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EPILOGUE
HEATHER
A little over a year later
I give myself the once-over in the bathroom. I’ve got flour in my hair and my pretty red dress that buttons all the way down the front seemed like a good idea this morning, but it’s chafing under my arms now and I’m sweating with nervous energy.
I flush the loo just as there’s a knock on the door.
‘Heather, are you ready?’ Charlotte calls.
‘Yeah. Just gimme two minutes. I’m trying to work a miracle in here.’
‘C’mon. People will be arriving soon and you can’t leave me out here on my own.’
‘Okay. Okay,’ I say. I hurry as I splash a little water onto my hair and it removes most of the flour.
I open the door and smile when I see Charlotte on the other side with her apron still on. I point and giggle.
‘Gah,’ she says, reaching around her back to untie it. ‘I’m so nervous. Are you?’
‘I’m shaking,’ I say. ‘Do I look okay?’
‘You look amazing,’ Charlotte says, sweeping her eyes over me and nodding.
‘You look great too,’ I add, checking her cropped black trousers and pastel-lemon blouse for any baking stains.
‘I can’t believe we thought six o’clock was a good time to schedule this thing. We didn’t leave ourselves any time to go home and change.’
‘I know. I know,’ I say, making my way back into the shop. ‘But it’s still so exciting, isn’t it?’
‘It really is.’ Charlotte grins as she walks behind the counter to do some last-minute checks on muffins with elaborate piped icing in the colours of Kayla’s basketball team.
I glance at my watch. ‘It’s almost half five. What time are Gavin and Molly coming?’
‘Gavin is picking her up from after-school care on his way home from work and they’re coming straight here. They should be here any minute.’
I glance around Kayla’s Place. Charlotte and I haven’t made too many changes since we bought the premises. It’s still exactly as haphazard and quirky as it used to be when Gavin and I were teenagers, frittering away afternoons here. We kept the mismatched, brightly coloured chairs, only replacing any that were worn out or broken, and we purposely chose colours that clash. We sanded down the tables and kept them all. We thought about changing the windows that don’t fit in the frame properly and let the wind in during the winter. But we couldn’t bear to part with them. We leave complimentary colourful scarves and blankets in the window seats instead.
Today, the whole shop is full of balloons and brightly coloured streamers ready for our first ever party. We’re in business a year today and we’re about to hand over our first ever cheque to Cancer Research.Someone very important from the charity and some staff from the children’s hospital are coming.
When I confided in Charlotte that I had no idea what to talk to them about, she suggested I tell them the story of how Kayla’s Place came about. I still can’t believe that Gavin had been bringing Kayla to this old café most Saturdays throughout her childhood. This place held as special a place in his heart as it did mine.
‘Of course I love this old place,’ he told me the day we opened. ‘It’s the place I found out I was going to be a father. It doesn’t get more special than that.’
The chrome bell of the door jingles as the door swings open and Molly skips in, followed by Gavin.
‘How was school?’ Charlotte asks.
‘Okay.’ Molly shrugs casually.
She’s grown up so much in a year, I think.
I never thought I’d see the day Charlotte would allow Molly to go to creche so she could go back to work. But when she told me she wanted to invest in a vegan line of confectionary I couldn’t refuse. Charlotte was such a huge part of Kayla’s Place coming to be, I know Kayla would be delighted to see us working side by side now.
Within an hour Kayla’s Place is heaving with visitors. Regular customers mingle with the heads of the charity. Some of the nurses from the hospital have brought a beautiful bouquet of flowers and everyone is raving about how delicious the new line of vegan muffins are.
I nip behind the counter to pop another batch of brownies in the oven, worried we’ll run out, and my breath hitches in my throat when I turn around and see a familiar face.
