The Little Brooklyn Bakery: A heartwarming feel good novel full of cakes and romance!

‘Yeah, but it’s New York. The city that never sleeps, remember? You must have been downtown at lunchtimes.’

‘Erm … not really.’

‘What?’ He gave a suspicious look.

‘I tend to grab a coffee and …’ she shrugged. She’d got into a routine of popping down to the coffee shop in the atrium to grab a drink, sitting people watching, pretending she was engrossed in Facebook or something on her phone.

‘You should try to get out. Central Park is less than a block away.’

‘I … guess. It’s just … quite.’ She hated sounding so defensive. ‘Gosh, sorry, I’m not normally this pathetic. I didn’t want to … I mean, I wasn’t expecting to come and I had to turn everything around quite quickly, and it’s all been …’

‘Overwhelming?’ he asked softly.

She shot him a grateful look. ‘Yes. I feel like I’ve been pitched in at the deep end where everyone else is travelling at warp speed and I’m in the slow lane.’

‘You’ll get the hang of it. There’s nowhere quite like it. But it’s easy to be lonely here. Become anonymous.’

‘It is in any big city.’

‘True. So why didn’t you want to come here? The Big Apple. Everyone wants to come to New York.’ He lifted both arms up with a quick, mocking jazz hands.

She shot him a sharp look, surprised by his unexpected insight.

‘How did you know?’

‘I’m not just a pretty face, you know. I listen. You were going to say you didn’t want to come.’

She winced. She was too ashamed to tell him the whole story.

‘I was quite happy. Then I split up with my boyfriend and I thought, why the hell not?’

Todd raised a sceptical eyebrow. ‘How long had you been with him?’

‘Two years.’

‘Two years! Get out of here. That’s longer than some marriages last.’ He paused before asking quietly, ‘And is it permanent? No chance of getting back together? Or is this a way of showing him what he’s missing? Is he likely to come chasing after you, with a ring box?’

She shot him a withering look, disappointed by his cynicism.

‘Oh this is permanent, alright.’ The circling bitterness, which she normally kept in check, burst out. ‘As permanent as possible.’

‘Funny how love turns to hate so easily.’ Todd didn’t sound the least bit amused, his voice was tinged with weary disillusion. ‘Or rather it’s not funny at all. It seems to happen with remarkable ease.’

Sophie swallowed hard. ‘And sometimes it doesn’t.’

She wanted to wake up and find out it had all been a huge mistake and that the James married to Anna was in fact a different James Soames. Unfortunately, Anna had brought two photos with her that day. The sight of James in a morning suit next to his glowing bride and the look of tenderness on his face as he gazed at a new-born Emma had physically hurt. The intense pain in her chest had robbed her of breath.

‘I find it interesting that there is such a fine line. How does a couple go from being not able to live without each other, to arguing over who gets the toaster?’

‘We weren’t arguing about toasters.’ Sophie swallowed hard. ‘We never argued. Which just goes to show. Love is blind.’ In hindsight, she’d been blind, deaf and dumb. There’d been clues aplenty.

‘I never got that phrase. Love is blind. Is it? When you’re “in love”’ – those horrid quote marks with his fingers told her exactly what he thought – ‘don’t you examine every little thing they do? Analyse everything they say. Dissect the meaning of every last word and phrase. I suspect you can be blinded by love, although it’s probably lust. Dazzled by sexual attraction.’

‘So, you don’t believe in love?’

Todd snorted. ‘It’s an idea, a social concept, if you will.’ She heard the New Yorker in his voice, and it was almost as if a different person were speaking. ‘Songs, books, they all talk about being love. I get that you can care about someone. You can be in a mutually respectful relationship. You can promise to be faithful … but at the end of the day, humans are intrinsically selfish and self-seeking. We look out for number one. That ideal of love being all-encompassing, hearts and flowers, self-sacrificing, that’s fiction. Your books and songs.’

‘Wow.’ Sophie paused as she sieved the words one by one through her filter of despair and betrayal, and found to her relief that despite what she’d been through she was still able to say, ‘That’s quite depressing.’ She smiled, as a little bit of the iceberg of pain lodged firmly in her heart, melted. ‘Despite everything with J—’ she refused to say his name out loud, give him any more room in her life, ‘I still believe that one day, I’ll find love with someone else.’

‘So in the meantime, you’re in … what, in an emotional holding bay, that just happens to be New York?’

Sophie wriggled uncomfortably in her seat, stung by his rather accurate summation. ‘Something like that.’

‘That’s a terrible waste of living.’

‘What?’

‘This is one of the greatest cities on earth. Brooklyn is one of the best neighbourhoods to live in. Six months. You can only scratch the surface. You should be making the most of every last damn second.

‘You should check some places out. Prospect Park. DeKalb Market Hall, north of Fulton Street. About three blocks over. I’ve heard it’s a real foodie haven. There’s a great flea market up at Kent Avenue. What are you doing next weekend?’

‘I …’ she lifted her shoulders.

‘Aside from chores?’ pressed Todd.

‘I’ve got to do my washing sometime.’

‘Babe, we’ve had the washing talk already. Your laundry isn’t going to take all day. You need to get out there. Although you can still cook me dinner.’ He cocked his head with a hopeful look that had Sophie laughing.

‘Great. It won’t stop you doing my wash— laundry, although I’m not sure I want you handling my underwear.’ She was surprised that there was no washing machine in the apartment. She’d rinsed a few things through by hand.

‘I’m pretty good at handling underwear.’

‘Why doesn’t that surprise me? I’ll pass though.’

‘English, a tip. There’s a service laundromat on Hoyt Street. Five bucks for a load. Washed, dried and folded.’

‘That’s good to know. I’d never have thought of that.’ She sat up straighter, brightened at the prospect. ‘I am so going to do that this afternoon.’

‘Welcome to America.’

Chapter 7 (#ulink_3c3d83d8-987c-5a28-bf4d-a439aaf83fc7)

The laundromat smelled soft and clean, the soothing hum of tumble dryers cushioning the noise of the street outside. It was like fabric softener for the soul. Sophie handed over a large sack of washing and paid her five dollars.

‘When will it be ready?’ she asked.

‘Five cock. You come,’ said the ancient Vietnamese lady tapping her finger on the Formica counter top. ‘Five cock.’ Even though it was childish, Sophie bit back a snigger.