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‘It’s lovely in here, isn’t it? I really loved it when I was here.’ Brooke stepped inside the room.
‘You volunteered here too?’ Taking a sip of her drink, Evie glanced at her.
‘Yes. I’m now staying in a camper at Max’s gran’s place, but me and Nina are moving into a house in a couple of weeks.’
‘I’ve just finished volunteering here. I’m going to be working at the café next door now.’ Nina grinned. ‘I start tomorrow.’
‘Oh, wow. So, you’re both local?’
‘We weren’t, no. But we both decided to stay. Brooke was already living here when I came last month and then I realised my then-ex, Rowan, was living in the bay and we decided to give our relationship another go and I...’ Nina shrugged. ‘Once I’d met Brooke, who is my cousin, it just felt right to stay.’
‘You’re cousins?’ Evie looked from Nina to Brooke and back again. ‘Now you’ve said, I can see a resemblance.’
‘We didn’t even know each other existed until a few weeks ago. My... our gran had Brooke’s mum adopted and neither of us had known anything about it until a short while ago.’ Nina looked across at Brooke.
Evie raised her eyebrows. ‘That must have been a shock, then?’
‘It definitely was. But every cloud has a silver lining and all that.’ Brooke grinned as she caught Nina’s eye.
‘Yes, it does.’ Nina smiled as a voice wafted up the stairs.
‘Hello? Girls, are you up here?’
‘That’ll be Elsie.’ Grinning, Brooke turned. ‘In here, Elsie.’
‘Ah, found you.’ A woman with the kindest eyes Evie had seen stepped through the door and smiled. ‘Oh, you must be Evie, is that right? Max and Rowan mentioned you’d arrived.’
‘Hi, yes, that’s right. Sorry, I’m a bit earlier than I said I would be.’
‘Nonsense. It’s lovely to have you here, early or not.’ Elsie enveloped her into a hug before stepping back and looking across at Nina and Brooke. ‘Thank you for giving Evie the grand tour.’
‘No worries. It’s been nice.’ Nina grinned.
‘Good, good. Well, I don’t know about you three, but I’m starving. Who fancies a chippy dinner?’
‘Ooh, we were going to go back to the camper and unpack, but I don’t think I can say no to a chippy dinner.’ Nina grinned.
‘In that case, I’ll go and send Ian out for the chips while I butter some bread.’ Elsie turned back to Evie. ‘We’ll let you take a moment to settle in, love, and when you’re ready, we’ll be in the kitchen, or else we’ll give you a shout when the chips arrive.’
‘Okay, thanks.’ Evie sank to the bed as Elsie, Nina, and Brooke closed the bedroom door behind them. Who was Ian? She hadn’t met him, had she? She was usually good at remembering names, and especially being as her late grandfather had been called Ian, she was sure she’d have remembered.
Shrugging, she leaned back against the soft duvet and closed her eyes. Four weeks away from work, away from the constant pressures which made her feel alive, needed. She’d never worked at a bakery before. She’d worked at numerous shops, factories and even a children’s petting farm when she’d worked her way through uni, but never a bakery. It couldn’t be too different from working at a shop, though, could it?
She grimaced. Unless Elsie was going to expect her to bake. She wouldn’t, would she? The advert hadn’t said baking skills were needed. Or should she have just assumed she’d need to? This was a bakery, after all. She covered her eyes with her hand. As someone who lived off of the pasta pots from her local supermarket or takeaways, choosing to come and volunteer at a bakery had probably been a daft decision.
Pushing herself to sitting, she stood up and placed her holdall on the bed. Still, it was done now. She was here and if she was expected to bake, well, she’d muddle through somehow. That, or get fired pretty quickly. Could she get fired from a voluntary placement? Probably.
She pulled a photo frame from the bottom of the holdall and looked at it. Her parents smiled back at her. It had been taken on her fifth birthday. The last photo she had of the three of them together. She sighed and placed it on the bedside table. She loved everything that photo represented—family, happiness, the excitement of a birthday. It was only if she looked closer, she could see what had been bubbling beneath the façade, the lack of glimmer in her parents’ eyes, the way they sat, even the way her dad’s jaw had been set, the tired circles beneath her mum’s eyes.
Turning, Evie pulled her new pyjamas from her holdall and placed them on her pillow. She didn’t even know why she kept that photo. Was it to remind her of the so-called happy times or to warn her that not everything was as it seemed?
‘Evie, love, chips are here.’
