Page 82 of The Cake Fairies
“What if the placement came to an abrupt halt and he flew back to Denmark, never to return again? Our campaign wrapped itself up early, after all.”
The yeah-buts of procrastination were almost as delicious as the cake (and the man), awaiting her on the other side of the glass window across Oxford Street.
“Will you just stop this already? I can’t come in with you,you know that. I know that sounds wimpishly pathetic, and too little too late, but it’s time for you to do this on your own, Polly. You’ve totes got this. Or… erm… whatever they say nowadays. It’s hip and it’s groovy,” Annabelle offered a wan smile.
Annabelle raised her hand and Polly met it gingerly with a floppy high five.
“Right. I’m going in.”
“You said that five minutes ago.”
“A girl’s got to compose herself.”
“I’ve got a great feeling about this. I don’t want to rake the past up again but…” Annabelle went to nibble at her nails then stopped, the realisation dawning upon her that they were finally growing back. “The look in his eyes when he asked after you that day, and I behaved like the world’s filthiest bitch… let’s just say the boy really does have it bad.”
Polly’s stomach flipped and her nerve endings turned effervescent. It was too good to be true.
***
“Al’s on a date with one of the weekend café girls.”
It was too good to be true.
She thought she might choke, wilting into a heap on the chequered floor, but somehow she remained upright, feet clawing at the white square beneath her as if she were a rigid rook analytically considering her next move in the game.
“You’ll probably catch him if you’re quick. They’ve gone to Cov Garden for pizza, then on to catch the evening show of Mamma Mia. He’s not really an Abba fan.” Well, that was a given: he’d probably involuntarily overdosed on them growing up so close to Sweden, “but Nicky is… Such bad luck.” He wasn’t kidding. “You’ve missed him – them—” all right, rub it in, why don’t you? “—By all of five minutes.” Polly thanked her lucky stars profusely for their ten-minute delay, courtesy of Annabelle’s salivation over Top Shop’s window display. “They’re going to make such a cute couple. We’ve been trying to set them up for weeks.”
She tried not to let her face fall, failing badly.
“Oh, honey!” The waiter sucked in his mouth and swiftly pinched at his lips as if trying to extract a piece of toffee, almost going cross-eyed in the process. It was up there with one of the weirdest examples of body language Polly had seen in either of her lifetimes. “Me and my lack of tact. I’m sorry… so that was why…”
“No, no. We’re just friends.”
“Yeah, yeah. They all say that. Listen, you’d be more than welcome to sit here for a consolation coffee, but please don’t get me involved,” Taz ran his fingers over his name badge before spinning on his heel to flip a series of complex-looking switches on the coffee machine. “Best leave them to it and not give chase,” he shouted over his shoulder above the steam for the entire café to hear Polly’s pathetic predicament.
“You know what?” she said, shouting at an equal decibel level to his utterly rude back. “You can shove your coffee beans where the sun doesn’t shine.”
“Hey! There’s no need to be like that, lady!”
Taz’s retort echoed after Polly as she barrelled toward the exit. She took great delight in slamming the door on it.
Annabelle looked devastated at the downcast version of her cousin fast approaching her. She halted her pointless pacing. Polly’d forgiven her, but sometimes, it seemed, life didn’t give you a second chance, lambasting you instead with the bitterest of lemon rind.
“So, I blew it.” Polly held her hands out, eyes watering. “I could have got back in touch with him the minute you told me everything. I could have called. But I didn’t, and guess what? He’s moved on. What gave me the right to expect any different? Now we’ll both have to face the consequences of me failing to act on letter Z.”
Annabelle’s shoulders sagged. She closed her eyes, exhaling deeply through her nose as if she were an unimpressed mother dragon, the frenetic traffic a whirlwind of chaos behind them.
“I know this is all my doing in the first place but, oh, how I wish you would have taken my advice over toasted marshmallows one golden summer’s morning in a Somerset field beneath the goddess gaze of the tor.”
They meandered in deflated unison back to the Tube station, and Polly vowed never to bank her hopes up again. The dream was over.
***
When they arrived at Kensington Mews, it was to discover a similarly woeful Cecil, whose ever-rigid shoulders may have been set back, spine ruler-straight, but whose eyes spoke of deep sorrows.
“Whatisthe deal with you and Nigel? Why didn’t you tell us you had history?”
Annabelle was in quite the foulest of moods. With herself, with Alex, with Amber Magnolia… with Polly for being Polly.
