“At home. She has a stomach bug,” Kerry explained.
“Oh. Okay. I’m sorry to hear. I hope she feels better soon.”
“Me too. It’s not easy doing everything on your own, especially when you’re also running a catering service.” Kerry sighed. She walked over to the door and locked it before turning the closed sign to face outside.
She turned back to Diane. “Something to consider if you’re really thinking about expanding the café and upgrading it to a bistro.”
Diane nodded as she rounded the counter and followed her aunt into the kitchen. There was a batch of at least thirty cupcakes on a tray on the prep table.
“I’m preparing the frosting for those,” Kerry explained when she noticed the direction of her niece’s gaze. There’s also another batch in the oven.”
“So what do you want me to do?” Diane asked, taking one of the aprons and hairnets from the storage closet.
“Could you make the chocolate frosting and decorate the cupcakes from the oven once they cool? I’m doing the strawberry-flavored ones. I also need to get a move on layering the birthday cake.”
“I got it,” Diane assured her, heading to the sink to wash her hands.
“The recipe is in the drawer closest to the refrigerator.”
“Okay,” Diane replied with a thumbs-up. “I doubt I’ll need it, though.”
Kerry chuckled. “Of course, you won’t. You learned from the best that recipes are for amateurs.” Diane joined in the laughter. “The family is having another picnic at Double Bluff Beach next Sunday,” Kerry informed her.
“I heard. I’ll be there,” she confirmed.
“Will Derek be there?”
Diane’s lips parted and closed as her eyes clouded with uncertainty. “I don’t know if he’ll be able to make it. He’s been so busy at work,” she answered. She looked over her shoulder to see her aunt staring back at her with a questioning expression.
In the end, she simply said, “Okay.” Diane was grateful for that as she wasn’t sure she would have the right answers to give her aunt if she kept asking about him. The question that she actually asked threw her.
“Have you spoken to your mother?”
Her hand stilled. “No. Not yet,” she answered, looking at the creamy dark mixture she was preparing.
“Why not? If you’re going to expand the bistro, then you need to speak to her,” Kerry pressed.
Diane sighed, her shoulders dropping with the action. “I just think it’s ridiculous that I have to beg her to use funds that my father left for me,” she spoke, the tension tight in her voice.
“He left her as the trustee because she was his wife, the mother of his children, and the person he trusted the most to do what’s right for you and Jake,” Kerry reasoned.
Diane snorted. “I still wish he hadn’t.”
“Diane, your mother loves you and only wants what’s best for you.”
“She has a weird way of showing it, though. If you ask me, she just wants to control our lives, and since she can’t do that to Jake because he’s halfway across the country, she’s trying to do it to me.” She glared at the bowl.
“It might not look like it, but she really does want what’s best for you. It’s just that…”
“She wants me to finish medical school and end up in a job that makes me more miserable than happy,” she finished for her aunt.
Kerry gave her a sympathetic smile. “Give her a chance, Di. She may just surprise you,” she encouraged.
Diane sighed before giving a sharp nod that dropped her chin against her chest.
The two women spent the next two hours icing the cupcakes and decorating the race car birthday cake for the little boy whose birthday it was for.
When they were finished, Kerry boxed the sweet goods and placed them in the refrigerator, and the two left the bakery. Diane said her goodbyes to her aunt and made her way home.
