Meet Me at the Cupcake Café

Her doubts, though, began to fade as she showed Pearl the shop, and took in her obvious excitement. Pearl could see absolutely what Issy saw in it; could envisage it finished. She even insisted on going down into the cellar. Why do you want to go down there? Issy had asked and Pearl had pointed out that before they agreed to do anything they might as well check that she could actually fit into the narrow stairway and Issy said of course she could, she wasn’t that big, and Pearl had snorted good-naturedly, but Issy did mentally plan to build out the counter another couple of inches, just for ease of use.

The more Pearl saw, the more she liked it. It had character, this place. And Issy’s pear cake had been frankly amazing; lighter than air and lingering. If the venue scrubbed up right – and here in north London, where there were enough people who didn’t see anything wrong with paying over two pounds for a cup of coffee, she couldn’t see why it wouldn’t work – she’d love to work here. Issy seemed nice – a bit naïve in the ways of business, obviously, but everyone had to start somewhere – and a warm, cosy, scented café with friendly hungry people and reasonable hours would be a lot nicer than most of the places she’d worked, that was for sure.

But there was one problem. She loved him to bits but he was, undeniably, a problem.

‘What opening hours were you thinking of?’ she asked.

‘Well, I was thinking eight am. That’s the time most people are heading for work and might want to grab a coffee,’ said Issy. ‘If that works well we could do croissants too, they’re not hard to make.’

Pearl raised her eyebrows.

‘So the hours would be …’

‘I was thinking, to begin with, seven thirty till four thirty?’ said Issy. ‘We’ll close after lunchtime cakes.’

‘How many days a week?’ said Pearl.

‘Uh, I thought see how it goes. If it works well, I’d like it to be only five,’ said Issy. ‘But including Saturdays to begin with.’

‘And how many staff are you going to have?’

Issy blinked. ‘Uh, well, I was thinking maybe just us to begin with.’

‘I mean, if one of us is sick or on holiday, or on a break, or …’

Issy felt a bit prickled. Pearl hadn’t even started yet and already she was talking about time off.

‘Well, yes, I thought we could work that out as we go.’

Pearl frowned. She was sad; this was by far the best, the most interesting opportunity that had come along for ages. It would be exciting trying to get a little fledgling business off the ground; she could almost certainly make herself useful here and there was nothing involved in the job that she hadn’t done before. Whereas Issy, she surmised, had done quite a lot of sitting in a nice office checking her Facebook status and might well find all the hard work something of a surprise. Louis was running up to the cellar steps, checking the dark depths with delighted terror and hopping back to his mother’s skirts again.

Issy was looking at her, troubled. When she’d thought of Pearl it had seemed like the answer to all her problems. But here was the woman now, not jumping at what Issy had assumed would be a fantastic opportunity for her. She swallowed hard. Pearl didn’t even have a job. Why was she quibbling about this one?

‘I … I’m so sorry, Issy,’ said Pearl. ‘I don’t think I can.’

‘Why not?’ said Issy, sounding emotional without meaning to. It was her dream after all, nobody else’s.

Regretfully, Pearl indicated Louis, who was trying to catch dust motes between his fingers.

‘I can’t leave him alone with my mother every single morning. She’s not that well and it’s not fair on her, or me, or Louis. We live in Lewisham, it’s a long way away.’

Issy was stung, even though she knew it wasn’t fair. What a thing to be getting in the way. How did mothers work? she wondered. She’d never really thought about it before. All those nice women who were on the tills at Tesco at 7am, or cleaned offices, or worked on the tube lines. What did they do with their children? Did they have children? How was it done? She remembered the mums at KD, always looking harassed, like they’d left something on the bus; trying to sneak out early on end-of-term days; jumping when the phone rang.

‘Oh,’ she said. She glanced at Louis, who was making tracks in the dust with his cars. ‘Oh, but couldn’t you bring him in? He’s no trouble. Just a couple of days a week or something?’

Pearl’s heart leapt. Around here – playing safely out in the courtyard … warm and safe and not in front of the TV … Well, no. It was stupid.

‘I think health and safety might have something to say about that,’ she said, smiling to show Issy how sorry she was.

‘No, but … we wouldn’t tell them!’ said Issy.

‘Do you think that’s the way to start a business?’ said Pearl. ‘Lying to health and safety? And don’t even get me started on—’

‘Fire officers. Yes, so I heard,’ said Issy. ‘Terrifying hell fiends.’

She glanced at the shop.

‘I mean, the ovens will be downstairs … more out of the way. I’ve decided just to keep the coffee machine up here.’

‘With superheated steam,’ said Pearl sweetly.

Issy smiled. ‘Oh Pearl, I could really do with you.’

At that moment there was a commotion outside the shop. Two men in dirty overalls had wandered up and were finishing off cigarettes and giving them enquiring glances.

‘Oh shit, the builders are early,’ said Issy. She was quite nervous about this; she had no room in her budget to employ an architect or bring in a professional shopfitter so she had to trust that she could explain what she wanted sufficiently clearly. She hadn’t been entirely convinced of her ability to do so when she’d called a firm in a whirl of positive activity the day before. Pearl raised her eyebrows.

‘Don’t go,’ pleaded Issy. ‘Let’s have another chat anyway, afterwards.’

Pearl folded her arms and stood back as Issy opened the door to the builders. She caught them eyeing her up in a not entirely encouraging way as they introduced themselves as Phil and Andreas. Phil did most of the talking as Issy took them through, trying to explain what she was after – all the old shelving units stripped out, the whole place rewired, the counter moved and opened up, fridges and display cabinets put in, but not to touch the windows or the fireplace; shelving and a storage fridge for downstairs too. As she listed it, it seemed like an awful lot. Now they had their loan, and she had her redundancy payment too of course, but it was a lot of money to put into something before it had even opened.