Cream Cakes

Cream Cakes

Her face was impassive; totally impassive. The cold blue eyes with the heavy blue eyeshadow looked at odds with her pale skin and the wispy blonde hairs that escaped the regulation hat and floated about her shoulders. She didn’t smile or blink.
“Anything else?” she repeated as if Blake hadn’t heard her the first time. Looking again into the silent eyes and then swiftly to the open bag she held out expectantly in front of her - open and waiting to receive another cake might he finally decide, Blake pondered. He’d already asked for an Eccles cake. Wasn’t that enough? He looked across again at the plump array of freshly made pastries and scones and doughnuts. The white, creamy icing hung seductively from the sides of the buns, and the reddest jam trickled enticingly from the sugar-coated doughnuts. Should he? Could he resist a chocolate éclair with the frothing cream?
“Err.. no thanks, that’s it.” She folded the top of the bag in her hands. She didn’t say anything, her face hardly changed and yet it appeared to be continuing to ask the question.
“No thanks….err…that’s it thank you.” Passing the bag to Blake with one hand whilst holding out her other hand to receive the money, she told him the price.
“That’s 85p.” The strong Polish accent distorted what was meant – surely it was a statement not a question? Blake passed her a pound coin.

Blake was tempted to leave the shop at this point – it was only fifteen pence and, well, he didn’t like the way she stared at him. But as she walked to the back of the shop Blake noticed his doleful assistant’s slim calves beneath the pallid, oversized overall. She was actually quite tall – and she was wearing flat shoes. Looking again, it was clear that there was more to her than was initially apparent. She was quite pretty. Glancing up to the mirror above the till before bringing his change, she saw that he was looking. He saw her catching his eye.

Today, Monday, was Blake’s first day at his new job. It was in the accounts department of a small office in Putney and he’d taken the opportunity to get an early lunch. Accounts had bored Blake since his first day at work when he was sixteen. Nine years later he was still doing it and he still hated it. But it paid the bills. He ate his lunch at his desk in silence – he was in accounts.

He woke on Tuesday and thought about his cake shop server. It wasn’t very often he’d thought about women he’d met. Probably because he thought himself unmemorable and so didn’t affect an interested state. No, he’d considered many years previously, that women weren’t interested in him. Besides, he played chess in his spare time and made extra money at online poker – he’d memorised all the percentages. But the girl in the cake shop interested him. Could he discern the faintest hint of a smile when she placed the fifteen pence in his hand?

“Please can I have a bakewell tart?” Her face looked like it had the previous day; disinterested.
“What?”
“One of those please?” Blake pointed at the tray of pure white-topped tarts with the pink pert red cherry in the middle. He’d seen them from the window and remembered the almond flavour from when he was a child and they’d been Mother’s Sunday treat from Mr Kipling. Krystyna stretched across the spread of wares in the window display and plucked a Bakewell tart from the back of the tray. Blake could see that the loose overall had been stretched across a small neat behind. This time there was no mirror and he wasn’t seen.