Cupid's Cupcake

“I don’t want to.” The argument had been goin
g on for the past ten minutes. Belle don’t know why she told her best friend about the email sitting in her inbox from Brian Draper, lead columnist for
The Daily Gazette
. Clearly, she had experienced a moment of temporary insanity. She was just glad she told Tiffany over the phone and not in person. The verbal lashing was painful enough without seeing Tiffany’s over the top facial expressions.

“
You do want to. You know you do. Because you know as well as I do that you are dying to quit that dead end job and do something with your life! This is your chance to break out of the boring humdrum mold routine you are in. You have a gift, Belle. Geez, it’s like the destiny gods dropped a shoe on your head.”

“Tell me what you really think about
me, Tiffany.” Belle knew that her life had taken a rather listless bent of late, but it wasn’t helpful having Tiffany so blatantly pointing that out. It was difficult for Belle not to be annoyed with her know-it-all friend.

The part that
Belle didn’t care to admit was that Tiffany was right more often than not, and on this particular topic, she was spot on. Belle’s job had no potential of becoming anything more than what it was: a mundane desk job that she could do in her sleep. But she wasn’t ready to jump ship on it though on the flimsy idea that she had some kind of ‘gift’ like her friend so wholeheartedly believed. Belle had one perfect creation that she could take credit for, and it was her secret fear that if she tried ever do anything with it, that everyone would discover she was nothing more than a one-trick pony.

Belle
tried to focus on the discussion at hand. “You’ve read this guy’s stuff. Why on earth would he want to do a story on me and my cupcakes unless he had some kind of ulterior motive?”

“I admit that
it seems a little out of the blue, but c’mon, Belle. You couldn’t ask for better publicity. Everyone reads his column. This is exactly the kind of thing you need to jump into that business you’ve always said you wanted to start. You just needed the right motivation. Plus, hello, the guy is yummy.”

Belle
rubbed the bridge of her nose. Just when she thought that the situation couldn’t get any worse, she now had to deal with the fact that the reporter in question was ‘yummy’. “This isn’t a date, Tiffany. It’s an interview. How am I supposed to explain how everything started around Cupid’s Cupcake without sounding like a pathetic moron? He’s going to think I’m a nut job, and then he’s going to write about the fact that I’m a nut job, and then no one in his or her right mind would want to buy anything from me. I shouldn’t have told you that I ever thought about opening my own store someday. I was drunk, and you were supposed to forget that.”

“You want my advice?”
Tiffany ignored Belle’s last comment and barreled forward.

“No
t particularly,” Belle said. Actually, that was the whole reason that Belle’s fingers dialed Tiffany’s number as soon as she read Draper’s email. But she would have preferred a lot less lecturing after her plea for wisdom and guidance. Tiffany was a year younger than Belle, but her life was essentially perfect. Belle’s life was a hot mess on a regular basis.

“Dig out that business plan that you wrote in college. Update it. Go to the bank and ask for a small business loan. Then sit down with this guy and pitch the
hell out of what you can do. You have an in with Cupid’s Cupcake, but you can totally play that down and talk all about your grand plans for the future. By the time the story comes out, you’ll be in the perfect position to take a limited number of orders for Valentine’s Day. Take that money and reinvest it back into the business. Figure out some other spin-off cupcake recipes. Rinse and repeat.”

Belle
had no doubt that the next time she looked at her email she would find the checklist of the items that Tiffany just rattled off. Tiffany loved checklists. Belle did not. The idea of having her life so organized made her skin itch. Belle preferred things to be a little more spontaneous and messy. Her theory was that it made things more interesting, but so far it hadn’t actually worked out that way in her own life.

“You make it sound so easy,”
Belle whined. She flopped down on her couch and stared at the ceiling. “I can’t do things like you can. It’s a guarantee that if something can go wrong around me, it will. I’m the unluckiest person I know.”

“Which is another
reason Cupid’s Cupcake has always been such a strange anomaly,” Tiffany chuckled.

“Thanks for reminding me. I can’t do this. I’m going to ignore his email. It’s a stupid idea.”
Belle wanted to crawl back into bed, throw the covers over her head, and forget that the email ever existed.

“Oh my God! You drive me crazy,
Belle! At least agree to talk to the guy. It wouldn’t kill you to have a little social interaction in any case. You are way to young act like such an old lady. Look, I gotta go. I just got home and Tom has dinner on the table.”

“That’s so sweet of him.”
Belle felt a wave of envy. Tiffany and Tom got married after college graduation. They were high school sweethearts. Belle never saw them fight. They had the kind of relationship that she always envied.

Belle
was hopelessly single. She was fairly certain that she was some kind of man repellent. She hadn’t had a serious date in months. With another Valentine’s Day staring her in the face and no prospects in sight, she had a feeling she’d be sitting on the sidelines for the holiday once again.

“We’re not done yet. I swear
if you blow this opportunity then I’m going to stop being your friend.”

“You’l
l never stop being my friend. You love me, and you know it,” Belle said smugly. The next thing she knew she heard a click that told her Tiffany hung up on her. There was a part of her that enjoyed getting her friend riled up. But then she remembered that Tiffany was probably right, and she was sullen again.

Belle
opened up my laptop and stared at the email in question.

Hi Isabelle,

My name is Brian Draper. I write a daily column for
The Daily Gazette
. The paper is currently scheduling stories for the month of February. Someone mentioned that they heard your ‘Cupid’s Cupcake’ was quite the draw for rounding out the perfect, romantic Valentine’s Day dinner. I was unable to find a website for your business, but happened across your email address here. I would love to talk with you and find out more about your unique sweet treat. I’m sure my readers would appreciate the holiday heads up as well. You can contact me at your earliest convenience at the number listed in my signature, or via email.

I look forward to hearing from you!

Brian Draper

Columnist,
The Daily Gazette

Since Belle was reading the email through her online, professional networking account, Brian Draper’s picture stared at her from the top of the message. It wasn’t the average, bland profile headshot. Brian’s picture showed him standing on a beach in a fitted white linen shirt and linen pants with the sun setting in the background. His blond hair complimented his golden tan and his smile was almost brighter than the sun behind him. He looked cool and relaxed, a feeling that was almost entirely unknown in Belle’s world. She figured he had to be around thirty years old.

To Tiffany’s p
oint, the man was undeniably attractive. Belle chewed on her lip. Maybe she was blowing the whole thing out of proportion. He’d probably ask a few questions over email or have a short call to find out what he wanted to know. She figured that it wouldn’t take him long to figure out that there was no story there. Then he’d go on his merry way. But there was something appealing at the idea of talking to an attractive man. It had been awhile.

The only
nagging thing in the back of Belle’s mind was the fact that, over the course of the last couple years, Brian Draper spearheaded some investigative reporting exposes that brought to light some nasty business practices in the area. Although his daily column normally covered the small business news in town, it seemed as if he was expanding his reach.

It was st
upid. The nonsense around Cupid’s Cupcake was a coincidence anyway, and it wasn’t as if she believed the myth herself. She was being a ninny, and one that was a bit to full of herself to boot.

Belle stewed on Draper’s email throughout the next day, and after two calls and endless text messages from Tiffany, she found herself worn down. After arriving home from work, she stared at the email for another thirty minutes trying to decide what to do. Finally
, cursing Tiffany, she grabbed her cell and dialed Brian Draper’s phone number. Glancing at the clock, she saw that it was six-thirty. Perfect. He should be gone for the day, and she would leave a voicemail.

“Draper.” His gruff voice sounded hurried.

Belle
dropped the phone in surprise. The phone flew underneath the coffee table. “Sorry! Sorry! Hang on a second!” She scrambled trying to see it and then smacked her head on the underside of the glass top. “Ow!” She finally got ahold of the phone and dragged it back out from beneath the table and pulled it to her ear.

“Hello?”
She heard a smile in his voice.

Belle
was going to hang up. She was mortified and had yet to say a word directly to him. But then she heard Tiffany’s voice browbeating her for being a coward in her head. She would never let Belle live it down if Belle didn’t go through with the story. Belle straightened her spine and used her most professional phone voice.

“Mr. Draper. This is
Belle Rivers.”

“Ms. Rivers! I’m delighted you called,” he said.
“I was afraid that my email may have been a bit random and so when I didn’t heard from you right away, I figured you decided to ignore it. You just made my night.”

With that
kind of enthusiastic response, Belle wished she had called the day before. His smiling face was still up on her computer screen. He really was quite yummy.

Belle
made a decision. She would be confident, charming, and interesting. She had taken an acting class in college. It hadn’t been that long ago. “I must admit I’m flattered that you would even consider a story about my little cupcake.” She was shocked to hear the flirtatiousness in her voice.

“
I’m sure you know that cupcakes are all the craze right now, and when I caught wind of yours, I have to admit I was intrigued. People rave about it, so it must be something special.”

“
That’s quite flattering. It’s something that I just stumbled into by accident that just took off,” she said. She felt wholly unprepared for the conversation. She should have written down some notes before she called. She wished for even one-tenth of Tiffany’s organizational skills at times like these.

“Well, you are being modest now. From what I’ve heard,
we aren’t talking about just any cupcake. I even had a direct quote from one of my co-workers that she would kill to get her hands on one for her Valentine’s Day dinner.”

Belle
knew what he was angling for, but she desperately wanted to keep him distracted with other details because where he was leading was ridiculous. “It is my grandmother’s recipe. I modified it and ended up being as surprised as anyone at how well it turned out. But it’s top secret stuff.”