The Twelve Days of Christmas

Chapter 4

The second I walked into the shop, Alice stopped dead in her tracks. She just stood there from behind the counter, staring at me quizzically. As though there was a whisper of something, but she couldn’t quite make it out. I closed the door carefully before slipping behind the counter and grabbing my apron from its hook. I was still tying the simple pink apron when Alice gasped, “You met someone!”

“No, I didn’t.” I wasn’t sure who I was trying to fool. It wasn’t like she meant I had met a person, she meant a guy who I was interested in. Except that wasn’t true. My tall, pale, and handsome stranger wasn’t someone I would ever see again, so there was no point in bringing him up to Alice. I instantly got back to work and grabbed a piping bag filled with rosy pink fondant.

“You’re lying to me. Who is he?” She came over and boosted herself up onto the worktop beside me, leaving me no choice but to look up at her. Not that the worktop was at all the reason. Alice was at least five inches taller than me. She was all legs and blonde hair. She was always the first person people noticed when they walked into the shop. It didn’t bother me. I actually preferred it because it meant I could hide myself from the world a little more.

I looked up at her and laughed, but it came out much more strangled than I had anticipated. I abandoned the piping bag and started picking at my cuticles absentmindedly. “There was a guy in the park. We messed around in the snow a little, that’s all.” I avoided looking at her, but she gave me little choice when she lowered her head in front of me. Accidentally landing her hand on one of the freshly frosted cupcakes. As she scraped it from her hand, it gave me a second to compose myself.

“My best friend the hussy... oh don’t look at me like that, I’m all for it. Good on you at long last.” My brain was too slow making the connection.

“Not like that. Alice really? I meant we had a snowball fight, nothing more.” She gave me a disappointed pout. I swatted her out of my way. Resuming piping little roses all over the top of the strawberry cupcake in my hand, being sure to leave space for the delicate green leaves that would follow. “You can temper your excitement now. I didn’t even get his name, let alone contact details.”

“Well, that was foolish. What was he like?”

I pictured him in my mind right at the moment after he had thrown that first snowball. The mischief lighting up his face and making him seem so carefree. The difference it had made to his face. It seemed like the weight of the world had vanished from his shoulders for the first time in a lifetime. “Perfect...” Reality caught up with me and I remembered I was speaking out loud. The redness of my cheeks burned, and I took a steadying breath. It felt surreal that such a chance encounter could have such a deep effect on me. I was being ridiculous. As though all the fairytales my mum had read to me as a kid were reality and not fiction.

“Anything more like an actual description? Although I’m loving that look on your face. Imagine practical, responsible Noelle falling head over heels for a man in the park.”

“Don’t be so ridiculous. I know nothing about him.” Alice was well off the mark, but she was a little too close to echoing my internal musings for my liking. I was about to open my mouth and no doubt dig the hole I was in even deeper when the little bell above the shop door tinkled away, announcing a customer. Alice finally slipped from the counter beside me and left me to concentrate on the task at hand. Except instead of losing myself in my work, my mind went on racing. The moments of the morning flashing through my mind, with a heavy dose of regret. Knowing that I should have asked his name at the very least. It almost felt like a crime that I didn’t have a name to put with the face in my mind.

I knew it would be something serious. Something mature and rigid, just like his well-practised controlled demeanour. All I could think of was making his facade slip again and seeing what truly laid beneath. I wanted to be the one to make him let go and lose control.

My mind was still in a state of fascination when Alice left for the day and I locked the shop up. Taking a last look around my shop with pride. I had styled it like a farmhouse kitchen. Giving it an airy and welcoming feeling with the white washed woodwork and large windows. It wasn’t a sizeable space. With the workspace against the back wall, housing all the storage and baking facilities, including the huge range cooker that was my pride and joy. It wasn’t the most practical, but I didn’t care. It was the small amount of whimsy I allowed myself.

The serving counter ran parallel, which made it a tight squeeze when Alice and I were both baking, but we made it work. I filled the glass casing every morning with delights to tempt passersby, although most of our revenue came from preorders. I had been flat out recently with orders for yule logs and Christmas cakes, but it was nice to be busy. It might have been exhausting, but at least it felt like the business was finally getting exposure. I was always looking for new ways to get the business the publicity it deserved. I had even applied for the baking competition that the palace held each year. The winning baker being honoured enough to be given the contract for the King’s New Year’s Eve celebration cake. It was a surefire way to get noticed, but I knew it was a longshot.

I straightened up the pink gingham tablecloth on the table nearest me. We only had four small round tables in the shop. Two by the window, which seated two people and had a splendid view of the leafy tree-lined street that led to the park and, of course, the palace beyond that. We set the remaining two tables up with four simple wooden white chairs each. It wasn’t much, but it was mine. I flicked the switch and blackness filled the room. Some people hated the early hour of darkness in winter, but not me. It sounded silly, but I felt safest in the dark. The darkness of night at the orphanage was the one time I could truly disappear and not have to worry about the other children. Letting the blackness calm my mind as I headed up the stairs and my sigh of relaxation disappearing into the nothingness.