Cupcake Queens Page 12

“What?”

  “She’s finally giving you your money?”

  “How?”

  Their voices were all on top of each other in a discordant chorus, making it hard for me to tell what each of them were saying, or that really they were all saying versions of the same thing.

  “No matter how shocked you all are, you can’t be more surprised than my mom was.” I took another bite of my cinnamon roll and stared at the boxes from the bakery.

  “It’s just, I only ever wanted to do one thing, and that’s gone. This way, I can do something I’ve really been training for my whole life and do it for some good. And who knows? Maybe it can be something that works out so my mom will help me keep doing it.”

  Looking up at my friends, I braced myself for their reactions.

  But they all looked like they were processing and not passing judgement yet.

  None of them told me I had left my tools behind. None of them seemed to be thinking negative things at all.

  All of them looked…supportive.

  “You know, I happen to know a couple who would be more than willing to rent an apartment in a building that’s still getting worked on, if there was a living space in it,” Campbell said. Olivia took his hand.

  “I’ll put it on the list of must haves,” I said with a grin.

  My plan included a lot more than just an apartment for them. But I needed to find the right building to make it all happen.

  Ceecee

  “Anybody home?” A voice called from the front, and I darted out of the kitchen.

  So few customers came in the door lately that only a couple things were even in the cases. But the special orders were at least keeping me busy and keeping the bills mostly paid, even if some of them were late.

  It also meant the only time I spent with Theresa in the last week was at the bakery after she was done with work and while I finished things. Or when she tagged along for deliveries.

  Waiting in the front of the bakery with his hands crossed behind his back and a content look on his face, Campbell studied the new cupcake duo in the case.

  “Hi, Campbell. You need some cupcakes?” I asked, sliding behind the counter and smiling at him.

  “Not unless you have flan cupcakes, because that would combine my favorite desert with a cupcake and…even I wouldn’t be able to turn that down.”

  Campbell laughed, but I cocked my head to the side. The possible ways I could make that concoction ran through my head.

  “You know, I bet I could make that happen,” I said, leaning on the counter.

  “Really? When you get that recipe ready, let me know.” His smile was huge.

  “So what brings you all the way down here? Something special for Olivia?”

  “Actually, this is for the pool hall I teach classes at sometimes.” He moved his hands to the front and I realized how long his fingers were.

  “How did I not know you teach people how to play pool?”

  “It’s only sometimes. I spend most of my time at Joe’s working. But I love playing and this is a way to do that. It was Olivia’s idea.”

  Every time he said her name, his mouth turned up in the smallest of smiles, even when he wasn’t talking about something that would necessarily warrant smiling.

  “You two are relationship goals,” I said, and then bit my lip.

  “Sorry, I didn’t mean to say that out loud.”

  He laughed and shook his head.

  “And you and Theresa? How’s that going?”

  Now it was my turn to smile for no real reason.

  Campbell’s smile grew in response.

  “That good, huh?” he asked, leaning on the other side of the case.

  “Well, she’s…I don’t know.” I shook my head. The words just swirled around in my head instead of lining up into anything resembling a coherent thought.

  “Yeah, I say the same thing about Olivia.” He shook his head and stared off into space, that smile telling me more than a whole soliloquy.

  “Theresa told me that she and Olivia dated right before you two met, is that true?” I asked, wondering if he was going to be upset by the question.

  “Olivia and I met right after they broke up, but they were both ready to move on. I’ll tell you the whole story of Olivia and I getting together sometime. That was when Theresa started dating Samantha.” He shook his head, his mouth twisting to the side.

  “I still can’t believe she did that to Theresa. It’s just so crappy. Wasn’t she at the party at Joe’s?” And wasn’t inviting her a terrible decision?

  “Yeah. That turned out to be a mistake. But at least Theresa knows she’s completely over Samantha now.”

  He put his hands on the counter right in front of me and stared into my eyes.

  I leaned back, not sure what he was doing and more than a little tempted to step all the way back.

  “Are you going to treat my friend better than that?” he asked.

  “Oh,” I said, relaxing. This was a totally okay reason to look so intense. “Yes. No matter what happens, I will treat her better than that.”

  “Good then. Okay, so are you ready to take my order now?” Campbell asked, stepping back and grinning.

  I laughed and grabbed my pen and notebook.

  Theresa

  “Are you sure you want to go this far to look at a building?” Mom asked, navigating around a box truck parked in the middle of the road with its back door all the way open and nothing in the cargo area.

  “The building in Queen Anne—”

  “Was a ridiculous price for a tear down,” Mom interrupted.

  “Right, it won’t work, and one of the only other ones I think might work based on the specs is down here.”

  Mom made a ‘hmph’ sound, still not buying into this as even a remote possibility.

  And, if I was being honest with myself, I wouldn’t have even looked in Alki if it wasn’t for the gnawing desperation and need to make this happen.

  Chances were high that Olivia and Campbell wouldn’t want to live this far away from Joe’s when they were used to being walking distance or less away. Olivia lived upstairs from the restaurant for heaven’s sakes.

  I rubbed at my forehead, trying to think of something I had missed, some way to make this process faster and more likely to work.

  “Okay, I think this is it,” she said, looking up at the large brick building in front of us.

  “Well, it looks better than the last one,” I said.

  That ‘hmph’ noise came out of Mom again as she parked the car along the curb.

  “Do you have someone meeting us here?” she asked as we climbed out and looked up at the three-story building.

  “Yeah. They should be here any second.”

  As I finished the sentence, a tiny blonde woman in an outfit I associated with ski resorts and not downtown Seattle, walked out of a large door on the ground floor and waved.

  “Halloo. Are you Theresa?” she asked, looking at Mom.

  Great. Another one.

  “Did she really say, ‘Halloo?’” Mom grumbled.

  “I’m Theresa,” I called, limping my way across what used to be a parking lot, but was now just shards of shattered concrete with mounds of dirt and far too many blackberries sprouting from it.

  “Oh.” She cocked her head to the side and her smile fell.

  “Again?” Mom asked, turning to look at me as I sighed.

  “Always, Mom. Always.”

  Mom straightened up and her face fell into that, I will kill you and make it look like an accident look, that quelled even the biggest swaggering misogynist on any of our jobs. That look made her a success.

  “Do you have the paperwork I asked for?” I asked, making it clear to them both I wasn’t about to stand here and play a game of ‘Is She Old Enough and Qualified Enough for This Property.’ We played the same stupid game at every single place we had seen so far.

  “You know, this property will be a lot of work. Are you sure it’s what you’re
looking for? I mean, the parking lot alone—” the realtor started, the same as the other ones.

  “The parking lot is what? Fifty car capacity?” I asked.

  She looked back and forth between me and Mom and then down at the papers in her hand.

  “It’s, um, about 8500 square feet. So close to that depending on how you lay it out,” the realtor said, sounding awed and even suspicious.

  “Less than three hundred and fifty yards of concrete for the slab. No big deal. I’ve budgeted for more than that.” I raised a brow at her and waited while she realized that the person who needed to question themselves here was not me.

  “Okay. Um, here are all the papers you requested.” She handed over the entire folder she had, even though I was sure there was something in there that was part of her notes and had nothing to do with what I needed.

  “How does the foundation look?” Mom said, leaning over my shoulder to look at the reports from the city and the last information from the previous owner.

  “Well, this says they did work on it twenty years ago.” I pointed and she read, making that noise again.

  But this time I agreed with her noise.

  “Let’s go see,” I said, walking past the realtor who looked like she wasn’t sure whether she should follow or not.

  She could stay outside. We were more than capable of assessing the building on our own.

  Mom stopped in the entryway, looking around at what once had probably been a decent space. Now it was narrow and chopped up into a maze of dark hallways with peeling wallpaper.

  “This will all need to be changed,” Mom muttered, and I could see the tally of costs happening in her head.

  It was happening in mine, too.

  But more than that, I was trying to calculate how long it would take me just to get the main floor, the business floor, usable.

  Maybe too long.

  “Come on, there’s no reason to look at the rest until we check out the foundation,” I said, and Mom nodded.

  I went around to the back of the stairs, taking two wrong turns through doors off the strange halls.

  Finally, I opened a door and found the stairway down, but when I flipped on the light nothing happened.

  “Not great. No power,” I said.

  Mom pulled out her flashlight and shined it down the stairs to what looked like a black abyss.

  “Why does it look so shallow? There’s only six steps.” I leaned forward, trying to understand what I was seeing.

  “It’s full of water,” Mom said.

  “Oh, no.”

  The second she said it, I saw it. The water was thick with grossness impenetrable to the light in her hand.

  “Sorry, Theresa, I don’t think this is something you want to take on.”

  Mom was right, but it still sucked.

  Foundation problems were always the biggest worry, because the issue could be so large that the building wasn’t safe until it was fixed, especially in a city prone to small earthquakes.

  But this was next level bad.

  Seattle was far too wet, and most of it was basically landfill on top of the shallows of the ocean. Water in a basement, eating away at the concrete every second it was down there, while covering up the damage it was doing in the process, made giant question marks in my head. And it was a problem I had never been forced to learn how to mitigate. Which made this place in need of too big of a fix for my timeline.

  “Damn,” I said, shutting the door and heading back outside.

  The realtor was still and silent, almost shocked, when I handed her the papers and walked past, Mom right along with me.

  Once we were back in the car and pulling away, Mom looked at me and asked, “Is there a reason you’re only looking at commercial spaces?”

  “Because the price of single-family homes big enough for what I need would be astronomical, even if it was in bad shape.” I slumped down in my seat, biting on my lower lip and tried to think past the problem.

  “Maybe, but why not open up the search to anything with the square footage and land you think you’ll need.”

  I looked over at Mom and tried to figure out how I could have been so stupid.

  Ceecee

  “Hey, I didn’t think I was going to be able to find you,” I said, handing the box to Katie as she jumped up and down in excitement.

  “Yay! I’m so glad you did. Come on in,” she said, stepping back from the door of her dorm room.

  “Don’t your dads live right by? Why do you live in the dorms?” I took a seat on a couch up against one wall while she put the box on the desk. She took one of the cinnamon rolls out and took a bite before she answered.

  “Yeah, and I love them. But would you want to answer questions when you roll in at four in the morning? Or every time you bring a date home?” She shook her head and then took another bite of her roll, her eyes closing as she sunk into the desk chair.

  “Well, I want to thank you for telling Greek row about the bakery. They seem to put in an order every day from one house or another.”

  And it was true, even though she waved a hand like it was nothing.

  Greek row’s orders gave me a lot of running around to do on the weekends. And that helped a lot, but during the week I was still struggling to make even a quarter of what a regular day had been before.

  Katie didn’t need to know that. She was helping and I appreciated it. That’s what she needed to know.

  “So, tell me about you and Theresa. I need to know everything,” Katie said, leaning forward and taking another bite of her roll.

  But this time her eyes were wide and sharp and her smile more wicked than sweet.

  “I don’t know what all there is to say. She’s great, and we’re figuring it out while it’s kind of tough right now.”

  How much did she and Theresa talk about our relationship?

  The answer didn’t seem to be forthcoming as she just stared at me, looking vaguely predatory.

  It took an act of will to suppress the need to fidget while she looked at me.

  “Well, I’m glad you two are together,” she said after a prolonged silence as she leaned back in her chair finally and let me take a breath.

  “Um, thanks, Katie.”

  Answering when someone said that was always weird. Even with her. What was I supposed to say, I wasn’t glad? Of course I was. Just weird.

  “Especially because she made Olivia order all those cinnamon rolls for Joe’s, so now I can get one every time I go eat there.” She laughed and went on talking and eating, seemingly unaware that her words had frozen me to the spot.

  Olivia only ordered all those cinnamon rolls daily because Theresa told her to?

  I thought that she did it because she thought they were great and would be a good addition to the menu at Joe’s, not because my girlfriend thought I was a charity case she needed to save.

  They thought I couldn’t do it on my own, that I needed their handouts.

  Did Theresa even really like me, or did she just feel sorry for me?

  After she was finished with her cinnamon roll, I stood up and excused myself, pretending I had a lot of work to do.

  But what I needed to do was get out of there.

  Tears of sheer frustration pressed at the back of my eyes so hard it was difficult to hit the right button on the elevator.

  I took deep breaths, sucking down the air. It was flavored with stale popcorn and what I suspected was old pot smoke.

  College never sounded like something I wanted, but the people I passed as I walked out of the dorm toward the parking lot just seemed so free.

  None of them worried that their girlfriends only dated them out of pity and a weird desire to save someone.

  All of them probably dated lots of people in their classes, or had random hookups. Some of them were probably in love.

  While I was in some limbo place.

  My beautiful, cheerleader girlfriend—who was always out of my league—felt bad for the poor, overworked gi
rl who couldn’t manage without her mother.

  Except that wasn’t true.

  I was going to do just fine without her.

  The parking lot seemed like it was a million miles away from the dorm. By the time I got there I was out of breath and a cramp in my hamstring made me want to deal with it tomorrow.

  But it couldn’t wait.

  I couldn’t wait.

  I thought about just texting her, but I wasn’t going to be talked about as the kind of person who broke up with someone via text.

  That was cowardly.

  She picked up on the third ring.

  “Hi, Ceecee. How are your deliveries going?”

  While I still wanted to tell her where to shove it, hearing her voice made me double over in the seat and press my forehead to the steering wheel.

  “You know, I could have helped you. It must have taken forever to get across campus with that box for Katie.”

  “Could have helped me? What, limped along next to me?” I snapped and banged my head against the steering wheel. That was crossing the line.

  “Uh,” she mumbled, and cleared her throat.

  “I’m sorry. That was uncalled for and unfair. But you don’t need to help me with anything anymore. I know what you’ve been doing.” I talked so fast it was hard for even me to be sure if I was speaking clearly, but I had to get this over with.

  “What are you talking about?” Her voice was hard, angry, and all it did was piss me off.

  “You tried to step in and take over like I can’t do anything on my own. I have connections. I have been running this business all by myself since my mom died. Were you there when she passed? Did you organize her funeral while doing everything? Did you manage all the debt getting called in at once because she was dead? Did you? No.”

  “Ceecee,” she yelled, in a shocked voice.

  “Don’t call me again, Theresa. Don’t come to the bakery. If you feel the need to get something from me then you can go to one of your little minions who have played your game. Goodbye, Theresa.”

  I hung up the phone and dropped my head down to the steering wheel again.

  At the end I wasn’t even making sense, but it didn’t matter. I did what needed to be done.