The Pop-Up Cake Shop (Little Duck Pond Cafe #39)

CHAPTER ONE

‘I can’t believe I’ll be in New York this time tomorrow.’ I beamed at Ellie across the pre-packed sandwich aisle of the supermarket. ‘Not wanting to rub it in – but I am so excited . Big Apple and Richard, here I come!’

‘I’d ask if I could hitch a lift in your suitcase, but being nearly seven months’ pregnant, I doubt I’d fit in it.’

I threw a ham and cheese sandwich into my basket as I smiled at Ellie’s baby bump. It seemed to be growing larger by the hour these days. ‘I haven’t done my packing yet, so you never know. I might be able to squeeze you in.’

‘You haven’t packed yet?’ She stared at me, alarmed. ‘But you leave early in the morning, don’t you?’

I shrugged. ‘It’s fine. I’ll do it tonight when I get back.’

‘I’ve obviously been working you too hard.’

‘Not at all. I’m enjoying it.’ As Ellie wound down towards her due date, these days Maddy and I were pretty much managing the café between us.

Not that Ellie was slowing down very much at all.

She seemed to be constantly busy and on the move between the café, the glamping site and the new house she and Zak had bought – the renovation was almost complete – while insisting she was still finding the time (at Zak’s insistence) to put up her feet at home.

It was true that work for me was busier than ever but with Richard away in New York I preferred it. It meant I had less time to sit at home and miss him.

‘I gather you managed to get your passport renewed?’

I grimaced at Ellie, recalling the mad panic I’d experienced a week or so ago when I suddenly discovered my passport was out of date. ‘It’s being delivered by courier today. For a while I really thought I was going to have to cancel New York. But thankfully, I got the passport fast-tracked.’

‘That’s a relief.’ She pointed at the sandwich I’d picked up. ‘Why are you buying that?’

‘It’s for breakfast.’ I shrugged. ‘I want to be at the airport by six tomorrow morning for my nine o’clock flight and I don’t want to have to buy food there because it’s so expensive.’

‘A ham and cheese sandwich for breakfast?’ Ellie made a face. ‘Why not help yourself to pastries from the café? Or anything you fancy?’

‘Really?’

‘Of course! You know how much surplus cake and bakery stuff we have left over every week, no matter how hard I try to gauge how much we’ll need.’

‘True.’ I looked at the sandwich, hesitating. I knew Ellie’s thoughts on food wastage. I felt exactly the same. But running a café, it was inevitable that we’d make too little of one thing and far too much of another. It all depended on what customers fancied eating that week, which was properly hard to forecast!

She grinned. ‘You’ll be doing me a favour. Come back with me now and make yourself a little picnic for the airport.’

‘Okay. Thanks, Ellie.’ I went to put the sandwich back, and when I turned, a strange sight confronted me. ‘What on earth... ?’

‘What?’ Ellie swung round, and we both started to chuckle.

‘Is that really a giant white rabbit haring towards us, wheeling a trolley?’ I murmured.

‘Nice pun. Hare-ing.’

‘Oh, yes.’

‘I’m just very glad you’re seeing it, too. I thought the pregnancy hormones were making me hallucinate.’

I snorted with laughter, which set Ellie off.

We tried not to look as the rabbit suddenly stopped by the cake section and started throwing packets into the trolley in an agitated fashion. The floppy ears on a headband had slipped and were sitting at a rather jaunty angle. And a sudden dive for the lower shelf caused the ears to fall off altogether.

‘That’s one very stressed rabbit,’ I murmured.

‘Hang on, that’s Mrs Aitken, isn’t it?’ said Ellie, recognising one of the cafés regular customers.

At that moment, she looked over, saw the pair of us and waved frantically. Then the trolley was being steered swiftly in our direction.

‘Is everything okay, Mrs Aitken?’ I asked.

‘Not really,’ squeaked a hot and flushed-looking Mrs Aitken. ‘I’ve got a hoard of ten-year-olds at home and I’ve got nothing to feed them.’ She glanced round in agitation. ‘Harold’s supposed to be helping. He’s parking the car. Where on earth is he?’

‘You – um – lost your ears.’ Ellie pointed. ‘I’ll go and get them for you.’

‘Oh. Thank you, dear.’ Mrs Aitken flumped over the trolley handle with a big sigh. ‘It’s my granddaughter Bella’s birthday today and we promised her a fabulous party.’

‘Bella’s okay now?’ I asked. I knew the family had been through hell over the past year, little Bella having been diagnosed with leukaemia.

‘Yes. She’s good. She got the all-clear a fortnight ago.’

‘Oh, that’s brilliant.’

‘Thank you, Katja. Yes, it’s such a relief. So anyway, Harold had the great idea of organising a Mad Hatter’s tea party for her birthday this afternoon. All very last-minute, but that’s Harold for you!’ She grinned ruefully. ‘So we managed to get a marquee in the garden, invited twenty or so of her little friends – and then would you believe the bloomin’ caterer let us down. A mix-up with the booking, apparently. Not sure if it was their fault or ours. It was all done in such a hurry. But now we’ve got a party with zero cake .’

‘Oh, no.’ Automatically, I glanced at my watch. ‘When are the children arriving?’

‘They’re there already,’ she said faintly, looking as if she was about to break down and weep over the contents of her trolley. ‘The party started ten minutes ago. But thankfully, we hired a Taylor Swift look-alike to provide the entertainment and there’s face-painting afterwards. But the actual tea party is at four o’clock, and all I’ve got in the cupboard is the remains of the sad-looking Christmas cake my sister-in-law made and some stale Jammy Dodgers.’

Ellie came back with the ears, and a fed-up Mrs Aitken thanked her and jammed them back on her head. People were walking past us, nudging each other and trying to hide their smiles at the sight of a giant, depressed-looking white rabbit flumped dejectedly over a supermarket trolley.

I quickly explained the situation to Ellie and she frowned down at the dozens of individual portions of strawberry cheesecake we’d watched Mrs Aitken shovelling in from the shelf.

‘I think we can do better than that,’ she said.

Mrs Aitken looked up at her. ‘Really?’

‘Yes. And it won’t cost you a fortune, either.’

Mrs Aitken stared in wonder from Ellie to me and back again. ‘Oh, my goodness, do you happen to be a couple of superheroes in disguise?’

Ellie grinned. ‘Yeah, our capes are in the wash. No, Katja and I were just talking about food wastage in the café and how much surplus we have left over every week that we often don’t know what to do with. The food bank has rules and regulations around fresh food donations, so that can be tricky. Fen and Maddy will be baking lots of fresh stuff tomorrow morning, but the cakes we’ve got left over are still perfectly good. So ...’ Ellie frowned. ‘Sorry, I’m just trying to think what we’ve got.’ She looked at me.

I nodded. ‘There’s a good selection of muffins – chocolate and blueberry and salted caramel – and a couple of Victoria sandwich cakes. Maybe three. And there’s some traybakes that could be cut up into small portions?’

Mrs Aitken’s eyes had lit up with hope. ‘Your cakes and pastries are always so gorgeous.’

‘The Brambleberry Manor Café has the same problem with waste,’ murmured Ellie, looking at me. ‘They might be able to help as well.’

‘We could give Fen a call and whizz over there if they’ve got anything we can have.’

‘Don’t you have to get back to pack for New York?’ Ellie glanced at her watch.

‘Oh, there’s plenty of time for that.’ I smiled at Mrs Aitken. ‘I’ve never been a superhero before. I quite fancy the idea.’

‘Well, you’d be saving our bacon, that’s for sure. And helping to make a brave little girl very happy on her birthday.’ Tears had sprung to Mrs Aitken’s eyes. ‘Ah, here’s Harold now,’ she announced, as a burly-looking man dressed as the Mad Hatter strode towards us. The costume looked several sizes too small for his big frame, the buttons of his fancy waistcoat straining dangerously, but he looked in good spirits nonetheless.

Mrs Aitken patted her husband’s arm. ‘Ellie and Katja were saying they might be able to help, Harold.’ She brushed her tears away and beamed at us. ‘You must call me Maggie, by the way.’

*****

‘Fen says that would be no problem at all,’ I reported to Ellie after phoning our friend – whose family owned the Brambleberry Manor Café – and explaining the problem. ‘She’s got a surplus of gingerbread men, French fancies and a whole Bakewell tart, and we’re welcome to have them for Bella’s party.’

‘That’s brilliant.’ Ellie smiled as she drove into Sunnybrook and took a left along the street towards the Little Duck Pond Café.

‘She’s going to pack them all up and have them ready for us when we arrive.’

‘Great.’ We came to a slightly screechy stop in the little car park and Ellie grinned over at me. ‘Let’s go on a cake hunt.’

We jumped out of the car and headed into the café, where Maddy – primed by me on the drive back – had already packaged up the leftover cakes and traybakes we needed. And then it was back out to the car and on the road again.

I grinned over at Ellie, rather enjoying our cake mission. ‘So we’ve now got about half an hour to bolt along to the Brambleberry Manor Café to collect their donation, before driving over to Lockley Meadow village and finding Mrs Aitken’s... Maggie’s house.’

Ellie nodded, putting her foot down once we were through the village speed limit. ‘My poor little car doesn’t quite know what’s happening!’

As we drew up outside the café, Fen herself was waiting at the door holding a stack of cake boxes. Getting out, we added the scrummy donation to the other boxes in the boot.

‘It’s lovely to think it’s all going to a good cause,’ said Fen, giving us a thumbs-up as Ellie and I got back in the car.

‘You sure you don’t want payment?’ Ellie asked.

‘No, no. We’re just delighted to help out at little Bella’s party. Some of it would go to waste, anyway.’

Ellie nodded. ‘Great.’

‘It’s a shame we can’t put the excess to good use more often,’ Fen called through my open passenger seat window, as Ellie put the car in gear and we raced off in the direction of Lockley Meadow and the birthday party.

As we drove along, I automatically checked my phone for emails. It was just the usual advertising: fashion retail, bike accessories (Richard was a keen cyclist) and – interestingly – a new line in whips and blindfolds. (I’d once ordered a special lube to stop Richard’s inner thighs chafing on bike rides and I must still be on their mailing list.)

Then I spotted a message from the courier that was delivering my passport that day. It had been sent early that morning and they’d given me an hour’s window for their arrival.

But it was the line underneath that made my heart lurch with horror.

‘Oh, bollocks !’ I muttered under my breath.

‘What’s wrong?’

‘I’m supposed to be there when the courier brings my passport. They can’t post it through the letterbox. They have to deliver it to a person .’

‘Makes sense, I suppose. When are they delivering it?’

‘Between four and five,’ I wailed. ‘And it’s nearly half past three now.’

Ellie looked at me, aghast. ‘I’d better drive you home first.’

‘No! Sunnybrook’s in completely the wrong direction for the party. You’d be really late getting the cakes to Maggie. We can’t let her down.’

‘Are you sure?’ she asked, slowing the car and looking for a place to do a U-turn.

‘Yes! Honestly. Keep driving.’

Ellie glanced at the clock on the dashboard. ‘We can probably get you back home for about a quarter to four. As long as we’re very quick with the cake handover.’

I nodded. ‘That’s what I was thinking. It’ll be fine. And they won’t arrive dead on four o’clock, surely.’ (Even as I said it, my pesky brain was reminding me about Sod’s Law... that this was probably the one time the courier would arrive early!)

My mind was racing, my heart beating horribly fast as we carried on to Lockley Meadow. Without that passport I wouldn’t get to New York! But we couldn’t let Maggie down!

‘Oh, no,’ groaned Ellie. ‘Tractor alert.’

Looking ahead, my heart sank as I saw the unwieldy vehicle trundling slowly out of a farm entrance and joining the road three cars ahead of us.

‘Don’t worry.’ Ellie pointed at a signpost. ‘Only two miles to Lockley Meadow. We’ll make it. I’m sure.’

I nodded, swallowing down my panic. ‘It’ll be fine.’

After that, we didn’t speak. You could cut the tension in the car with a knife as we drove at an excruciating fifteen miles an hour, before the tractor eventually turned off into a field.

‘Thank goodness for that,’ exclaimed Ellie. ‘Right, let’s concentrate on finding the Aitkens’ place and then we can be on our way back to Sunnybrook.’

We spotted the house in the distance immediately because of the balloons tied to the gate.

The property was one of about twenty circling Lockley Meadow village green, and adjacent to the Aitkens’ place was what looked like the entrance to a building site. The only free parking spot along the road was just beyond the new housing development that was being built. But as Ellie indicated to park there, I glanced to my left and spotted a large bulldozer on site lumbering at a fair old pace towards the exit.

The giant vehicle was getting closer and I was waiting for it to slow down – but it just kept coming, looming ever closer towards us.

‘He’s not going to stop, Ellie!’ I shouted in a panic, convinced by then that the driver was actually intent on bulldozing Ellie’s little car out of his way.

She slammed on the brakes and managed to stop just in time. A second later and there would have been an almighty crunch of metal. Not that the driver of the bulldozer seemed to care. He was emerging from the entrance now and attempting to turn towards us into the road, although Ellie was partially blocking him.

At last, he stopped and I breathed a sigh of relief.

Ellie signalled that she wanted to park in the space beyond the building site entrance, but either the man behind the wheel didn’t get the message or he was being deliberately awkward. All he had to do was remain where he was so that Ellie could scoot around him and get into the parking space. But instead, he revved the engine loudly and carried on motoring towards us, effectively hogging the whole road and completely blocking our way.

‘Why isn’t he letting us through?’ squeaked Ellie.

‘Because he’s a thuggish blockhead, apparently,’ I muttered, as the driver – who had dark hair and a face like thunder – started making aggressive hand movements for Ellie to get out of his way.

Ellie sighed, looking back along the street. ‘Does he really want me to reverse all the way back to the main road to let him out?’

‘Yes, well, clearly you’re not going to do that.’ Panic was stirring my insides. If we didn’t get a move on, I wouldn’t be home in time to receive my passport! ‘It’s that idiot who needs to reverse. Hang on a sec, Ellie.’

‘Katja, no!’

But I was already scrambling out of the car and marching over to the bulldozer. Filled with despair that I might not get back to Sunnybrook in time, I could feel my face burning with outrage at this monster thing blocking our attempts at parking – and I wasn’t referring to the bulldozer!

He honked his horn as I stood in the road and glared up at him, hands on hips.

My attitude of fierceness was a front, of course. Frustration had propelled me out of the car but I was already quaking in my boots, regretting my hastiness.

He frowned down at me but I kept my chin up and frowned back.

And just as I was wondering how the stand-off would end, two guys appeared at the entrance to the building site, clearly wondering what the stoppage was all about.

‘I wouldn’t argue with him if I were you, love,’ said the younger one, with a nod at the driver of the bulldozer. He grinned. ‘Not today, anyway.’ He was dressed in scruffy cut-off jeans, T-shirt and big work boots that emphasised his skinny legs.

‘What’s going on?’ His colleague, who was clearly senior, looked from me to the driver and back again in bewilderment. Then he looked across at Ellie and sized up the situation. ‘Could you go back to the car, please? You’re not safe standing here.’ Moving towards me, he tried to usher me away, but I stood my ground.

I could feel myself trembling with annoyance.

‘I really don’t see why we should move when it’s your ridiculously macho caveman-type colleague who’s at fault. Men like him should be locked up!’

‘Ooh, a feminist man-hater.’ The younger guy grinned and rubbed his hands together, clearly relishing the idea of a scrap. ‘I’d watch your bollocks, mate,’ he shouted up at the driver. ‘She’ll have them for breakfast if you’re not careful.’

‘Thank you, Ryan,’ snapped the older man. In blue jeans, checked shirt, yellow hi-vis jacket and giant boots, he looked like the site foreman. ‘Get back to work, will you? I’ll handle this.’

‘He’s in a bad mood for a reason,’ called Ryan, grinning over his shoulder at me as he reluctantly left the scene. ‘He would have won the lottery last night if his missus had remembered to get a ticket.’

I glanced at my watch and my heart gave a lurch of anxiety. This was a nightmare. We should be on our way back to Sunnybrook by now!

‘Lottery win or not, he needs to move and let us through,’ I demanded. ‘We were wanting to park in that space over there but he deliberately pulled out and blocked us, even though it was clearly our right of way. And we’ve got an urgent delivery to make.’

The foreman eyed me placidly. ‘You’d get parked far quicker if your... friend... was to reverse into that space there and let the bulldozer through.’

‘What space? There aren’t any spaces.’

Silently, he pointed and I looked behind me – only to find that a car had since driven away and there was indeed a space, although Ellie clearly hadn’t noticed, either.

There was an ear-splitting honk from the bulldozer. It gave me such a fright, my feet almost left the ground, and the foreman turned and signalled brusquely with his hands for the driver to desist.

I shook my head. ‘You know something? If a woman was in charge here and there was another woman driving that bloody bulldozer, this whole ridiculous palaver would have been sorted out by now. Peacefully !’

The foreman’s eyebrows rose a fraction at my obvious fury. He opened his mouth to say something, but I stomped away, not bothering to stay and listen.

‘We’ll reverse, okay?’ I shouted back at him without turning. ‘Because I’m a woman . And women are clearly the superior sex in terms of compromise and consideration for others.’

I dived back into the car. ‘There’s a space back there.’ I muttered to Ellie, who was staring at me, gobsmacked. ‘Can we reverse?’

She put the car in gear and nodded ahead. ‘No need. He’s managed to get the surly bugger to move.’

‘Oh.’ Sure enough, the bulldozer was starting to reverse slowly back into the site entrance.

As we drove past the foreman, he gave me a wary look as if he thought I might be about to leap out of the car and start yelling at him again.

Ignoring him, I turned to Ellie, feeling thoroughly rattled but rather foolish at the same time. ‘Let’s just deliver these cakes and get on our way, shall we?’

‘Absolutely.’ Ellie parked up and we leaped out of the car. ‘Don’t worry. I’ll get you back by four. Give the poor man a wave.’

‘What “poor man”?’ I turned with my tower of boxes, just in time to see the foreman strolling back on site, hands in the pockets of his blue jeans.

Ellie chuckled. ‘I think you scared him. Actually, you scared me as well. I’ve never seen you so cross.’

Smiling ruefully, still feeling shaken after the dramatic stand-off, I nodded over at the party house.

‘Come on. Let’s go. There’s a giant rabbit waiting for us at the gate.’

*****

After delivering our cakes to a very grateful Maggie, we drove off just as the bulldozer was emerging again.

Ellie circled the village green slowly, navigating carefully past the continuous line of parked cars on one side, until eventually we made it back to the main road.

She glanced back with a grin. ‘Goodbye to the cheeriest bulldozer driver in the history of construction workers. At one point I thought he was going to bulldoze us all the way back to Sunnybrook.’

I grunted in agreement. ‘He had one helluva pair of angry black bushy eyebrows on him. They really should have their own social media account.’

She chuckled. ‘Well, we’ve done what we promised. And Maggie seemed delighted.’

‘That’s good, anyway.’

‘And now I’m going to whizz you home.’

Staring out of the window, I gave a heavy sigh. ‘You know what? I’m not even sure I want to go to New York.’

‘What do you mean?’ She glanced across at me in surprise. ‘You’ve missed Richard while he’s been away, haven’t you?’

‘Yes. Of course.’ I attempted a smile. ‘Just ignore me. I’m being silly.’

‘Is this about thinking you heard a female voice in the background when you phoned him that time? Because you know it wouldn’t be anything to worry about. Richard’s not like that. I’m sure it was just the TV, like he said.’

‘I know. I’m sure you’re right. But your imagination can play horrible tricks on you, though, can’t it?’

‘It can indeed.’ She groaned. ‘Remember what I was like getting all worried because I imagined Zak’s new literary agent was a stunningly beautiful twenty-year-old model-type.’

‘Yes, and she turned out to be a lovely mature lady in her early seventies – and a granny to boot. That was the pregnancy hormones, though.’ I pointed with a wry smile at Ellie’s burgeoning baby bump. ‘What’s my excuse?’

She chuckled. ‘You’ll be fine. Richard is going to welcome you with open arms at the airport and you’ll come back to Sunnybrook, all nauseatingly loved-up again.’

I gave a mock grimace. ‘Let’s hope you’re right.’

I felt more relaxed now, knowing that – barring another tractor getting in the way or an alien spaceship landing on the car – we were actually going to make it back to Sunnybrook by four.

As Ellie sped along, we talked about the places on my list that I was keen to visit, and I felt a little bubble of excitement expanding within me. Of course I wanted to go to New York. In fact, I could hardly wait for tomorrow. I probably wouldn’t sleep tonight for excitement.

‘Have a great time!’ called Ellie as she drove off. ‘Give my love to Richard and the Big Apple.’

I smiled and waved, then I walked slowly up the path to my flat.

Something was still dragging me down a little, casting a shadow over my forthcoming trip, although I was trying very hard to ignore it.

Stepping inside, I shook my head as if to banish the feeling.

I was just being silly.

My time in New York with Richard was going to be wonderful!