Christmas At The Cupcake Cafe (28 page)

Pearl was standing in the basement kitchen of
the shop. It looked like a bomb had hit it. Strawberry cake mix that Issy had carefully made up in advance was dripping off the walls. Receipts and pieces of paper were piling up on surfaces all over the place. It was the middle of the night and Pearl hadn’t slept properly in two days.

‘I think,’ she said, finally, ‘I think I’ve broken the mixer.’

‘Frick,’ said Issy. The industrial mixer was a central part of the operation. ‘But it’s Saturday tomorrow! It’s a huge Christmas shopping day. The entire world is going to be out.’

‘I know,’ said Pearl. ‘And some cake mix landed on the calculator and I’m having, um, some trouble cashing up. And possibly there’s a health inspection due.’

Issy made up her mind. ‘Listen,’ she said, with a heavy heart. ‘It’s all right. I’ve got this totally posh plane ticket.’

She paused and took a deep breath.

‘I’ll fly straight back. I’ll see you in the morning.’

It didn’t take Issy long to pack. Apart from Caroline’s ridiculous coat, she’d worn almost none of the unsuitable
clothes she’d packed so quickly, with such excitement. Flicking pointlessly through the television channels, she saw
Sleepless in Seattle
playing on TCM and nearly burst into tears.

Austin arrived back at the hotel shortly after her, a grumpy Darny in his wake.

‘This really isn’t good for me,’ Darny was saying. ‘Having to deal with conflict in an already difficult childhood.’

‘Shut up, Darny,’ Austin said. His face fell when he saw Issy with her suitcase out.

‘It’s not because of you,’ she said. ‘Honestly. Pearl can’t cope without me. Things have gone really wrong.’ She looked at him straight on. ‘Sorry. I can’t leave the café.’

Austin looked straight back at her. His heart
was pounding in his chest. Darny was sitting in the corner, his face drawn and tense. Austin didn’t want to mention the letter in his pocket. It wouldn’t make anything better. It would make everything worse; Issy might think he was blaming her, because it had happened in his absence. He never wanted her to think that she had done anything wrong; with Darny, with him. Not anything. He felt a terrible lurch. There was so much he wanted to say, but would any of it change that essential truth?

‘I know,’ he said, quietly.

There was a long silence after that.

Issy felt as if she’d been punched in the face. He was going to let her go, just like that. Without even vaguely trying to persuade her to stay. For some stupid job. For his career. Everything she had ever thought about her big, handsome, gentle Austin … well, she hadn’t imagined that this would happen. Not like this.

She put out her hand to steady herself. Austin saw her and wanted to burst into tears. She looked so vulnerable. But what could he do? If it wasn’t now, it would be later. Should he just prolong the agony? He felt as if he were ripping apart inside; and yet here they were, words still coming out of their mouths, almost like normal human beings.

‘I’m just going to phone the airline,’ Issy said, feeling as if they were someone else’s words, someone else’s script. Surely she should be saying, let’s take a ferry ride to see the Statue of Liberty; or go for a romantic evening
in a cocktail bar where a pianist would be tinkling ‘It Had To Be You’ in the corner; or go and watch the adverts and the sailors down in Times Square and look at the great bows and Christmas lights that draped every corner of the city.

‘I’ll get someone to do that,’ Austin was saying, like a robot.

‘Someone at your office? In New York?’ said Issy, then wished she hadn’t. Everything was bad enough without being spiteful on top of it. ‘Sorry. Sorry. I didn’t mean that.’

‘No,’ said Austin. ‘It’s OK.
I’m
sorry. I mean …’

He looked so thoroughly miserable, all Issy wanted to do was take him in her arms and hold him till he felt better. But what good would that do? she thought. He seemed to have made up his mind. Prolong everything? Pretend to carry on a financially ruinous and technically impossible career between two totally different continents?

‘Ssh,’ she said. ‘Don’t worry about it.’ She indicated Darny. ‘We can talk about it back in the UK.’

‘Mm,’ said Austin. He couldn’t figure out where exactly this had all gone so terribly wrong. Issy hadn’t even taken a second to look around or tried to see the positive side of New York. She’d been against the entire thing right from the start, almost as if she’d decided that it was going to be a disaster, and therefore it had turned
into one. It made him incredibly cross.

They stood a little while longer with neither of them saying anything.

‘Well, this is boring,’ said Darny. ‘I can feel my ADHD kicking in.’

‘I’ll make the call,’ said Austin.

‘OK,’ said Issy.

After a tense ten minutes, it was arranged that Issy could go back on a flight leaving very early the next morning. Just one more night to go.

‘Do you want to go out?’ said Austin.

‘I think I’m finally going to have that nice bath,’ said Issy, trying to paste a smile on her face and stop her voice from wobbling, though she didn’t quite succeed. ‘Then an early night; I’m going to be up to my eyeballs when I get back to the café.’

‘Yeah,’ said Austin. ‘OK.’

But as they lay together in the huge, comfortable soft white bed, listening to the distant honks and whoops of the traffic, there was not the faintest possibility of sleep. Instead Issy cried; great silent tears, dripping down into her pillow. She tried not to make a sound or disturb Austin, until he turned over and realised her pillow was wet.

‘Oh my darling,’ he said, holding her tight and stroking her hair. ‘My love. We’ll work it out.’

‘How?’ said Issy, sobbing. ‘How?’

But Austin didn’t have an answer to that. Either way, it seemed, would leave one of them
very unhappy. Which in the long run would leave them both unhappy; that much he understood. He sighed again. Why did life have to throw up speed bumps when they seemed to be running happily along? And this, he thought, stroking Issy’s soft dark hair, this was a big one. Their tears mingled together on the expensive pillowcases.

Pearl had finally thrown up her hands and admitted defeat. She had phoned Caroline and asked her to come in early.

Caroline had turned up and tutted at the state of the place. Then she had made a call of her own.

‘Perdita! Chop chop!’ she had shouted at the pleasant-faced middle-aged woman who’d arrived, slightly frightened-looking, three quarters of an hour later. Perdita had instantly started scrubbing everything down from top to bottom, as Caroline briskly went through the figures.

‘One thing divorce does is make it very easy to read a balance sheet, see where all the money’s gone,’ she growled.

Pearl was still gazing at Perdita. ‘She’s your cleaner? How can you have a cleaner and still come to work in a café?’

‘Because Richard is an evil cunning bastard,’ said Caroline. ‘I’ve told you this before.’

Pearl eyed her shrewdly. ‘But you must be
getting close to a settlement now,’ she observed. ‘It’s been dragging on for years.’

‘Pearl, you’re a terrific salesperson and a wonderful organiser in the café, but your paperwork is a dog’s dinner and you bake like a wookie,’ said Caroline tightly, ignoring her. ‘Division of labour should have been sorted out properly before Issy flounced off.’

‘She didn’t exactly flounce off,’ said Pearl. ‘Caroline, I have a theory about you; do you want to hear it?’

‘If it’s about my astonishing self-control when it comes to food, I’ll just tell you again, nothing tastes as good as skinny fee—’

‘Nope,’ said Pearl. ‘That’s bullshit. No, here is my theory: I think you work here because you like it.’

‘
Like
it? Working? In a job a robot will probably be doing in two years’ time? In a job that persistently refuses to recognise my creative interior design and organisational skills and insists on putting me in front of the general bloody public after I’ve already been a major player in the corporate world? Yeah, right. Perdita, you’ve missed a bit. And sort out the skirting while you’re down there.’

‘Yeah,’ said Pearl. ‘I reckon you really do like it.’

Caroline glanced at her out of the corner of her eye.

‘Don’t you ever dare tell a bloody soul. PERDITA! Did you bring those bags I asked you? Well, if it takes two runs at it, it takes two runs; just bring them in, would you?’

Perdita soon came in weighed down with
two suitcases.

‘What the hell is in there?’ said Pearl.

‘Aha!’ said Caroline.

Maya arrived just afterwards, arm in arm with a girl with very short hair.

‘Hi,’ she said happily to everyone, beaming her lovely smile. ‘This is Rachida. Rachida, this is Pearl and Caroline. They are being very patient with me.’

Pearl raised an eyebrow, feeling guilty because she had not been in the least bit patient.

‘I’ve had her up all night practising,’ said Rachida. ‘Our friends have got a cappuccino machine. She’s got it down to six seconds.’

‘Thank you,’ said Caroline. ‘Do your friends do bookkeeping too?’

‘Shut up,’ said Pearl, looking at Maya and Rachida.

Rachida left, kissing Maya full on the lips as she did so. Maya took off her coat and hung it up behind the door, unconcerned. ‘See you tonight!’ she yelled cheerfully. Then she turned round.

‘OK,’ she said. ‘I reckon I’m ready.’

Pearl smiled a huge wide smile at her, ridiculously cross at how pleased she was.

‘OK,’ she said. ‘Go bring up that new tray of mince pies. Surely I got them right sixth time out.’ And Pearl started to slightly relax, leaning behind the counter and turning on the stereo. ‘Deck the Hall with Boughs of
Holly’ came thundering out of the sound system, and she found herself joining in on the falalas. She must need sleep, she thought.

Issy cried all the way to the airport in the cab. She cried as she sat in the posh lounge, where she completely wasn’t in the mood to sample any of the luxury treats. She cried all six hours across the Atlantic, pausing only to watch
Sleepless in Seattle
so at least it seemed like she had an excuse. She cried all the way back on the Heathrow Express and all the way back up the Victoria Line and all the way across town on the number 73.