26
‘What happened to you at the dance last night, anyway?’ Frankie asks, slapping down one scribbled order for cake and coffee on to the counter. ‘You disappeared, left me on my lonesome with Kurt… and now Dan’s done a runner.’ Frankie’s face clouds. ‘Hang on, have I missed something here?’
I sigh. ‘I had a big row with Dan,’ I admit. ‘I thought we were getting on OK… getting closer, maybe. And then I saw him kissing Lily Caldwell.’
‘You saw her kissing him, you mean,’ Kurt scoffs, dumping a tray of piled-up plates and mugs on the counter. ‘Lily was threatening everyone with that sprig of mistletoe. I bet she couldn’t wait to corner him!’
I frown. ‘What do you mean?’
‘If someone asks you for a kiss and there’s mistletoe around, you can’t say no,’ he explains. ‘It’s an old Christmas tradition. Don’t you have that one in Poland?’
I blink. ‘I’m not sure… Maybe…’ I whisper.
Kurt shrugs. ‘Dan probably didn’t stand a chance.’ He takes a freshly loaded tray from me and heads back out into the crowd.
I think back to the dance, to the moment I saw Dan and Lily, her arms locked round his neck. Could Dan have been backing away slightly? Maybe it wasn’t quite what it seemed?
I frown. ‘But… but… he didn’t exactly struggle.’
Frankie raises an eyebrow. ‘Anya,’ she says patiently. ‘He’s a boy. When a girl comes at them with mistletoe, they kiss first and think later. There were a lot of mistletoe kisses last night. You can’t take them too seriously. You know I’ve had my doubts about you and Dan,’ Frankie says. ‘But… well, you can’t really blame him for this. Lily’s always fancied him, and whatever you saw, I bet it was pretty one-sided. It’s not like they got together or anything – at the end of the night, Lily was in the girls’ loos, crying. Her mascara was all down her cheeks, and she said she was through with boys. They were all rats, she said.’
Relief floods through me, followed by a dawning dismay. It looks like I jumped to the wrong conclusion – and that makes the things I said to Dan even worse. I lashed out, wanting to hurt him. And I guess I succeeded.
Guilt churns in my stomach, mixed up with fear. Where is Dan? If he was headed for his dad’s place, wouldn’t he be there by now? I glance at the clock. It’s just past one. Dan has been missing too long. It’s fifteen hours since I last saw him – since anyone last saw him.
‘Hey,’ Frankie says softly, sliding an arm round my shoulders. ‘Chin up, honey. Dan’s a big boy. He can look after himself. Things will work out.’
‘I hope so.’
‘I bet he goes to his dad’s,’ she says. ‘Try not to worry, Anya.’
Kurt hurries up to the counter again, balancing a fresh tray of piled-up crockery while delivering yet another order for cakes and coffee. Frankie winks at me. ‘Face it,’ she grins. ‘Whatever Lily reckons, I’d say rats are smarter than boys. Possibly better looking, too…’
‘Watch it,’ Kurt laughs, flicking her with a dishcloth. ‘Did she tell you, Anya? About us?’
‘Hang on!’ Frankie says. ‘I’m getting to it. Thing is, last night… after you vanished, we were stuck with each other. We got talking, and then we danced, and then…’
‘She asked me out,’ Kurt says.
‘You asked me!’ Frankie insists.
‘She did,’ Kurt repeats. ‘And I said maybe, but she’s kind of determined, so I guess there’s no escape…’
I dredge up a grin. ‘Finally!’ I tell them. ‘It’s about time! I am glad for you, really. You make a great couple.’
‘Sorry to interrupt, kids,’ Ringo says, looming up to clear away the trays of dirty crockery. ‘But we’ve got a busy cafe here, guys. People are waiting for their orders!’
I sigh and start setting out the trays, and Frankie and Kurt head back into the fray. The tips bowl beside the till fills up, is emptied and fills up again. Five or six people are huddled beside the cafe door, waiting to be seated. There has never been a queue here before, that’s for certain.
The cupcakes, meringues and cream slices are selling fast, and even Mum’s freshly baked honey cakes and gingerbread are dwindling. In the kitchen, two of Mum’s big Christmas cakes, rich with fruit and spices, are cooling on a rack, ready to be iced, and she’s mixing up a sponge cake batter when the cafe door opens with a jingle and Karen Carney rushes in, with Ben and Nate behind her.
My stomach lurches. I want to ask about Dan, but my tongue is dry as dust, tangled in my mouth. The tray I’m loading with milkshakes and meringues slides out of my hands and on to the floor. Silence settles over the busy cafe, and Ringo has to rush forward with a mop to clear up the mess.
Mum comes out of the kitchen, Kazia behind her.
‘Have they found him?’ she asks. ‘What’s happening? Have they found Dan?’
Karen Carney just smiles and nods and falls into Mum’s arms. ‘He’s safe,’ she says into the silence. ‘He’s at his dad’s. The police are there right now, and James has promised to bring him home as soon as everything is sorted. Dan’s safe!’
A few customers look puzzled, but someone in the corner starts to clap and pretty soon the whole place is cheering and yelling out ‘Happy Christmas’. Dan is safe – he may not care about me any more, he may not be speaking to me, but still, he’s safe. I take a deep breath in and my body starts to relax for the first time in hours.
‘You see?’ Frankie says to me. ‘Told you he’d be OK! You worry too much!’ Kurt just grins and puts an arm round my shoulders, squeezing gently.
Karen Carney has tied on an apron and bustled into the kitchen. ‘I’ll never be able to thank you, Klaudia, for what you’ve done,’ she says. ‘Oh… those cakes look amazing! Shall I ice them, do you think?’
‘No, no, everything’s under control,’ Mum assures her. ‘We can manage. Sit down, I will make you some tea…’
Dan’s mum laughs. ‘Thanks, Klaudia, but I need to keep busy – until James brings Dan back home, anyway. You’ve all been fantastic, but please, let me help!’
When Mum ices a cake, she just blankets it with a layer of sweet, white icing and adds a ribbon round the sides. When Dan’s mum does it, it’s a work of art. On one, she piles white icing up round the edges like drifts of snow, with a perfect white snowflake piped on top, delicate as lace, dusted with silver. On the other she moulds a leaping reindeer, pulling a sleigh piled high with bright, beautiful 3-D presents.
‘They are beautiful,’ Mum breathes. ‘You have a real talent, Karen. It’s a shame we didn’t make more – I thought we’d sell them in slices, but these I think we could sell whole, to take away…’
As I slide the cakes in behind the display counter, an elderly woman, paying for her order, opens her eyes wide. ‘Those cakes are wonderful!’ she murmurs. ‘I’ve never seen anything like them! I was planning to get a Christmas cake from the supermarket, but… well, I don’t suppose I could have one of these?’
Ringo grins. ‘You could indeed. These cakes are handbaked, packed with fruit and spices, and individually iced by a true artist. You won’t get anything like them, anywhere in the city!’
‘How much are they?’ the elderly lady asks.
‘I’ll just check…’ I go through to the kitchen to ask.
‘What do you think?’ Karen Carney frowns. ‘Is ten pounds too much?’
‘Not enough!’ Mum says. ‘We could charge fifteen, twenty maybe!’
But when I go back through to the counter, it’s too late – Ringo has opened his mouth and put his foot in it. ‘They’re twenty-five pounds each,’ he tells the woman, and my heart sinks. Who pays twenty-five pounds for a cake, especially in the middle of a recession? Ringo doesn’t seem to care. ‘They’re artisan cakes, each one unique,’ he blusters on. ‘Baked to a secret family recipe, hand-iced… a real one-off, luxury product.’
‘I’ll take the reindeer one,’ the woman says.
Ringo smiles as he lifts it into a cake box and ties it up with a flourish of curly ribbon. Half an hour later, the snowflake cake has sold too, to a young woman. ‘I’m getting married in April,’ she explains. ‘It’s not a big wedding, but I want it to be special. Personal. Do you make wedding cakes to order?’
Karen Carney blinks. ‘Wedding cakes?’ she echoes. ‘Yes, yes, we can do that!’ Karen scribbles her name and phone number on to the cake box, and the woman thanks her and leaves smiling.
‘Wow!’ Dan’s mum says. ‘Fifty pounds for two cakes – and all thanks to you, Klaudia!’
‘For a wedding cake, you could charge a hundred and fifty pounds, two hundred maybe,’ Mum points out. ‘That is where the big money is. People will always spend on special occasions, one-off events.’
‘A couple of orders like that in a week would keep us going,’ Karen agrees. ‘I could make little frosted cupcakes as wedding favours too. I’d never have managed without you today – all of you! Keeping the cafe open was the very last thing on my mind, yet we’ve probably taken more money than ever before…’
‘No worries,’ Ringo says.
‘We were glad to help,’ Kurt adds. ‘Payback time for all the free cakes!’
‘It’s nothing,’ Mum shrugs. ‘Just like the bakery back in Krakow, but much more fun!’
‘You worked in a bakery?’ Karen blinks.
‘It’ll be back to the bakery soon,’ Mum says. ‘If they will have me. The last few weeks have been very bad for Jozef ’s business. It’s all over for us in Liverpool.’
‘Oh, Klaudia, no!’ Karen says.
‘You can’t go!’ Frankie bursts in. ‘That’s just not fair! Anya doesn’t want to go!’ She drags a hand across her eyes, leaving a trail of smudged eyeliner.
‘There is nothing to be done,’ Mum sighs. ‘I am sorry, Frankie. We all are. But now… well, there are no options left to us. Come, Anya, Kazia – we should be getting back. We have a meal to prepare…’
‘We’ll never forget you, Anya,’ Frankie says. ‘We’re friends forever, right? The three of us.’
My friends fold me up in a three-way hug, and that’s bad, because suddenly my throat aches and my eyes sting and I think I might cry.
Karen hugs Mum too. ‘Thanks for today,’ she says. ‘You’ve been a real friend. And I’m sorry, so sorry, about Krakow.’ She presses a cake box into Mum’s hands, a ￡20 note tucked under the ribbon.
‘No, no…’ Mum protests, so Karen hands the cake box to me, and Mum doesn’t argue any more.
Just as we’re getting our hats and scarves on, the door jingles and an old man comes in. He’s small and round, with rosy cheeks and a bushy white beard, and the minute Kazia sees him her face lights up. ‘It’s Santa!’ she squeals. ‘From the grotto!’
‘Oh, Kazia, it’s just a nice gentleman,’ Mum hushes her, but when I look again at the old man I wonder if Kazia is right. He looks very familiar, and didn’t Ben give the Santa from the grotto a voucher for free cakes?
Then again, I guess that every plump old bearded guy gets mistaken for Santa at this time of year.
‘Come on, girls,’ Mum says. ‘It’s Christmas Eve! What are we waiting for?’
We step out into the cold air just as the first flakes of snow begin to fall.