I give her one meaningful nod before turning on my heels, grabbing a tray of Belgian chocolate brownies as I head back out there.
My mum is right, I need to remember who I am. I’m Lily Holmes and I am awesome – and I look great in this dress, whether it rides up when I walk or not. Maybe Charlie is smaller and slimmer than me, with a more impressive job and zero baggage, but she isn’t me and she never will be.
Now I’m walking around with a real spring in my step, dress be damned.
‘You OK?’ Alfie asks. ‘You hurried off a little quickly…’
‘Oh, I’m fine,’ I assure him with an air of unwavering confidence, despite noticing Charlie still lingering at his side. ‘I just remembered the brownies in the oven.’
I hold up the tray of Belgian chocolate brownies. Of course, they came ready prepared, so this is a lie, but it beats telling the truth.
‘Would you like one?’
Alfie raises his eyebrows with delight, the rich smell of chocolate drifting up towards him.
‘I’d love one,’ he says eagerly.
‘Oh, not for me,’ Charlie says, practically turning her nose up at them. ‘Some of us can’t get away with eating stuff like that.’
I shrug.
Luckily before I can reply, Jessica beckons me over.
‘Did you say you baked?’ Jessica asks.
‘Yes, brownies,’ I reply, offering the tray to them. ‘Help yourselves.’
The ladies each take a brownie and eat them in near silence – something I find is often a good sign when it comes to food, because it usually means people are too busy enjoying what they’re eating to focus on anything else.
‘So, you like to bake?’ Avril says.
‘Love to,’ I reply, hoping to find some common ground, even if it’s not strictly true. Well, I’m sure I’d love baking if I knew how and had lots of spare time.
‘Ask her,’ Jessica encourages.
‘As part of the start of autumn festivities, we’re having a bake sale at school, and we could do with an extra baker’s contributions. Would you be interested?’ Avril asks. I can hear a cautious reluctance in her voice, but that only makes me more convinced that this is my shot at proving I am one of them.
‘Oh, yes,’ I say, trying to sound enthusiastic and not at all like I’m lying or panicking. ‘When is it?’
‘The day after tomorrow,’ Avril says. ‘We’re bringing everything in the morning, so that the kids can set it up throughout the day, ready for after school. Will that be a problem?’
‘No,’ I say with a casual bat of my hand. ‘I’ll whip a few things up tomorrow.’
‘Well, OK then,’ Avril says. ‘Great.’
‘Great,’ I reply.
I’m about to walk away when Avril places a hand on my arm.
‘You know, we can see that you’re making an effort to fit in,’ she says. ‘And the food tonight is great.’
‘Also,’ Jessica chimes in, ‘Simon has asked if Frankie wants to come to his birthday party.’
Jessica removes a small, blue envelope from her handbag and hands it to me.
‘Thank you,’ I say, trying to sound casual, but getting the blessing of the head of the PTA is like getting the blessing of the Godfather, and Frankie will be over the moon that one of the kids is including him.
I hurry over to Alfie, pulling him to one side.
‘You’ll never guess what just happened,’ I tell him. ‘Avril said she liked the food, and she said she could tell that I was making an effort to fit in.’
‘Aww, have you finally made friends with the cool kids?’ Alfie teases playfully.
‘Yes,’ I laugh. ‘Frankie too, he’s been invited to a party.’
‘That’s great, Apple Blossom girl. Sounds like you’re getting everything you want.’
Not quite everything I want.
‘I just love that I’ve acquired this nickname – the Apple Blossom girl. The Apple Blossom girl, living in the Apple Blossom cottage – we may as well call this place the Apple Blossom Deli, because that’s all it’s going to be known as.’
Alfie laughs.
‘There are worse things to be called…’
‘And I’m sure I’ve been called those too,’ I reply.
I furrow my brow as a brainwave washes over me.
‘What about “Apple Blossom Deli” for the name – seriously?’ I suggest after a few seconds. ‘It’s beautiful, it sounds good, and it’s definitely personal.’
‘You know what, I love it,’ he replies. ‘It fits in with the town and the name has already caught on for you – there’s no reason it won’t take for the deli too.’
‘I can run it by my bosses and, if they like it, we can get the signs made up, ready for opening.’
‘Erm, Alfie…sorry, Lily,’ Charlie interrupts. ‘I was just thinking – and I know it’s not like me to make a mistake, and I’m sure I haven’t – but I think I might have given Leonardo the wrong injection. Just for my peace of mind, can we go check on him?’
‘Yeah,’ Alfie says, a worried expression consuming his face. ‘Sorry, Lily. I’ll be back.’
‘It’s OK,’ I insist – but it isn’t. ‘It’s nearly kicking out time anyway.’
If I thought for a second that something might actually be wrong with Leonardo, I’d probably drive Alfie up there myself, but this just seems like another one of Charlie’s little games.
He returns the kiss on the cheek I gave him earlier before hurriedly heading for the door.
‘See you, Lily,’ Charlie says with a smile.
‘Bye.’
I slowly follow them towards the door, watching to see where they head. If they came in one car, does that mean Alfie will be driving her home later? Or if they’re friends – does she stay there? She implies that she does, seeing as how they’re BFFs.
I can’t actually see where they’ve gone, so I step outside into the fairy lit garden to glance around. There’s still no sign of them, but then I hear a quiet mumble from around the corner. My curiosity getting the better of me, I peep around the building and there, in the shadows, I spot two people kissing. It’s dark, but what little light is getting around there I can see bouncing off Charlie’s PVC trousers. I can’t help but gasp with shock.
‘Lily, sorry,’ I hear the man say. I’m standing in the light, so he can see exactly who I am. I can’t see him, but I recognise his voice. It’s not Alfie, it’s Biagio.
‘No, I’m sorry,’ I say. ‘I didn’t…’
Something suddenly occurs to me. Charlie wasn’t the only person wearing shiny trousers tonight.
‘Mum?’ I ask, as though there might be a doubt in my mind.
‘Hello, darling,’ she says. ‘Still going well?’
‘Oh, marvellous,’ I tell her, slightly traumatised to catch my mum getting off with someone, like outside a school disco. ‘I’ll see you later.’
I hurry back inside, back where things are going well. Things inside the deli might be starting to improve, but outside they’re only getting worse.
Chapter 31
‘Year 9,’ my mum says as she watches me carefully spooning equally sized dollops of cupcake batter into bun cases. ‘That’s the last time I saw you bake anything.’
‘That’s probably because that was the last time I baked,’ I admit. ‘And look how that turned out.’
‘Those biscuits weren’t that bad,’ she says as she washes dishes in the sink next to me.
‘Mum, they were supposed to be buns,’ I remind her. ‘I never put any baking powder in them.’
‘You should’ve made dairy free cakes, set an example,’ Nathan calls over from the sofa.
‘It’s hard enough as it is,’ I call back. ‘And is it not bedtime?’
‘I’m watching A Place in the Sun,’ he protests, until I point out to him that I was referring to Frankie, who is falling asleep next to him.
My mum has to take a phone call (no doubt from her new fancy man, who we’re still yet to di
scuss) so I ask Nathan if he could put Frankie to bed, but he explains to me that we can’t pause live TV, and he really wants to see how this one plays out. I can’t believe I’ve ended up stuck with him here, spending his days on the sofa either watching TV, annoying me, or a combination of both. In his defence, while we were at the deli last night, he did go outside with Frankie and make a real start on the tree house…sort of…there’s something in the tree now at least, anyway. He’s building it in the tree next to the kitchen – something to do with his idea for a zip line, which I promptly vetoed. It doesn’t look like he’s done much work on it, but it’s a start, I suppose.
I end up putting Frankie to bed while Nathan has the ever so simple task of keeping an eye on the cupcakes as they bake. I asked him to shout me when the time was up, safe in the knowledge that in this rubbish old gas oven, it would probably take longer than it would in an electric fan oven.
I tuck Frankie in and listen to him gush about his dad, how he’s starting to be included at school, and share his concerns for his frog, which has gone missing from the garden. I thought the frog might have taken a backseat to Nathan, so it’s nice to know he stills thinks about it.
After Frankie falls asleep, I just watch him for a few minutes, stroking his little bald head, feeling a combination of wonder and terror over how quickly he’s growing up.
It’s the smell of burning that snaps me from my thoughts. I hurry into the kitchen where I find my cakes, burning in the oven, and my no good ex still watching TV.
‘Nathan, you said you’d watch them,’ I say as I hurriedly take them out, as though that would do anything to undo the damage that has already been done. Realising he has messed up, he rushes over and fusses around the cakes, suddenly trying to seem useful, but not actually doing anything other than making excuses.
Looking down at the near-black cakes, despite it being quite late in the evening, I realise that I have no choice but to start again.
‘The Lil I knew never cared about baking, or impressing people,’ Nathan insists.
‘Well, people change,’ I tell him. ‘Most people, anyway.’
If there’s one thing that has been crystal clear since Nathan arrived, it’s that he hasn’t changed at all.
‘I still see the same Lil I fell in love with, deep down in there somewhere,’ he tells me. I don’t realise he has edged closer towards me until I turn to look at him in disbelief, and notice him right next to me. Close to me. Very close to me, in fact.
‘What are you doing?’ I ask, but Nathan doesn’t answer. Instead, he grabs my head with both hands and tries to kiss me. It’s uncomfortable and unwanted, so I shove him away from me as hard as I can, causing him to stumble backwards. He manages to save himself from falling, but not without knocking things off the worktop.
‘I, er, I think I’ll go to the van…get some sleep,’ he says awkwardly, his cheeks slightly flushed from his misjudged pass at me.
‘Yeah, good idea,’ I reply angrily.
I don’t think I can feel angrier until I notice the open packet of baking powder, bobbing upside down in the sink full of soapy water.
‘Did you need that?’ Nathan asks, although I’m sure he knows the answer. ‘I’ll go get you some more.’
‘From where?’ I reply, pointing at the clock. It’s late at night, everywhere will be closed.
Nathan quickly hurries off to the safety of his van, leaving me alone in the kitchen, so angry about so many things. Not only has he completely sabotaged my baking efforts – and not even on purpose, just by being himself – but then he tried to kiss me…I just don’t know what he was thinking. Since his return, at no point have I said or done anything to give him any indication that there is anything romantic between us. His pass was completely out of line and, to make sure he realises this, I’m going to have to have an awkward conversation with him about it at some point, which I am not looking forward to, but I can only sort one mess at a time. With Nathan hiding in his van, I turn my attention to solving my baking crisis.
As I stress over my problems, I spot the answer to my prayers across the kitchen. Packets and packets of biscuits and cakes sent from my bosses. Everything looks so professional and perfect though, there’s no way anyone will believe I made them, so I attempt to make them look a little more rustic and homemade. I cut up sponge cake and cover it with buttercream, I empty out a packet of biscuits into a sandwich box and shake it up a little, just to make them look a little rough around the edges, and, telling myself that the more I contribute, the more I’ll help the autumn bake sale, I even open up a packet of brownies, cut them in half and then sprinkled them with icing sugar to make them seem different to the ones we had at the party, just in case anyone thought I might have brought the leftovers or – God forbid – not made them at all.
I had faith in my plan last night, but not in my improvising abilities, which is why I dropped Frankie off at school this morning with sandwich boxes filled with sweet treats, before quickly making my exit. I was worried that if anyone saw them, they might compliment me on them and ask for the recipe or something. So I left them with Frankie, safe in the knowledge that by the time I came back this afternoon, my store-bought baking would be blending in amongst all the home-baked stuff, and no one would be any the wiser. Except that isn’t how it’s played out…
When I arrive at the school in the afternoon, I can’t help but notice that my contributions are nowhere to be seen. I’ve done a full lap of the room but I can’t spot any sign of them.
‘Where are yours, Mum?’ Frankie asks me.
‘Perhaps they’ve all been sold already,’ I wonder out loud. Well, they were made by professionals after all.
I feel my palms start to sweat as I begin to worry. They invited me to take part, so why wouldn’t they want to sell them? Was there something wrong with them? Are they on to me? I don’t see how they could be, but something isn’t right here.
‘Lily, wow, I’ve never noticed your tattoo before,’ Avril says, sneaking up behind me. She’s referring to the silhouette of a flock of birds on my back that I had done back in my hippy phase.
‘Oh, yeah,’ I reply. ‘Do you have any?’
‘Oh, gosh no,’ she replies, a little too quickly for my liking. ‘You know you have them for life, right?’
‘You have children,’ I laugh. ‘They’re pretty permanent fixtures too.’
‘Indeed,’ she says, unamused. ‘Anyway, I’m here to ask about the allergens in your baking.’
‘Hmm?’ I reply, causing her to repeat herself.
‘We couldn’t put your baking out because you weren’t here to tell us the allergens, so we didn’t know which table to put them on.’
‘It’s fine,’ I insist, making sure she realises I’m not at all offended. I mentally high-five myself for not coming in this morning, I hadn’t even considered allergens, so I would’ve had no idea what to say.
‘So?’
‘So?’ I repeat, still smiling with relief.
‘So, tell us now and we’ll lay them out.’
Oh, sugar.
‘Well, they all have flour in them,’ I say. ‘And, er, dairy.’
I’m pretty sure that’s right.
‘OK,’ she replies. ‘What about nuts?’
‘Nope, no nuts,’ I reply, but then I realise that, I don’t actually know that for sure. Sure, on the surface, it might not seem like any of the products have nuts in them, but don’t things sometimes say they were made in the same place as where nuts were handled? ‘Wait, no, maybe.’
‘Maybe?’ Avril replies, puzzled.
The bake sale is buzzing with life around us but, thankfully, the only person listening to this conversation is Frankie. I didn’t tell him that I was passing deli products off as my own baking, but he knows his mum, and I think he might be working it out for himself. I place an arm around him and give him a squeeze.
‘Which ones have nuts in?’ she asks.
‘Maybe all of them,’ I reply honestly.
‘Lily, you either put nuts in or you didn’t,’ she laughs. ‘So which ones?’
There are no lies that can get me out of this situation that won’t see a child with a nut allergy potentially exposed to nuts, and I can’t risk that.
‘You didn’t make these, did you?’ she asks.
I’m frozen on the spot, unable to speak. Avril has me banged to rights.
‘You didn’t make these, did you?’ she says, louder this time. Now we’ve attracted the attention of parents, kids and teachers throughout the room. Now everyone is frozen on the spot, silent, looking over at me.
‘What’s the problem?’ Mrs Snowball asks, hurrying over in her usual busy bee manner.
‘Lily can’t tell me whether or not her baking contains nuts and I think it’s because she didn’t make any of it,’ Avril says, address the room. I feel Frankie cling to my arm protectively.
‘Lily, you’re not trying to pass off cakes that you didn’t make as your own, are you?’ Mrs Snowball asks.
‘I…’ There’s nothing I can do but tell the truth, is there? ‘I did bake but, due to circumstances beyond my control, it got ruined last night and I just didn’t want to let everyone down.’
‘Lily, not only is it spectacularly dangerous, to potentially feed children foods they may be allergic to, but it’s incredibly dishonest of you to pass this food off as your own.’
I feel my cheeks warming with embarrassment as I’m ticked off in front of everyone.
‘You should’ve just said you couldn’t do it,’ Avril insists.
‘I’m sorry, I wanted to be helpful,’ I reply.
‘To get us all on board with your deli, I’ll bet,’ Avril says. Her hostility may have faded at the party but it’s back tenfold now.
‘Wait, is that why you helped me out in the shop?’ Mary-Ann chimes in.
‘Of course not,’ I reply. ‘I just wanted to help.’
‘And why you helped me?’ Jessica adds. ‘So that I’d feel like I had to come to the party?’
‘No, no, you’ve got me all wrong,’ I insist, but standing here, surrounded by angry faces, I realise that I’m wasting my breath.
‘The raffle,’ Mrs Snowball shouts excitedly. ‘Let’s do the raffle.’
Summer Secrets at the Apple Blossom Deli Page 19