Page 3 of The Custard Tart Cafe by the Sea
I wish Lauren would make a concession, just this once. Surely a taste test is an integral part of efficient marketing, only helping Lauren describe the flavours more accurately? Besides which, it’s not every day that a family member opens a café in such a special location. But Lauren bats the idea away as if it were a seaside wasp.
“Mum and Dad are both sliding into their mid-fifties a little too languidly for my liking, and Caitie really needs to keep an eye on her pot belly.” She takes a sip of her coffee. “Of course I’m no stranger to the gym, but this promotion and all the extra responsibility it entails comes with extra desk time… and not just in my own office.” Three, two, one: big sis is back to buzzing abouthercareer again. “I’ll have you know a marketing account director’s role goes above and beyond mere, erm, directing in front of prospective clients. I’m in constant demand around the building and in the meeting rooms, ensuring I engage in a healthy mix of phone, email, Zoom, and face to face conversation.”
Ha, the latter I can well imagine. I’m all too familiar with the way Lauren impressed her boss, Jamie Masters, so very quickly that she is now married to him– and his eye-watering wealth, oodles of cars, Bristol harbour-side penthouse, and megalith of a Salcombe estuary villa. Which isn’t to demean anybody who has followed a similar path to management and just so happened to fall in love with a tycoon. The difference is, they’ve probably done so in a longer timeframe. Lauren’s career was turbo-charged; the jumps in title AND her wedding day happening within a year of her joining Muse Masters, her most recent promotion coming six months after that.
“Oh, my days, Bonsai…” she says.
I grit my teeth. There it is again. Told you so. I hate it when she calls me that, of course I do. But I’ve long given up on trying to correct her. It started in our teens, when it was pretty clear that I was never going to mirror the grace and stature of my namesake tree. Don’t get me wrong, bonsais are cute in their own right, but that’s hardly the point.
“…The guy is exquisite,” she carries on, completely unaware of my annoyance. “Worthy of wall space in the Tateandthe Louvre. Think of a young Antonio Banderas. Not as scruffy, mind you, nicely groomed, and a wearer of the understated but crisp CK One Shock fragrance.”
“Who,what?” I’m genuinely confused. On a selfish note, I really don’t need all this waffle-style gossip permeating my frazzled brain when I have a business to launch this morning.
“Get with the programme, sweetheart. I was telling you about the plus points of directorship,remember?”
Oh, so now we have moved on to the subject of the eye candy perks of my sister’s career. What a surprise. It hasn’t taken Lauren long to tire of my bro-in-law. I almost feel sorry for Jamie. Except he and Lauren are peas in a pod, truly deserving of one another’s antics. That may seem harsh, but Jamie gives as good as he gets and no less than three other women from the company have either graced his arm in the past or sported a Jamie-gifted rock, to rival anything in Weston-super-Mare’s seafront sweet shops. According to Lauren, anyway. None of which seems to phase her a bit. I can’t help but shrug. At least both of them know the level of fickle they’re getting into.
Why does everyone have to be compared to a celeb nowadays, though? Nothing irks me more than people being categorised at face value. Ironically, I know the refreshingly down-to-earth Antonio Banderas would probably feel the same. But that’s Lauren all over. Branding and ROI equals everything.
“Last time I checked, you were married,” I state, matter-of-fact.
“There’s nothing wrong with a little harmless window shopping. Keeps Jamie on his toes.” Lauren winks.
For a split second, my own ego gets the better of me and I can’t help but wonder if this is where I’ve been going wrong. Particularly with Callum, my last boyfriend in the long list of males who, once the novelty of lust and magnetism has worn off, invariably either try to change my quirky ways, or hide from them. Maybe I really do need to take a leaf out of Lauren’s marketing book and fling myself across desks (and glass meeting tables), making it abundantly clear I’m available.
Thanks, but no thanks,says my heart. The right guy hasn’t come along yet, that’s all. And if he never does, well, then I would rather not compromise. If I hadn’t walked away from Callum, once it was clear the jesting over my café plans had become a permanent fixture in our relationship, I wouldn’t be standing here now, re-aligning my delicious (although unappreciated by Lauren) breakfast pastries back into their previously perfect positions, would I?
Waste not want not. I carefully clamp the unwanted fruit tart between my tongs once again and pop it back on the plate for myself, giving it the attention it deserves.
Lauren quirks an immaculately arched brow, as if to insinuate the pastry won’t help me indulging in any window shopping of my own. But I don’t care for drooling over my colleagues and I definitely don’t care for calorie counting;#eatwhatyouwant #eatwhatyouloveare my hashtags… something I can’t wait to announce to my sister once we go through the brand plans.
“So then. Down to biz,” Lauren announces as if reading my mind. “I’m going to come up with something whizbang for you. Normally, as you know, I wouldn’t get so hands-on at grassroots level but you are my sister, after all, and it’s important that I oversee every aspect of the campaign.”
I feel a pang of remorse over my earlier thoughts. See, Lauren really can be a gem when she wants to.
I let out a meek “thanks,” depositing my own full fat coffee and beloved breakfast tart on the table. I take the cinnamon shaker and dust the tart liberally. Truthfully, I could eat at least three (and that’s just for brekkie), but I’d best restrain myself in front of my present company. I take a tentative nibble, and, predictably, flaky pastry crumbs and copper dust coat my mouth in a way guaranteed to make my sister scowl. On the other hand, Lauren doesn’t know what she is missing and there’s no danger of her cameraman capturing this moment. The burst of sharp berries, mingling with and balancing the sweetness of the custard, is extraordinarily good; the spice warming everything up with a delicious kick.
“You’ve just met Todd,” Lauren continues, speaking of the little devil. So that’s his name.
“Well, yeah, kinda,” I mumble uncouthly between mouthfuls.
“He might be straight out of art and design college, but he’s incredibly switched on for his age and learning really fast. I briefed him back in the office too so he could maximise his time today and capture as many wow factor images as possible. I’ll cast my eye over them later and then we’ll use them in a variety of ways. He’s also out there with the drone camera.” At this unexpected announcement I baulk. Those hideously intrusive things remind me of pterodactyls going in for the kill. Images of small dogs and wobbly grannies being knocked off the pier and cast into the sea flash before my eyes. “Relax, it’s fine. We procured all the necessary permissions from the pier’s management last week. Nothing to worry about.”
“Surely there’s no need to take things to those extremes? Not the permission. I mean the overhead shots.”
Lauren tuts. “Drone videography is big business nowadays.” I shudder inwardly at the V word and the play button it threatens to press on a bunch of hideous teenage memories from days that are thankfully long gone. She doesn’t twig and ploughs on. “Not only can we produce some amazing footage for your website, but the effect is mesmerising on Instagram and the like. We’ll knock up some professional trailers for you, adding sound effects and copy. The pier will look a million dollars at four-hundred feet above; the sea a bit bluer, the mud… I mean beach… a little blonder. All of which ties in fabulously with the café’s colour scheme. You’ll have visitors bookmarking you and turning up from all over the place, just you wait and see. I might not be a fan of stodge but this specialty of yours has the potential to become something epic. Other than a few capital cities around the world, and totally overlooking Portugal, of course, I don’t see anybody else going for broke with such a unique spin as you on thesenatas. I hope you’re prepared because you’re going to set tongues wagging!”
Hopefully Lauren means that in a good way. I desperately want things to be a success and try to ignore the loose cannon vibes surrounding Lauren’s ideas, nodding at my sister’s expertise instead, trying in vain to get a word in edgeways with my beloved hashtags, which until now have only festooned my amateur attempts at showcasing The Custard Tart Café on Instagram and Facebook. Alas, it isn’t to be, and now my sister is grilling me over my non-existent Google Maps listing and my paltry social media advertising budget.
“Clearly you haven’t done anything about either,” Lauren chastises, taking her second sip of coffee before adding both facets of marketing to a spreadsheet whose entries are growing by the minute.
“Give me a chance,” I mutter, pulling a beast of a frown, “I’ve not even started trading yet… On that note,” I look up to register the clock showing it’s a quarter to ten already. “Hadn’t you better get a wriggle on? Didn’t you tell Todd that you were meeting him on the hour? I’ve no idea where you left your car but even the closest car park is a brisk twenty minute walk away.”
“Shit!” Lauren flips down her laptop cover, allows herself another miniscule sip of caffeine and jumps to her feet. “I got more carried away than I realised with this little baby of yours, and we haven’t even covered the subject of influencers yet. Grr… why couldn’t you base yourself onterra firma,rather than halfway out in the muddy Bristol Channel?”
Admittedly, the coffee-hued waves are nowhere near as aesthetically pleasing as the sea surrounding Cornwall, much less the Caribbean, but the silt in the murky waters of North Somerset has long created a haven for birds and other wildlife in the nearby Severn Estuary, and I like to think that anybody brave enough to take a dip at our beach (at any time of the year) is rewarded hippo-style with a nutrient-packed mud bath. Weston-super-Mare even has the second highest tidal range in the world! All of this whilst somehow magically retaining its quaint village feel. Surely my kooky location, slap bang at the very end of Weston’s Grand Pier, is every marketer’s dream?
Lauren leaves me air kisses and flies out the door without a backward glance. Just as well I had planned to open up at ten-thirty on my first official day in business. May’s predictable smorgasbord of weather has gone awry already, throwing a brief but highly inconvenient freak hailstorm at the town and its pier. It’s impossible to hold back a laugh now that I’m alone. Lauren must be pegging it back to the car park in her heels, trying in vain to avoid the cracks in the pier’s wooden flooring, to return to her young tog. He is no doubt already soaked to the skin with a cast of crabs biting at his skinny ankles.
