Page 35 of Screwed
Callie searched back through her memory. “Yes, I did see that on Facebook.” The engagement had happened when she was in Paris. “Congratulations to you and Boone.”
“Thank you!” Melanie paused. “We have a tiny little problem. The person who was doing our wedding cake had an unfortunate accident.”
“Oh dear.” Callie touched her fingertips to her lips.
“Yes! The poor thing got hit by a radio-controlled helicopter.”
Callie’s head moved from side to side. Uh, what? She wasn’t sure how to respond to that.
“Anyhoo, that’s our problem. We have no one to make our cake, and the wedding is only a week away!”
“Oh.” Callie paused. “Oh.You want me to make a cake for you?”
“Yes!” Melanie’s voice went higher-pitched and breathy. “We’d be forever grateful to you. And your cakes are so pretty. Would you do that?”
“Um. Sure. I could do that.” She had nothing more important, and a whole week was long enough to do some fancy stuff. “You need it for Saturday, I assume?”
“Yes! We’re getting married at the Houston Club.”
“Did you have something particular in mind? You probably already had this planned with your cake baker.”
“We did. I can send you the pictures I’ve saved so you can get an idea of what we wanted. Our colors are eggplant, baby blue, and gold. The bridesmaids are wearing blue dresses, and we’re carrying bouquets of ranunculus, tweedia, and astrantia.”
Holy shmoly, she didn’t even know what all those were. “Do you have pictures of the flowers?”
“Yes. I mean, not exactly what the bouquets will be, but I can show you…wait, you can just go to my wedding Pinterest board and check it out. Everything is there. Even pictures of some cakes I like.”
“Oh, great idea.”
“I’ll send you the link.”
“Okay. What kind of cake do you want? As in vanilla, chocolate, strawberry…”
“Vanilla. Everyone likes vanilla.”
“Okay.” Easy. Callie squirmed with excitement. This was a challenge, but a fun one. “Let me have a look at the pictures.”
“How much do you charge?”
Callie blanked. She had no clue how much to charge. “How much was your other baker charging you?”
“Fifteen hundred dollars.”
Callie’s jaw dropped. Jumping Jesus. Could she really charge that much for her cakes? “I can do it for that,” she said casually.
“Great! Thank you so much, Callie, you’re really saving us. I didn’t want to end up with some crappy grocery store cake or something.”
Callie laughed. “No, no, we wouldn’t want that.”
They finalized a few more details and then ended the call. Moments later Callie’s Facebook bleeped with another private message. The link to Melanie’s Pinterest board.
A few clicks later, she was studying the images. Melanie apparently had very specific ideas of what she liked, but this was helpful. Callie scrutinized the flowers. She could do that. Bah. She could dobetterthan that. It was going to be a lot of work, but she was bouncing to get started.
She sucked air into her lungs and let it out slowly, slumping into her chair. She’d learned that starting a business online was a cheaper way to get going—she wouldn’t have the overhead cost of a lot of equipment or leasing space, plus she could start immediately while she found a place and got it ready. Maybe she could start with this and build up to having her own little shop if all went well.
And now she had her first customer.
Wow. Maybe she could really do this.
