Page 110 of Not So Very Sensible

“Thank you,” the lady murmured, as her son rolled his eyes and in a loud voice told his family that they’d go find someplace that valued their customers.

Ellie kept a small smile on her face until the door closed, then exhaled, turning to see that many of the seated customers were still watching. “Show’s over, I’m afraid.”

This earned her a few smiles, and the hum of conversation picked up.

“That was very gracious of you,” Annabelle murmured as she moved to refill a pot of tea with fresh hot water.

“It’s not the older lady’s fault her son forgot his manners.”

“People, am I right?”

“Always people.” She checked upstairs, and found that—surprise, surprise—the party had suddenly decided to rip into their food and had nearly eaten it all.

She smiled at the mother of the birthday girl. “How is it going?”

“It’s delicious, but we just got word that Trixie’s dad is ill, so we need to go.”

“Would you like us to box up the leftovers?”

“That’d be great. Although,” the mother looked over the food, “it doesn’t seem like there’ll be much left over, after all.”

“I hope you’ve enjoyed your time here at The Silver Teapot.”

“One hundred percent. We’ll tell all our friends and leave a five-star review on all the sites.”

“Thank you. We always appreciate good reviews.”

She cleared what she could, then hurried downstairs and told Annabelle to get ready to clean upstairs while she called the family to tell them they could squeeze them in after all.

After depositing the used dishes, she grabbed the café phone and did exactly that. With the addendum that it would need to be shorter than the usual two-hour allocation, due to another party coming in at one.

“There, that’s sorted.” She hurried back to check on the food situation, where her parents were under the pump. “I’m sorry about the extras, but we can squeeze them in.”

“You’ve always been softhearted,” Dad said fondly.

“Well, the lady looked like she might cry, and it’s her birthday after all, so perhaps, even if we give them the rushed version, we could do a special cupcake for her.”

“Of course we can,” Mum said. “Ladies of a certain vintage need to feel special.”

Whether that was a not-so-subtle hint that Mum wanted to feel celebrated, she wasn’t sure, but took the opportunity anyway. “You know we love you, Mum.”

Mum sighed. “I do.”

She was smiling, carrying another tray of tea things when the front door opened. Well, they were back early. The bright light from outside made it hard to see for a moment, giving the figure a halo effect. Then at Katie’s whispered “Oh my gosh!” she peered harder.

Then blinked as her heart beat faster. No. Oh no! The tray slipped from her hands and crashed to the floor, spilling hot tea and food and broken china everywhere.

“I’m sorry!” She crouched to pick it up. She glanced up. Why was he with another woman? Who was she? She didn’t look like the Lucinda creature she remembered from a few weekends ago. Had he moved on again already?

But as he moved closer, she knew she couldn’t stay, even with this mess on the floor. She had to go. Her heart was threatening to beat itself right out of her chest! So she stood, shook her head, and turned and ran away.

In all the ways he’d imagined this scenario, none of them had involved Ellie rushing away from him leaving a pile of broken tea cups and spilled tea. Spilling of tea had to happen, but metaphorical tea, definitely not real tea. He put his gift on a nearby bookcase and hastened forward to help, when Katie moved in front of him.

“What do you think you’re doing?”

“I need to talk to her.”

“She obviously doesn’t want to talk to you.” Her gaze tracked to where Charlene stood nervously behind him; then she raised her eyebrows.