Cupcake Couture (39 page)

‘Dancers?’

‘Yes, we managed to get Diversity, which is great because everyone wants street dancers at the moment and they are the best, not to mention the fittest.’ He waggled his plucked eyebrows. ‘I’m talking about the adults obviously. Flexible black men leaping around to music, now that is one booking I took care of.’

I laughed and lowered the cake boxes I was carrying to watch where I was going, but the sight of the room sprawling out in front of me stopped me in my tracks. I had expected a living room behind the double doors with perhaps white sofas, stylish rugs, opulent antiques and a plasma screen but it was in fact a vast open-plan party room with a glittery black and white floor, marble pillars and smooth, white walls, except for the back wall that was made entirely of glass. Huge glass doors
opened out onto an infinity pool lit by flaming torches and Christmas lights that swung merrily in the evening breeze. One area of the room housed tables set for dinner, around which were the sort of contrasting, quirky design chairs and renovated thrones that I imagined Philippe Starck would have in his dining room. Another area was the dance floor, above which was suspended an enormous pink glitter ball. What could only be described as swathes of fairy lights in pink, purple, silver and white hung from every corner of the room and wrapped around pillars like illuminated snakes. Beyond the infinity pool in the garden, a Christmas tree to rival all Christmas trees glowed like a phoenix in the darkness. I coughed while trying to catch my breath. Malachy reached out and touched my elbow.

‘Are you OK, Chloe Cupcake?’

‘Yes, yes, I’m… wow, the Doyle brothers don’t do anything by halves do they?’

‘That’s why we’re called 3D Events. Three brothers, three imaginations, three egos, everything tends to end up looking like a 3D movie in the end with just as many special effects. You wait and see.’

My nerves returned as we crossed the luminescent floor and headed to cupcake corner. Like a stick-man pencil drawing hanging in the Guggenheim, I wondered how my homemade sponge creations could possibly compete with the surroundings and that was even before the fire-eaters and Diversity and Ant and bloody Dec showed up to rocket the glamour stakes into orbit.

The first guests filtered through the door at eight-thirty to the sounds of live harp music, just as I placed the final cupcake at the top of the tree. I stood back to inspect my work while wiping pink buttercream from my fingertips. Not bad. Two cakes had
committed hari kari from the top of the sculpture during the rebuilding process, splattering the front of my black trousers with icing and jam but I had managed to spread out the two-hundred and eighteen that remained to cover the mistake. I breathed a sigh of relief and wiped the sweat from my forehead, my upper lips and my cheeks. Never before could I remember my cheeks sweating so profusely. I checked my watch, eight thirty-five on the eighteenth of December. I had met my deadline as I had done throughout my working life. I was still a perfectionist. I smiled to myself and turned to greet the guests I could hear approaching my corner of the room.

‘Chloe! What the bloody hell do you look like, man? Why didn’t you return my calls, you silly cow?’

‘Roxy! What are you doing here and on time too?’

‘We were invited, I told you that. Along with every other fucking celeb’ in the Toon.’

My friend bustled purposefully towards me with a scowl on her face, which did not lessen how breathtakingly beautiful she looked. My sexy friend, who braved snow and hail to show off her slim, tanned legs, tonight wore a floor length strapless gown the colour of butterscotch ice cream. The material fanned out over her breasts and then wrapped in layers around her body to fan out again into a skirt of soft butterscotch and black netting. A heart shape of beads was embroidered on the dress across her just visible baby bump. Cascades of cream gems hung from her ears and her usually voluminous WAG hair was pulled into a low, relaxed chignon and fixed with an oversized flower. Her make-up was flawless and her lips, which she pursed into a tight ‘o’, were a more natural tone if still as glossy as the marble floor. I was excited to see her and for my best friend to be the first to see my cupcake creation.

‘You look stunning, Roxy!’

‘Aye, whatever, you look like a lesbian in a Blues Brothers tribute band, man.’ She grabbed my arm and tugged it. ‘Come on, where’s the bogs in this place?’

‘I don’t know, why? I can’t leave, I have to find Zachary and show him the cake. I haven’t even seen him yet so I must check he likes it.’

‘Not looking like that you don’t. Howay, pet, I’m surprised they let you stay to meet the guests. Have you looked in the mirror?’

‘No but’ – she began dragging me across the room by the arm – ‘what do you think of my cupcake sculpture, Roxy? I’ve been up all night and all of today making it and my parents even helped. I did it, Roxy, my first order. Do you think it’s fabulous enough?’

Roxy did not even look round as she waved her free hand dismissively and dragged me through the doors leading towards a long hallway.

‘I’m sure it is, now help me find a mirror before people realise you’re my friend.’

She pushed open two doors before opening a third and pushing me through it into a stark white bathroom. I blinked in the bright light and suddenly felt very tired. Roxy dumped her Lulu Guinness clutch bag on the shelf beside the sink, popped it open and rummaged inside while I rubbed my eyes and then looked in the mirror.

While my fringe was still relatively smooth in that it appeared to be stuck to my forehead with spit and sweat, the rest of my usually neat blond bob stuck out at all angles from my head, as if I had jammed my finger in a plug socket and turned it on. My eye make-up had travelled some distance down my face in a heroin-chic style, that was not supported by my red, puffy cheeks and the smears of cake mixture and buttercream on my forehead and face. My lipstick had been chewed off due to stress and concentration, leaving cracked, dry skin. My Tuxedo jacket, which had fitted me
last Christmas, did not fit me this Christmas. Either it had shrunk at the dry cleaners or my weeks spent at home rather than on my feet at work and my new daily cake tasting routine had pushed me from a size twelve to a size fourteen. I sighed and looked down at the white and pink buttercream stains and shiny jam residue on my trousers.

Roxy and I looked like species from two different planets.

‘I think I should go home,’ I said glumly.

Roxy wrinkled her nose and, I am sure, considered the idea before sighing and holding up an eyeliner in one hand and a bottle of foundation in the other.

‘I’m not promising miracles and fuck knows what we’re going to do about this hideous trouser suit but I’ve seen worse. Not much worse mind, but I can definitely improve on it.’

She had a way of getting straight to the point.

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

Combine milk and vanilla

When Roxy and I finally completed our emergency makeover, I would like to say I looked like a cover girl and I had the ability to turn every head in the room but to be honest, I had never possessed that sort of presence even on my best days. I now had beautiful make-up thanks to Roxy invariably carrying a whole collection of the stuff whenever she went out. How she fitted it all in a clutch bag was beyond me. My hair had been dampened down, tweaked, pulled, brushed, blow dried under a hand-dryer (what family house has a
hand-dryer
in the bathroom I ask you? Thankfully this one) and sprayed until it resembled a shiny, swingy blond bob once more. Roxy had also produced a jewelled clip from her clutch, which she slid into my hair and had then proceeded to donate her gorgeous cascading earrings to the cause.

‘I can’t, I can’t, what about you?’ I protested.

‘I look good enough, pet, now take the chuffing earrings.’

She had a point.

I would also like to say that Roxy produced a designer outfit from the clutch bag in a Mary Poppins style but of course that did not happen. Instead, she made me unbutton my jacket to reduce the appearance of strain on the fabric then she yanked the satin vest top down at the hem and up at one shoulder before fixing the giant flower from her hair slap bang in my cleavage. I felt as if I had a neon sign flashing on my boobs saying ‘Look at me!’ but the overall effect was, as she had promised, a definite improvement. I scrubbed the stains from the trousers, dried them under the hand-dryer and then allowed Roxy to turn up the hems to reveal my ankles.

‘They don’t look chubby and pale do they?’ I asked, trying to see my reflection in a mirror that only came down to my waist.

‘They’ve got a bit of colour,’ was all she said.

By the time we returned to the party, it was already in full swing. The room was packed with people, each one seemingly more beautiful or more famous than the last. Music played, glasses clinked, voices chattered and laughter rang out from every corner of the party, but none more so than from the group of adoring men surrounding the unmistakeable Malachy, who threw his head back and roared with laughter, his long hair shining under the party lights. I scanned the room for Zachary but still I could not see him.

A blonde waitress who resembled a young Sienna Miller offered us flutes of champagne from a pink tray. Roxy and I took one each and I clutched mine for dear life as we made our way through the throng towards Thierry who stood with a group of sporty types, one of whom I recognised as Gary Lineker.

‘Chérie, I wondered where you had run away to.’

Thierry kissed Roxy gently on the forehead before kissing me on both cheeks.

‘No problème with the cakes I hope,’ he winked, ‘I have told mes amis to expect a treat.’

‘No just a problem with the baker,’ said Roxy.

I smiled nervously at his friends and sipped my champagne while casting my eyes around the room.

Where was Zachary? I really wanted to check he liked the cakes before it was too late.

I spotted the local newsreaders and Paul Mooney our jolly Scottish weatherman who had been saying the words snow, ice and freezing conditions for
weeks now. I could see some of Diversity talking to a group of pretty girls, their bodies jigging naturally to the music without their minds even registering the fact. I saw a man who looked suspiciously like Robson Green chatting to Ant and Dec. Leaning against a black throne, nibbling on a canapé and smiling in between chews was little Joe McElderry, the winner of the X-Factor. I stared at the girl he was chatting and laughing with who could well have been Cheryl Cole but I could only see her from the back. Of course it wasn’t her; eighty percent of girls in Newcastle looked like her these days, or at least cheap versions of her. Roxy could well have passed for the Geordie princess from behind. The people Margaret had dreamed would sign her petition to keep me at Blunts were ironically standing in the same room as me at a Christmas party.

Bloody cheek, I bet not one of them signed it
.

I tried to calm myself. These were normal human beings out to enjoy a Christmas party like many other human beings would be doing at this very moment. They ate and drank in the same way and they felt the same anxieties and thrills as the rest of us at an event like this. The only difference was this event was not the average, drunken, tasteless Christmas party with paper hats, paper cups and a half-cut Santa Claus with a cotton wool beard. This was stylish and extravagant and almost all these human beings had faces I recognised. They were Newcastle royalty. If a bomb were to explode at this party, it would wipe most of the city’s talent out in one fell swoop. I gulped down my champagne and stood on my tiptoes to see across the room towards the corner where my cake sculpture stood. Or at least where it had been standing before I had run away to the makeover toilet. Now, however, there was no cupcake sculpture but just a plain, black screen that plunged the corner into darkness. I choked on the generous gulp I had just taken.

Zachary had obviously taken one look at the cake and ordered it to be covered up before anyone could see it. It had not lived up to his fabulous expectations and I had failed to impress. I would probably not get paid after having forked out for enough ingredients to keep Jane Asher in business for a month. My Christmas dinner was going to consist of stale cupcakes and little else.

‘I’m going to get some air,’ I whispered to Roxy.

I headed determinedly towards the open glass doors that slid silently open and merged into the glass wall, making the pool and gardens feel like an extension of the room. I dodged couples and groups of happy, beautiful people, all of whom were incredibly tanned for Newcastle in December. I kept my eyes lowered until I heard another unmistakeable, deep laugh that did not belong to Malachy Doyle but did belong to his brother. I stopped and looked through the crowd until I finally saw Zachary. He looked so polished in his sharp Tuxedo, his shirt as white as his toothy smile. A big watch glinted on his wrist as he brushed his hand through his floppy fringe and then nodded at the stunning girl with breasts like cannonballs and a veritable mane of red hair, who was gazing up into his face. I pressed my lips together and willed him to notice me just so that he could stop all this nonsense and give me a sign that I had done a good job. I had never needed reassurance at Blunts. I was the best bloody manager they had and I knew it, but right now I needed reassurance that I could be the best bloody cake designer if not in the world, at least in the Northeast… or Tynemouth.

I held my breath when Zachary ran his hand once more through his hair as he had told me he did when he was nervous and then turned his head. His eyes drifted over the room in slow motion. I stood as still as if I were playing musical statues watching his head turn, watching where his eyes fell, until they finally fell on me. He
jolted suddenly, his face flushed red and I waited for him to smile but he didn’t smile. I chewed my lip and did not smile either. He turned quickly back to the girl, touched her arm and whispered something close to her ear. She looked over at me, her cat-like eyes looking me up and down before she shrugged nonchalantly and kissed Zachary on both cheeks. He raised a hand to gesture at me and then looked over at the screen masking my cake sculpture before he turned and started walking towards me with one hand in his pocket and the other toying with his fringe. I looked down and shifted my feet while I tried to think of something to say.