The Cherry Tree Cafe (12 page)

‘But?’

‘There is no “but”, I’m fine.’

Jemma didn’t budge. I looked at her and sighed. There would be no shifting her until I’d offered some sort of explanation.

‘I think Ben was about to tell me something when you burst in,’ I said quietly, ‘and now he’s clammed up again and we’re back to square one.’

‘Oh Lizzie,’ she frowned, ‘I’m sorry. I know it seems unfair that we know what happened and you don’t but I can’t break his confidence. He made Tom and me
swear not to tell a soul.’

‘I’m not asking you to tell me,’ I smiled, ‘of course I’m curious, but not to the point where I’d try and drag it out of you!’

‘I still can’t believe he hasn’t told you
anything
about it at all,’ Jemma frowned.

‘Funnily enough, he said the same about you.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I think he thought that perhaps you might have told me something because we’re so close.’

‘But he asked me not to.’

‘That’s what I told him! You’re a true friend through and through!’

‘Hey, what are you two whispering about now?’ Tom scowled, creeping over.

‘Nothing!’ we chorused and burst out laughing.

Ella’s birthday was now just days away and if I didn’t have a paintbrush or a pint glass in my hand I was wielding a fistful of pins and the sewing machine.
Utilising some of the pretty fabrics I had bought after my fateful morning in the City Crafting Café, I had made Ella a ragdoll of her own, complete with a range of outfits and her own teddy
bear. I was delighted with the result of my labours and hoped Ella would be too.

‘What do you think of this for an idea?’ Jemma asked a few days before the Café launch. ‘How about we ask a few of Ella’s friends to tea at the Café on her
birthday?’

‘But it won’t be open,’ I frowned. ‘Her birthday is days before the launch party.’

‘I know,’ Jemma nodded, ‘but we have all the paperwork and certificates to say that we can open by then and there’s barely anything left to do, so I was thinking it might
be the ideal opportunity to have a trial run sort of thing. See how the kitchen works; get a feel for the layout of the place before we’re expecting people to pay for our services . . . and
my baking,’ she added nervously.

‘Sort of a trial by toddler you mean?’

‘Ella’s hardly a toddler!’ Jemma laughed. ‘Although having been on the receiving end of her tantrum this morning, I do see what you mean!’

‘I think it’s a great idea,’ I smiled. ‘You could even ask the other mums to stay and we could try out some of the more daring tea choices Tom ordered.’

‘Exactly!’ Jemma giggled. ‘And it will help us decide if we need to employ any waiting staff.’

We’d already put our heads together and discussed whether we should take on some part-time help but we hadn’t been able to make a decision. Jemma planned to run the kitchen and I was
going to do as much front of house ordering, serving and clearing as I could between working shifts at the Mermaid, but that meant there would still be times when there was no one actually in the
Café with the customers.

Originally Tom had planned to help out for the first few months, to gauge demand, but with money being so tight, when he was offered a permanent job with the local council he simply had to take
it. It wasn’t exactly how they had planned things would be, but at least now he and Jemma had one regular, steady income they could rely on.

‘You’re right,’ I said, ‘I can’t help thinking you’re going to need someone, even if it is only for the lunchtime rush and on a Saturday.’

I had been toying with the idea of giving up my shifts at the pub so I could be on hand on a more regular basis. Jemma was going to be at the Café from eight every morning, having first
dropped Ella with Tom’s mum, then she would open at nine and remain open until around four-thirty. Some days Ella would stay at the after-school club and on other days, such as Saturdays, she
would burn off some energy at her ballet class then either go home with her nan or one of us would collect her and keep her at the Café or in the flat.

I had been thinking that if I gave up my pub shifts then I’d be an extra body but I was holding back on making the suggestion and I wasn’t proud of the reason why. The mystery phone
calls might have tailed off but they’d left something behind. A lingering feeling that I didn’t want Jemma or Tom to start relying on me too much in case, for some reason, I was going
to need to commit some time to something else.

It didn’t take a genius to work out that the ‘something else’ might be my potentially rekindled relationship with Giles. He may well have broken my heart but I was still
entertaining the possibility of him walking back into my life and picking up the threads of what we’d once had. My unwillingness to really commit anything more than money to the Café
told me that I still wasn’t over him and that if he suddenly swaggered back into the Mermaid then I’d do everything within my power to keep him in Wynbridge and rebuild the relationship
we had when he first arrived. I hated myself for harbouring such feelings but I couldn’t help it. I wanted what Jemma and Tom had. I wanted to be loved, and if that meant sacrificing my time
helping out at the Café then so be it.

Ella’s sixth birthday dawned bright, clear and full of feverish excitement.

‘Happy birthday to you!’

‘OK, Ella, on three!’ Jemma shouted above the din. ‘One, two, three!’

Ella leant over the table and with perhaps rather more gusto than was really necessary, blew out the candles on her beautiful birthday cake.

Jemma had spent hours creating the pastel pink and lilac princess castle cake complete with turrets and a glittering moat. She said she was trying out the working arrangement of the Café
kitchen but I knew that for this birthday more than any other she wanted Ella to feel like the little princess she thought she was.

Being an entrepreneurial mum was no easy option, I had come to realise since my move home, and Jemma was finding it hard to adjust to managing a home and family life along with a business. It
was obvious to me that on top of everything else she had a big dollop of guilt to contend with and that Ella’s elaborate birthday tea was her way of making up for all the extra hours she and
Tom had been putting into getting the Café ready for opening.

‘I can’t believe this is the same place!’ chorused the little group of mums Jemma had invited to stay. ‘You’ve done an amazing job and these are
delicious!’

Jemma and I swooped between the tables offering neatly cut sandwiches and delicate iced fancies to the grown-ups and bowlfuls of sweet treats and cheese straws to the partygoers. Ella was in her
element at the head of the table whilst Tom did the rounds with endless beakers of milk and juice.

‘And where did you get these?’ Sarah, one of the mums asked Jemma, tugging at the corner of her cupcake-patterned apron.

Jemma pointed at me and grinned.

‘Lizzie made them from a vintage pattern. The frilly heart-shaped pocket was one of her ideas and she came up with the cupcake design for the Café as well!’

‘Were you responsible for anything else, by any chance?’ Sarah laughed, looking around.

Before I had chance to do anything beyond blush, Jemma launched off.

‘She did everything, Sarah! The design on the door, the tablecloths and lampshades, literally everything! I don’t think my cakes would taste half as good if they weren’t being
served in these pretty surroundings!’

‘Well, I wouldn’t go that far!’ I said, my face glowing.

‘Could you make me one of the aprons?’ Rachel, one of the other mothers asked. ‘I’ll get the fabric and I’d love some bunting for the kitchen if you can spare the
time!’

‘I don’t know,’ I stammered, ‘I haven’t really thought about carrying on making things now the Café’s finished.’

‘Oh you must!’ Sarah cajoled. ‘You wouldn’t believe how inept we all are at this sort of thing. You simply have to help us out, Lizzie.’

Jemma raised her eyebrows and fixed me with her ‘I told you so’ stare. I could tell she was thinking back to our college days when our heads were first filled with dreams of starting
our own business together.

‘Maybe she could teach you instead,’ Tom joked, joining Jemma from behind the counter.

‘Teach them!’ I laughed.

This was the second time I’d heard that ludicrous suggestion and it didn’t sound any more likely this time round.

‘Hey, that’s not a bad idea,’ Sarah said thoughtfully. ‘Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day . . .’

‘What?’

‘Well, you could make the things for us, of course, and that would be lovely, but if you taught us how to make them ourselves then we’d have the sewing skills forever, wouldn’t
we? It would be much more fun if you could teach us, wouldn’t it?’

‘I don’t know,’ I stammered, ‘I’m not a teacher, I’m just handy with a needle and thread.’

‘You think about it,’ Rachel smiled as she stood to gather up her children, ‘I think Sarah’s really on to something. I for one would sign up straightaway!’

I hardly slept that night. After Ella’s friends had left, each weighed down with a princess party bag and a slice of the only turret on the cake Ella would allow to be
cut, we cleared the Café and went up to the flat to eat the soup and crusty bread Jemma had had the foresight to make earlier in the day.

‘You could always use the area where the adults sat,’ Ben mused, having been brought up to speed about what had been said at the party. ‘I mean, the space at the back there is
more than adequate, isn’t it?’

Tom nodded in agreement.

‘We could still seat a dozen or so regular customers, Lizzie, and give you room for what, say half a dozen students? We haven’t found anything to put in the cupboards that run the
length of that wall so you could use the space for storage and supplies.’

I didn’t know what to say. The whole idea still felt like a bit of a joke to me.

‘We could offer a package deal,’ Jemma suggested, eyeing me speculatively, ‘include lunch or a snack in with the price of the crafting session.’

‘Are you
really
going to be a teacher?’ Ella chirped up. ‘You don’t look like a teacher!’

She was sitting on the floor in front of the fire carefully undressing the ragdoll I had made and getting her ready for bed.

‘Have you thought of a name for her yet?’ I asked, trying to draw the conversation away from my potential professional future, ‘she looks like a Bonnie to me.’

Ella shook her head and wrinkled her pretty pink nose.

‘You didn’t answer my question,’ she scowled. ‘If you’re really going to be a teacher you’ll have to watch your manners!’

‘Right. Come on, madam,’ said Jemma, scooping up her daughter along with her belongings. ‘Time for bed. I can always tell how tired you’re feeling by how rude you
are.’

‘But Lizzie didn’t answer my question,’ Ella sighed, plugging in her thumb, ‘did she?’

‘Sorry, Ella,’ I smiled, ‘I don’t know yet. I’ll have to think about it.’

‘Make sure you do,’ said Tom, bending to kiss my cheek, ‘I think it sounds like an amazing idea.’

‘For what it’s worth,’ Ben joined in as he pulled on his coat, ‘so do I.’

Still refusing to get drawn in to the conversation, I turned my attention back to Ella.

‘Did you have a nice party?’

‘It was the best,’ she whispered sleepily, ‘and Mummy’s cake is the prettiest one I’ve ever seen. Even prettier than Rosie’s Hello Kitty Island one and
that’s saying something!’

After they’d all gone I took myself off to bed and lay staring up at the ceiling, thinking about the possibility of actually running sewing and crafting courses at the Cherry Tree. I
hadn’t mentioned my bunting-making session in the City Crafting Café but my mind had been full of it ever since Sarah hit upon the idea of me doing something similar. Deborah, the
woman who managed the City Café, thought I had the skills and talent to teach so maybe the idea wasn’t so ridiculous after all.

The City Crafting Café was perfectly equipped and provided the ideal ambience in which to learn new craft skills and although the Cherry Tree was much smaller I could already visualise
the area Tom had suggested up and running; lengths of bunting and patchwork cushions in abundance. I was disconcerted to realise that I could picture it as clearly as I had the Café
transformation, and look how quickly that had come to fruition.

If I was really going to take the idea seriously, I thought, as I tried to thump the pillows into a more sleep-inducing shape, then I was going to have to dial that mystery caller’s number
and find out once and for all if it was Giles who had been trying to get back in touch.

I wasn’t sure how he’d feel about a future living in Wynbridge with a girlfriend whose idea of a career was spending hours sitting in front of a sewing machine rather than a computer
screen. However, convinced as I was that an old love had the potential to make my new life complete, I didn’t want to start walking the patchwork path to sewing nirvana, only to find myself
unpicking stitches a few weeks down the line.

The final few days before the Café launch party passed by in something of a daze and I barely had time to think about either making the call or the potential sewing
tuition the mums had been clamouring for at Ella’s party. Jemma and Tom had finally decided that they were going to need extra help in the Café, especially during lunchtimes and on
Saturdays and employed Ruby Smith, a local girl who was studying for her A levels and biding her time at home until she could fly off to university.

‘Are you sure you can fit the work around your studies, Ruby?’ Tom had frowned as he watched her lay the tables on the day of the launch, ‘only I don’t want your dad on
my case if your grades drop off.’

Ruby rolled her prettily kohl-rimmed eyes and carried on preparing serviettes and cutlery. Jemma and I exchanged knowing glances, both of us thinking back to when we were keen to find our feet
and not let school or college responsibilities stand in our way.

‘It’ll be fine,’ Ruby said stubbornly. ‘Mum wouldn’t have let me do it if she thought it would interfere with my timetable, would she?’