Page 31 of Along Came Summer

Beaming, I blow her a kiss and twirl, dancing my way over to the ovens, where the day's supply of pastries is already beginning to rise and turn a nice golden brown.

It’s four in the morning, and I’m buzzing with energy as I am most mornings. The doors open at seven, giving me three hours to frost the cupcakes, bake the banana and caramel muffins, and clean the coffee machine ready for the morning rush. Nessa, my roommate and best friend who also works with me and helps me manage the place, rolls in around five-thirty.

Unlike me, it takes Ness a while to get out of bed and even longer to wake up. Hence, the reason she starts an hour and a half later, which suits me fine because I love these moments in the morning when I can sing and dance away any of the stress that I have weighing on me before I open those doors and start my day. It doesn’t matter how crappy my day is; the moment I step into the bakery and start baking, just like butter all my woes just melt away.

Lovey’s Sugar Shack is a charming little bakery nestled in the heart of London. It’s not very big, only fits about five small white round tables and chairs, but the foot traffic is incredible. Most mornings, between the hours of seven and ten, there’s a queue outside of the door with customers waiting to grab their coffee and hazelnut crème croissants or toasted almond and cinnamon buns.

The walls are painted in a gentle rose hue, and faux ivy and bright yellow blossoms hang from the ceiling, creating an enchanting atmosphere. And behind the counter, a fluorescent pink light with the phrase ‘Life is short, so make it sweet’ is mounted on the wall.

Those are the wise words of Eloise Lovey. One I heard many,manytimes growing up.

“Oh, I see the party is already in full swing down here!” Nessa calls over the music as she wanders into the kitchen, tying her bright yellow apron with the bakery’s logo on the front around herself.

Looking back over my shoulder, I smile at my grumpy best friend as I pull the first of ten trays of pastries out of the oven. “Hey!” I greet her with a cheerful grin, carrying the hot tray over to the cooling rack. “The party never stops down here, Ness, you know that!”

“Oh brother,” Nessa rolls her eyes playfully as she picks up the spare oven gloves and helps me retrieve the rest of the pastries out of the oven and slide them onto the cooling rack. “Remind me to ask your grandmother the next time I see her what she fed you as a child that made you so chipper all the time.”

I giggle and dance around her when the song changes to Beyonce’s ‘Single Ladies’. “She'd tell you she fed me rainbow sprinkles and showered me with sunshine, of course! Now, turn that frown upside down, put on your dancing shoes and join me to shake off those grumpies!”

Ness lets out a hearty laugh when I pull her with me to the centre of the kitchen, and we dance together. “You're the only person on this planet that could ever get me up and out of my cosy bed and have me dancing at oh-dark-thirty in the morning, Summer,” she giggles, clinging to me as we sway to the song. “You're lucky I adore you and all your oddball peppy ways.”

Ness and I have been best friends since we were little. She’s been in my life for as long as I can remember. We've grown up together and shared in both the happiness and heartbreak of life. While I am the happy-go-lucky one between us, she’s the cranky one. I prefer it that way because we tend to balance each other out.

Nessa has a heart of gold and goes above and beyond for ones she loves, but she’s the only girl in a household full of boys and has spent most of her life living and taking care of her dad and three older brothers, which is why she can understandably from time to time get a little ratty. We’ve only recently moved in together after I bought the bakery and moved into the quaint two-bedroom apartment just above it.

It's not big, it’s not lavish, but I’ve made it into a home and on the plus side, I save on commute because I roll out of bed and I’m at work.

“Phew, that was a hell of a workout, huh?” I pant, pick up my water bottle and take a couple of sips. “Tell me you don’t feel more energised?”

Ness leans against the kitchen counter to catch her breath and laughs softly. “You can’t just get up and go for a run like every other weirdo in the world to get energised?”

Shaking my head, I hand her the bottle of water, and she takes it from me and drinks some. “Hell no, why would I run when I can dance my troubles away in my favourite place? I’ve been doing this for years, and it hasn’t let me down yet.”

“Babe, if I have the energy to exhaust, I prefer to do it between the sheets on top of a six-foot tank of muscle, pounding his head into the headboard,” Ness states, smiling wickedly. “You should try it sometime because Lord knows it’s been long enough that you’ve formed cobwebs down there.”

“I have not!” I exclaim. Nessa looks at me incredulously, and I distract myself by preparing the hazelnut crème for the pastries. “For the last time, Ness, I don’t need to have sex or find a boyfriend to be happy. When the time is right, love will find me.”

Nessa levels her gaze at me with her signature, 'You are being naïve' look, I've seen a lot of lately. “Summer, you are the brightest, most optimistic girl I have ever met in my life, but you’re so busy building your dream that you’re letting your life pass right by you, babe.” She asserts with a sigh. “This bakery has become your whole life. How do you expect love to find you when you spend every waking hour in here or cooking to feed the homeless.” I sigh as I pour a cup of sugar into the cream and stir it with a whisk. “You’re so busy taking care of everyone else that you’re forgetting to take care of yourself. And to find love, you need to lift those gorgeous blue eyes of yours and look around every now and again and maybe allow some poor schmuck to see more than the top of your head.”

I would like to experience love, of course. I yearn for that kind of connection as much as anyone else, but is it so wrong if I'm twenty-three and have yet to find someone to fall head over heels in love with? Is it a sin to prioritise pursuing my dreams instead of some intangible conception?

“Ness, the last time I listened to you and went on a date, I almost got arrested for trespassing when he took me to his boss’ mansion and tried to convince me it was his. I’m all for a little spontaneity, but if all I am missing out on out there is a long line of deceitful arseholes, then I’ll pass because I’m busy trying to build something for myself. Okay!”

“Summer, come on, that was one guy!”

“And it was enough to scar me for life,” I reply, handing her the bowl of cream to whip up. “And if I get randy, I have the vibrator you convinced me to buy, remember? All the fun and no headache of a relationship, and I finish every time.” I add with a grin, and she pokes up a thick, shapely brow. “Fill those pastries. We have less than an hour before we open.”

“You still owe me a double date, sister. You can bop around being all cute all you want, but I will find you a man, and we will go on a double date!” Ness calls out after me when I walk out to the front to clean and turn the coffee machine on.

I love her, truly I do, but lately, she's been caught up in a romantic fantasy. Ever since she started dating our upstairs neighbour, Ethan, she's been living in her own love bubble and is adamant about dragging me into it with her.

The coffee machine beeps when I turn it on, and I look through the glass into the kitchen, watching Nessa filling the croissants with the hazelnut crème, glazing them, and adding roasted almonds on the top to finish.

It's barely dawn, yet Ness still radiates with her lustrous dark hair braided into two French plaits. People often confuse us for sisters; not because we look alike but because we’re practically twins in terms of physical size and height—both brunettes, standing at five-foot-seven and slender. Which, might I add, is no small feat given our tendency to devour cupcakes and chocolates while we work. Thankfully, being on the move constantly throughout the day helps us maintain our figures, plus the hot yoga and spin classes we take twice a week don’t hurt either.

Nessa loads the display unit with various pastries, cupcakes and muffins while I prepare the register and count up the float for the day. My alarm chirps, alerting me that it’s six-forty-five. Nessa silences the alarm where my phone is on the counter by the coffee machine as I stroll over to the glass door and sigh, flipping the sign to ‘we’re open’ and unlocking the door with a smile.

“All right, Ness, let’sbakesome people happy.” I chirp and hear Nessa snort a laugh from behind the counter.

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