Christmas at Little Beach Street Bakery
Page 17

‘Well, why can’t we do all that stuff and then go over to Reuben’s?’
‘Because AFTER all of that,’ said Huckle, rubbing her shoulders gently, ‘we open those big bags of chocolate coins you do here and put the television on and then we watch movies all day eating candy.’
‘What about Christmas dinner?’
‘Can’t I just have more smoked salmon? And some cheese? And then the rest of the chocolate coins?’
‘Oh GOD, that sounds good,’ said Polly, thinking about it. What with cooking for the Christmas fair, crossly, with Selina making jewellery downstairs in companionable fashion, and stocking up the freezer in case the weather turned bad, and having to think about dealing with Kerensa, and Reuben’s family, and Christmas, everything had suddenly seemed to come at her like a freight train,
‘I think we might need two bottles of champagne. For when we wake up from our nap in the afternoon ready for more champagne and more movies and more chocolate coins. And if we’re feeling really, really energetic, a long, hot bath. And then another snooze.’
Polly, who’d never been a morning person in her life, let out a sigh.
‘We couldn’t turn up after that,’ pointed out Huckle. ‘I’d be too drunk to drive the bike and you’d be too drunk to get out of the bath. And we’d both be asleep. We have a really, really busy Christmas Day schedule. Tell him.’
‘You tell him.’
‘You started it.’
Polly closed her eyes.
‘You know what he’s like. He won’t take no for an answer. He’s so insistent.’
‘You’re pretty insistent,’ said Huckle, moving closer to her. Polly turned her head and surrendered happily to him. Maybe they could put off making the decision for another day. Maybe she could put off all the decisions.
Chapter Nine
Polly looked at the printout and let out a groan. It was a full and packed schedule Reuben’s PA had sent her for Christmas Day at the Finkels’, including two hours of charades, some round singing, whatever the hell that was, a full ninety minutes of gift exchange, walking to church – which was ridiculous, as Reuben had never set foot in a church once in his entire life and had been married by a rabbi – plus various mysterious entries such as ‘Finkel family pageant’ and ‘The bringing in of the beasts’, which Polly didn’t even want to speculate on.
It just looked like so much work. Also there was a present list of about sixteen people on the email, all of whom Polly knew were terribly rich. She wasn’t sure of the protocol, though: did that mean they liked fancy presents, or did it mean they had everything and barely even noticed if they got a Christmas present or not? Well, regardless, she had a tiny budget for that kind of thing. In fact she was seriously considering simply making two dozen fruit cakes and handing those out instead. Everyone liked fruit cake, didn’t they? Mind you, this being Reuben’s family, someone would be allergic to something. She’d never met a more Piriton-dependent man.
She sighed and looked up from serving old Mrs Larson, who bought half a loaf every day, ate four slices for her tea with soup and sprinkled the rest for the birds, even though the local birds were tiger-sized seagulls who would eat a rabbit if they could get it to stay still long enough. Polly was worried that one day one of them would swoop down and do for Mrs Larson, who was tiny and frail and whose eyesight wasn’t as great as it had been and who was entirely capable of mistaking a gigantic seagull for a beautiful lark that was closer than it looked. And just at that moment, Reuben banged through the door, looking cheerful.
‘Hey!’ he said. ‘Right, so I’ve got this list.’
‘What list?’
‘A list of, you know. Stuff we want to eat at Christmas.’
Polly took the list and scanned down it. Warm baguettes… gingerbread men… a gingerbread house, full-sized… 16 loaves of rye bread… 14 loaves of wholemeal… 60 latkes…
She looked up.
‘I thought we were invited to your house for Christmas?’
‘Yeah, of course you are,’ said Reuben, completely unabashed. ‘It’s going to be great!’
‘But I don’t want to be catering at Christmas time! I don’t want to be working at all. It’s Christmas. I want to take some time off and mostly stay in bed and not go to work!’
‘But Polly,’ said Reuben, his face creasing in incomprehension, ‘we’re going to need baked stuff. You do the best baked stuff. I don’t know how to say it more clearly than that.’
His face lit up.
‘Man, I wonder what you’re going to charge me to bake at a really inconvenient time for you.’
‘No, Reuben,’ said Polly.
‘I think it would be a really horrific amount of money. I mean, seeing as my only alternative would be to helicopter in supplies from Poilâne in Paris. So you guys would have to charge me something totally disgusting. Man, it’s really going to hurt me in the wallet. I mean, ow. Ow, that is such a painful amount of money. Even to me. Oww.’
‘Stop it, Reuben!’ said Polly.
‘Well of course if you don’t really need the money…’
‘Stop it! I just want one quiet Christmas without being up to my eyeballs in flour!’
‘I thought you liked baking.’
‘I do like baking! As a JOB. As a JOB I like it.’
Reuben raised his eyebrows as he backed out of the shop.
‘You know,’ he said. ‘They say people who love their jobs never work a day in their lives.’
‘Shoo,’ said Polly. ‘Get out of here! I mean it!’
‘Don’t worry too much about the ninety-six bagels,’ added Reuben. ‘I think I’ll just get them sent over from Katz. No offence, Polly, but your bagels pretty much suck.’
‘GET OUT!’
The queue of old ladies looked at Polly with disapproval in their eyes.
‘Isn’t that the young man who’s going to rebuild the school?’ said one.
‘Yeah, all right,’ said Polly, cross and conflicted.
‘And he’s going to be a father,’ said Mrs Larson, sniffing. ‘You’d think he’d deserve a little kindness.’
Polly began to fill up bags slightly lighter on the doughnuts than they usually were.