Tangled Lives Read Online Free PDF Page B

tiers in place – everything needed to make a celebration cake.
    Each of her four employees momentarily stopped work to greet Annie. Jodie, her manager, a tough, lively woman in her thirties, was in the corner office responding to orders on the computer.
    ‘Morning, Annie.’ She rolled her shoulders and pushed the desk chair away from the computer. ‘Masses of orders, all weddings so far today – and mostly for September.’ She smiled at her boss as she reached back to re-knot her dark ponytail.
    ‘Great. The autumn surge never lets us down.’ Annie sat down at her own desk, which was pushed tight against her manager’s in the small space.
    Jodie nodded agreement. ‘How’s things?’
    ‘Good, yes.’ The fact that her long-lost son was trying to contact her seemed somehow unreal in this mundane work environment. She’d hidden it away in a secret compartment of her brain.
    ‘Coffee?’
    Annie nodded enthusiastically. ‘Please, that would be wonderful.’
    She looked through the glass of the office wall, and saw the other three employees hard at work. Carol, a plump, middle-aged baking genius, was levelling cake mixture in four deep tins. Kadir, a young Turkish boy who spoke little English, was painting edible silver colouring onto icing scrolls on the top layer of a wedding cake. Annie hadn’t known how he would fit in when she had taken him on a year ago, but she soon found he had artistic flair and one of the steadiest hands in the business for decorating the cakes. Lisa, the last of the crew, was the general factotum. In her twenties and from the estate opposite, she cheerfully cleaned, cleared, mixed ingredients, listed supplies, set ovens. Without her, Annie knew, the more delicate egos of Carol and Kadir wouldn’t be able to function.
    Jodie placed a mug of coffee on the desk beside her.
    ‘Kadir’s come up with some ideas for the Chandoswedding.’ Jodie pushed across a sheaf of sketches. ‘I think the first one’s great.’
    Annie looked at the drawings, happy that Kadir was beginning to take over some of her design work. She pointed. ‘This one?’
    Jodie checked and nodded.
    Annie considered it for a moment. ‘Yes, very good. Complicated and time-consuming, but he and Carol are more than capable.’ The sketch in front of her was for a lavish concoction consisting of flowers in pink and white – roses, apple blossom, honeysuckle, lilies, dog roses – spilling elegantly from a wooden gardening trug, the handle tied with a huge bow. ‘That should satisfy Madam.’
    Stick-thin Serena Chandos, who looked as if she would faint with fear at even the smell of cake, had nonetheless insisted on coming to the bakery, though she was hardly able to negotiate the steep concrete steps in her designer stiletto boots. She wafted a sharp perfume, at odds with the sugary ambience of the room, and produced from her Burberry bag a raft of hideous designs that no self-respecting cake would be seen dead in. She had wanted something that reflected her husband-to-be’s market-gardening business, which he ran from his vast Yorkshire estate. Annie had needed to be very diplomatic.
    Jodie laughed. ‘It’ll cost her, but she went on and on about how money’s no object. She seemed to think it impressed us.’
    ‘You mean she thought we loved her because she was rich, whereas in fact it’s only the money we love!’
    ‘Yeah, ’fraid so. Although I reckon women like that don’t actually give a toss about what people like us think.’
    Carol, her round face framed by a white-cotton peaked cap encompassing her greying hair, stuck her head round the door.
    ‘Sorry, ladies, but I need some input.’ Annie beckoned her inside. ‘You know the Carnegie cake … the chocolate one with a yacht on top?’ Both women nodded. It was for a diamond wedding. The couple lived on Hayling Island and had been obsessive sailors. ‘Just checking. The spec. says ‘alcohol’? Not sure what that means.’ She waved the plastic