Chapter 12
Elodie locked up her shop and carried her notebook and her laptop across the arcade to Man Buns. The main shop was unlit, but light poured from the open door of the back room, picking out the shapes of the chairs upended on the tables. The sign said ‘Closed’ and the door was locked, so she rapped on the glass. Mal appeared, silhouetted for a moment in the light. He paused to say something to someone who was in the back before he came and unlocked the door. He was wearing a hairnet on his head.
‘Come on in,’ he said. ‘We’re in here.’
She followed him into the kitchen area. The two young people were busy adding sauces to the lunch packs.
‘Anyway,’ said Mal. ‘Can I get you a tea or a coffee, Elodie?’
‘Tea please.’ She put her stuff down on a corner of the gleaming, metal-topped table. ‘Should I wear a hairnet as well?’
Mal frowned and eyed the table. ‘No. I think you’re far enough away.’
Mal went into the main shop and returned with a mug of tea for her. ‘Do you take milk? I don’t have sugar …’ He looked around, as though a packet of sugar might jump out from somewhere.
‘Just milk is fine, thanks.’ She opened her laptop and pulled up the figures she’d compiled. Mal handed her the mug, produced a stool from somewhere and sat down next to her with his own laptop. At the far end of the table, the two teenagers resumed a quiet conversation.
She read his plan. His bid was much more expensive than hers. Should she be charging more? She scrolled through the spreadsheet until she found his costs. Wow. His ingredients were expensive.
Next to her, Mal read through her bid with fierce concentration. Elodie kept her head down. It was strangely peaceful here. The big fridges hummed in the background. The conversation between the teens had a cheerful rhythm punctuated by laughter. She often worked after hours in her shop, but it was usually just her, with the radio and her noisy, juddery fridge for background noise. This was much nicer. Companionable.
After a while, the young people finished their work and Mal went off to sign timesheets and see them off. When he came back, he stood in the doorway and said, ‘Elodie. I’m locking the door to the shop for safety, but the key is in the door, okay?’
She looked up, puzzled.
‘I … didn’t want you to feel like you were trapped in here,’ he said, cautiously.
That was nice. Thoughtful. She had already told Marty and her parents where she was. ‘Okay,’ she said. ‘That’s kind of you to tell me.’
Mal looked faintly embarrassed and shrugged one shoulder. ‘Safeguarding and all that,’ he said. ‘That’s why I make sure that Archie walks Liz home.’ He paused. ‘Or, actually, that they walk each other home. I think if it came to a fight, Liz might have the edge.’
‘Are they a couple?’
He laughed. ‘No. They’re friends. They live on the same street, so they’ve known each other for years.’
‘They seem … good.’
‘Oh yes. They work hard and they don’t complain too much about the odd hours they have to work. They’re good kids.’
He seemed fond of them. They seemed to like him in return. Elodie watched as Mal shifted his seat away from her slightly and settled back in to read the screen. She had been wrong about him. He turned to pull some paperwork out of a file and she was momentarily distracted by the way his T-shirt stretched across his shoulders and back. He was so … muscular. When he turned back around again, she was still staring at him. She looked away quickly, her face suddenly boiling. Oh no, what must he think of her? Here she was, trying to be a professional and then she gets caught ogling a man. She cleared her throat. ‘Your quote is quite a lot higher than mine. There’s a lot more time costed in.’
‘There’s a lot of prep involved,’ he said, sounding slightly defensive. ‘I can’t buy stuff like pastry, I have to make it. And the ingredients aren’t as cheap as regular ones, even at wholesale prices. So yeah.’
‘It was just an observation,’ she said. She glanced again at the menu he’d suggested. Bao buns, cinnamon coconut rolls, Vietnamese summer rolls … it all sounded so much more sophisticated than her ideas. It made her feel like some parochial hick trying to play with the city folk.
‘My menu looks boring in comparison,’ she said.
‘Your menu is more traditional,’ he said. ‘And weddings are all about tradition.’
He didn’t believe a word of that, she could tell. Elodie bristled. ‘There’s no need to be patronising.’
‘I’m not,’ he said. ‘Honestly, I’m not.’
When she glared at him, he closed his eyes for a second as though gathering himself, sighed and then said, ‘Look. If this is going to work, we’re going to have to make the two menus look similar, at least a bit. Shall we start with the things we can both make?’
She forced herself to focus on the task at hand. She needed this job and working with him was a better option than anything else she had. She could see now that her menu was lacking in imagination compared to his. She had gone for the easy options. She’d been doing kids’ parties for far too long. Saffron needed things she could photograph for her feeds. Besides, Mal was right. They did need to make the two menus balance each other out.
‘Well, there’s quiche,’ she said, pointing at her screen. ‘I have traditional quiche, you have crustless ones. I could make mine crustless or with a thin filo crust.’
‘Filo crust would be good,’ he said. ‘That way, people can tell them apart.’
‘You’ve got a smoked salmon and cream cheese one. I could make a caramelised onion and goat’s cheese one.’
‘That’s a great start.’ He tore a page out of his notebook and wrote the two quiches down. ‘What else?’
Mal felt the desperate need to stretch. He and Elodie had been working together for a couple of hours and he was past his usual bedtime. They had a workable menu now and they were working up the costs for ingredients and things, trying to make sure they kept their two sets of food separate. He was so tired he was starting to lose concentration.
A yawn accosted him. There was no way he could hold it in.
She stopped typing up her notes. ‘Tired?’
‘I am actually. It’s quite late for me.’ He got to his feet and stretched, twisting to release the tension in his back.
Elodie coughed and looked away. She must think him a real lightweight. It was barely ten o’clock.
‘I have to get up at four,’ he said, slightly insulted.
‘Of course.’ She started stacking everything together. ‘It’s late. I’ll finish up my numbers. You do yours and email me first thing tomorrow morning. I’ll tidy everything up and send it to Saffron and Jamie by 9 a.m.’ She looked up at him. ‘Is that okay with you? I’ll have more time in the morning than you do. I don’t have to do deliveries.’
‘That would work. Yes. Thank you.’
She seemed less prickly now. Spending two hours poring over menus and plans must have defrosted her. Mal smiled at her. She didn’t smile back.
‘I hope this works,’ she said. ‘I hope it’s enough.’ She looked genuinely worried.
‘It’s a good proposal,’ he said, even though he hadn’t a clue if it was or not. ‘We’ve given it our best shot.’
She put her hands over her eyes and tipped her head backwards. ‘What if our best isn’t good enough?’
Then they’d fail. ‘It will be,’ said Mal. ‘I’m sure of it. And if not, at least we tried. We’ll have a good draft for any other opportunity that arises.’
She parted her fingers and peered at him through the gap. ‘You reckon there’ll be other weddings mad enough to want two separate types of menu in one go?’
He didn’t actually, but she looked so despondent, he didn’t have the heart to say so. ‘Who knows,’ he said. ‘It might be a Thing.’
‘Hmm.’ She shook out her hands, clasped them to the side behind her and stretched her neck. It did interesting things to her bosom. Mal averted his eyes. He didn’t want to be that guy. He busied himself shutting his laptop and scooping all his paperwork into his backpack.
Elodie finished her stretch and hopped off the stool. ‘Okay,’ she said, suddenly all decisive. ‘I’ll see you tomorrow.’
‘Do you want me to walk you to your car?’ he said.
‘No need, really,’ she said. ‘I walk around here at night all the time. It’s not exactly dangerous.’
‘That’s good.’ What else was he supposed to say? He grabbed his coat and followed her into the main shop. She unlocked the door and paused.
‘Mal?’
‘Yes?’
‘I hope this works out, but if not, it was still nice to cooperate. I’m sorry I’ve been … difficult.’
She had apologised before, but this time felt more sincere, somehow.
‘Um … don’t worry about it. And I hope this works out too.’ To his mild surprise, he really wanted this to work. His business needed it. Her business needed it and … he quite liked hanging out with her. That was a change.
He watched her sling her heavy laptop bag onto her shoulder and walk away. She cut a lonely and determined figure as she marched off. He had seen a different side to her today. Still determined and single minded, but also somehow softer.
The word ‘soft’ suddenly brought to mind an image of her stretching her neck. He shook his head to get rid of it. Grabbing his own bag, he locked up the shop and went home.