‘Crikey, but we’re busy today,’ Stevie declared. She pulled out the nearest chair and sank down into it with a weary groan. Her feet were killing her and her back ached. She guessed Cassandra felt the same when her friend sagged against the counter and blew her fringe off her face. And they had another hour or so to go before she could turn the “Open” sign to “Closed”.
‘We’ve run out of cake,’ Cassandra announced.
‘Again?’
‘Again.’
‘That’s the third day in a row,’ Betty added, coming out of the kitchen with flour up to her elbows.
‘Have you noticed something?’ Stevie asked, getting to her feet when yet another customer walked in. She watched Sid the butcher grab a seat and strolled over to his table, wishing her legs didn’t feel so heavy.
‘Hi, Sid, what can I get you?’ She pulled her little order pad out of her back pocket and waited, pen poised.
‘Can I have an iced latte with mango syrup, please?’
‘Certainly. Anything to eat? Although I must warn you, we’re out of cake. But we do have some scrumptious caramel and apple tarts, or how about a scone with crème fraiche and plum compote?’
‘Both?’
‘OK.’ Stevie gave him a big smile, but it faded as she made her way back to the counter. She’d never seen Sid in her tea shop before and ordering two of her rather large portions was a bit excessive. Not only that, but when she placed his order on the table a short while later, she had barely turned away when she caught him with his phone in his hand taking a photo.
Sid the butcher didn’t strike her as an Instagram kind of man, but what did she know? Maybe he took photos of his food all the time. It would kind of make sense, what with him being in the foodie business, as it were. It might be an idea to look into Instagram herself. Her cakes and pastries always looked gorgeous and taking photos of them would be a wonderful way to advertise her shop. At least those awful reviews hadn’t seemed to have affected business. She was actually busier than she had ever been. It was a bit odd though, now she came to think about it, because she could have sworn that all of the people who had stepped through her door in the past few days had been locals. She knew most of them by sight now, and many of them to talk to, so—
‘Your mum will have a fit if she sees you in here,’ Cassandra said, pulling Stevie out of her reverie.
Oh, no. Stevie’s heart fell. Please don’t tell me Izzie and her friends intend to stay, she prayed. Her mother had caused enough trouble as it was. There was no imagining what she might do if she caught Izzie in here again.
‘I don’t care,’ Izzie said. ‘I like it here and she can’t stop me.’
Yes, she can, Stevie thought, wondering how best to tackle this. There was no way she wanted to be in the middle of a mother and daughter showdown. If this was Izzie making a stand against Allegra, then she wished the girl had chosen somewhere else to do it. Why here and why now? Just when things were starting to look up, too.
Stevie had the momentary thought of asking the girls to leave, but that wasn’t fair on them either, so she did the only thing she could do under the circumstances – she served them.
She might have been tempted to give them a free sample of her latest veggie-laden cake, but thankfully it was all gone, so at least Allegra and her friends wouldn’t be able to accuse her of trying to bribe their daughters. If the girls ordered and paid themselves, then the whole thing was above board and out in the open.
It was while she was making the next customer, Sally from the bank, a jasmine tea, that Stevie noticed the group of teenagers posing with their drinks, making those odd duck faces and peculiar pouts that all the kids seemed to do. Stevie had tried the pose once, but she’d ended up looking as though she was in pain, so she hadn’t tried again.
‘I hope that’s not going to cause any more trouble for us,’ Betty said, jerking her head at the teenagers.
‘If it does, it does,’ Cassandra said, philosophically. ‘Allegra Johnson is going to have a fight on her hands if she expects to dictate what her daughter can and can’t eat, not at her age. I bet she sneaks off to the chip shop at lunchtime, too. I used to, despite my mother packing me a school lunch. You can’t beat the allure of a bag of salty, vinegary chips, and I actually had decent sandwiches. Imagine what Allegra puts in Izzie’s lunch box.’ Cassandra shuddered. ‘There’ll be fireworks in that family before long,’ she added.
Stevie had to agree with her. She just hoped Izzie kicking over the traces wouldn’t have even more of an adverse effect on Peggy’s Tea Shoppe than it already had.