Diana has always been the type of girl who likes to eat her feelings. Hard day at work? Snack. Boyfriend breaking up with her? Snack. Difficult phone call with Mum? Snack. Crème brûlée not setting? Snack. It didn’t help that her dad owned a bakery when she was a kid and was always happy to sneak her a croissant or a doughnut after she received a particularly heavy scolding from her mum. And it definitely doesn’t help that she now owns the same bakery, taking over after her parents decided to retire to their lovely country home in Mpigi and leave the money making business to her. She’s never been prouder of a thing. When her dad handed her the keys to the bakery and her mum handed her the accounts books, the first thing she did was bring the bakery into the 21st Century. 

It had always been an old-school sort of place, quaint and cosy with small windows, dark wood furniture, and red linoleum flooring that made her think of boarding school. So she ripped out the floors, replaced the linoleum with cheery white tile, lightened up the furniture, knocked two large windows in the front walls, and completely upgraded the kitchen. The payoff for her efforts has been slow and steady. There’s been an increase in sales, and they even have a few regulars who come in almost every day. It’s not all perfect, of course. They’ve had a few bad customer experiences.

And today is looking like a hard–day–at–work kind of snack moment. Diana is standing behind the long glass display case at the front, wearing her favourite apron, along with her best damage control smile. On the other side of the display case is a Type B customer.

Type B customer

• Usually middle-aged, but may be early- to late-thirties
• English-speaking, often relatively well-educated , but old-fashioned to a fault
• Usually female
• Usually well-dressed in a stuffy uptight uppity way
• Main complaint is that what they got isn’t what they ordered (always a misunderstanding on their part)
• Will ask to speak to the manager

“I asked for a red velvet cake,” the customer says. She’s agitated already, her right hand pinning a receipt to the countertop with so much force it looks like she might actually crack the marble.

“And that’s exactly what was provided, madam,” Diana says, as gently as she can. You cannot, under any circumstances, lose your shit with a Type B customer.

“No, what we got was a red chocolate cake,” the customer shoots back.

Ah, the usual red velvet conundrum. Customers often assume the cake’s red colour means they’ll get a strawberry or raspberry flavour. Diana cannot count the number of times she’s had to explain that the red colour is from the red anthocyanin in the cocoa powder and a little food colouring. 

“Red velvet cake is chocolate cake, madam,” she says, extra gently again. The customer’s manicured hand crushes the receipt in its grip.

“If it’s chocolate cake, then why would you advertise it as red velvet cake?”

Deep breaths, Diana says to herself. In her peripheral vision, she can see Rehema sidling closer, as if she expects that she’ll have to hold her back from leaping at the irate customer on the other side of the display case any moment from now.

Through gritted teeth, she replies, “Red velvet cake is a type of chocolate cake, madam. You can even look it up on the internet.”

The customer gasps. Diana might as well have asked her to run a small-toothed comb through her short neat Janet cut. Her lips pull tight into a thin line of displeasure.

Here it comes, Diana thinks. Three, two, one.

“I want to speak to your manager. Immediately,” the customer says. Diana sighs. Typical Type B customer. She can feel Rehema’s eyes on her as she turns to enter the back of the shop, can practically hear the amusement in the gaze that follows her.

Back here, where dough gets turned into bread, where batter is transformed into pancakes and waffles, the air is warm and fragrant with the smells of baking. Cinnamon, vanilla, lemon, strawberry, cardamom, ginger. Smells Diana has loved since she was a child, watching her dad work in his own bakery, crafting delicious little cupcakes and cookies from dough like his hands were magic. The white double doors leading to the kitchen swing open as Birungi emerges from them, a tray of freshly baked ginger snaps in her hands. She stops when she sees Diana, sighs when she realises her boss is taking her apron off.

“Type B?”  she asks sympathetically. Diana nods, hanging the apron up on a hook on the wall. “She ordered red velvet cake, not red chocolate cake.”

“We need to put up a sign,” Birungi says. “It will say, red velvet is chocolate cake with red food colouring.”

A giggle escapes Diana, and she turns to go back to her disgruntled Type B customer. The lady is scowling already when she sees that Diana has returned without the manager she asked for.

“I asked to speak to the manager,” she says. Her voice has risen a few octaves and is shaking with fury. Resolving issues with Type B customers is never pleasant. But it’s always satisfying for Diana when she drops the line that makes all of them truly lose it.

“Hello, madam. I’m Kisa Diana, the manager. And the owner.”

If the customer’s face was angry before, now, it’s thunderous with rage. Unfortunately for her, it’s the kind of impotent rage that makes your throat swell and your eyes wet.

“My Facebook group will hear about this!” she fumes before striding out of the bakery, the receipt crushed in her grip. Rehema completes her sidling, nudges Diana in the side with her shoulder, and says, “Snack?”

“Snack,” Diana agrees firmly, pulling her phone from her back pocket and clicking on the food delivery app. Her favourite restaurant is doing one of its weekday deals; two CK’s Special burgers for the price of 1. 

The CK’s Special is probably the best burger in the country. On the continent, probably. In the world, even. A beef patty so succulent you want to weep with joy when you bite into it. Toppings from God’s kitchen itself. The bun is not too bad, but her dad’s cheesy buns are much better. So she likes to ask the restaurant to pack her burger with just the bottom half of the bun; she feels less guilty about throwing away half a bun instead of a full one. She’s been making the same order for the past seven months. The first time it came, the delivery guy gave her a strange look as he confirmed the order on the receipt. One CK’s Special burger with only the bottom half of the bun. But she’s ordered the same thing so often that he delivers her orders with a smile these days. It probably helps that she tips him every time.

She makes the order almost automatically, expecting nothing out of the ordinary. So imagine her surprise when, an hour later — 30 minutes longer than it takes for her order to arrive, usually — there’s no deliveryman walking through the bakery’s door. They’ve got 4 new customers in that time, so she’s busy helping Rehema ring up the orders. But she’s hungry now, and that , coupled with the nasty taste of dealing with the Type B customer earlier, is making her hangry. 

“You’re scowling,” Rehema says, leaning over to take a box of freshly baked chocolate doughnuts from her. “Where’s your burger?”

“That’s what I’d like to know,” Diana replies, already pulling out her phone to call the delivery man. The phone call is brief, and by the time it’s through, she’s taking her apron off for the second time today.

“Where are you going?” Rehema calls after her. She snatches up her purse and her phone and replies, “To be a Type B customer.”

CK’s is about a 30-minute walk from Diana’s bakery. She could’ve walked the 2.4km easily instead of taking a boda boda. But she didn’t want to take the chance of looking like a fool when she arrived at the restaurant and found the burger had been dispatched. So she’s at the entrance of CK’s in 5 minutes, anger still bubbling in her chest as she presses a 2000-shilling note into the boda boda rider’s hand. The restaurant is filled to the brim – she can see that much through the floor-to-ceiling windows and the open entrance. It makes her pause; maybe there’s a delay because they’re busier than usual. And they are busier than usual. Make no mistake – CK’s is no ailing restaurant business with fat lazy flies occupying its empty tables. It’s a well-known brand, the location near her bakery the newest of four sparkling restaurants that have cropped up over two years. And it has always had a reliable clientele, brought back by the chefs’ finesse. But this exponential increase in customers isn’t in line with the growth Diana has noticed over the past couple of months. Something has changed.

She makes a beeline for the bar counter, ignoring the waiter at the doorway. Something in her expression must tip the lady behind the counter off, because she makes panicked gestures at someone in the back and fixes a too-wide smile on her face as Diana approaches. She almost hates the fact that she has to become the very kind of customer she abhors. Just almost. But no one gets between her and her burger. 

“I’d like to speak to the manager,” she says.

“Yes, he’s been informed,” the lady replies, gesturing to the back again. Diana blinks twice. “Oh. Good.”

Just after the words have left her mouth, the double doors leading to the back of the restaurant slide open, and a man walks out to stand next to the jittery lady behind the counter. And her mouth drops often.

Diana uses the word gorgeous sparingly. It’s not hard for her; she spends most of her day cooped up in the bakery, often in the back, barely catching a glimpse of the customers. Her social life is nonexistent. The last time she saw someone she’d consider attractive was on the freaking television, for the love of God. And the pickings around these parts are very slim.

But this man… this man is beyond gorgeous. He’s so tall his waist clears the top of the counter by a couple of inches, and he’s lean, with broad - wide shoulders, a chest that promises the warmest hugs, and arms thick with muscle, sleeves rolled up to expose a tapestry of veins. Diana can see now why the restaurant is overflowing with customers. In fact, she can feel a shift in the buzzing conversations around her, a sort of redirection that changes the cadence of the hum of routine restaurant ambience to something sharp, something aimed at the god staring down at her with … is that a gleam of contempt in his intense dark gaze? His full two-toned lips are pursed, and his nostrils flare a little as he looks at  her.

“How may I help you, ma’am?” he asks in a deep voice that sets Diana’s nerves to thrumming. It’s only the obvious displeasure in his tone that keeps her knees from buckling and reminds her that she’s here to be the bad guy, from his perspective. 

“I … uh … I ordered a CK’s Special burger about an hour ago, and my delivery guy said my order had been cancelled?” her voice tips up at the end of the sentence, and she feels like a secondary school child again, telling the canteen lady that she’d received less change than she was owed. The gleam of contempt flashes in his eyes again.

“Ah, you’re the topless burger lady,” he says.

“I wouldn’t put it that way, but yes,” Diana grumbles. She’s beginning to see the merit of that “All that glitters isn’t gold” statement. This guy is a massive arsehole. His eyebrows shoot up, like she’s said the last part out loud. Maybe she has. Who cares? 

“Well, Miss,” he says, clasping his hands together before him. His fingers are long, graceful, and bare of any ornamentation – why does she notice that?

“At this restaurant, our CK’s Special burger comes with a full bun, not half.”

The words she blurts out next are probably the ones that seal her fate as Mr. Gorgeous’s mortal enemy. “Our cheesy bun is so much better, though.”

His eyes narrow. “I see. Then surely, you’d rather enjoy your much better cheesy bun without the encumbrance of our burger.”

“What does that even mean?”

“It means, ma’am, that if you’d like to enjoy our CK’s Special burger, it’s available only with a full bun.”

The anger in Diana’s chest, that had cooled to an absent-minded simmer, explodes into a full blown rage, sending heat up her neck into her eyes and ears. “Are you out of your mind? What kind of customer care is this? Are you in charge here? I’d like to speak to the owner!”

The twitch of his lips when he offers, “Shall I give you his number?” should warn her, but she’s so blinded by rage that she huffs, “Yes!” and stabs at her phone screen as he reads out the number to her. She raises her phone to her ear, giving him a victorious look as it starts to ring. Oh, she’s going to ask the owner to make him deliver her burger every single day with an apology note for one month straight. A ringtone blares out from behind the counter, and realisation dawns on Diana as she watches Mr. Gorgeous reach into his pocket and pull out his ringing phone. The bastard answers – he actually answers!

“Hello, Calvin Kakuru speaking.”

Her throat feels swollen with impotent rage. She wants to chuck the phone at him, hard, maybe even put a dent in that arrogant head. Instead, she hangs up and points a quivering finger at him.

“You’ve just lost a loyal customer!” she growls. He smiles, and she is actually dazed for a moment by the brilliance of his smile, the way it transforms his face from merely gorgeous to breathtaking. 

“I’m sure we shall miss you sorely.”

She lets out another impotent huff and stomps away. She can tell the tables nearest to the counter were listening in, because someone giggles as she walks past them. She’s going to find the restaurant’s website and social media and leave scathing reviews. She’s going to tell everyone she knows to avoid it like the plague. She’s going to ruin Calvin Kakuru.