Semi-Sweet Read online

  Why would they? They didn’t help get the place ready. They weren’t up a ladder with a paintbrush, or sanding and varnishing floors like the rest of us were.

  And that had been that, and Alice hadn’t been a bit put out, as Geraldine had known she wouldn’t. Alice would be the first to admit that while Tom was great company, he could be a bit of a pain after one drink too many. He’d have taken over Hannah’s night, and Geraldine wasn’t having that.

  “I think it might be time for tea,” she said now, putting the blue marker on the counter.

  “Absolutely,” Alice said.

  Neither of her parents had noticed anything strange about Hannah in the restaurant. Both had observed that she hadn’t eaten very much, but Geraldine had put it down to nerves at the thought of the shop’s opening at last, and Stephen had assumed that it was yet another of his daughter’s inexplicable attempts to shed a few pounds.

  So when Hannah had stopped by the following evening and told her mother in tears what had happened, it came as a complete surprise.

  He’s met someone else, she’d wept. He didn’t say who. He’s in love with her. I hadn’t a clue anything was going on. Wiping her eyes with a paper towel, ignoring the plate of chocolate biscuits her mother had put out. Can you believe it?

  Oh, love, Geraldine had murmured, he doesn’t deserve you. You’re much too good for him. Which probably didn’t help in the least but was all her scattered thoughts could muster.

  When Hannah finally left, still in tears, Geraldine had gone into the sitting room and broken the news to Stephen. I hate to admit it, she’d said, but it’s probably a good thing they didn’t get married after all.

  Stephen had given her the look over his glasses that always reminded her of a professor.

  Don’t say it, she’d ordered. I know what you’re thinking. You wanted them to get married, too. It wasn’t just me. You hated them living together without being married just as much as I did. I’m only saying, the way things have turned out, maybe it’s as well they weren’t married.

  It mightn’t have happened if they’d been married, Stephen had pointed out mildly. He might have thought twice about running around then.

  Or he might still have done it, which would make Hannah a deserted wife now. At least this way she can make a clean break. She’s well rid of him, if you ask me.

  I thought you liked him. You always said you did.

  Well, I don’t anymore, Geraldine had answered crossly. Whose side are you on?

  Ours, of course.

  Stop defending him then.

  I’m not defending anyone. I was just saying you liked him. We both did.

  Well, now he’s gone, so we don’t like him anymore, she’d said, and Stephen had wisely allowed her to have the last word.

  Except, of course, that it wasn’t the last word.

  How dare he walk out just like that? She’d grasped the poker and attacked the fire angrily. Hannah’s devastated. How’ll she be able to open that shop after this? It’s less than a week away.

  Of course she’ll open the shop. It’s just what she needs to take her mind off things. And won’t you be there anyway, to help out? She’ll be fine.

  Her heart won’t be in it though.

  Maybe not—but that won’t stop customers from coming in.

  She had her whole future planned around that man, Geraldine had said. She’s nearly thirty-three—most men her age are married. She’d stared gloomily into the fire. She’ll have to get a new housemate in—she can’t afford that house on her own, especially now with the shop.

  She’d replaced the poker and reached for the TV remote control. Remember how happy she was when she signed the lease? I could kill that man.

  After several seconds of silence, Stephen had risked lifting his newspaper again, and Geraldine had thrown him an exasperated glance before pressing the “on” button.

  Hannah held out her glass and Adam emptied the last of the wine into it. “Should I open another?”

  “No.” She tilted the glass and watched the red trails slithering downward. “Not on my account. Mornings are miserable enough these days without a hangover.”

  She rested her head on his shoulder. It wasn’t getting easier to do without Patrick, but she was getting more used to feeling horrible all the time. Maybe that was some kind of progress.

  “I’ve nearly phoned him, you know,” she said. “Loads of times. And I’ve typed umpteen text messages, but I haven’t sent any of them.”

  “Good,” Adam said. “Don’t. Keep reminding yourself what a bastard he is.”

  She swirled the liquid again. “I’ll try. But there’s so much I want to know.”

  “Why? What good would it do? Just let him off.”

  “I know, I know. You’re right.” She set her glass abruptly on the coffee table and sank her head onto her knees. “Two days to go,” she groaned. “I wish I’d never signed that lease—I’m dreading it now. Is it too late to change my mind?”

  “Cut that out.” Adam reached for her hand and squeezed it. “This is what you’ve always wanted, remember? Your own shop, selling all your own stuff. I’ve been listening to you going on about this for God knows how long, and it’s finally going to happen. Don’t let this guy take that away from you.”

  “It’s not just Patrick—I’m still petrified,” she said, her words muffled. “What if nobody comes in?”

  “Of course they’ll come in.” He lifted her hand and counted on her fingers. “One: It’s the first dedicated cupcake shop in Clongarvin. Two: It looks fantastic—no small thanks to me. Three: The location is perfect. Four: Nobody bakes cupcakes like you do. Five: You’re giving them away free.”

  She raised her head and looked at him. “One complimentary cupcake with every order is hardly giving them away free. And anyway, that’s only on the first day.” She nibbled a nail. “What if nobody comes back for more? Or what if someone says they got food poisoning? What if—”

  “Stop that,” Adam said. “I’m living proof that your cupcakes are impossible to resist, and not at all poisonous. You’ll be the talk of Clongarvin within a week.”

  Hannah smiled faintly. “We’ll see.”

  “A word of advice,” he said.

  “What’s that?”

  “Don’t try selling leftovers the day after. They won’t keep, and you’ll lose your reputation.”

  She slapped his arm halfheartedly. “Nice try. You know very well they’re good for at least three days. Leftovers will be half price, and that’s that. For the last time, you will not be getting a steady supply.”

  “That’s what I’m afraid of,” he said gloomily. “You’ll be so busy baking for the shop that I’ll never get to taste them again.”

  “You could try buying a few, like everyone else. I’ll see about giving you a small discount. Although I feel I should point out, darling” patting his generously proportioned stomach—“that you could do worse than laying off the cupcakes for a while.”

  He grinned. “That’s better. You’re beginning to sound like your old bitchy self.”

  “I’m going to be baking all night and selling all day—I’ll be too wrecked to be a bitch.” She rested her head on his shoulder again. “God, what possessed me to think of opening a shop? Why didn’t you stop me?”

  “Yeah, like you’d have listened to me for a second. Anyway, the one to blame is your granddad—it’s all his fault for leaving you that money. But like I keep pointing out, you don’t have to do it all on your own—you can take someone on part-time.”

  “And like I keep saying, pay them with what? Granddad’s money bought the lease, and most of the paraphernalia, and not much else. You know I’m already up to my neck in debt…” She trailed off. “Did I tell you that the new stand mixer cost almost eight hundred euro—and that was on sale?”

  “Yes, I’ve heard that more than once. You’ll remember I nearly collapsed the first time.” He shot her a stern look. “And I’m sorry, but I have no sympathy
with your being broke when you still haven’t put that ad in.”

  When Hannah said nothing, he added, “You haven’t, have you?”

  She reached for the remote and flicked on the TV and watched a herd of elephants thundering across some wide open space. “Stop nagging.”

  Adam took the remote from her and pressed the “mute” button. “Who’s nagging? I haven’t mentioned it in two whole days. When are you going to do it?”

  She shook her head miserably. “I don’t know—next week, maybe.”

  Too soon, too painful. “Person wanted to share house” meant accepting that Patrick was definitely gone, like bundling a dead person’s clothes into black plastic bags for the charity shop. Like taking people’s names off the company roster when they found other jobs. Six days without him felt like six years, even if he had been a bastard, but still it was much too soon for a new housemate.

  There was a short silence. Adam stretched his arms above his head. They watched a man in a safari suit mouthing silently into the microphone he held, but Hannah’s thoughts were miles away.

  She’d lost count of the times she’d found Patrick’s name in her phone and almost pressed “call.” Who is she? she wanted to demand. When did you meet her? How long was it going on? How dare you do this to me?

  But when she was lying alone in the middle of the night, the silent questions changed: When are you coming back? Don’t you know I’ll forgive you? Can’t we try again?

  “I suppose,” she said sadly, “I’ll survive. At least I’ll be too busy to mope.” She reached for her scarf. “I’d better be off. I’m trying to get to bed early these nights, so the new schedule won’t be too much of a shock. You don’t have to come,” she added as Adam took his feet off the coffee table and reached for the leather jacket that was slung across the arm of the couch.

  “Right—and when you’re mugged, your father won’t string me up for letting you walk home alone.” He shepherded her toward the door.

  “Come on, Kirby,” he said, and the black Labrador lying in front of the fire raised his head and looked at him. “Come on,” Adam repeated, and Kirby hauled himself to his feet and plodded after them.

  The evening was clear, stars studding the sky. Hannah tucked her arm into Adam’s as they walked the streets toward her house, Kirby padding along behind. Anyone looking at them would think lovers, or at least boyfriend and girlfriend—a couple of some kind anyway. It had taken Patrick, and most of Hannah’s other boyfriends, quite a while to feel comfortable with her having a male best friend.

  “You know what’s just occurred to me?” Adam asked as they walked.

  “What?”

  “Today’s the eleventh, so you’re opening on the thirteenth, right?”

  “Mm-hmm.”

  “And my birthday’s on the thirteenth of August.”

  She looked at him. “So?”

  “So it’s exactly seven months from the day you open.”

  “And your point is?”

  “My birthday,” he said, “can be your deadline. Whatever happens in the meantime, give yourself at least seven months to make a success of it.”

  “Even if I go broke in the first week?”

  “Yes. Even if you have to sell your house to keep it going.”

  She stopped dead and looked at him in horror. “Sell my house? You’re kidding, aren’t you?”

  “Of course I am.” He nudged her along. “I just think it would be good if you had that date as your watershed.”

  “My watershed?”

  “You know what I mean. The date that you can finally say, ‘I’ve made it.’ The date that you renew your lease for another decade.”

  She laughed. “Actually, the lease is for a year, and it’s not up till December.”

  “Forget the lease, then—you know what I mean. You agree not to give up before my birthday? Promise?”

  “I…suppose so.” She hesitated, then caught his eye and added, “I mean yes, I agree. I won’t give up before your birthday.”

  “You promise?”

  “I promise.”

  “Good. We’ll have the mother of all parties then, two things to celebrate.” They approached her house.

  “I told you to leave a light on,” Adam said, frowning at the darkness beyond the glass panes in the front door.

  “I know—I forgot.”

  They were almost exactly the same height. They’d been friends for more than twenty years, since they’d signed up for the same swimming class at the local pool. Hannah still swam as often as she could, and while Adam’s interest had waned somewhat around the time he discovered girls, he’d migrated by then to Hannah’s circle of friends, and over the years the two of them had grown closer.

  Funny how they’d never been drawn toward one another romantically. Hannah loved Adam, but he was a brother, not a potential partner. The thought of being in a physical relationship with him had simply never been an option for her, and she was fairly sure it had never occurred to him either, thankfully. If they were both romantically involved at the same time, they might go out as a foursome, but other than that, their love lives didn’t intersect.

  “You busy this week?” she asked.

  “A meeting tomorrow, hopefully some new business. Other bits and pieces to finish off.” He designed Web sites, working from the small flat he’d invested in around the time Hannah had bought her house. “I’ll be in on Wednesday,” he said, “to collect my free cupcake.”

  “Only if you buy some,” she reminded him.

  “God, you’re hard. You’ll go far.”

  They reached the door, and he put his hands on her shoulders. “Best of luck—not that you need it. You’ll be great, I know you will.”

  She smiled. “Thanks.”

  He hugged her, enveloping her in the leathery scent of his jacket, kissing her cheek loudly. “Night-night. Put the chain on the door.”

  “Yessir.”

  The house was cold. Now that the heating bill was Hannah’s alone, she had to economize. She filled a hot-water bottle and set her alarm for eight. The next couple of days would be busy; shopping for ingredients, organizing her kitchen, setting everything in place for Wednesday morning, when her new life would begin. When she’d rise at three in the morning to make and ice 144 cupcakes for the first time.

  She’d practiced, she’d timed everything. Four trays into the big oven at a time, four dozen cupcakes baking for twenty minutes while she put the next batch of mixtures together. The first batch cool enough to ice by the time she’d filled the last of the second batch of paper cups and made up the various icings. Eight varieties each day, fifteen different tastes rotating as the week went on.

  Five hours from start to finish every morning, breakfast grabbed somewhere along the way, as soon as she was awake enough to feel hungry.

  Load the van, drive to the shop, and unload. Fill the cupcake tree that sat on the counter with one of each variety. Arrange half of the 136 others in the display cases, leave the rest in the back until they were needed. Open at nine, close at five. Bag the leftovers, drive home, eat dinner, and get to bed by nine at the latest. Up at three to start all over again.

  Was six hours enough sleep? It would have to be. Could she keep that up for seven months, six days a week? What had possessed her?

  She undressed quickly. This was the worst time, going to bed by herself—and waking up alone came a close second. Maybe she should get a cat, or maybe a small dog that would curl up at the end of the bed and help her to feel less unwanted.

  She burrowed under the duvet, trying to think positive. Adam was right: This was what she’d always wanted, since she’d begun working in Finnegan’s Bakery all those years ago. She used to imagine running her own place, selling exactly what she wanted to sell, answerable to nobody. If only she had the money.

  And then Granddad had died, three years ago last August, and his house had been put on the market a few months later and had sold just before prices began to fall. And Hanna
h, his only granddaughter, had been given enough from the proceeds to realize her dream.

  Last November a little corner unit on the main street had become vacant, the rent not too horrendous thanks to the recession. After dithering for a few weeks, she’d finally taken the plunge and signed the lease, and told Joseph Finnegan she’d be leaving at the end of the year.

  She’d invested in a stove that took up twice the space of the old one—forcing a complete reshuffle of her other kitchen appliances, during which the tumble dryer had migrated to the shed—and she’d bought the frighteningly expensive stand mixer, along with the thousand other bits and pieces she hadn’t realized she’d need.

  Adam and his cousins had rallied, and the little shop had gradually been scrubbed and sanded, painted and fitted with display cases and shelves. And last week a man had painted CUPCAKES ON THE CORNER in bright blue letters on the yellow strip of wall above the front window.

  The shop was tiny—not much room for more than three customers at a time—but there was space around the back to pull up with the van. Adam had set up a Web site and designed stationery and printed off leaflets that they’d pushed through mail slots, stuck on telephone poles and supermarket notice boards, and slipped under car windscreen wipers.

  And a week before Christmas, Hannah’s kitchen had been visited by a health inspector and deemed a suitable place in which to produce the cupcakes.

  So everything was set. She was poised at last to make her dream come true—and the one person she wanted by her side had just left.

  She reached out in the darkness and found her phone on the bedside table. She opened a new text message and inserted Patrick’s name on the recipient line, then typed “I miss you.” She held her thumb above “send”—and slowly moved it across to press “exit.”

  Save message? the phone asked.

  No, she replied with her thumb, and the words vanished.

  She replaced her phone, closed her eyes, and forced herself to begin measuring flour, sugar, and butter. For some reason mental baking usually sent her right to sleep.