Maybe putting on the blue Alice dress and black headband was overkill. I thought I was being fun and quirky, but I feel more like a child, auditioning for a part in a school play while the headmaster watches on thinking, ‘Who is this overgrown toddler, and why does she keep swinging around a cake stand?’
I’ve been pacing as I talk and on a particularly sharp turn, the cakes nearly go flying off my cake stand, so I put it down on the desk in front of them. Even their desk is severe and intimidating. If inanimate objects can frown, it is definitely frowning at me.
‘Well, I can see the exploitative potential in daily birthday parties…’ Mr Hastings huffs as he talks and accidentally blows out the candle in the cupcake. I could’ve done with that to make a wish. I wish for them to say yes. I wish for this tearoom. It feels like a second chance – a chance to start undoing everything that’s gone wrong in my life lately.
Exploitative potential doesn’t sound like a good thing. ‘It’s something they do in the Lewis Carroll books. I think it would be nice for children to be able to have a tea party on any day of the year simply because it isn’t their birthday.’
‘And there’s definite money to be made. Our previous owner only earned money from birthday parties on one day a year from any singular customer, but here you are with a solution that makes every day a potential birthday party.’ The man on the left never introduced himself, and now he elbows Mr Hastings with a chuckle and gets a glare for his troubles. ‘This “Unbirthday” thing is quite a clever concept, no?’
I’m not sure whether I’m supposed to agree or not. Maybe it’s better if they think I’m some kind of business-minded entrepreneur, who should be appearing on Dragon’s Den rather than letting them see my knees knocking under my white knee-length socks. I’ve dreamed of owning a tearoom my entire life, like my family did many moons ago, and I want this interview to go right more than I’ve ever wanted anything to go right before.
The interview board is made up of the two men and a woman who has introduced herself as Mrs Willetts, and she leans forward and takes a cupcake off the stand. She holds it by the paper case and turns it around in her hand, admiring the pink and yellow swirls of rose-shaped icing piped on top. ‘And these are homemade, yes?’
‘Yes, of course.’ I gulp and try to cover it by sounding easy-breezy and laidback.
It’s not a lie.
They are homemade.
By the bakery I passed on my way here.
But who needs to know that teeny-tiny detail? They haven’t asked me to specify whose home they were made in, have they?
It wasn’t planned, but I drove past a little family-run bakery on my way to the council offices and thought it would be an icebreaker if I brought a platter of cupcakes with me. God knows what the poor woman in the bakery must’ve thought when I ran inside, dressed as Alice, spotted her rose cupcakes and begged her to let me pay an extra tenner and take her display cake stand with me too.
It’s only in that moment that I realise they think I made the cakes myself. I wasn’t intending to mislead them, but Mrs Willetts actually looks very impressed with the cake, and nothing I’ve done so far has made any impression whatsoever, and this dream is sure to die if I admit that I bought them on the way here, and it’s not exactly the sample of the cakes I’d make if I took over the tearoom.
I mean, it’s not that much of a lie. If they let me rent the tearoom on Ever After Street, I will be making my own cupcakes to serve to customers. I can do it. My nan and my mum ran a family teashop together when I was growing up, until my mum walked out on us, so it was just my nan and me, keeping it ticking over, hoping that Mum would come back one day…
And now I know that she never will, and my nan has gone too. And I have always wanted to step into their shoes. Tearoom ownership is in my blood. From the moment I heard the rumours at the end of last autumn about the tearoom on Ever After Street needing a new owner, I felt like it was meant for me, and now it’s mid-March, Lilith who used to own the tearoom has retired, and it’s up to the council to fill the empty space on our fairy-tale-themed shopping street in the heart of the Wye Valley.
I can’t let this opportunity pass by because of some unfortunate baking incidents in recent years. My ex-landlord’s angry face flashes before my eyes. The blue strobe lights of the fire engine. The soot-blackened kitchen and the eviction notice that soon followed.
I still love baking… It just hasn’t loved me back lately. And all right, the last time I tried to bake, I promised the fire brigade that I never would again, but this is different. I have something to bake for now, a renewed purpose, actually a double dream – both owning a teashop and working on Ever After Street. I’ve barely been outside for the past couple of years, and I need to do something to shake my life up, take back control, and claw back the shattered pieces from the last time I tried to make this dream a reality.
Mrs Willetts contemplates the cupcake for a few moments before peeling back the paper case and taking a bite.
I hold my breath. Please let it be as good as it looks.
‘Oh wow.’ She holds a hand up to cover her mouth. ‘That is delightful. Truly delightful.’
She looks at both the men pointedly, and Mr Hastings peers down at the cupcake already in front of him, while the other man eagerly reaches over to pluck one from the stand and gobbles it down in three large bites.
‘Oh yes, very good.’ He brushes crumbs from the desk. ‘You’re very talented.’
I blush at the compliment, even though it’s not me they’re complimenting.
Mr Hastings picks off a piece of the cupcake and deposits it into his mouth. He looks like he’s intending to be unimpressed, but as he chews thoughtfully like some kind of professional cake taster, his face softens.
‘I wish more interviewees tried to bribe us with cake.’ Mrs Willetts takes another one.
‘Oh, I wasn’t—’
She laughs. ‘I know, Miss Jordan, I was just joking. I must admit that the cakes have swung it for me. You’re our best candidate so far, and not just because none of the others thought to bring us treats.’
Hope races through my body, and then quickly fizzles out again when Mr Hastings speaks and the unimpressed look is firmly back on his face.
‘You are very late, however. The deadline for applicants passed two hours before your application was received. How do you explain that tardiness and why it should inspire confidence in you, given that you cannot follow simple guidelines?’
I don’t know how to answer that. The honest answer is that I went back and forth with myself so much.
This is a terrible idea.
This is the best idea you’ve ever had.
You can’t do this.
You’ve got this.
It was like Rapunzel in Tangled when she first leaves her tower. I didn’t know which way to turn. I filled in the application form and pitched my idea, but when it came to actually pressing send… I doubted myself. Applications closed at 12 p.m. on Monday, so I continued doubting myself while watching the clock, waiting for 12 p.m. to tick by, and then when it did, I was filled with regret and mentally kicked myself for not just getting on with it.
And then Marnie came by to make sure I’d sent it, and she yelled at me for not doing it and made me send it anyway, even though the deadline had passed. She persuaded me that I had nothing to lose and the worst they could say was that it was too late.
‘I lost track of time. I was helping my friend Marnie out at the Tale As Old As Time bookshop and we had a lunchtime rush and the deadline passed without me realising it.’ It’s not exactly a lie, it’s just leaving out the bit about crippling self-doubt. No job interviewer needs to hear that.
I was more surprised than anyone to receive an email inviting me for this interview. And I realised this had to be a ‘go big or go home’ moment. I had to do something that would get their attention and make me stand out from the crowd, which is where the Alice-inspired outfit and cakes came in. The kind of thing that could go very, very right, or hideously, awfully wrong. Metaphorically blow their socks off. I give the lighter a wary glance. Maybe literally blow their socks off, and a few other bits too, if that had gone awry.
‘Well, that shows a dedication to work, doesn’t it?’ Mrs Willetts says kindly. She’s eyeing-up another cupcake. It’s possible those cupcakes are loaded with genuine magical powers.
