Meet Me at the Cupcake Café (24 page)

‘No gambling!’ warned Austin.

There was just one important last piece of the puzzle, hot off the press, that they were still waiting for. Work had picked up, so he was running a little late with it, but any moment now he would—

Zac burst through the door with two large boxes in his hands.

‘They’re here!’

There was a flurry as everyone bustled around to look. Then they stepped back to let Issy open them.

‘Hmm, let’s see,’ Zac had said. ‘I do worry about you.
But
I can get things printed.’

Issy tore through the plastic wrappings. Agonized over, endlessly reworked and reworded, tested over and over again, sweated over … and here it was. From out of the fresh, sharp, inky-scented box, slowly, reverently, Issy withdrew her first menu.

It was in the same soft pastels, with eau de Nil and white predominating, as the exterior. Zac had designed an exquisite tracery of pear tree blossom running up the side, like an art deco border. The lettering looked hand-printed and friendly, and was easy to read, and it was made of stiff card – easily replaceable, easily changeable, without having that horrid shiny plastic laminate to wipe off spills.

The Cupcake Café

Menu

Fresh vanilla and lemon-cream cupcakes,
with candied lemon rind and edible silver garnish

Red velvet cupcake, with a honey and buttermilk icing

English strawberry cupcake with sugar-spun pansies

Muscadet grape macaroons with parma violet crème

Caramel 70% dark Yves Thuriès chocolate muffins
with slow-roasted hazelnuts

Sampler plate

(one tiny slice of each – you know you want to)

Coffees of the Day

Kailua-Kona slow roast – mild and sweet,
from the volcanic slopes of Hawaii

Selva Negra – tangy with a medium body,
from Nicaragua

Babycino

Teas of the Day

Rose Petal Black

French Verveine

Issy looked down at Zac, eyes brimming.

‘Thank you so much,’ she said.

Zac looked uncomfortable.

‘Don’t be stupid,’ he said. ‘You’ve done all this. It’s helped me loads, anyway. I’ve used it as a calling card and got more commissions already.’

And then Helen loudly proposed a toast to the Cupcake Café and everyone clinked glasses and Issy made a speech where she said she would try to pay back the bank first (Austin raised his glass at that) before they had a proper celebration, but she thanked everyone for coming now, and everyone fulsomely applauded, even while they had their mouths full of cake and were spraying crumbs everywhere. Gramps was deep in conversation with various people, until Keavie took him back to the home.

Issy glanced outside. There was a shadow at the opening of the close. It looked like … no, it couldn’t be. Her eyesight was playing tricks under the street lights. It was just someone passing who looked a little like Graeme, that was all.

Graeme had made the excuse to himself that he was checking out another gym to use after work, but he hadn’t really been surprised to find his feet heading down Albion Road. What had surprised him, however, was to see the shop full of people – it must be, he realized belatedly, a party, and was amazed at how stung he felt, that Issy would have a party and not invite him. And he was amazed again at how finished and professional the café looked. It was pretty and inviting, with its warm pools of light projecting out over the cobbles of the courtyard. He glanced around at the other buildings; it was hard to tell if they were occupied or not. But the café looked solid, and real; something built and beautiful. Graeme usually saw spaces as square metreage, profit and loss, as A, B or Cs; flipping and auctioning and bidding and transferring invisible amounts of money from here to there and eventually, some of it, to himself. He didn’t normally think about what people might do with a space once they had it; whether they would make it beautiful.

Suddenly from inside the café a peal of laughter rang out that he recognized at once as Issy’s. He felt his fists tighten in his pockets. Why hadn’t she listened to him? This was sure to be a failure. She had no right to sound so happy and carefree. How dare she not come back and ask him what he thought? Biting his lip, he stared up at the bricks of Pear Tree Court. Then he turned on his heel and walked off down the road back to his sports car.

Inside, more fizzy wine was poured and everyone nodded their heads and said that the Cupcake Café was going to be a huge success, and Pearl looked sage and said sure it would be as long as they remembered to give each of their clients free booze. Issy managed to chat to and individually thank everyone there, which meant she was so caught up in the hurly-burly that she had no chance to speak to anyone for long. Anyway, Pearl was scooping up a snoozing Louis and pointing meaningfully at her watch, which Issy realized with a start meant, ‘Go home to bed, you’re in here at 6am,’ so she kissed everyone on the cheek, even Austin from the bank, who looked shocked but not entirely displeased, and Helena raised her eyebrows and asked did she think that was a good way of getting her overdraft limit extended. Issy, however, had danced on air all the way home, even after clearing up and locking up after everyone. To see her shop, her café, come alive with people eating and chatting and laughing and having a good time – it was everything she’d ever dreamed of. And after they got home and Helena sent her to bed, she still lay awake, staring at the ceiling, her mind and heart full of plans and dreams and ideas and the future, the future that was … Argh, she looked at her alarm clock. Only four hours away.

Chapter Ten

‘
Won-doo-free!
’ shouted Louis. And, ceremoniously, Issy turned the quaint
Open/Closed
sign to
Open
. Zac had made that too, he’d thought of everything. She had a stack of his business cards by the till in case anyone asked her who’d done her wonderful graphic design.

Pearl and Issy looked at each other.

‘Here goes nothing,’ said Pearl, and they took their places, expectantly, behind the counter. The entire place was spick and span, the day’s produce lined up in the shining display cases, piled high on the stands. The air was scented with coffee and vanilla, with underlying beeswax furniture polish on the wooden tables. The sun was starting a slow spring creep around the huge plate-glass window where it would illuminate each table in turn, starting with the big sofa on the end.