Melinda looked at Cho, smiling at her friend’s support. She had never doubted that she had it, but sometimes it felt good to hear it like this. “Alright,” she chuckled, “you just made it sound like you had something, too.” Maybe she did, but Melinda could be patient and wait until Cho was ready to share it with her.
Leaning back in her seat, Melinda drew one of the blankets over her legs and took a sip of her champagne. “I can’t wait to see what changes I make,” she said with a slightly pensive smile. “I’ve so many ideas and books filled with design ideas and recipes and flavour combinations, but I think I want to go with something… hmm,” she considered for a moment. “Not simpler, per se, but cleaner, for the shop and then leave the frills and filigree for the specialty cakes.” She could feel her cheeks heating up as she stopped herself, because she could talk about this for hours, but right now they weren’t talking about which cakes to sell, but more along the lines of how to go about it. “The announcement, I think, will just be on the journal, because with mum stopping right after New Year’s and everything that’s going on for Christmas, there’s just no room for it. Instead!” she held up her finger to keep Cho from objecting, because Cho was going to get the party she was talking about. “Right now my thoughts are to keep Sweet Nothings closed for all of January. Get the planned renovations done in the first half, and spend the time planning the new menu and all that, but then have a grand opening on February first for the public and maybe a pre-opening party the night before?” She looked at Cho, hope shimmering in her eyes. “Of course, all depending on the calendar, because I don’t know which day the first is. But I would love to have you do something like that. Thank you, so much.”