CHAPTER1
‘Victoria, can you go and tell Romeo and Juliet over there to calm down before I turn the hose on them? There’s a time and a place for everything. I don’t want their teenage hormones dripping all over my nice café floor and I need to get these invoices finished.’
Victoria stops loading the dishwasher and turns to peer over the coffee machine. She snorts as she spots the teenage couple fused together at the mouth.
‘Ah, young love,’ she responds, wiping her hands on her apron. ‘They’re not doing any harm, Nora. I seem to remember you and Mark Davis getting pretty hot and heavy after school in Burger King…’
And during school, I think, briefly allowing myself to fall down a particularly nostalgic rabbit hole. My high school boyfriend was spectacular. A tall, dark-haired rugby player with the bluest eyes I’ve ever seen, while I had the nastiest discount specs and a blonde, spiral perm. I punched way above my weight back then, no idea how I managed to snag that one.
‘That’s not the point,’ I reply, snapping back to reality. ‘This is a café, not a bloody nightclub… Are they… Oh, no chance… HEY! HANDS WHERE I CAN SEE THEM, CHILDREN!’
‘Stop being a bore.’ Victoria sighs, making her way to the other side of the counter. ‘Sometimes you act like such a mom.’
‘I am a mum.’
‘You know what I mean.’
The now suitably startled teens slide six inches apart and begin wiping the saliva from their faces. Ugh,thatI don’t miss. The inexperience of youth. Kissing like a fish until you eventually get it right. They glare at me like I have ruined their lives and I go back to my invoices.
‘Time to go, guys,’ I hear Victoria say behind me, no doubt giving them an apologetic look for my uncool behaviour. Victoria and I are the same age and yet sometimes I feel about a million years older than her… not necessarily wiser admittedly, just older. She still shops at Topshop and is organising a trip to Ibiza with her husband for her fortieth birthday, while I’m planning a quiet, uneventful meal with my daughter where I will no doubt wear a nice cardigan and get an early night. Even though our completely different life paths led us to the same place, Victoria’s still living hers to the full, while sometimes I feel like mine is passing me by.
‘This place is shite anyway,’ I hear the teenage girl mutter as she stands up. ‘It’s like an old folks’ home in here. Let’s go, Oscar.’
Oscar makes the grunting noise of his people and shuffles obediently after her.
‘Miss you already!’ Victoria sneers as I hear the door slam behind them. ‘Cheeky little madam.’ She laughs. ‘Iwasgoing to tell her she had lettuce between her teeth, but I changed my mind. Oscar should definitely be the one to break it to her.’
‘An old folks’ home?’ I mutter, shaking my head. ‘How rude! Were you that obnoxious at sixteen? I don’t think I was.’
‘Probably,’ she responds. ‘I think I still am.’ She lifts their glass latte mugs from the table before hesitating. ‘But maybe…’
‘What?’
‘… she has a point?’
Victoria sees my face and makes ayikesone of her own. ‘Relax, Captain Death Stare!’ she exclaims. ‘I only meant maybe she—’
‘Our café is not shite,’ I reply, calmly closing my laptop. I can tell that the girl's comment upset Victoria more than it should have, whereas I feel relatively unbothered given that I have a sardonic teenager at home who thinks everything is shite by default. ‘In fact, our café is whatever the opposite of shite is.’
‘Un-shite?’ Victoria offers.
I nod. ‘Precisely. We have an un-shite café.’
I wait for Victoria’s resounding support, which eventually appears in the form of a quiet ‘hmm.’
‘What doeshmmmean?’ I ask, my eyes narrowing.
Victoria flips the sign on the door to closed and turns the lock. ‘Look, I know it’s not shite exactly,’ she begins. ‘But you must admit, it’s a tad old-fashioned. Could maybe do with an overhaul? Something more modern? Less, well… beige.’
‘Café 12 is not old-fashioned!’ I exclaim, now firmly joining her in thebotheredcamp. ‘How can it be old-fashioned when we’ve just got this new, beautiful contemporary coffee machine, for goodness’ sake! It’s three grand’s worth of bloody modern,’ I say, gesturing to it like a home shopping network host.
She holds her hands up. ‘Jeez, I’m only saying that we haven’t changed much in the past decade. Yes, we have the new machine, but the look of the place is kind of twee. We don’t have our own stamp. It’s the kind of place my mom would approve of and that troubles me.’
Victoria’s mother frames photographs of random cats from the internet and hangs them on her wall, like it’s the most normal thing in the world. She also paints everything beige or magnolia. We hang photos of cupcakes we don’t even sell here. I see Victoria’s point.
She watches me sulk beside the coffee machine while I make my usual end-of-shift cappuccino. She is as unsure of my upcoming response as I am. I take the portafilter from the machine and begin banging the used grounds against the Knock Box, internally arguing with her.
This place is not twee. This place is quirky, damn it. Quaint perhaps. I love our little round tables and the booths are cosy. So, the walls are a little dated and maybe the cupcake photographs aren’t the trendiest choice but—
