One More Chance

Chapter 7

Chapter 7

I looked at myself in the mirror. The dress was on too loose, like I was wearing a bin bag. I tried to stick it tighter together at the back using safety pins, but it made the dress have a weird looking shape. I had a tall, straight up and down body, with hardly any curves. I used to hate it, until I found out that is was the most wanted bodily shape by models. I grabbed the apron and tightened it around me, so the dress wasn’t too frumpy. I pulled my hair back into a ponytail, before looking at myself in the mirror. I winced at my bright blonde hair, because I realized it was too vibrant and trashy looking. It was like the colour of those yellow highlighters. When I had first dyed it, I was so pleased with it, but now I saw all the attention it was attracting. And attention wasn’t something I was seeking right now.

Jared didn’t ask me what was wrong, and I think he realized that he thought I would tell him when I was ready. I doubted I ever would.

Suddenly I had a spontaneous idea. It was supposed to be my first time at work, but I knew that Rita wouldn’t mind if I turned up a few minutes late. I knew that I had packed chucked in everything that was on my bathroom shelf, and that included an old packet of hair dye. I ruffled through it and found it, right at the bottom. The instructions seemed simple, and I put it on my hair immediately. I checked the time. I had almost 25 minutes until 8 o’clock, when the cafe would open. The packet stated that I had to leave it for 20 minutes.

Once the time passed, I washed away the dye in the sink. I was used to washing my hair in the sink, because when a new season trend begins, I was used to rushing out for interviews, which were 5 minutes apart. This meant no time for showers.

When I finished washing it out, I looked in the mirror to see the effects. And I was not stunned or pleased. I was satisfied. It was back to my original colour, a dark caramel coloured blonde. I felt like Vanessa.

I ran the blow dryer through it quickly and it fell softly to my shoulders. I quickly tied it up and rushed downstairs, just in time for my shift.

“Hi duckie,” greeted Rita, who was getting everything ready. “Are you ready?”

Rita was ecstatic to see all the smiles as her customers met me with smiles. Most of them were friendly, ad complimented me. After working there for a week, I was getting familiar with the faces that appeared often.

There was an elderly couple, who claimed that they had met each other in the cafe. Apparently, they had got married in the village church and lived there ever since. I couldn’t help but smile at them, as the man, Richard sneaked kisses to his wife, Cassie.

There was also the teenage boy, about fifteen who bought in a girl often. They called each other friends, but everyone knew that there was more than that. Haze enjoyed teasing the boy, whose name was Matt. Matt always waves off his teases, but I always noticed the look he had when he speaks to Haze. Anyone can tell the boy admires the older man.

Another person who stood out to me was a middle aged woman, who always orders a tea and cookie, and sits in the corner, not speaking to anyone. I was always curious of her story, so I asked Rita.

“Oh, Stella?” asked Rita. “She’s been like that ever since her sweetheart died. She disappeared to London, and came back, and never was her old self,”

I had also learned how rumours travelled in the village. The stories start from various points in the village, and as soon as a person enters the cafe, they would stand at the till, speaking in a hushed voice, telling Rita every end of the story. It was as if they were competing on who has the juiciest rumour.

Rumours may be a bad thing in this village, but the thing was that there were so many stories to be told in a day that all the tales would be forgotten by morning. By the end of the week, everyone knew me and smiled at me whenever they saw me around. I became trusted.

“Duckie!” called Rita. She had somehow adapted to calling me Duckie. “I’ve got to pop out this afternoon. Are you all right on your own for a few hours?”

“Sure,” I replied. Rita usually left me alone for a few minutes to run some errand, but it was never a few hours. I was surprised on how quickly she trusted me. I was also glad that Haze was away on a trip to a nearby farm. Otherwise the afternoon would have been incredibly awkward.

I served everyone for a while, joining in sometimes for a chat. I waited for Rita to return, but she didn’t come back. I was getting worried, because if she did not return then it would be chaos the next day. Every afternoon, Rita would bake cakes and cookies for the next morning. Most of the morning customers buy her cakes for breakfast.

I knew what would happen if I did not do something, so I decided to bake the cakes myself. I had watched Rita do it before, and it seemed quite simple. The next day’s special was a chocolate mousse special, but that would be too complicated to make, so I settled on a Victoria’s Sponge.

I measured out the ingredients and mixed them together, but I saw that it was all lumpy, unlike Rita’s cake mixes which were always soft and smooth. I decided to put it in the oven anyway. I waited for a few minutes and saw that the cake still looked liquid and had no colour, so I turned up the heat. After a while, I checked on the cake, and the outside had turned dark brown, nearly black. I immediately turned the oven off, before cutting the cake, hoping that is would at least taste nice, but it was still a liquid. I decided to start again, but this time I melted the butter in the stove, before pouring it in the cake mix. It looked smooth and I put it in the oven. After a while I saw that it had burned on the outside again. I groaned in frustration, before making another mix, which turned misshaped.

I tried one last time, and that cake turned out a golden brown colour, perfectly shaped. I had some more cake mix left and dug around for Rita’s cup cake paper, which were decorated with roses.  

I cut the larger sponge though the middle, trying to get it perfectly neat, but it was slanted. I decided to leave it and put a layer of whipped cream and strawberry ja. Then came the hard part. I had to put on one piece of the sponge onto the one with the jam and cream on it. I tried to do it slowly, but the cake broke in half. When I finally put it on, the crack down the middle was clearly visible, even after I sprinkled icing sugar on it.

I smelt smoke so I checked the oven and my precious cupcakes had turned black. Cursing in aggravation, I chucked them into the bin, and filled another batch in. This time, I set the oven time lower, and then moved back on to my cake.

I decided to add cream to the top to cover up the giant crack, but the cake looked white and boring. Suddenly, an idea popped into my head. I rushed outside into the garden and walked through the vegetable patches. A spot of bright red caught my eye, and I picked a handful of strawberries. Back inside the kitchen, I cut them in half and put them around the cake in a neat pattern.

I could smell a sweet fragrance coming from the kitchen and felt a spasm of delight as I saw that the cupcakes were perfectly brown. I quickly mixed up some icing and dyed it red.

After I had finished, I stared at my cakes like a proud mother. They were my first ever cakes. Who knew that a busy model like me could end up making a Victoria sponge with some cupcakes. I had done a lot in my life to make me proud, but for the first time I knew I had done something beyond my capabilities and comfort zone.

Another one done in a day. I know nothing about baking, so it’s pretty hard. I even had to Google a picture of a strawberry Victoria sponge to get it right!

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