Confetti & Cake Read online

  ‘Does she?’ He winks at my sister. ‘I never noticed that before.’

  I force myself to laugh it off too, but I can’t look at him. I can almost feel the spark between us even though I’m standing a good metre away from him.

  ‘All mixed, I think,’ Nick says. ‘Scarlett, do you have the tin?’

  I have to turn around and face him. Kelsie’s staring at me. ‘Yeah – here.’ I hand him the tin that I’ve greased with butter. I look away quickly, but I know it’s too late. My cheeks and face are bright red, and this time, I know he’s noticed!

  Secrets and lies

  The room feels very warm as I put the cake tin in the oven and turn the knob to set the timer.

  ‘I’m going to go watch TV,’ Kelsie says. ‘’kay?’

  ‘You go girl,’ Nick says.

  I wipe my hands on my apron as Kelsie goes back though the hole in the wall to ‘our house’. Maybe I should feel grateful to my sister for breaking the ice, but right now I’m both thankful and furious with her, in equal measure. Above all, I wish she’d stayed. Left alone with Nick, I’m tongue-tied. I go over to the worktop and get the butter, icing sugar, vanilla and milk ready to put in a bowl for the buttercream icing.

  ‘You didn’t have to say that.’ I can’t look at him.

  ‘She’s eight,’ Nick says. ‘I had to say something. And besides, I mean, I know we haven’t talked about it, and stuff, but . . .’ I steal a look at him. He’s blushing too.

  I don’t know what I was hoping for, but I’m pretty sure this isn’t it. ‘Hey, don’t worry about it,’ I say.

  ‘No, that’s not it.’ He takes a step towards me. I hold my breath. ‘It’s just, I like things the way they are. I don’t want to mess them up . . .’ He lifts his shoulders and lets out a breath. ‘This is . . . um . . . awkward.’

  I bridge the distance between us. ‘I don’t want things to be awkward either.’ I put my hand on his arm. ‘So let’s just forget it, OK.’

  He shakes his head. ‘I think the cat’s out of the bag, don’t you?’

  He takes my arms and gently pulls me to him, so close that his dark hair tickles my face. I can feel electricity racing up and down my spine, and I’m sure that he must be able to hear the drumming of my heart. OMG he’s going to kiss me! My knees go wobbly, and at the same time, my body goes rigid. Does my breath smell bad? Why didn’t I brush my teeth when I got—’

  ‘Hello? Anybody home?’

  I take a giant step back from Nick, smoothing my hands on my apron, trying to breathe and ignore my heart doing star jumps in my chest. Nick steps away too, and I can see he’s as embarrassed as I am.

  ‘Anybody—’

  ‘We’re in here,’ I say.

  Em-K sticks his head through the hole in the wall. ‘Whew,’ he says. ‘Didn’t your mum ask the workmen to clean up?’ He climbs through. ‘I thought they were putting in a door.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ I say in answer to both questions.

  He frowns and checks the screen of his phone. ‘She texted me that she would be here – let’s see – an hour ago. I would have thought she’d be here by now.’

  His fingers tap quickly over the screen.

  I go over to the table and check my phone. ‘I got a text from her about fifteen minutes ago,’ I say. ‘Sorry – I didn’t hear it come in. She says she popped out to meet a friend and will be back around eight.’

  ‘Oh.’ Em-K’s face falls. ‘I left London early to get here. I guess I’ll go and do some work while I’m waiting.’ He sniffs the air. ‘What’s that you’re making?’ he says. ‘Smells wonderful.’

  ‘It’s a cake,’ Nick says.

  ‘It’s . . . um . . . Nick’s dad’s birthday tomorrow,’ I add quickly. My eyes flick to him and back to Em-K.

  ‘Is it?’ he frowns. ‘I thought you did a cake for him a few months back.’ He shakes his head. ‘I must be going senile.’

  ‘That was for my brother,’ Nick jumps in to the rescue. ‘It was his birthday.’

  ‘Ah,’ Em-K heads back to the hole in the wall. ‘Maybe that was it.’ His dark head disappears back into our section of the house.

  As soon as he’s gone my knees feel weak with relief. ‘Thanks,’ I whisper to Nick.

  Nick shakes his head as the oven starts beeping. ‘Are you sure lying to him is a good idea?’

  ‘What am I supposed to do? Mum’s done a runner, and I’m here baking a cake for my dad. Do you think I’m happy about it?’

  Nick opens the oven door. The steam feels clean and pure against my face. He takes out the cake and I poke it with a sharp knife to see if it’s done in the middle. The knife comes out clean. ‘Done,’ I say.

  He takes it out and sets the tin on a wire rack to cool.

  We stand there staring at each other across the cake. He knows I feel bad and I know he feels bad for me. It’s a long way from where we were only a few minutes ago.

  ‘I should go,’ he says, looking at his watch. ‘I told Mum I’d be home for supper.’

  ‘OK.’ I’m a little upset and a lot relieved that he’s going. ‘I’ll put the icing and sprinkles on when it cools.’

  We walk together back to the hole in the wall, but he pulls me up short. ‘Let me know how it goes tomorrow with . . . the cake.’

  ‘I will. And thanks . . .’ I pause, feeling like I’m drowning in his eyes, ‘. . . for everything.’

  ‘My pleasure.’ He gives me a quick kiss on the cheek, and skilfully avoids any further awkwardness by disappearing back through the hole in the wall.

  I stand there for a long time staring at the hole, and listening to the sound of Em-K shuffling papers and typing on his laptop – it’s like he’s a million miles away. Eventually I turn back to the cake cooling on the rack. I release the springs on the cake tin and let the cake cool some more.

  By the time the cake is cool and I’m spreading buttercream icing over it, I hear sounds from my own kitchen. Mum’s voice – and Em-K’s. I try not to listen. It’s like they’re talking through water. Mum is pleasant, telling him how she ‘ran into an old friend’ and went for coffee.

  Em-K sounds unusually cold and stressed. ‘You know I’m going to be away for at least a week, Claire. I thought we were supposed to have dinner tonight.’

  I think about the lie I told, and whether it will come back to bite me. And I think about Nick – even after every stomach-flipping moment tonight, I’m still not sure if we’re boyfriend and girlfriend. Violet must be mental to want this kind of stress with a boy.

  ‘And this TV thing,’ Em-K continues. ‘I know you really want to do it. But do you really think it’s best – for us, and the girls? Does Scarlett want to do it?’

  ‘Of course,’ Mum snaps. ‘Why wouldn’t she?’

  As I go upstairs, not bothering to listen any more, I think about how I wish this wedding would hurry up and come soon, so it will be over. Then I can get back to focusing on fixing things with my friends, making delicious things with The Secret Cooking Club, and basically just getting on with normal life.

  Whatever that is.

  Bonbons and boutiques

  On Saturday morning, Mum wakes me out of a deep sleep. ‘Come on, Scarlett,’ she says. ‘We’ve got a big day ahead.’

  ‘Yeah Mum,’ I grumble, wishing I could bury myself under the duvet for a few more minutes – or even hours – or better yet, skip today altogether. But I know that tone in Mum’s voice – half excitement, half stress: total focus. Today’s the day she’s going to find the perfect wedding dress, and nothing – certainly not me – is going to stop her.

  Mum goes downstairs to make coffee and Kelsie comes into my room. ‘Come on, slow coach,’ my sister says. ‘Get up.’

  I throw my old teddy at her and swing out of bed.

  ‘It’s going to be so cool!’ she says. ‘I can’t wait to start trying on dresses! It’s so exciting.’

  ‘That’s one word for it.’

  She runs downstairs and I give in and get dr
essed. I know that Mum and Kelsie are dying to go wedding shopping. Which is great – for them. But try as I might, I can’t get excited about trying on some itchy, hot dress in a hideous colour that I’ll never wear again. I’m doing this for Mum, I remind myself.

  To hurry things along, Mum’s made breakfast: a squeezie packet of blueberry and oat purée each, and a rack of burnt toast to share.

  ‘Um, do you want me to make some eggs?’ I offer.

  ‘No time,’ Mum says, gulping down a cup of coffee. ‘We’re all due at my hair salon for a cut and style. Then we’re visiting four bridal shops. The first three on our own – just to get the flavour of it – and then the camera crew is meeting us at the last one.’

  My stomach twists. ‘They’re filming us at the fittings?’

  ‘Obviously. That’s what the show is about – preparing for the perfect fairy-tale wedding. Every bride wants to feel like a princess. The viewers will want to see me finding the perfect dress.’

  ‘Right. I . . . guess I didn’t think of it like that.’

  ‘And of course they’ll want to film you too. I mean, you and Kelsie are my bridesmaids. We’ll find lovely dresses for you both.’ She drinks down her cup of black coffee in one.

  ‘And Em-K? Is he getting filmed too?’

  ‘Well, no. It’s about brides – you know, a girly thing.’

  ‘But he’s OK with it?’

  She gives me a sharp glance. ‘Of course. Why wouldn’t he be?’

  ‘Uh . . . no reason.’

  ‘We agreed last night that the wedding will be in eight weeks,’ she says as she searches her bag for her car keys. ‘That fits in with the filming schedule.’

  ‘Sure, Mum.’ I don’t bother to point out that it’s a tad unromantic that Mum’s perfect fairy-tale wedding has to be rushed to fit in with a TV schedule. In fact, I decide it’s safest not to point out anything at all.

  Getting our hair done seems to take for ever. Mum chats away to the stylist about the wedding, the blog, her product lines in Boots, and her Em-Pee husband-to-be. Kelsie fidgets and cries out when the stylist tries to untangle her unruly blonde hair, and I sit there bored out of my skull. By the time we’ve finished, my hair does look better – the split ends have been cut off and it actually has a shape – and more than anything, I wish we could just go home and have a normal Saturday. But of course, that’s not to be. As we leave the hair salon, I have a sinking feeling in my stomach about the rest of the day – the fittings, the filming, and then, like the icing on The Cake . . . dinner with Dad.

  It takes us almost forty-five minutes to drive to the first bridal ‘boutique’. The shop looks tiny – in one window at the side of the door there’s a tacky Cinderella wedding dress with lace and sparkles. ‘Wow!’ Kelsie puts her hand to her mouth. ‘It’s so beautiful. You have to get that one, Mum.’

  Mum laughs and ruffles Kelsie’s hair. ‘That one is nice, Kels.’ She then points to the dress in the other window – a long, elegant silk dress with a neckline of tiny pearls. ‘But that’s more what I had in mind.’

  ‘It’s pretty, Mum.’ My spirits lift. Maybe Mum will choose something tasteful after all.

  ‘Yes, well . . .’ she shakes her head like she’s now decided to reject it. ‘It probably won’t suit me.’

  When we enter the shop, a woman in a black trouser suit comes out from the back. ‘Welcome to Sophie’s Brides,’ she says, sweeping a hand that sparkles with rings. ‘I’m Sophie. We’re so honoured that you’ve chosen us to help make your “happily ever after” come true.’ Her glance snags on my sister who’s discovered a crystal dish of bonbons by the till. The woman frowns briefly as my sister shoves a handful in her mouth.

  ‘Thanks,’ Mum says. ‘You have a lovely shop.’ She goes over to the rack and starts flipping through the dresses, touching the delicate fabrics. Sophie’s frown deepens, like Mum’s doing something wrong. Her perfume wafts as she quickly goes over to Mum. ‘If you tell me what you have in mind for your dress, perhaps I can select a perfect assortment of dresses for you to try on.’

  ‘Sure.’ Mum hangs on to the puffy net skirt she’s holding, running her finger over the tiny gems sewn in. ‘Maybe I could try this one. Or the Cinderella one in the window.’

  So much for good taste.

  ‘Hmm,’ the woman says. ‘I’m not sure that style would suit you.’

  ‘Oh.’ Mum’s face reddens. ‘Of course, you know best.’

  ‘How about this one?’ The woman holds out an ivory silk dress similar to the one I liked.

  ‘That is nice,’ Mum says. ‘What’s the price on that one?’

  Sophie purses her lips and holds up the tag between two fingers like it’s a dirty tissue.

  Mum can’t quite hide a gasp.

  ‘You must remember,’ Sophie says, ‘that your special day is a once-in-a-lifetime experience.’

  ‘Well, twice, in my case.’ Mum laughs awkwardly. ‘But the first time was a bit rubbish, so maybe it doesn’t count.’

  ‘Of course.’ The woman sniffs. This whole thing is clearly not a marriage ‘made in heaven’ so I wish we could just leave.

  Mum flips through a few more dresses, raising her eyebrows at another price tag.

  ‘And remember,’ the woman adds, ‘we cater to a very exclusive clientele. Everything is bespoke. That means, it’s custom-made just for you. For most of my customers, the prices are very reasonable.’

  Mum turns to her. ‘Of course,’ she says. ‘I understand completely. And as my fiancé is an MP, money isn’t an object. I’m really just asking for my followers. I’m doing a post this week on wedding shopping. You’ve might have heard of my blog: “Mindfulness for Mums”?’

  ‘I’m afraid not.’

  I sense that Mum’s about to embarrass herself, trying to somehow impress snooty old Sophie. Before that can happen, I interrupt: ‘Uh, Mum,’ I say, ‘sorry, but I think we need to get on to our next appointment . . .’

  I brace myself, worried that Bridezilla might make a guest appearance. But surprisingly, Mum actually looks grateful.

  ‘Thanks for the reminder,’ she says. She gives Sophie a pained smile.

  ‘But Mum,’ Kelsie says. ‘You haven’t tried on the Cinderella dress.’ She pops the last bonbon into her mouth, leaving the dish empty.

  ‘Sorry, darling,’ Mum says. ‘But I’m thinking, actually, I might want something more along the lines of Snow White. Right, Scarlett?’ She gives me a pointed smile.

  ‘Right.’ I keep my eyes glued to the plush carpet, and follow Mum and Kelsie out of the shop.

  After the first painful experience, I’m hoping Mum will decide to skip the other shops. But if anything, she seems even keener, and things go from bad to worse. We visit two more bridal shops, each more posh than the first. Mum fingers the dresses, tsks over the prices, tries to impress the sales assistants with her Em-Pee fiancé, and somehow, despite her enthusiasm, doesn’t try on a single dress. By the time we finally grab lunch (the McDonald’s in the car park of the shopping centre), Kelsie is beside herself with all the lovely dresses that Mum has fawned over (‘you’re right, Kels, I would feel like a princess’), fobbed off (‘maybe I’m not Snow White – maybe more of a Princess Anna?’) and ultimately rejected (‘let’s look at the next place, then I’ll decide’). I’m just fed up because if she doesn’t find The Dress today, then we’ll have to do this all over again.

  ‘Maybe you can try on one of the dresses, Mum,’ I say, trying to sound cheerful. ‘I’m sure you’d look lovely, and you’ll get an idea of what suits you. And just think, you can post it on your blog or Instagram page!’ If that doesn’t convince her, then nothing will.

  ‘You’re right, Scarlett.’ She wipes the grease from her Big Mac off of her chin. ‘I do owe that to my followers. It’s just – I don’t know.’ Her smile edges down into a frown. ‘Nothing seems quite right somehow.’

  ‘What doesn’t?’ Suddenly, I feel hopeful again. Maybe Mum’s finally coming to her senses. Re
alizing that her first idea – eloping to a beach to get married in flip-flops and her white summer dress with the blue flowers that she bought in the sales at Monsoon – is the best solution all around.

  ‘Those shops,’ she says huffily. ‘I mean, really, does every saleswoman at a bridal shop have a stick up her bottom or something?’

  I giggle – as much at Kelsie’s shocked face as at the comment. ‘I agree,’ I say. ‘They were awful.’

  Mum waves her hand. ‘I can see now why all the best people have their dresses custom-made specially. You know – like Kate Middleton. That’s what I should do.’

  ‘Um, yeah.’ I swallow hard. Surely Mum can’t be comparing her wedding to Kate Middleton’s! ‘But even the best people probably have to try on a few styles to find the right one.’

  ‘Yes, yes.’ She chivvies Kelsie to hurry up eating her fries (she’s already gone through six packets of ketchup). ‘I’m sure you’re right. In any case, we’d better get on. The film crew is meeting us at the next shop.’

  The film crew. I groan inwardly. I don’t dare break it to her that Kate Middleton probably didn’t have photographers filming her in her knickers during her wedding dress fittings. But then again, Mum’s always been a martyr where her followers are concerned.

  Lights, camera, action!

  As soon as we pull into the packed car park, it’s obvious that The Bridal Centre is not like the posh bridal shops. It’s a cross between Primark and a circus. The place is completely chaotic with Saturday afternoon shoppers, and the enormous lights and cameras are in the way of everyone. There’s a table piled high with cut fruit, biscuits, sandwiches and bottled water, and the camera crew – two scruffy-looking blokes with long hair wearing band T-shirts – are testing out the sound and the lighting. We’re barely inside the door when a short, ginger-haired woman – who is, I realize, the producer Mum’s been talking to – rushes up to Mum and hugs her.

  ‘Oh Claire – right on time. We’re SO looking forward to this!’