Christmas At The Cupcake Cafe (27 page)

Darny would never survive there. Austin couldn’t possibly afford to send him to another school. Not in London. Even if they’d take him, which with his record was probably a bit tricky. He gulped.

Merv had already handed him a brochure for the middle school his own children went to, assuring him he’d get a place for Darny. It had class sizes of twelve, its own pool, and weekly one-to-one seminars ‘to develop social and creative potential’ and encourage ‘independence and clarity of thought’. Austin had had it half on his mind ever since. Part of Darny’s intransigence was of course just down to his age; it was completely normal and would probably get thrashed out of him at King’s Mount … Austin couldn’t bear it. Darny was small for his age. Small, not very brave, but with a big mouth. He remembered Issy saying in passing that she didn’t like big gangs of schoolchildren in her shop (she let them in, but Pearl did bouncing if they got too rowdy), but felt like making an exception for the poor terrified mites she saw crawling out of King’s Mount, with their pale, scared-looking faces.

Austin sighed. Would
he drop everything, this job and everything else, for Issy? Of course. Yes, New York would be fun and an adventure, but he wouldn’t jeopardise their relationship for that. Not if it was just him.

It wasn’t just him. It was him and Darny; had been for a long time.

As soon as Issy saw the outside of the place where they were meeting, she knew, and couldn’t help feeling a bit irritated. This was where Austin had got those other cupcakes. Those enemies … She was curious, she couldn’t help it. The New York City Cupcake Store, read the old-fashioned writing on the window. This was where so many of the great cupcake makers had started in this city … perhaps she’d just had a bad batch. It would be a good thing to try some others out, have a look around and see if she could get any new ideas. She wished she’d thought of this before, actually, rather than following the guidebook and having to try and explain stuff to Darny in the art gallery that she didn’t really understand, then answer his follow-up questions, which she definitely didn’t.

The smell of coffee
wafting out into the street – although it had that odd, slightly burned smell that she’d learnt to associate with American coffee shops – calmed her down a little. It felt more like home somehow. She sniffed. Something was odd. She could smell baking for sure, a warm smell that encompassed half the street. And she could see the cakes in the window. But the cakes in the window didn’t chime with the smell, which was much breadier. Something was up.

She peered through the steamed-up window. Austin, to her amazement, was already there. It wasn’t like him to be on time, never mind early. He was inside chatting to someone. They were head to head. Issy blinked. He hadn’t mentioned bringing a friend.

‘Come ON,’ Darny was saying, hopping up and down. ‘It’s FREEZING out here.’

‘OK, OK,’ said Issy, and pushed open the door. The doorbell made an electronic noise. Issy preferred her real bell.

Austin looked up, almost guiltily. The girl he was talking to was, Issy noticed, almost ridiculously pretty, with her perfect teeth and rosy mouth and lovely scattering of freckles. Issy wondered if she was being paranoid, but the girl seemed to shoot an angry look in her direction. Issy was going too far in her harsh judgements of New York and its inhabitants. She needed to calm down and lighten up a little. Everything was going to be better now.

‘Hello,’ she said
as cheerily and generously as possible.

Austin smiled. He still felt a bit awkward about this morning, and had a sense that things weren’t turning out quite as amazingly as he had thought they should be in his head.

‘Hello,’ he said.

‘New York sucks,’ announced Darny cheerfully, as if it confirmed all his long-held suspicions. ‘It’s freezing and really boring. But the food is good,’ he added, looking at the cupcakes.

‘Hello,’ said Kelly-Lee. She was slightly discomfited. Girlfriends she could handle, but she didn’t know they had a child. That was annoying. And Austin didn’t look anywhere near old enough. ‘Have you come to visit your dad?’

‘My dad’s dead,’ said Darny rudely, as he always did under the circumstances. ‘That’s my brother.’

‘Awww,’ said Kelly-Lee. Darny knew that ‘awww’. He and Austin exchanged glances.

‘Come here, tyke,’ said Austin.

‘Here, little man. Let me get you a cupcake. I don’t know if you have them in your country. It’s a special American treat, and here’s a Christmas one just for you!’

Darny rolled his eyes, but he wasn’t about to turn down a free cake.

Issy smiled tightly.
Kelly-Lee glanced up at her. ‘Oh yes,’ she said. ‘I forgot, you bake, don’t you?’

‘Yes,’ said Issy. She had realised what was weird about the smell; they were pumping it in. It was chemical. They hardly baked here at all.

‘For a real job or just for fun?’

‘It’s a real job,’ said Issy.

‘Oh,’ said Kelly-Lee. ‘I wanted to be an actress for a real job.’

‘Well, it’s nice to meet you,’ said Issy, slightly confused.

‘Me and Austin here have been hanging out, haven’t we?’ said Kelly-Lee, playfully putting her hand on his lapel. Then she came out from behind the counter to pick up some cups littering the tables, making sure she bent over at each one so Austin and Issy could both check out how amazingly tight and rounded her bottom was, after several hours of Pilates a week.

Issy raised her eyebrows at Austin.

‘Um, she’s been very friendly,’ said Austin.

‘And don’t forget to call me!’ said Kelly-Lee. ‘Don’t worry, I’ll look after him for you when you’re not here!’ And she smiled her enormous wide American smile right in Issy’s face and gave her a cheery wave with her dishcloth before disappearing into the kitchen.

Issy was fuming. ‘Who the hell is that?’ she said.

‘I don’t know, some girl,’ said Austin, confused.

‘Some girl? Some
girl? You just happened to walk into a cupcake shop and start chatting with some girl?’

‘It was just chatting,’ said Austin.

‘So you didn’t take her number?’

Austin thought back. ‘Well, she did give me her number … but I didn’t ask for it. I don’t even know where it is. She only gave it to me in case you didn’t get on that plane.’

Issy blinked in disbelief. ‘What, if one cupcake girl wasn’t available, any one would do?’

‘No! No!’ said Austin. ‘You’re getting this all wrong. You’re taking everything all wrong! You have done since the moment you got here.’

‘I haven’t seen you since the moment I got here,’ said Issy, realising to her horror suddenly that she was on the brink of tears. They hardly ever fought. ‘Which I suppose I’d better get used to, seeing as you’re moving here with all the new people you know and all the cool New York stuff you do and I’ll just go back home and get on with my dreary baking life, which, by the way, is REAL BAKING,’ she shouted through the back so Kelly-Lee could hear. ‘Not this plastic crap they’re churning out here with fricking vegetable oils and sell-by dates. Do you know what the sell-by date of a cupcake is? It doesn’t have one. About an hour. So this is crap and everything here is crap and you’re coming here, for ever, and I realise I have to put up with that, but I don’t see why you should bloody start flaunting your new girls and new interests in front of me before I’ve even left.’

Austin was stunned.
He’d never heard an outburst like this from Issy before. He looked at her, upset. Also, he hadn’t understood the bit in the middle about vegetable oil.

‘Issy … Issy, please.’

‘No!’ said Issy. ‘Don’t turn this into me being all ungrateful and stupid.
You
make up your mind about what you want and don’t tell yourself you don’t know or that you’re still weighing up options. I met the people you’re going to be working with. They seem very confident that you’re about to move away from everything we have. But don’t worry about telling me, I’ll just put it together all by myself.’

She turned round, grabbed her hat and stormed out of the shop.

‘Is she all right?’ said Kelly-Lee coming through from the back all wide-eyed and sympathetic. ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t realise she’d fly off the handle like that. Is she like that a lot? I hope I didn’t say anything wrong. Some people are just very dramatic, aren’t they?’

‘Don’t worry about it,’ said Austin, not putting her straight, and leaving money for the coffee.

‘This cupcake is awful,’ said Darny. ‘By any reasonable judgement, it’s a terrible, terrible cake.’

‘You’re so cute,’ said Kelly-Lee. ‘I love your accent.’ Austin turned to Darny. ‘Can you stay here for five minutes?’ he said. ‘I’d better go and get Issy.’

‘With her? No
chance,’ said Darny. ‘You can’t leave me, it’s illegal.’

‘
Please
, Darny,’ begged Austin.

Darny folded his arms and looked mutinous. By the time Austin had bundled him out on to the street, there was no sign whatsoever of where Issy had gone.

It was growing dark outside. It was icily, bitterly cold, as cold as Issy had ever known. People were dim outline shapes in enormous puffa jackets and huge hats and furs, like bouncy marshmallow men, hurrying and rushing to get inside. The sun was setting in bright pinks and reds and golds, cutting through the skyscrapers and casting endless shadows across the busy pavements. Issy hardly noticed; she ran, blindly, up the street, tears pricking at her eyes. It was time to face the truth, she knew. Austin was going to move here. He was going to make his home, and Darny’s home, over here, and that would be that. And all the girls would be all over him like a shot, and …

She could hardly think any more. She found herself back on Fifth Avenue, pushing blindly through the crush, the sheer weight of people slightly freaking her out when she was disorientated and just needed somewhere to have a really good cry, in private. There didn’t seem to be a lot of privacy in this city.

Her phone rang. She fumbled for it in her pocket, her heart thudding. Was this it? What was she going to say? Sorry, Austin, this is it for us? I’m leaving you because you’re about to leave me anyway and I don’t want to go through four months of torture whilst you faff around between London and New York unable to make up your mind? Or, Please please please come back to London with me and give up all hopes of an exciting future to be stuck behind a desk in Stoke Newington for the rest of your life?

She was tempted not
to answer – nobody’s name would come up on her screen because she was abroad – because she didn’t know what to say, and a snot-and tear-filled gabbling wouldn’t really help anyone. But to not answer would be worse, passive-aggressive and horrible and scary, and if Austin was putting things off, it wouldn’t help if she did too.

‘Hello?’ she whispered into the phone, her hand where she’d taken off her glove to press the green button already feeling cold and stiff. Automatically she kept walking north to where it seemed quieter; up through Columbus Circle and skirting the bottom of Central Park.

‘Oh thank GOD,’ said Pearl. ‘There you are. Issy, I may have been … ahem … slightly exaggerating before. About how things are.’

‘What?’ Issy snuffled, wrenched back to reality.

‘Um,’ said Pearl.