Page 95 of The Little Board Game Café

‘You don’t have many mixing bowls,’ she said. ‘Could you wash that one up for me please?’

Emily did as instructed, washing and drying the bowl and handing it to her new employee.

‘Thanks. Could you measure out eight hundred grams of self-raising flour?’

‘Yeah, sure.’

Emily measured out the flour, thinking that she should be the one giving the orders. And then Annie needed eggs whisking, so she did that too, all the while wondering why she’d decided to take the woman on in the first place.

By half past two, Annie had turned out perfect batches of dice sponge cakes, domino biscuits and gingerbread meeples. There was no one there to eat them yet, but Emily was sure they’d go down a storm with the mums and kids crowd.

Half past three came and went. School must have finished but not one mum or child ventured in.

‘I’m grateful for the job,’ said Annie, ‘but I don’t understand why you needed to take someone on. It’s not exactly busy.’

‘It isn’t always this quiet,’ Emily said. But who was she kidding? It was usually this quiet. She’d just had one busy month and jumped to the wrong conclusion: that her fortunes were changing because of the board games theme.

Annie left on the dot at four. Emily turned the sign to closed, bolted the door and cashed up. As she already suspected, takings were down significantly on the previous week. Just when she’d thought she was finally beginning to get somewhere. What the hell had happened?

Then it dawned on her. That fair-haired woman with the badly behaved child had said she’d come in because she’d read about the place on Insta. She’d probably left a review of her own. A quick search and Emily found it: a very ordinary-looking photo of the glass of milk and banana that she’d ordered for Charlie, with a damning review underneath.

I had high hopes when I visited this café, drawn by all the excellent reviews. Honestly, I cannot see what all the fuss is about. It’s very ordinary. The cakes and coffee aren’t bad but their nothing special. But the worst thing is the woman who runs it – she’s so rude. She actually told my child off when he was only playing. This is not the place to go if you have children. She needs to be more tolerent if she’s going to run a café.

The post had thirty-seven likes. Thirty-seven! She hadn’t had more than half a dozen on any of the pictures that she’d posted in recent weeks.

Emily clicked on her reviewer’s profile: over nine thousand followers and most of her posts were reviews of cafés and restaurants.

Bloody social media. It was so unjust. She slumped into a chair, her head in her hands. Was this why the school mums hadn’t shown up? Solidarity amongst mothers?

She should have kept calm.

She would have kept calm if she hadn’t already been in a bad mood because of her lack of sleep the previous night and her argument with Kate.

Of course, there could be other reasons why she hadn’t had many customers today. It could be… What exactly? No, it had to be that review.

She’d blown it. After all her hard work. If she’d just been patient for a few minutes longer, the woman would have finished her coffee and taken her naughty child away. She wouldn’t have written her appalling review and Emily would still have customers and a business that was well on the way to being successful.

And now she was back to square one. No, worse than square one. When she was at square one, the café didn’t have a reputation. Now it had a bad one.

Chapter Thirty-Four

Books by Emily’s Kate’s spare bedside: Overcoming Setbacks; The Bounce Back Book; What to Do When You’ve F***ed Up.

Next morning. Some customers. Much to Emily’s relief.

‘This place needs a proper sign,’ said Rob as he waited for his breakfast. ‘It says Lancashire Hotpot over the front and The Little Board Game Café in the window.’

‘I can’t afford a sign-writer.’

‘Can I have a crack at it? I wouldn’t want paying. I love doing things like that. Helps me relax of an evening.’

‘Would you? That’d be wonderful.’

‘I’ll pop in for it later, on my way home. Can you do me a rough sketch of what you’d want it to look like?’

‘Thank you, yeah. I will. Bacon butties on me today, guys.’

She kicked herself when they’d left. She couldn’t afford to be giving food away, even for a new sign. She’d be out of business soon and, let’s face it, a new sign wasn’t going to change that.