Custard

“Custard.” Derek Santiago said flatly, the fingers of his right hand continuing to drum against the counter.

“You asked for custard.” Patricia answered nervously, though there was the slightest hint of sullen defiance in her tone.

“I certainly did.” Derek acknowledged, his eyes staring fixedly at the top of the pile of boxes of custard powder. Or, to put it more precisely, his eyes were staring fixedly upwards at the top of the pile of boxes.

“Of course, in the same breath, I also asked you to get all the other stuff on the list.” He continued, his tone becoming slightly more heated. “So, I’m assuming that you stopped listening right after ‘custard’ because I found the list where I’d left it.”

The sole employee of Derek’s bakery and café considered these points in the larger context of a lack of receipt and the uncomfortably small amount of change. After moment, she realised that a little bit of bridge-mending might be a good idea.

“It’s… possible that I popped my earphones in around that point, yes.” She conceded.

Derek rubbed his forehead, still staring at the pile of boxes.

“You don’t have the receipt.”

“I think I may have thrown it out instead of the one for my gum.”

“And you spent-“

“-Nearly the whole £200, yes.”

Derek finally tore his eyes away from the custard bounty and looked at her, honest curiosity crowding out anger for a moment.

“Did it never occur to you that it was a little odd that I would give you £200 to spend exclusively on custard?”

“It did seem a little bit odd,” Patricia admitted, “but you’ve been so stressed out for the party this evening. I didn’t want to add to that by needing you to hold my hand to go shopping.”

“I appreciate the sentiment, but I don’t ever want you to be afraid to ask questions.”

“Thanks.”

“I meant because THIS is the result!” he snapped, left arm sweeping around to gesture at enough boxes of powdered custard to build a fort.

“Oh.”

“Okay, we can salvage this,” Derek said as he strode forward and began pulling open cupboards, “we just need to alter the planned list of cakes and puddings to be mostly custard-based.”

Patricia shifted from foot to foot, uncomfortably.

“What should I do?”

“Check the fridge and see how much fruit we have left. I’d done some prep work, but we’ll have to start from scratch and get everything done in-hells bells- four and a half hours.”

oOoOo

Thirty minutes later, Derek was weaving around the kitchen, several cookbooks and his laptop open at custard-based recipes as he worked frantically. Any part of the kitchen that wasn’t occupied by his work was occupied by Patricia’s.

He’d opened his bakery about a year and a half ago; something that he’d spent years working towards. Business was unimpressive at first and, to be honest, it still wasn’t great. He’d managed to build up enough of a customer base to keep the lights on, but he’d only started to make enough money to hire Patricia six months ago.

Then, three days ago, a mother and her six-year-old son had entered right before closing. She’d bought him a sticky bun and, once it had met with the boy’s approval, she’d spoken to him about hosting little Patrick’s birthday party there. She’d apologised for the short notice but had explained that Patrick was desperate to be a baker when he grew up and that this was the only nearby bakers that also had a café area.

Derek had been pleased to encourage the dreams of another aspiring baker, and the money was welcome as well, but he had sensed bigger possibilities. The word of mouth from something like this could be just what his fledgling bakery needed to achieve a level of success that would allow him to close the bakery for one day without immediately becoming insolvent.

“You know, people are going to find it odd that that the cakes and puddings are 99% custard based.” Called Patricia from across the kitchen.

“It’ll be fine,” he replied without looking up from what he was doing, “thanks to the power of teachable moments.”

“Of what?”

oOoOo

“Now,” said Derek, ignoring the slightly puzzled glances of the children’s parents, “this isn’t just a party in a bakery; it’s a baker’s party.”

He gestured at Patrick, who was sitting in the place of honour, wearing a baker’s hat that was too large for him.

“This is a good opportunity to give some advice from one baker to an aspiring baker.”

Patrick’s eyes widened and he straightened up proudly, causing his hat to flop back into his face.

“We’ve chosen to make most of the cakes here tonight with custard to teach the most important lesson about being a baker.”

Derek noted, with relief that the kids were listening attentively; meaning the parents were now smiling fondly at them. This was greatly preferable to them paying enough attention to poke holes in what he was saying.

“You don’t always have the ingredients you want on hand, but what really makes a baker is what he or she can do with their creativity. Here we have eight different cakes and puddings that use custard in some way. The most important quality a baker needs is creativity!”

This raised an excited cheer from Patrick and his friends who were soon happily shovelling cake and puddings into their mouths. Derek stood by the counter trying not to look too relieved as Patrick’s mother paid him for the event and thanked him.

“I really do appreciate the effort you put into this. I wasn’t expecting much more than cakes and decorations; adding a theme was a wonderful idea.”

“Well, you know, importance of creativity and all that.” He replied, hoping he sounded more modest than backed into a corner. A moment after she’d walked away, he turned to Patricia to ask the only question he still needed answers to.

“So, how much custard do we have left?”