“You know what you should do?” Mallory said, her words a bit garbled around another mouthful of cupcake. Olivia glanced up from her notepad, waiting for Mallory to swallow—and stop spraying crumbs. Her glance moved around the little shop, with its old oak counter, six tables crammed quite close together, the wrought-iron shelving unit bedecked with boxes of macaroons and vintage teacups for sale. Three weeks before Christmas and she needed to start decorating—both cakes and the shop.
She’d go all out for Christmas as she always did, with fairy lights and evergreen boughs, and red velvet bows to match her red velvet cupcakes. She was even thinking of running a mulled-wine-and-mince-pies evening this year, opening the shop at night, fairy lights twinkling among the holly. She could invite her friends, and if they invited their other friends, and Harriet did her usual trick of asking all the schools mums, it could be quite a nice crowd, and hopefully make a decent profit.
“Hmm? What is it that I should do?” she asked as Mallory swallowed the last bit of cupcake and shot a quick but longing glance at the Victorian cake stand on the counter, with two pieces of lemon drizzle and one of Victoria sponge left.
“You could do a promotion around the cupcakes!” she said, turning away from the cake stand to give Olivia the full force of her bright blue eyes and wide, engaging smile. “You have so many fab flavours—what was yesterday’s?”
“German chocolate.” With a dusting of coconut and a glacé cherry on top. Olivia had been quite proud of those, and had managed to sell five.
“And mint chocolate chip before that, and then lemon raspberry… Why don’t you make a different flavour every day? You could have the Twelve Days of Cupcakes!”
“The Twelve Days of Cupcakes…” Olivia mulled this over for a moment, intrigued. It would be fairly challenging to make a differently flavoured cupcake every day, but it could work if she only made a dozen…limited edition, if you like. And for the person who bought a cupcake on each day, she’d offer a free one at the end. Encourage repeat purchasing, or so the book she’d been reading like it held the answers to life, Fail-Safe Marketing for the Small Business, recommended. “That’s a good idea, Mallory,” she said finally. “I might just do it. I don’t think I’ve actually made twelve different flavours yet, though.”
“You can come up with others easy, I bet.” Mallory whipped out her phone with its sparkly, rhinestone-encrusted case, her thumbs flying over the screen. “Here you go…Nutella swirl cupcakes, yum…strawberry lemonade ones…cherry Coke…not sure about that one, actually. Sounds a bit revolting, but still. There are loads of others.”
She brandished the phone towards Olivia and she squinted—she was used to a rather larger font—and scrolled down the list. Cherry cheesecake…chocolate peanut butter…salted caramel…they all looked scrumptious. And weren’t cupcakes still a thing? She’d read about cupcake bakeries sprouting up all over the place, from New York to London to Tokyo. What if she made it her specialty? A Tea on the Lea cupcake. People would come to the village specifically to buy one. Perhaps she could get a write-up in Cotswold Life…
“They do look rather good,” she told Mallory. “I’ll have to try some of those out.”
“So you’ll do it?”
“I’ll certainly have a think.” It was a good idea, even if the prospect of adding another item to her to-do list, coming up with crazy confections each and every day, was a bit daunting. Already she had to wake up well before the crack of dawn to make several batches of muffins and scones as well as three cakes, which were her usual daily offerings in the shop.
She’d started baking the cupcakes on something of a whim, and while it was fun to do something different, between the pair of them, she and Mallory had eaten most of the cakes.
Cupcakes, she’d discovered, were more of an afternoon treat than a morning one, and most of her trade happened in the morning. So far she’d only sold a couple of cupcakes to some harried mums bribing their whingy children on the way back from the school run—yesterday, she recalled guiltily, she’d eaten three herself. They would have gone stale otherwise, and it had saved her from having to make a lonely supper for one.
“I’ll certainly think about it,” she promised again. “Why don’t you take a few back to your family? I’m sure William and Chloe would like one, not to mention your mum and dad.”
Olivia loaded four cupcakes into a white pastry box, with Tea on the Lea written on the front in curly, silver script. She’d bought a thousand of these boxes in the hopes of having the orders start to pour in, and, admittedly, because she’d got a discount by ordering so many, but right now they were cluttering up her much-needed pantry space and getting precious little use.
“Are you sure? Aren’t you going to sell them?”
Olivia shook her head. “Doubtful. It’s already getting dark and I’ll be lucky if I get a handful of customers for the rest of the day. Plus I made them this morning and they’ll go stale by tomorrow.” And if she gave them to Mallory, she wouldn’t eat them herself. Already comfortably round, she certainly didn’t need to start scoffing cupcakes—or three—on a daily basis.
“All right,” Mallory said, taking the box. “Thanks, Olivia. But that’s even more reason to do the cupcake thing, isn’t it—new ones every day since the old ones won’t keep.” She hoisted her backpack on one skinny shoulder, cocking her finger and
