Being the sole tenant and knowing that neither her aunt nor grandmother would call at such an unholy hour, she could only find one logicalconclusion: robbers.
This paranoia was only confirmed when she heard the telltale click of someone attempting to turn the handle of her front door—but then it immediately stopped.
Saga didn’t dare breathe. She could hear the muffled tones of a man’s voice followed by footsteps—two sets, perhaps—walking toward the stairs.
Despite being retrofitted to incorporate the latest in natural power, the building was nearly as old as the street it sat on, and as such, the soundproofing left much to be desired.
She clutched her mug to herself tightly and slowly crept toward the door to listen. She could hear the stairs creak in the way they did when someone moved up them—then, oddly enough, the way they creaked when someone went down them. Saga had run up and down those stairs enough as a child to know the melodic difference by heart.
Up, down, up, down, then slowly larger gaps between the creaks, interspersed until they silenced completely. The door to Apartment B opened, but it did not close.
It was then that she realized her hands were shaking, and she carefully took a sip of her tea to calm her nerves.
She couldn’t hear anything.
Was that good or bad?
Another tentative sip.
Then, steps back down the stairs. Authoritative steps. Long stride. Men’s dress shoes—hard soles—had a particular way of resonating against the floor.
Saga braced herself as the footsteps approached, looking frantically for some kind of weapon. Her eyes fell on the cast-iron statue.
Before she could scold herself for the sacrilegious thought, she heard the front door open and close again. Then nothing. Her door remained completely untouched.
She stood on her tiptoes to awkwardly gaze out the peephole into the empty hallway. Cautiously, her fingers unlocked the door; first the chain,then the dead bolt, then the lock on the knob itself. She cracked it open, her grip tightening on her cup as if to throw the hot tea on any attacker. Leaning out enough to peer up the stairs, she was just in time to see a warm light pouring out from Apartment B.
Then the door closed.
Saga swallowed and slipped back into the safety of her own apartment, resetting all three locks. “Maybe Leigh just forgot to tell me she rented out the other apartment.” Her heart still pounding, she abandoned any hope of falling back asleep. She had to open the café at four for deliveries anyway. So she resolved to simply start getting ready for the day and to spend extra time and attention on her hair and makeup. She figured she’d need it anyway to cover up any bags that would undoubtedly form under her eyes in protest of a sleepless night.
It is a truth universally acknowledged among the early-rising business community that whenever someone looks extremely put together for their 4:00 a.m. shift, insomnia is likely to blame. Or thank, perspective depending.
***
Leigh Hudson, owner and proprietor of Hudson’s Café and Confectionary, had inherited the business from her mother and father, as her father had inherited from his parents and so on through the Hudson line. The initial plan was that she would carry on the legacy alongside her sister, but Audrey had next to no interest in the business, even when she was younger.
Leigh often commented that “these days, unless something exists with precedent in a court of law, Audrey cannot perceive it.”
Now that Saga was back in London, however, she took on managing the café. Which meant Leigh had the luxury of spending more time with her toddler and husband in the morning. She would typically appear not long after the morning rush died down and the traffic calmed between the café and her home in Primrose Hill.
“Good morning!” She announced her entry to the entire café with a grand swoop of her free arm, the other carefully balancing her daughter onher hip. She was a strangely graceful woman, always walking on her tiptoes even when barefoot—as if constantly navigating a complex ballroom dance step. Her long auburn hair was laced with gold strands and held away from her face with a brightly colored scarf. Airy skirts swished around her ankles with the slightest movement.
One could spot a regular at Hudson’s by the way they automatically acknowledged Leigh with their own greeting whenever she entered. The reaction was so constant that one could almost imagine some sort of musical sting accompanying her everywhere she went.
“Leigh!” Saga greeted in relief, eager to ask whether she now had a legitimate neighbor or a squatter. She bobbed her index finger in a tiny wave to the smiling child wrapped around her mother’s waist. “Hi River.”
“You look pretty.” Leigh lightly brushed her niece’s cheek with her thumb. “I love the shimmer.” She headed toward the back room, and Saga followed after.
“Em, Leigh, I was—”
“Did the delivery this morning include arabica?” Leigh proceeded to open doors and cupboards, searching through the inventory with one hand. “Hassan called me in a panic, thinking he’d forgotten to send our shipment of arabica. I told him it was fine if he forgot to send it—he could just refund us for this week, or take it off the next order. ‘But how will you make the Turkish coffee?’ he said, as if we’d use robusta or something as a stand-in. I told him we could simply tell people the truth, that we were out of Turkish coffee this week, to which he was horrified, and anyway this is my long-winded way of telling you that if I don’t find that shipment in the next hour, a very sweet but anxiety-ridden coffee dealer will descend upon us, and I think we should be prepared to console him.”
Saga blinked, taking a second to fully register everything. “Yes, it arrived, it’s already stocked out front.”
“Marvelous!” Leigh appeared to produce her mobile from the ether. “Hassan? No, love, it’s fine, it’s fine. Yes, it did arrive this morning witheverything else.”
Saga fidgeted, not certain how long this call was going to last and more and more aware of the pressing matter of determining whether there was an intruder in the apartment next door. She cleared her throat nervously. “I do need to talk to you about something unrelated.”
