Page 31 of The Pop-Up Cake Shop

‘Are you happy continuing with it?’ she asked with a frown, having obviously picked up on my weariness with life.

I pasted on a smile. ‘Yes, of course. I really enjoyed Wednesday, getting out and about, and meeting all those lovely new customers.’With a few exceptions – namely that pair of irritating idiots in their hard hats!

‘I followed Caleb and his housing project and he followed back straight away and posted a really glowing review of our new enterprise. Look.’

I took her phone and read it. ‘Nice.’ I nodded, passing it back to her.

‘You don’t sound very enthusiastic.’ She looked at me worriedly. ‘Is something wrong?’

So then I told her about my phone conversation with Richard the evening before. After a restless night’s sleep, I was exhausted, and still feeling hurt and bruised – and annoyed that Richard should be trying to stay in touch when it was clear that he and Emily were still very much a couple and were planning to come back to the UK together. She was obviously very keen on him if she’d given up her dreams of dancing in a Broadway musical to follow him home...

‘Why on earth is he still texting you and phoning?’ Ellie wondered, as two people – a man and a woman in their forties – came into the café and made their way to the counter. ‘Would you ever get back with Richard?’

‘No! Definitely not. And anyway, it’s obvious he and Emily are planning to sail away into the sunset.’

She sighed. ‘You two were so good together. Richard’s an idiot – even Fen says that – and one day, he’s going to realise he threw away the best relationship he’ll ever have, just for a bit of trans-Atlantic excitement. But by then, you’ll have met someone much more worthy of you, I promise.’

I gave her a feeble smile. ‘I hope so. He’s burned his boats as far as I’m concerned. There’s no way I’d ever give him a second chance.’

‘Good for you!’ murmured the newly-arrived female customer, who was examining the cakes on display under their glass domes. ‘In my experience, once a cheater, always a cheater.’ She gave me a sympathetic look. She had neat, brown shoulder-length hair and wise brown eyes. Turning to Ellie, she said, ‘I’ll take a piece of that delicious-looking triple chocolate cake. What about you, Ray?’ She looked up at the man with her and he nodded rather listlessly. He had a handsome face but he looked thin and gaunt. Up close, he looked a decade older than the woman.

‘Two pieces, then, please?’ The woman smiled at me. ‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to eavesdrop on your conversation but we can both sympathise. Can’t we, Ray?’ She gave him a rueful glance. ‘It feels like the end of the world when someone you really cared about goes off with someone else.’

The man called Ray nodded wearily. ‘Especially when they go off with someone you were supposed to be best friends with.’ His ghostly pallor was emphasised by the dark shadows under his eyes. He looked as if he hadn’t slept in weeks.

‘How awful,’ I commiserated and Ellie nodded in sympathy.

‘Why don’t you take a seat and I’ll bring this over to you?’ I suggested, as Ellie turned to the coffee machine and I began cutting two slices of the chocolate cake.

When I took the tray over, the woman was leaning towards Ray and murmuring intently. She pressed his hand and I guessed she was trying to cheer him up.

‘Ah, excellent.’ She smiled up at me. ‘Cake is just the job when you need some comfort. Especially when the cakes are asscrumptious as they are here.’ She helped me unload the plates and cups from the tray. ‘Ray and I have started meeting up here twice a week for cake and coffee, and it’s doing me the world of good.’ She glanced at Ray.

He gave a grudging smile. ‘It’s definitely helping. I don’t know where I’d be if I didn’t have our coffee meetings in the diary. I probably wouldn’t make it out of bed.’ He stood up. ‘Back in a minute.’

‘Okay.’ She smiled up at me. ‘I’m Cheryl, by the way. Break-ups are bloody awful and Ray’s taken it really hard.’

‘Have you both been through the mill at the same time, then?’ I asked, watching Ray pick up sugar from the counter.

She nodded. ‘The exact same time. We had the misfortune of discovering that our partners were cheating on us – with each other.’

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

I gazed at Cheryl in horror. ‘Right under your noses? That’s awful!’

‘It was. It was crushing. We’d been friends for years. Malcolm and I. Ray and Angie. We kept in touch after college and we used to go on holiday together regularly.

‘But then one night last December we arranged to meet them in Guildford for Christmas drinks and an early dinner. Angie’s a project manager and travels in to the city by train. She had a meeting at a local hotel that afternoon and she was planning to get a taxi to the restaurant from there. But Ray finished work early and he decided to surprise her by picking her up.’ She sighed dejectedly. ‘And of course it turned out that Angie didn’t have a meeting at all. She and Malcolm had booked a room there for a little ‘afternoon delight’. When Ray arrived to collect her, the pair of them were coming out of the lift together, all giggly and intimate.’

I looked at her, appalled. ‘That must have been such a shock. For both of you.’

‘It was the worst time of my life,’ she said softly. ‘I thought our marriage was rock-solid. But it turns out they were at it even when the four of us went away on holiday together.’

‘I’m so sorry.’

She sighed, still lost in memories. Then she recollected herself and smiled. ‘Never mind. It’s all in the past now. No point moping. You just have to get on with it, don’t you? Concentrate on the future.’

I nodded. ‘It’s hard, though, leaving the past behind. The temptation is to just flump on the sofa and wallow in sadness.’

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