Page 57 of My Kind of Happy

Chapter Seventeen

A few minutes later I’d been cornered by Maria and her fiancé, Stanley.

‘Usually the café is the place for parties in Barnaby,’ said Maria, a glass of fizz in her hand. ‘This is good idea. Good for community spirits.’

‘Then the afternoon is a success,’ I said, ignoring the number of empty bottles stacked up at the back door compared with the skimpy pile of orders on the counter.

‘I must say,’ said Stanley, sipping a glass of fruit juice, ‘it’s quite a selection of flora you’ve got here. My late wife used to favour dried flowers. She was allergic to pollen.’

‘Full of dust,’ said Maria shuddering. ‘First thing I do when I move in. Put them in the bin.’

‘Yes, well.’ Stanley took off his glasses and polished them on his handkerchief. ‘It’s hard to let go of the life you had with a loved one.’

His words touched my heart; I knew exactly how that felt.

Maria’s gaze softened. ‘I know, caro. But if you’re lucky enough to find love again, like us, you have to make the most of every day. No regrets.’

‘Hear, hear.’ Stanley reached for the crisps but Maria swiped the dish out of his grasp.

‘Not for you. Dicky heart,’ she whispered loudly to me.

Stanley took her hand and placed it on his chest. ‘Feel how strongly it beats for you, my dear. Just say the word and I’ll waltz you down the aisle quicker than you can say limoncello gelato.’

Then he drew her close and began to dance her around in a circle, crooning into her ear about a moon hitting your eye while she whooped with shock and delight.

I couldn’t help but laugh along with them. Married or not, that’s what was important in life at the end of the day: someone to laugh with, someone to love. If you were brave enough to give them your heart, that is.

‘Stanley Pigeon,’ cried Maria, fluttering her eyelashes at him. ‘You a dicky head, but you my dicky head.’

‘That’s amore,’ Stanley sang loudly.

I left them to their smooching and did the rounds again, topping up glasses and attempting to bring the conversation around to people’s flower-buying habits. The group of women who had brought their children with them had plenty to say on the matter.

‘I used to get flowers on birthdays and Valentine’s from my other half,’ said one. ‘Before he buggered off with that tart from his office.’

‘You should buy yourself flowers then, Tina,’ said her friend, the most glamorous member of the group. ‘Treat yourself.’

Tina looked around timidly. ‘I’d never be brave enough to walk in and buy something from here. Easier to just pick out a bunch at the supermarket where no one’s watching you.’

Another woman nodded. ‘Same here. You walk in and there’s buckets of this and buckets of that. No offence.’ She looked at me. ‘And I don’t know whether I should mix and match or stick with one flower. And you never know how much it’s going to end up costing.’

The glamorous one nodded. ‘Then when you get them home you can never find the right vase. I’m Paige, by the way.’ She shook my hand and then introduced the others: Tina, Vicky and Kirsty. ‘I’ve literally got hundreds of vases, but never one that suits the flowers I’ve got.’

‘I got a flower subscription for Christmas last year,’ said Kirsty. ‘A delivery every month for three months and it came with a picture, so even though I can’t arrange flowers for toffee, I could just copy. Like paint by numbers only with flowers.’

I made a mental note; no reason why we couldn’t offer something like that.

‘That would suit me.’ Vicky laughed. ‘I need a set of instructions when I buy flowers.’

Instructions: another good idea.

‘This is all so useful, ladies, thank you.’ I smiled and topped up their glasses, telling them as I did so about the pre-made bouquets I’d recently introduced. We hadn’t had a chance to make any up today, but it was good to know I was on the right lines.

‘Really?’ Kirsty gave me a cynical look. ‘Us giving you one hundred and one reasons why we don’t buy flowers?’

‘Definitely! Now I know what the barriers are, I can do something about it. But in the meantime, follow me.’ I quickly plucked some flowers that would suit any colour scheme, found a basic urn-shaped vase which most people were likely to own and led them to the table. ‘I’m going to show you how to do something very simple.’

Working at the opposite end of the table to Nina, I showed the friends how to create a stylish arrangement with one large green chrysanthemum, some white lisianthus, three delicate ivory roses and fronds of frilly fern.