ and ‘Waterloo’. They had already perfected the basic cake recipe, so Lucie diverted her attention to more exotic flavours – pumpkin-spiced, cappuccino, even treacle toffee with sharp lemon icing that would go down a treat at Hallowe’en parties.
Jess concentrated on making two plain chocolate cakes to whizz into breadcrumbs with cream cheese, which they moulded into balls and popped into the freezer to harden before experimenting with shaping them into cake pops. Lucie was so excited she hopped from one foot to another, desperate to start dipping the dough-like balls into the numerous dishes of liquid candy melts and decorating them. Today’s were going to be frogs with bulging eyes and an attempt at a rabbit.
Thankfully Lucie was a tidy cook, unlike Jess who was so engrossed in the creative ballet that her utensils were simply shoved aside or dropped into the sink. There was a hillock of bowls and whisks and cake tins and paint palettes waiting for their carousel ride in the dishwasher. Flour and icing sugar were sprinkled on every available surface and there was even a splodge of pink buttercream on the SMEG fridge door.
Among the chaos, the sweet aroma of cakes baking snaked through the air and tickled at their nostrils, turning their lips into smiles and their stomachs to growling. They had chatted throughout the morning, general gossip to begin with, but as they settled into a routine, and selected tasks that played to their talents, the talk turned more intimate. Lucie realised with a pang of regret that she hadn’t had a heart-to-heart with her sister for years and chastised herself for not being there on a daily basis when Dan had left her to bring up Lewis and Jack on her own. She’d had Mum, of course, until she’d emigrated, but Lucie vowed to make up for her absence and never again put her career before contact with her family.
‘Baking has become my cure for everything – hangovers, Mum emigrating, Dad’s lack of interest, Alex dumping me. I’ll never grow tired of it. But sharing the fun with you, learning different techniques together, well, it’s so much better than doing it alone,’ said Lucie as the last Abba song faded into the silence.
‘We make an awesome team,’ confirmed Jess.
‘Hey! Auntie Lucie, can we have one of these?’
Lewis burst into the kitchen with Jack and a dark-haired girl following in his wake. Jack snatched up a couple of banana muffins topped with toffee buttercream and fudge pieces and handed one to his friend before running out into the garden to bounce on the trampoline. Lucie hadn’t realised it was the end of the school day already.
‘Thanks for bringing Lewis and Jack home, Rosa. My turn next week,’ said Jess, clicking the kettle on to make a pot of tea for them all.
‘It’s no problem,’ smiled Rosa, as she manoeuvred her bulk onto a bar stool and patted her stomach. ‘Only another eight weeks to go – June can’t come soon enough. To say I’m exhausted is an understatement. Paolo is away visiting his mother in Siena after her stroke and he’s not due home for another week. Gabriella is so full of energy. Where do these five-year-olds get it from? She’s up at six and refuses to go to bed before eight. Actually, she’s the reason I wanted to see you.’
‘Oh?’ said Jess, setting out three china mugs decorated with periwinkles and a selection of the freshly iced cupcakes on a tiered cake stand.
‘Ah, they look stunning! And those cake pops are so cute. I love the frogs and it’s a great idea to display them in jam jars filled with those blue glass beads. Don’t let Gabriella see them or she’ll want to take one home. Are these for your children’s parties?’ Rosa bit into one of Lucie’s lemon drizzle muffins, which she had decorated with a swirl of Earl Grey-infused buttercream and edible violets.
‘Yes, but we’re still in the experimental phrase…’
Lucie saw Rosa’s face drop. ‘You mean you’re not taking bookings yet?’ She shot a look across to Jess as she laced her fingers around her mug of tea, waiting for the spirals of steam to subside.
‘Erm, no, not yet, but soon.’ Lucie also glanced across at Jess and was surprised to see her sister squirm and her cheeks take on a distinct rosy glow.
‘Actually, Lucie, I meant to mention it to you. It’s Gabriella’s fifth birthday on Saturday and Rosa asked if the Travelling Cupcake Company would do her party. It’s the ideal opportunity for us to iron out any issues. There’ll be ten five-year-old girls and they’ll adore the activities. I know most of their mothers from Jack’s school, so if anything goes pear-shaped it wouldn’t matter so much.’
‘But it’s too soon! We’ve got the buttercream dispensers to sort out, the bunting to sew and the paper pom-poms and tassels to make. We’re not ready!’ Despite the years of working in five-star establishments across Europe, Lucie was surprised to experience a coil of panic. Clearly her run-in with Edmundo Cartolli had had a bigger impact on her self-confidence than she’d thought. What if the children’s mothers realised who she was? Would they even allow their children to eat her cakes? Would they think she had sprinkled them with chilli powder? ‘I can’t do it.’
‘Yes, we can,’ urged Jess. ‘It’s ten little girls decorating their own cupcakes. Come on, Lucie – didn’t you say we were a team? No one’s expecting you to do this alone – we can do this together. Erm, in fact, I’ve already sorted out a trestle table and a dozen old Sunday school chairs. And I wasn’t going to tell you until the first party but’ – she reached into her shopping basket and extracted a brown paper parcel – ‘I’ve got these too.’
Lucie stared at the parcel, frightened to touch it. She looked at Jess, then Rosa who nodded and smiled. Clearly she’d been in on it. She ran her finger under the flap and extracted the contents. Two dozen white paper chef’s hats in a variety of sizes.
‘Awesome!’ she exclaimed, grabbing one and opening it out. ‘It’s so cute!’
‘I thought the children could write their names on them with glitter pens and that way we’d know their names. We have the kids’ aprons already, and I’ve invested in a box of paper table cloths and napkins that they can decorate with their names too.’
Jess shot her a look of such hope that Lucie felt her heart contract. She consciously shoved all negative thoughts into the attic of her brain for later dissection in the privacy of her bedroom – now was not the time. Today was the start of her new life, her new business venture and this was her first booking. Jess was positively bouncing with excitement.
‘So we’re doing it?’
‘Yes! We’ll do it!’
‘Oh, thank goodness,’ gasped Rosa, the relief written clearly across her face. ‘So I can expect you at the village hall at three o’clo
ck on Saturday, yes?’
‘Yes,’ they chorused.
‘Thank you so much. With Paolo away there’s no way I could have coped with keeping ten five-year-olds occupied with party games. Pass the parcel and musical chairs can only hold their interest for a short time before all hell breaks loose and they start climbing the walls. Remember Martha’s party last month, Jess?’
The two women shivered at the recollection. ‘My brother has promised to come down from London to help. I haven’t seen him for a couple of months and I’m useless at keeping up with his life. He keeps telling me to sign up to Facebook so I can stay in touch with what’s happening in the family, but who has the time? None of our relatives, or Paolo’s in Italy, bother with social media so it would be pointless. It’ll just become another voracious devourer of my time. Anyway, I prefer to see my baby brother face-to-face so I can see the whites of his eyes when I’m cross-examining him on his love life. Gabriella adores him too. Oh, the children are going to love the Travelling Cupcake Company and I don’t have to worry about the party bags or the cleaning up afterwards! Perfect.’
When Rosa and Gabriella left – Gabriella clutching a frog cake pop wrapped in cellophane and tied with a scarlet ribbon – Lucie smiled at Jess as they got stuck in to the tidying up. She looked happier than she’d seen her for a long time and she realised it couldn’t be easy bringing up two boisterous boys on her own. Making relationships work was tough and maybe there was no such thing as everlasting love. The debacle with Alex had confirmed that.
Despite the wriggle of nerves in the pit of her stomach over the forthcoming party, she sent up a missive of thanks to her guardian angel for all her numerous blessings, most of all her family – and especially her mother who, despite her indisputable talents overshadowing those of her children, had instilled in her a creative passion that would see her through life.