Daisy James - Lucie’s Vintage Cupcake Company

‘Loving it! She’s enjoying the sunshine and swears her arthritis is finally conquered. Her last email fizzed with details of the current plan she’s working on to present a course of Spanish cookery classes to the ex-pats! I don’t think she’ll ever be able to truly retire.’

‘Well, if you are as passionate about food as your mum has been for the last fifty years then it’s hardly surprising. Did I tell you I watched a few of her classic TV cookery shows from the eighties on the Food Channel? She’s amazing – and so are her recipes. They’re a piece of social history. Steak Diane and Black Forest gateau anyone?’

Lucie smiled. Hollie was spot on. Her mother was amazing and both she and Jess had her to thank for their own addictions to all things gastronomic – she as a pastry chef with ambitions to run her own business some day in the not-too-distant future; her sister as a beta tester for the recipes of a celebrity cook book writer.

Yet it had been a huge challenge to follow in her mother’s celebrity-infused slipstream and forge a career that would not tempt others to suggest nepotism. This professional insecurity had been her catalyst to work even harder and longer at every project she put her mind to, to create a contemporary twist on everything she prepared so that her critics could not accuse her of relying on her mother’s fame. But she adored her and was inordinately proud of what she had achieved. Like Hollie, she still watched her mother’s programmes on the Food Channel. She loved them, but they were like visual instruction manuals for the enthusiastic housewife, totally different to the fun and quirky twists she liked to introduce in her own recipes.

But the pressure of her mother’s brilliance still lingered heavily on her shoulders. It was the overriding reason why she had worked so hard to prove her talents at Le Cordon Bleu and why Ed’s rivalry, and success, had rankled so painfully. While he was out romancing a different date every night, she was holed up in her attic apartment, studying recipe books and experimenting with increasingly exotic ingredients with which to wow her tutor; and still she couldn’t pip him to the top spot. She continued to ask herself whether she would ever be good enough to match her mother’s culinary confidence – in the kitchen and in public.

She still experienced a sharp twang of loss that her mother had chosen to emigrate to Andalucía just before Christmas, especially as her father also lived abroad with a Greek woman he’d met over the internet when her parents divorced ten years ago. But she knew it was a long-held dream of her mother to live out her days in the sunshine, indulging in her own version of Spanish paella washed down with plenty of full-bodied local Rioja. And anyway, it was only a two-hour flight away if she wanted to visit, and her sister and young nephews, Lewis and Jack, still lived in her mother’s house in Richmond where there was a guaranteed welcome whenever she craved a dollop of family love and affection.

‘Oh my God!’ screamed Hollie as she scrolled down her iPhone screen, her eyes growing wider as her finger speeded up. ‘Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God! I’ve just checked my Twitter account. You’re everywhere! Someone’s uploaded a video of your meltdown at Francesca’s last night. Lucie, you’re famous!’

Chapter Seven

‘Infamous, more like,’ Steph muttered under her breath, as she too grabbed her mobile to check her Twitter feed, a thoughtful expression on her face.

‘You’ve even got your own hashtag and it’s trending! Look!’

Lucie sighed and braced herself to take a peek at her own phone.

While #LividLucie had a certain ring to it, it wasn’t a tuneful one. She was mortified. She dropped her head into her hands, her curls falling across her fingers, as nausea coiled around her abdomen. Could this really be happening to her? Did she really have her own hashtag that was trending on Twitter?

‘I’m so, so sorry, Lucie. But, well, it is sort of funny, don’t you think? Excruciatingly embarrassing, of course, but in a few days I’m sure you’ll see the funny side,’ cajoled Hollie as she squeezed out the last drop of wine into Lucie’s empty glass. ‘Ed Cartolli had it coming to him. Have you read some of his other reviews? There’s a Thai restaurant in Hammersmith that had to close its doors as soon as his review of their place went live.’

‘That’s because he found a snail in his coconut and prawn soup. The environmental health inspectors would have closed them down, not Ed Cartolli,’ said Steph, but held up her hand to quieten Hollie as she opened her mouth to continue her tirade of indignation against the reviews on Anon. Appetit . ‘Okay, Hols, okay, I’m not defending the guy. I’m just saying it wasn’t him who shut the restaurant down.’

‘Can’t you do anything, Steph? You’re a lawyer. Can’t you send him a letter or a subpoena or something? Make all this stop?’

‘I’m a divorce solicitor, Hollie. And even if this was my area of expertise, there still wouldn’t be anything I could do. It’s out there like a metaphorical bull in a china shop. In fact, to be fair to Mr Cartolli, not one of the uploaded videos has appeared on the Anon. Appetit blog or his Facebook page or Twitter feed. These posts are the work of the diners who were at the restaurant, which have been shared and retweeted ad infinitum.

‘And even if I could get one person to take their post down, there are still others who are sharing it. God, Lucie, Hollie’s right. It’s gone viral! We should have done more to stop you going into work after what happened with Alex. You could definitely plead temporary insanity to your crime against karma. My considered advice, as a lawyer and as a friend, is to lie low for a few days; don’t under any circumstances comment or react, and wait it out until someone else stumbles inadvertently into the spotlight and messes up big time. The bandwagon rolls on and people forget.’

‘So there’s nothing I can do? You’re telling me to crawl under a stone and never show my face in public again, is that it?’

‘Well, no, not “never”. Just for a few weeks…’

‘You said days a minute ago. Oh God! What am I going to do?’

‘Hey, maybe Francesca’s reservations will improve?’ said Hollie. ‘That happens sometimes, you know. It’s called rubbernecking, I think. And don’t people say that any publicity is…’ Hollie shrank under Steph’s warning glare and took refuge in her wine. She noticed her glass was empty again and jumped up to order another bottle from the hunky blond bartender she’d been ogling for months. When she returned she was giggling.

‘What’s so funny?’ asked Steph.

‘Maybe Lucie will get a slot on Hell’s Kitchen ? Like a female Gordon Ramsay?’

‘Hollie… You’re not helping.’

Hollie jumped back onto her bar stool and, while Steph replenished their glasses, started to fiddle with her phone again. ‘Wow, look at your Twitter account, Lucie! You have twenty thousand followers! Hang on, hang on. I’ll just check Francesca’s Facebook page. Oh my God, nearly five thousand new likes!’

‘Likes? People “like” what has happened!’ exclaimed Lucie, her face glowing with heat as tears threatened to spill once more.

She didn’t care what was happening on social media. She intended to close her accounts immediately. That was easy enough to do, but what was she going to do without a job? No restaurant manager worth their salt would be clambering over themselves to offer her a job. Who would be crazy enough to risk employing her at the moment? She was a pariah! And she couldn’t contemplate working anywhere other than in a kitchen. Food was her passion – no, her obsession – and this was accompanied by a burning desire to continually improve, to hone her talent, to expand her knowledge.