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‘What?’
‘No, don’t stop, there’s more.’
The bell tinged again as Alan came through the door. He surveyed the scene for a minute, then without saying a word joined in and started jumping with them. It was a lopsided star jump on account of his bad leg, but he had a good pace.
‘And they paid up front in full. Can you believe it? It’s enough to keep us afloat and then some.’ Leila started punching the air. ‘A stay of execution – a death row pardon!’
Minnie burst into song, with the lyrics from Alanis Morissette’s ‘Ironic’. And then they were both laughing and jumping and singing the words at the top of their lungs. Well, Minnie and Leila were singing the words, Alan washumming a strange beat-box-style accompaniment, and it didn’t sound as if he knew the song they were singing at all. At this point Fleur arrived, gave them a withering look and informed them that their generation were all intensely weird.
When the dizzying excitement of the jump meeting had worn off, Minnie kissed the silver four-leaf clover necklace she wore around her neck. She couldn’t believe their luck getting an order like this, just when they needed it. Then she paused. The timing of an order like this couldn’t be luck.
She asked Leila to see the details of the order. A woman had called, paid over the phone with a credit card and given her the names and addresses of fifteen companies to deliver to on different dates this month. No Hard Fillings didn’t cater for corporate clients; they made pies for people who could no longer cook for themselves, for the vulnerable and socially isolated. Why would businesses like these want pies delivered from a company like theirs? How would they even have found out about them?
‘Oh, and they asked if we could bring them ready to eat, so we’ll need to buy more insulated packaging,’ said Leila.
Minnie looked down at the list of addresses Leila had given her. She only recognised one of them – the newspaper where Greg worked.
‘This has got to be someone helping us out,’ said Minnie.
‘I thought the same,’ said Leila.
Minnie knew Greg didn’t have that kind of cash. Maybe these were all business affiliates connected to his newspaper somehow? Maybe he’d been able to do her a favour throughwork. She suddenly had a rush of affection for Greg. Maybe he was trying to lighten her life load after all.
‘Hmmm,’ said Minnie, poring over the list of addresses again, ‘it’s just not what we’re set up for though, is it? We’re not corporate caterers; we’re supposed to be making pies for the needy – our ability to fundraise and receive subsidies relies on that.’
‘Minnie, we’re not in a position to be picky, and we charged them a higher rate so they’re not being subsidised.’ Leila shot Minnie a wide-eyed, exasperated look. ‘Frankly, I don’t care if Attila the Hun is ordering pies to feed a marauding tribe of murderers, or a clown school is ordering pies for face-splatting practice – they’ve paid, we’ll make them, end of.’ Leila narrowed her eyes at Minnie and gave a brisk shake of her head. ‘I’m going to go call the bank.’
Leila turned and stomped off to the narrow wooden desk at the back of the kitchen where her laptop was set up. Minnie pulled out her phone and typed a text to Greg, ‘Did you order thousands of pounds’ worth of pies from us this morning by any chance?! Xxx.’
‘Has Greg saved the day?’ asked Fleur.
‘I don’t know,’ Minnie said.
‘So predictable for a man to think he needs to rescue the situation,’ Fleur made a pretend yawn. ‘More importantly, tell us what happened with that hot Quinn guy last week? And if you’re not dumping Greg for him, can I have him?’
Leila glanced up from her screen. Minnie had given her the full Quinn debrief over the phone on Saturday. Well, perhaps not thefulldebrief. She’d told her about meeting Taraand breaking the lamp. She’d said Quinn was good company, but the type of guy who was friendly with everyone. She hadn’t mentioned the ‘owls waking up in her stomach’ feeling or that thoughts of him kept popping up unannounced in her head.
‘He was very helpful,’ said Minnie. ‘But no one’s dumping anyone. Besides, he has a very pretty and successful girlfriend.’
‘Probably not as pretty as me, though, let’s be honest,’ said Fleur, framing her face with her hands and fluttering her eyelashes at Minnie.
The phone started ringing in reception.
‘Fleur, can you answer that?’ Leila shouted.
Fleur sighed and gave a little pirouette as she flounced back to the tedious task of doing her only job.
The kitchen soon returned to its normal routine. A smell of pastry and positivity filled the air. Alan de-clamped the van and headed out with deliveries. Fleur made phone calls to customers, confirming orders for the next few weeks.
‘So, no news from the love twin?’ Leila asked quietly, once the others were out of earshot. Her curiosity about Quinn clearly trumped her annoyance about Minnie’s response to the pie order.
‘I wish you wouldn’t call him that. It’s not a thing.’
‘Oh, it’s a thing, trust me.’
‘Look, he’s a nice guy, he helped us out with the car, that’s it.’
Was that it? It had ended so awkwardly between them. She’d sent Quinn a text on Saturday, thanking him againfor his help and apologising for breaking his mother’s lamp. He’d replied a few hours later saying, ‘No problem’. Two words. No problem. What did that mean? No prob-lem about the lamp? No problem about helping? No problem about her having a go at him for something that clearly wasn’t his fault? Minnie thought she’d got beyond the stage of dissecting the meaning of texts from men. Clearly she had not.
