Have your cake and eat it (Chicklit contest finalist)

Chapter eleven

Standing back to survey my handiwork, I'm exhausted but happy. The long trestle table in the leisure centre is swathed in cream and purple, tiny bunches of dried flowers dotted in between the plates of cupcakes, lemon slices and chocolate chip cookies.

Tamsin's eyes are on stalks as she gazes at the delicate fairy on top of the three-tier red velvet cake. The wedding cake Rachel persuaded me to make looks rather dramatic too, with its white sugar paste coating, dark purple roses and pale blue organza ribbon.

Things in the run up to the craft fair had gone pretty smoothly, if you discount a minor panic when my Tesco shop containing half the retail giant's baking aisle was two hours late and when I thought I had run out of cocoa powder only to discover some more lurking at the back of the cupboard.

I've never baked so fast in my life. I've lost count of the number of eggs I cracked, the amount of flour I sieved and how many cupcakes I iced. There had been relatively few disasters along the way, which I was pleased about - just a batch of brownies I had forgotten to add sugar to and a cake that came out the oven flatter than Tara Palmer-Tomkinson's chest.

I've just finished taking a stack of photos for the website and putting a pile of my brand-new business cards on the table when members of the public start filtering through the double doors at the other end of the hall.

Steve is coming later with Jessica and Joshua, but Tamsin has insisted on being here throughout. She keeps going to see the lady on the next table, who is called Muriel and makes little miniature stuffed animals. I can tell she's particularly fond of the tiny white cat, as she keeps sidling over to stroke it. I'd better watch she doesn't try and slip it into her little velvet bag - which I got from our neighbour on the other side in exchange for a fairy cake - when Muriel's back is turned.

I feel a dart of excitement as my first potential customer approaches, an old man probably in his seventies who is wearing a jaunty straw hat perched at an angle. He grins a toothy grin in response to my cheery hello and selects a chocolate brownie, which is studded with white chocolate chips in accordance with Rachel's request. He proffers the correct change but before I can offer him a paper plate or bag he takes a large bite out of it.

"Oooh, young lady," he says, his eyes bulging. "I haven't tasted such a delicious dessert item since my wife cooked up a treacle pudding in 1975."

"However," he confides, "I later found out she had slipped something in it to try and do away with me. Luckily I'm as strong as an ox and it only knocked me out for a couple of hours." He chortles, inhaling the rest of the brownie.

"Of course, she expired first, the old cow. Just keeled over when pruning one of her prize roses, she did. So I got the last laugh there, didn't I, eh?."

"Oh, er, lovely!" I exclaim. "I mean, that's terrible," I amend hastily. "I'm sorry about your wife. That must have an awful shock for you."

"Oh don't be sorry, dear," he tells me. "She was a right old bat, made my life a misery she did. Luckily I've moved on. To a younger model. She's 53 and a right stunner," he tells me proudly.

I try to make 'rescue me' eyes at Rachel who is on her stall about twenty feet away, but unfortunately she fails to look in my direction. I'm saved, however, by the arrival of Steve, Jessica and Joshua, and the old man soon saunters off.

"Hi darling," Steve kisses my cheek. "Great job." I bend down to the kids and tell them as a special treat they can both choose something off the table to eat. I start regretting this about thirty seconds later when Tamsin loudly starts insisting she wants the wedding cake, stamping her tiny foot to hammer home her point.

"Tamsin, no." I say firmly. "That wedding cake is huge. You can't eat all that on your own." She glares at me, but thankfully selects a much more manageable fairy cake instead without further protest. My back hurts and I'm aching to sit down but I force myself to keep standing so I can press business cards on everyone who wanders past.

It's now 4pm and every last sweet treat has disappeared with the exception of the wedding cake, although that too has been sold and a man is coming to pick it up later.

Someone even bought all four of my coffee and walnut cakes. She said three were for her friends, but judging from her size and the way her eyes gleamed with intent when she spotted my stand makes me think she'll be keeping at least two of them for herself.

I've introduced myself and my cakes to countless people, distributed almost all my business cards and received six orders for birthday cakes. Two very sweet girls came up to me earlier and asked if they could come and work for me for free so they can learn all about cake baking. So I've taken their details and promised to call them next week.

"Congratulations, Bella," my next-door neighbour Elizabeth says, stopping in front of my empty stall. "I think your stand has been the most successful by far, I'm glad I bought this as soon as I arrived," she adds, holding up a pecan pie.

"I had no idea you were so creative," she continues. "I never would have thought it to look at you. You always used to leave the house with your hair in a vicious bun," she muses.

A vicious bun? I think, momentarily taken aback. The only reason my hair was in a bun in the first place, although I wouldn't necessarily call it vicious, was because I would rather have had an extra half an hour in bed than straighten it.

"It looks much better like that," Elizabeth tells me, touching one of the tendrils that frame my face. "And you've got such a healthy glow about you. In fact, you're not..." She trails off, glancing nervously at my stomach. It's true that it has certainly got a little rounder, but I have been tasting a lot of cakes lately.

I laugh. "Oh I shouldn't think so, Elizabeth. I'm just a lot less stressed these days, that's all."

But in the back of my mind I'm thinking of the unopened pregnancy test tucked deep in my bag that I bought this morning under the pretext of a coffee run. Not that I can drink coffee these days of course, as the smell makes me gag...