Chapter 3
Opening day for Man Buns came before Mal was ready for it. He stood in the little café and looked around. It was decorated in blue and white, with hints of yellow here and there. There were three tables in the café portion, with plenty of room between them and the counter. Behind the counter, the second-hand coffee machine he’d picked up hissed quietly. He turned the sign to open. They had invited a few people to pop round and claim their free coffee that morning. He really hoped that someone would. He had two members of staff now. Ha. It was hard to imagine himself in charge of someone else’s career. It was only two school leavers, Archie and Liz, who were there to watch the shop in the afternoon and help him make the lunches, but still. They were still staff and that meant an unexpected amount of paperwork. Life had been simpler when it was just him, rushing around in his old van, delivering lunches to two gyms. His delivery rounds took much longer now, too, and he didn’t have time to stop and chat to the punters like he used to do.
He rubbed his eyes. He hadn’t slept.
Liz, who was helping with the shop in the morning today, said, ‘Shall I make you a coffee, Mal? You look like you need it.’
‘Yes, please.’ He checked the big menu on the wall. It had all the macros – the grams of carbohydrates, proteins, fat and fibre – for each meal written out, along with calorie counts. Each lunch box had a label with the same information on it. Different people did ketogenic diets differently. Some were high fat, low carb. Some preferred high protein, low carb. They restricted carbs to different degrees. It all depended on why they were doing it and how their bodies responded. He couldn’t cater for each individual, but he could help them to mix and match something that suited their diet.
The first customer was a guy called Travis from the gym, someone Mal knew vaguely because they used to go to the same morning sessions. It was Travis who had put Mal in touch with Warren about the shop.
‘Ha! First customer. Do I get a free lunch?’ Travis said.
Mal resisted the urge to say yes. Jake often told him that his impulse to be helpful would be the death of his business. He caught himself just in time. ‘Not quite, but we can offer you a free breakfast muffin – you can have sweet or savoury.’
‘What flavours?’
‘The sweet one is blueberry. The savoury one is bacon.’
Travis gave him a wolfish grin. ‘Can I have one of each? First customer, after all.’ He leaned back and spread his arms.
Why not? ‘Sure,’ said Mal. ‘One of each it is. And you get a discount voucher for lunch this week. Take a couple of those too – share them around the office.’
Travis grabbed a handful. Mal had initially wanted to keep the discount vouchers open ended, but Jake’s friend Maureen – who at eighty-one had seen everything there was to be seen – had suggested that he made them limited to a week. Partly so that he could run a promotion every few months. But partly to stop people just taking a bunch and using them all the time. He was glad he’d listened to Maureen now.
For a while, it was just him, Travis and Liz in the shop. Travis was the worst sort of customer from the gym. The sort of guy you pictured when you thought of ‘toxic masculinity’. Not that he was particularly fit or strong, as far as Mal could tell, more that he seemed to feel entitled to the world. Mal kept an eye on Liz, just in case Travis made her uncomfortable. Thankfully, the teenager was focused on her phone and Travis was more interested in something outside the shop.
Mal checked his social media profiles to make sure he’d posted on them. Surely, it wouldn’t be just this one guy … He almost cried with relief when the bell rang and a couple of other guys from the gym walked in.
Elodie was doing her numbers when the customer came in. Marty wasn’t in yet, so she raced out of the kitchen to serve. She needn’t have bothered. It was only her brother Travis.
‘What do you want?’ She slid behind the counter, more to have a barrier between them than anything else.
He held up a muffin. It looked like a blueberry one. Not properly risen. To her expert eye, it looked a little soggy at the bottom. There was no excuse for that sort of thing. She raised an eyebrow at her brother. ‘Again. What do you want?’
‘I was passing,’ he said. ‘I popped in to see Man Buns, now they’re open.’ He tilted his head to indicate the shop across the road. ‘They’re doing bacon muffins. Absolutely bloody delicious. And excellent coffee.’
‘Oh,’ she said, feigning surprise. ‘They’re open, are they? That’s nice.’
‘Hmm.’ Travis walked around the shop, reading her displays. ‘Didn’t you have your eye on that corner property?’
Despite the flare of anger, Elodie didn’t rise to the bait. Her brother was eight years older than her and liked her to know that he was the child their parents wanted, while she was the mistake. He was the successful one in the family – the lawyer who followed in his father’s footsteps. She was the airhead who ran ‘a little cake shop’ because she was too useless to do anything else.
‘Shame you weren’t quick enough to get the place really. Or maybe it’s a good thing. Those guys know what they’re doing. They’ve got their businesses all joined up – you know, they supply my gym with lunches. Expanding into office lunches makes complete sense because they have established their base first.’ He looked pointedly around the little shop. ‘You could learn a thing or two.’
Anger bubbled higher. She wished she’d never mentioned her plans to expand to a café to Mum, who had inevitably told Travis. She should have known that if she failed, he would be waiting to rub her face in it.
‘Travis. Did you want something? You obviously don’t need a cake, because you’ve got … that.’ Poor, sad-looking muffin.
Travis lifted the muffin up again and studied it. ‘It’s not pretty,’ he said, as though granting her a favour. ‘But it’s healthier. Low carb, high fibre and filling. Not just full of sugar and additives.’
Elodie picked up the serving tongs and wiped them carefully, even though both tongs and cloth were fresh out that morning. ‘You should write their advertising copy.’ Could you kill someone with tongs? She was tempted to find out.
Her brother laughed. ‘I’m sure they have people who do that for them. The menus look very professional.’ He bagged his muffin again in its little blue-and-white paper bag. ‘I should get to work. It was nice to see you, Elodie. I guess I’ll see you at Mum’s next weekend.’
‘Mum’s’. Hah. Like it wasn’t her house too.
Elodie glared at her brother’s disappearing back and muttered a string of curses. He had only come to gloat at her failure. Her eyes burned. Being angry made her cry – she hated that. It made her look weak and made Travis think he’d scored a point against her.
It was all so unfair! She had done all the work. She’d taken so much care to make sure she had everything she needed for a loan – an independent one that didn’t involve asking her parents for money, because she wanted to show them she could make this work by herself. She had considered all the ins and outs of renting a bigger place, including the possibility of hiring another member of staff … only to have it all snatched away because blokes like to talk to each other in the changing rooms.
She went to the door and glared at the shop opposite. There were a few women in there, but it was mostly men. It was all so smug. It made her blood boil. She couldn’t leave the shop unattended, or she’d go over there and tell them exactly what she thought of them.
Mal was delighted when Jamie showed up. He spotted him standing outside the shop doing a piece to camera on his phone. Jamie had started recording his ‘fitness journey’ about three years ago. He had arrived at Jake’s gym overweight and struggling to clean up his lifestyle after a medical at work had shown him to have far too much cholesterol for a man in his twenties. As Jamie got fitter and healthier, his channel had gained traction and his abundant praise for Jake had meant that the gyms got a lot of exposure too.
When Jamie came in, Mal handed him a coffee and a plate of keto snacks.
‘Congratulations on the place,’ Jamie said, looking around. ‘Looks good.’
‘Thank you. I’m hoping that there’s enough people around here who want keto lunches.’
Jamie laughed. ‘I’ll put the word out. I’ve been going on about the lunches from Jake’s gym for so long, I’m sure there will be some takers.’
‘Lunches from Jake’s gym’ were actually Mal’s thing, not Jake’s. Mal didn’t bother correcting him. It was hard to disentangle his business from Jake’s sometimes. Jake was even a silent partner in his business now. At least he was taking the ‘silent’ part seriously and letting Mal get on with things.
Soon there was a handful of people standing around, laughing and drinking free coffee. Jake sauntered in, to a chorus of greetings. Mal handed him a coffee and sample-size low-carb muffin.
‘Look at this place.’ Jake clapped his free hand on Mal’s shoulder. ‘I’m proud of you, mate.’
‘Thanks.’ It felt like all he’d done was spend money, so far. He leaned his head towards Jake and whispered, ‘Let’s see how well we do before we celebrate, though.’
Jake rolled his eyes. ‘I have absolute faith in you,’ he whispered back. ‘Now go schmooze with the customers.’
Mal had no idea how to do that. He wasn’t a natural schmoozer. He might look different on the outside, but inside, he was still a terrified fat kid. So he went up to people and offered them discount vouchers off their next lunch instead.
‘These are great,’ Jamie said, his words muffled through a mouthful of bao bun. ‘How come you don’t do these in the lunch boxes, Mal?’
‘They take too long to make and they’re not very filling,’ said Mal. ‘So I’m keeping them for the snack menu only. Here. Have another.’
Jamie helped himself. ‘What else have you got? Is it all keto?’
‘It’s all keto.’ Mal pointed to the menu on the wall. ‘All carbs accounted for.’
Jamie’s brow furrowed. ‘Could you … make a lot of these?’
‘Given enough warning, sure.’
‘Like … enough to cater a wedding?’
Mal stilled. Numbers whirred through his mind. Making these in bulk would require more hands than just him, Liz and Archie. ‘How big a wedding?’ Then the rest of his brain caught up with him. ‘Wait a minute, are you getting married, Jamie?’ He knew that Jamie had started dating a lady he’d met at an influencer’s event.
Jamie flushed. ‘I’m not supposed to tell anyone yet. Saffron is doing an official announcement tomorrow, but … I can trust you guys not to say anything, right?’
Everyone gathered around to shake Jamie’s hand and congratulate him.
Mal was genuinely delighted for him. Jamie tended to come into the gym very early in the day, which was when Mal went in, so they knew each other well. The comment about catering an event was still ticking away in his mind. It would be another string to his bow. He would have to work more nights or maybe even hire some people temporarily, to help him make the food. His fridge and freezer weren’t big enough, but he might be able to press Priya into giving him some space in their freezers for a while. He knew his sister-in-law had a chest freezer in the garage that was only half full.
He had to catch Jamie and get more details. He didn’t know much about Jamie’s fiancée, but he knew she was a social media person too. They might be having some big lavish affair, which would be well beyond his capabilities.
He was still mulling this over when a blonde woman in an apron marched in. She folded her arms and scanned the room with narrowed eyes.
Mal went into welcoming mode. ‘Hello. Would you like a muffin?’
She gave his food a look of concern. ‘That’s a muffin?’ she said. ‘What’s wrong with it? It looks so … sad.’
Mal laughed. He had dealt with this question before. ‘It’s a keto muffin. Mostly made of coconut flour and soya flour and has no sugar in it, so it doesn’t have quite the same texture as a normal one. Still, tastes pretty good. Try one.’ He moved the tray towards her again. When she still looked sceptical, he said, ‘Coconut flour and soya flour don’t have gluten like normal flour and gluten—’
Her eyes flashed. ‘I know what gluten is. Don’t patronise me,’ she said.
‘I didn’t mean—’
She sniffed. ‘I bet you didn’t.’
Taken aback by the hostility, Mal glanced around the room. Everyone was watching him. He had to deal with this lady quickly.
‘I’m sorry, miss. You seem a bit annoyed. Is there something I can help you with?’
This seemed to annoy her even more. Her scowl deepened. ‘I was supposed to get the lease on this place, that’s the problem,’ she said. ‘But I didn’t get the chance to even make an offer because you and your boys’ club …’ She pointed to everyone else in the room, who all recoiled slightly, ‘… you had a nice little arrangement and you just swiped it away.’
‘O … kay,’ he said. ‘I think there’s been some sort of misunderstanding … What exactly is the problem?’
She glared at him, a full, thousand-watt stare like a heating element.
‘Did you even bother to check if someone was waiting in line for this place? No? You just come in here, with your nepotism and the patriarchy and just take everything like you own it.’
Nepotism? Patriarchy? What? It so happened that the people in the shop right now were all men, but he had plenty of female customers too. He lowered the tray of muffins to the table and put his hands on his hips. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
‘Don’t you dare pretend—’ she began.
A man in low-slung jeans and a Good Omens T-shirt rushed into the shop. He grabbed hold of the woman’s shoulders. ‘Come on, Elodie. Let’s leave the nice man alone.’ He turned to Mal and gave him an apologetic smile. ‘I’m so sorry. We’ll be leaving now.’ He hustled the protesting woman towards the door.
‘Get off me.’ She shook herself free. ‘Fine. I’ll go.’ She glared at Mal again and jabbed a finger at him. ‘But I’m watching you. Just remember that.’ She turned around and marched out again.
The man backed towards the door. ‘I’m sorry about her,’ he said again. ‘She’ll calm down in a minute. She’s a lovely person really.’ He opened the door. ‘So. Uh. Bye.’ He caught sight of Jake and faltered. ‘I’m Marty. By the way. I work over there.’ He pointed vaguely over his shoulder. ‘Anyway. Bye.’
Mal stared at the door. Through the glass, he could see her barge across the aisle of the arcade and enter the small cake shop diagonally opposite. A fellow shop owner then.
‘What was that all about?’ said one of the customers.
‘Someone’s got her knickers in a twist,’ said another.
Mal said nothing. The woman clearly had something she was annoyed about. He wasn’t entirely sure what, but it sounded like she felt she had a claim on his shop. Except, he had rented it perfectly legally, so she must have been mistaken.
‘Women. Am I right?’ said one of the men.
Mal gave him a stern look, and so did Jake. Jake’s gyms had initially attracted mostly men, probably because of their stark branding. But membership was widening, especially now that there were more female trainers working there and Jake was making a big effort to stamp out sexism, even from the members.
The man muttered, ‘Shouldn’t generalise. Sorry.’
Jake peered out through the door. ‘Odd way to greet a new neighbour …’
Mal could feel the day getting away from him already. ‘I’m sure it’s only a misunderstanding,’ he said. ‘I’ll go talk to her later and sort it out.’