Read Cupcake Couture for Free Online Page B

ill-advised Byker Wallbanger cocktails, (named after a rough area of Newcastle but tasting ironically sweet and desirable, like a liquid Terry’s chocolate orange), we sat back and peered at the piece of paper. Roxy sat in the middle with her arms around us. Her signature scent wafted over me, mingling with the aroma of years of stale beer and chips that clung determinedly to the walls of the pub. The familiarity of her perfume was soothing on a day when my life seemed wholly unfamiliar.
    ‘So what have we decided?’ she chirped.
    ‘Do you start at the top of the list and work down or pick randomly?’ pondered Heidi with a hiccup.
    Honestly, they were taking this seriously.
    ‘The only reason number one is artist is because that’s the first thing I wanted to be when I was young enough to want to be like my parents, which was before I found out they are completely bonkers so’ – I scored through the first entry on the list, the pink feathers on the pen flapping as I did so – ‘that moves us on to number two, which is ballet dancer. I was about eight when I had this ambition.’
    Roxy gathered up her enormous amount of hair and held it up in a bun at the crown of her head.
    ‘Remember how good we were?’
    Heidi and I frowned.
    ‘Roxy,’ I snorted, ‘if I remember rightly, most lessons you stayed outside smoking and eating the faces off the boys from Kings.’
    ‘Aye.’
    ‘And clearly etched on my memory is the time the old pianist with the fingerless gloves came to the end of his merry mazurka and all we heard from our ballet class was the rhythmic sound of you and JJ Fletcher shagging up against the fire door. I will never forget the expression on that poor man’s face.’
    Roxy threw her head back and laughed.
    ‘Ee I loved ballet. You were good at it, Chloe. You did exams and all that shite.’
    I raised my eyes to the ceiling and sighed.
    ‘I did one exam that the teacher did a whip round to help me do when she realised my parents didn’t have the funds. That wasn’t because I was the next Margot Fonteyn, it was because she felt sorry for me.’
    Pity was something that had sat uncomfortably with me ever since.
    ‘But you passed,’ said Heidi kindly.
    ‘I did. Highly commended in fact as I remember, but it’s probably a good thing I didn’t set my sights on being the Royal Ballet’s prima ballerina. I don’t think my genes are that way inclined.’ I looked down at my body.
    Heidi playfully jabbed my arm.
    ‘Howay, you’ve got a great figure.’
    ‘I’ve got an acceptable figure for layered clothes, not for leotards,’ I said.
    Roxy pouted proudly and said nothing. She didn’t have to. Her body was the sort of body Lycra was made for; lithe, petite, smooth-skinned and without wobbly bits. I sighed and crossed out number two on the list.
    ‘What about interior designer?’ said Roxy, crunching a crisp between her front teeth. ‘I know some of Thierry’s teammates need someone to do their apartments. You could be the Newcastle United official interior designer, pet.’
    ‘Roxy, I can’t just
be
their interior designer.’
    ‘Why not?’
    ‘Because you have to study to be an interior designer, you can’t just
be
one.’
    ‘Bollocks to that. If you want to be one then just make up some fucking business cards, do a few sketches and be one. How hard can it be? I watch loads of those design programmes and it looks canny easy like.’
    Roxy tipped up the crisp packet and poured the crumbs into her mouth.
    There was a lot to be said, I supposed, for her simplistic approach to the subject. When Roxy had told our career officer at school she was going to find a millionaire boyfriend who treated her like a princess and satisfied her every need, she had meant it. When she had told Heidi and I she had ‘decided’ to become the WAG of one of France’s top professional footballers, there was no doubt in her mind. One hundred percent, he would fall in love with her from the moment she