Part 3 (1/2)
Not exactly the happily-ever-after Kim had been hoping for. Or Rachel either. While the two-date-only method was great at protecting a broken heart, it didn't do much mending.
Sometimes, although she'd never admit it, she wished she could find the kind of love Andi seemed to have found. The kind that lasts forever.
BACK AT THE shop, Andi placed sticker labels on the Tupperware bins and wrote the names of the ingredients in each one with a blue marker. ”This is so we don't mix up the flour with the sugar.”
”We sure don't want that to happen,” Rachel said, a trickle of heat sliding into her cheeks. She'd put cornstarch instead of baking soda in the batter of cherry cupcakes earlier that morning. She thought her slip had gone unnoticed, but Andi caught her dumping the mix in the trash.
Rachel took a new three-ring binder filled with notebook paper out of a shopping bag and placed it on the counter. The cover sparkled with enough glittery images to grace Hollywood.
”What's that?” Andi asked, catching a glimpse over her shoulder.
”Our new Cupcake Diary. The other one was filled up.”
”It's so glitzy I'll be afraid of getting it dirty,” Kim said, coming around the counter to take a look.
Rachel tossed her red curls over her shoulder and opened the new binder to the first page. ”We need to be more glitzy to outs.h.i.+ne the compet.i.tion.”
Andi nodded. ”You mean improve our public image with advertising?”
”But not false advertising,” Kim warned. ”We need to stay true to ourselves.”
Rachel laughed. ”What does that even mean?”
”It means,” Kim said, giving her a direct look, ”don't get carried away.”
Rachel frowned. ”Creative Cupcakes must have an effective promotion plan to fight back against our new French rival and stay in business.”
”In addition to birthday parties, we now have three groups using the party room each week,” Andi informed them. ”Our children's cupcake camp program is on Tuesdays.”
”Mia's kindergarten friends waste more cupcakes than they make,” Rachel complained. ”They need constant supervision, and they get flour and sugar everywhere.”
”No wonder their parents are willing to pay to have them come,” Kim added. ”Some of them are monsters.”
”The kids have fun learning to bake,” Andi said, lifting her chin. ”And the cupcake camp brings in good money. Almost as much as the Romance Writers who come on Thursdays.”
”The Romance Writers are loyal customers,” Rachel agreed. ”Those women absolutely devour anything chocolate.”
”I don't trust them,” Kim said, shaking her head. ”They're always leaning in as if listening to what we have to say and writing in their little notepads. I'm afraid they might be writing about us, and we'll end up in one of their books.”
”A story about three women who run a cupcake shop in a small town and find romance?” Rachel smirked. ”Doubt it.”
Taking out a pen, she wrote in the new Cupcake Diary: Kids camp (messy monsters): Tuesdays Romance Writers (Chocoholics): Thursdays ”Who's the third group we have coming in?” Kim asked.
”The Sat.u.r.day Night Cupcake Club,” Andi replied. ”More like a Lonely Hearts Club, if you ask me. Whoever in their group doesn't have a date on Sat.u.r.day night can come commiserate and eat cupcakes together.”
”Sounds pitiful,” Rachel said. ”You wouldn't catch me at one of their meetings.”
”Me either,” Kim agreed.
”They aren't any different from us,” Andi said, crossing her arms over her chest. ”Isn't that how Creative Cupcakes started? With the three of us commiserating over the fact we had no jobs, no money, and no men? Sometimes it's good to open up and talk about your feelings. The year after my divorce, I was alone. If I'd known about such a group, I might have gone, but I had you.”
Rachel thought about their birthday tradition. Their birthdays were exactly four months apart, so they split a cupcake three ways and made goals for themselves from one birthday to the next, much easier than setting goals for a whole year. Their last goal was to open a cupcake shop.
Back at the beginning of March, on the night of Kim's twenty-sixth birthday, Andi had convinced a guy sitting at a table in the Captain's Port to give them his cupcake. That's how Jake and Andi had met, with Jake agreeing to split the cupcake in fourths and sharing with them. Shortly later he became their financial partner for the cupcake shop, and Andi's Mr. Romance.
Rachel nodded toward the Cupcake Diary. ”Okay, so we have three groups for the party room, but what else can we do for promotion?”
”We could hand out a red carpet invitation to everyone at the Crab, Seafood, and Wine Festival to visit our shop and sample Creative Cupcakes' award-winning flavors,” Andi teased.
”That's good!” Rachel turned back to the Cupcake Diary and wrote in bold block letters: Red carpet invites.
A chuckle greeted them from the doorway, and Guy Armstrong, the middle-aged tattoo artist from the next building, walked toward them and leaned over the marble counter. ”Maybe offer a buy-one-get-one-free deal. Like 'get a tattoo, get a cupcake.' Or 'order two dozen cupcakes and get five dollars off your next tattoo.'”
Kim waved a hand toward her watercolor paintings adorning the shop's interior walls. ”Buy a painting, get a free cupcake?”
Rachel shook her head. ”We need to-”
”Think smarter?” Andi suggested.
”Be more creative?” Kim offered.
”Play dirtier,” Guy said, bobbing his white pony-tailed head and pus.h.i.+ng the sleeves of his black s.h.i.+rt up his tattooed forearms. ”I love it when you women cook up a scheme. Sometimes I miss having my shop in the back room, but you inspired me to go after my dream and expand the business. And now I have more customers than ever before.”
”That's it,” Rachel said, pointing her pen at him. ”We need to expand. We need to offer catering services for weddings and . . . and . . . get a cupcake truck!”
Andi's and Kim's mouths popped open.
”The Cupcake Mobile,” Guy mused. ”Has a nice ring to it.”
”Where would we find a delivery truck?” Rachel asked.
Guy grinned wide enough to reveal his missing tooth. ”I think I could help you with that.”
RACHEL WIPED CRUMBS off the table by the front window and heard an awful click-clackity commotion outside. Lifting her gaze, she watched in horror as an old blue-and-yellow bread-loaf-shaped truck pulled up to the front curb. It almost looked like a trolley car except there were also three silver trumpet-shaped horns attached to the roof. This couldn't be the truck Guy had been referring to, could it? She spotted Jake and the tattoo artist sitting in the front seat. Andi arrived a minute later and parked Jake's blue convertible behind them.
”They're here,” Rachel called to Kim.
Kim followed her out the door and stood by her side on the sidewalk. ”Looks like an antique.”
”I'm surprised it runs,” Andi said, getting out of the car to join them. ”Guy says it's been sitting in his garage for decades.”
”More like a century,” Kim said, her expression doubtful. ”What year is it?”
”Nineteen thirty-three.”
Rachel pursed her lips. ”Eye-catching.”
”Don't frown like that,” Guy said, climbing out of the pa.s.senger side of the vehicle. ”It's a fully-restored Helm's bakery truck, and Kim can paint colorful cupcakes all over it.”