Page 38 of The Cake Fairies
“And some of us are only working in one. Plunge the knife deeper, darling.”
He feigned a stab to the heart and yet again, Annabelle failed to see how the igloo Polly had swiftly built around herself stayed frozen. But nothing seemed to thaw her.
What started off as cake pops – simple but tasty sponge balls dipped in coatings of strawberry and cream, mint chocolate, chocolate orange, and toffee apple popcorn crunch – soon turned into a demo on sugar tuile making and crème brûlée torch glazing. And then, like a wound-up clockwork toy, their baker extraordinaire was off at every kind of tangent, working so quickly he left Annabelle and Ivy giddy in his wake.
“You can reimburse us for eating into our supplies, too. There was no need to be so frivolous. All we wanted today was a layer cake,” said Polly.
“Oh, come on. We spent so much in that giant supermarket yesterday that we can barely close the fridge door. Alex is doing us a favour.” Annabelle came to his defence.
“I second that,” Ivy swooned. “Can you believe this is the very first time I’ve tried a cake pop? They charge a fortune for them in the fancy bakeries, and my student food budget hardly extends to such a luxury. Polly and Annabelle: you absolutely have to make some of these beauties for your drops. They’re like an exclusive invite to the very best party – imagine a whole forest of them covering a cake top! And never mind Pringles: once you pop these little belters, you really can’t stop.”
“Pring...? Oh, never mind,” Polly swatted. “We’re on a strict schedule,” she added matter-of-factly.
It was true. For all Annabelle knew, today was the only day they’d squeeze in an iota of artistic license. But Polly had asked for Ivy’s input, and again, Alex’s skill had created a Pied Piper Yellow Brick Road back to reality. The facts could not be disputed.
All good things – and glorious afternoons – had to come to an end. Ivy, thankful and positively glowing, with a collection of multicoloured cake pops and crème brûlée ‘whoopie’ pies, bid her hasty farewell; her mum would soon be home from work; and wondering where she was. She needed to construct a believable story as to her recent acquisitions – as well as to how the day’s history studies had gone.
Alex politely took this as his cue to follow suit. Annabelle couldn’t have embraced him harder, trying but slightly failing to do so in a platonic way. He felt, not so much like home, as the garden gate to home, even if she knew that sadly he’d never be hers. She quickly determined to put her feelings to one side again. He’d helped them achieve a true masterpiece, and she was sorry that they wouldn’t be involving him in the evening’s drop. It didn’t seem right. Forces of nature – red velvet layer cake, ostentatious torte, and peppermint extract – had brought them together as a team, and Polly’s self-sabotaging behaviour was only driving them apart. Frankly, her cousin didn’t deserve his attention.
It saddened Annabelle that they hadn’t set up a repeat performance. This might be a one-off, though anybody could see they worked like a dream together, leaving a grumpy and stroppy Polly to one side.
Once she’d seen their guests to the door, Annabelle returned to a stubbornly updated version of her cousin: Perfervid Polly.
“He’s done nothing but rip my creations to shreds today,” Polly said, emulating Annabelle’s earlier rampant race around the kitchen island. “I’ve never been so humiliated. Not even Kitty would dare show me up like that.”
“You’ve got a short memory,” Annabelle tutted. “I think he’s been a remarkably helpful insight into twenty-first century baking, actually.” She tried to rein in the blush she felt rouging her cheeks. “He’s given us a complete rundown on the fan-assisted oven, so we’ll avoid burning everything to a crisp; he demo’d those new icing techniques, gave a tutorial on how to create carrot cake flower pots…” Polly stopped her quickstep and swallowed hard, turning to circumnavigate the other side of the worktop: there was no denying it, those pretty little terracotta and chocolate-hued bites, complete with their vibrant fondant vegetables and token rabbit, were more than a little inspired. “And that’s not to mention the cake pops. Whatever they’re teaching him in Copenhagen, whatever tricks he’s picked up in that café, I’m gobsmacked. There’s no doubt he can teach us a lot.”
“Huh. You reckon?” sniffed Polly. “From where I was standing, he was the most irritating male I’ve ever had the misfortune of meeting. Today was a fluke, a chance to show-off because he had three women as his audience. He even makes my brothers seem tolerable, and that’s saying something.”
“That’s definitely up for debate,” said Annabelle, and then thought better of going down that road. “He’s the honey to your comb, Polly Williams,” her stomach knotted at its own missed opportunity to indulge in somersaults. “You’re just too damned stubborn to see it. And a word of advice: I wouldn’t play ice maiden for too long; you know how these stories end by now. There are plenty more fish for Alex in the River Thames.”
Yes, there may have been a smidgen of an ulterior motive there.
“Oh, when will you give it a rest? I’m invested in the mission, that’s all. Let him go fish for London eels for all I care.”
“Hello? You’re conveniently forgetting the small but significant detail this quirky quest also entails… Grand. Alphabetical. Love.”
“He. Is. Not. My. Type.”
“Do you maybe want to say it louder? I’m not sure the Lords over the water heard you, Polly,” Annabelle quipped, astonished as to how her cousin could be so blasé at having attracted such a kind-hearted (and all the rest of it) guy.
If she hadn’t been so petrified when they’d landed in The Toadstool the other night, she’d have damn well made sure she spotted him first, putting her pin firmly on the map – and on Denmark – before Polly got to feast her ungrateful eyes upon him.
“Okay then. Yes. I’ll shout it louder for all the capital to hear. How can there exist a guy so… so… completely…?”
“You know what they say, about the ones who push your buttons,” said Annabelle.
“Never in a million years.” Polly headed to the fridge, returning with a fresh bottle of cava. She plonked it on the island, added a couple of glasses, and began to pour.
“Never in a new millennium?” quizzed Annabelle.
Her cousin remained silent.
Annabelle did the only thing she could. She was only human. She raised her glass in a toast to Polly coming rapidly to her senses, before she went in for the kill herself.
She’d grant her a week.
