Chapter 36 #2
The only time I spoke was to thank him as he dropped us off at the foot of the high street, the closest he could get us to the front door of Brown’s.
“Anytime, Lang,” he said, then he sped off without a backward glance.
Teddy and I made it two steps up the cobblestone path before she shoved Bluebell bunny into my hands.
“You don’t want to carry her?” I asked.
She stopped walking and turned to me. “Bluebell bunny makes people brave. I think you need her more than I do.”
“For the baking competition?” I couldn’t resist tugging her into a hug, even though we were strapped for time. “I love you so much, sweet girl, you know that, right? You have the biggest heart.” How did I get lucky enough to have such a perfect kid?
She shook her head, face as serious as ever. “Not for the competition. For Ali.”
My blood froze. It was the last thing I expected her to say. “What do you mean?”
She glanced down at her sparkly blue trainers. “I know you’re fighting. That’s why he doesn’t hang out with us anymore.”
“Oh, sweetheart.” I lowered into a crouch. “We aren’t fighting, I promise.”
“Then why don’t you want him to be our friend?” My throat burned as her eyes filled with tears. This was hurting her, and it was all my fault.
“It’s not that . . .” I broke off and tried again. “It’s hard for me to explain but, sometimes, adult relationships can be complicated—”
“Don’t treat me like a baby.” She stamped her foot. “Ali said nothing is too complicated for kids, but adults just explain things badly. I get to decide.”
I was absolutely butchering this.
I took a breath, ran my hands over her shoulders. “I’m sorry, you’re right. I was treating you that way. The truth is, I’m scared a time might come when Ali doesn’t want to hang out with us anymore. Because he might go away and get new friends, and I want us to be okay if that happens.”
Her nose wrinkled. “Why would he get new friends?”
I hope he doesn’t, my heart whispered. “Because he’s a grown-up. And when you’re a grown-up, sometimes relationships change.”
“Like you and Daddy?” Her voice held more curiosity than sadness.
“Sort of,” I said, not quite committing. “Ali has a lot of friends in Glasgow, and a job he cared about.” Even though it made him miserable. “One day he might decide to go back.”
“I don’t think it will happen; he doesn’t like his friends in Glasgow as much as us.” I laughed; I couldn’t help it. “I wouldn’t stop playing with Ava and Emily if they had to move. I’d want to spend all of my time with them.”
Despite the niggling wound in my chest, I smiled. If only adult relationships were so easy.
Teddy pressed Bluebell bunny against my stomach. “Bluebell bunny will make you less scared.” Then she pulled back from me, continuing up the path. “Can I have hot chocolate today?”
“You can have whatever you want.”
“Yes!” She pumped her fist, the conversation already forgotten.
“Do I need to send yer home?” Jess’s voice yanked me from my daydream later that morning.
“What?” I jolted. Blinking.
“That’s the second coffee yer’ve made wrong in the last hour. I’ll have to start docking milk wastage from yer wages.”
Shit. That was a big dollop of foamy milk atop what was supposed to be an Americano.
“Sorry, sorry. I’ll buy it and drink it myself.
” I set it aside, quickly grinding some fresh beans.
“I’m just . . . tired, I guess. I slept badly last night.
” As soon as the machine finished pouring the fresh coffee, I pushed the lid onto the takeout cup and handed it over to the customer – a man with a cheerful smile and a Boston Celtics baseball cap – along with his change.
“Sorry for the wait.” I smiled apologetically.
Despite my very obvious mess-up, he dropped a few pounds into the tip cup as he took his drink and left.
The mornings were still a little slow around here. But outside, the sky was overcast, the swollen clouds threatening rain, and a handful of tourists had sought refuge, poring over the laminated menus at the tables by the window.
I turned back to Jess. She raised her eyebrows at me – well, what eyebrows she had left. “Is that what the wee’ins are calling it these days?” Her stare far too probing.
Why did Thursdays have to be our joint shift? “I don’t know what you mean.” I picked up the wasted coffee and took a big sip, trying to hold back my cringe as it scalded my tongue.
“I wasnae born yesterday, hen. I ken what someone looks like when they’re heartbroken. You’ve been moping around all week.”
My eyes strayed to Teddy, sitting quietly in the corner, drawing, her headphones firmly in place. “I’m not moping.”
I was . . . being sadly introspective. There was a difference.
“There yer go again.” Jess tutted, wiping her hands on her apron. “Just tell me what the lad did, and I can tell yer all the ways to make him suffer before yer eventually forgive him.”
I wrapped my hands tightly around the coffee cup. “He didn’t do anything – well he did. He went behind my back and paid for Teddy’s school trip.”
“The one Cameron was supposed to be payin’ for?”
I nodded.
“A man willingly digging into his pocket? Strap him in irons.”
“It’s not just that . . . Cameron revealed some stuff Alistair hadn’t told me about. In his past – petty stuff—” I cut off because it all sounded stupid when spoken aloud.
And I realised, just like with Heather, I couldn’t tell Jess the crux of the problem without revealing that Alistair had planned to leave Kinleith.
I couldn’t talk to anyone objectively without betraying his confidence. I had only my own muddled mind to use as a guide, and I tended to obsess over all the ways it could go wrong.
“Of course Cameron’s involved.” She wagged a finger. “That lad is no good; he never was.”
“It’s not about Cameron.” Cameron was doing what Cameron always did.
I was the one who let him get into my head.
“I’m the problem because I – I don’t trust myself to be enough for Alistair, to keep him.
” My throat narrowed, the embarrassing truth a painful knot.
“I’m so scared of reverting to Old Isla, Jess.
Letting Alistair’s life become my life. His family become my family.
And then in five, ten years, when he’s done with me, I’ll be right back where I started. ”
She stared at me for so long I began to sweat. “I’ve been married for forty-nine years.”
“I know.” She and Angus bickered more than any other married couple I’d ever met, and yet he was here every day at closing time, ready to walk her home.
“Want to ken the secret?” she said. “Grow yer own tree.”
I blinked. “The cottage is rented; I don’t think I can plant a tree—”
“What are they teachin’ in schools nowadays? It’s a metaphor.” She waved her hands. “You’re the tree. Healthy trees share the same soil, intertwine, but they don’t fuse – it would make both of them unstable. Angus had the farm and now his golf, and I have this place.”
Huh. “That . . . is great advice actually.”
“Of course it is.”
“How do I grow my own tree while guaranteeing Teddy doesn’t get hurt?” She had to come first. Always.
“You can’t.” She shrugged. “Something will eventually come along and break her wee heart all over again. That’s the way of life. But what ye can do, is set an example. Stop dreaming about that bakery of yers and actually make it happen, for a start.”
“How do you know about the bakery?”
“Do ye think I’m daft and blind? Yer spend more time writing down recipes and doodling logos on napkins than ye do actually working.
And I caught ye looking up business loans on yer phone one time.
” She pulled something out of the drawer by her hip: a wrinkled white napkin I recognised at once.
All my sums for how much it would cost to open my own business.
My cheeks burned as she pressed the napkin into my hand. “It’s not bad to want things for yerself, Isla. The bakery. The lad.”
I nodded. “I know that but . . . sometimes I can’t shake the idea that doing things for myself is selfish. Not that it matters. Even if I could afford to open a place of my own, it’s too risky.” Not to mention, a third bakery in a tiny village was ridiculous.
“That feeling doesn’t go away as yer kids age,” she said.
“If anything, it gets worse. When Teddy’s grown and making her own way in the world, do yer think she’ll be proud of a mum who played it safe, or is she going to be stronger for watching her mum chase after the things she wants?
Not feeling guilty for everything yer sacrificed in her name? ”
Bloody hell. Tears pricked at the backs of my eyes. Threatened to spill over. I turned so Teddy wouldn’t see them. “I’m not qualified to run a business, Jess.”
She scoffed. “Pish, nobody is qualified. Life isn’t all about fancy education.
Business is about grit, determination and the ability to be stubborn as hell.
Ye think Brown’s became a success overnight?
One time in the nineties, I almost got evicted by this slick landlord from Inverness; he’d bought up half the high street and hiked the prices up. ”
“What did you do?”
“The only thing I could. My knitting group and I chained ourselves to the oven.” She nodded to the kitchen in the back room. “Screamed bloody murder when he came near us with a pair of bolt cutters.”
“The more I learn about you, the more fascinated I become.”
She shrugged. “It worked. I annoyed him so much he agreed to sell me the building. Got a really good deal too.”
“You outmanned him.” I laughed.
“Outlived him too.” She gave me a wry smile, then turned to gaze around the quiet café, as though she were staring into the past. “And I think it might be time for me to hang up my apron.”
“What? Jess—” I sputtered. “Brown’s can’t close. It’s an institution.” There was no Kinleith without Brown’s. “Is this because of Queen’s Cakes? Because this” – I gestured at the room of mostly empty seats – “is just temporary.”
I’d take Annabelle out myself if I had to.
“It’s not just that, though it’s a part of it.
” She ran her hand over the ancient till.
“This place is more of a home to me than my house, another child, really. I dinnae want to see it wither and die, and to be frank, I’m tired.
I’ve been holding on because I’m just as scared of change as ye are.
But my body is telling me it’s time, lass.
Maybe I’ll take Angus on one of those cruises, see a bit of the world before I die. ”
“Bloody hell, Jess. Can you stop talking about dying?”
She cackled, dentures gleaming in the strip lights. “There’s a lot of life in me yet, dinnae worry.”
“What will you do about this place?” It felt selfish to worry about my own job, when she’d made this major life decision, but I couldn’t pretend I didn’t need the cash.
Maybe someone would be willing to buy her out, and I could keep my job.
It wouldn’t be the same as working for Jess, obviously, but I—
“It’s yers if ye want it. I think this place could use some young blood at the helm.”
My head snapped her way so quickly, it made me light-headed. “Jess, you can’t give me Brown’s.”
“I’m not giving it to yer; I’m still a businesswoman. Ye can rent the shop for a year, see how it works out, then we’ll take it from there.”
A year.
My heart thundered at the prospect. My mind reeled, already picturing it. It would be perfect.
I already loved the large windows flooding the space with natural light, the counter and the old till. But it would be my bakes in the cabinet. And I could add some shelves on the wall to host items from local artists.
Could I really do it?
“I don’t even know if I can get a business loan.”
“Ye won’t ken until ye try,” she said. Still I hesitated. “How about this? Either way, yer fired. Might as well make the most out of it.”
The thought of searching for another job made me feel queasy. “Can I think about it?”
“Take all the time yer need.”
I wanted to call Alistair. Ask for his advice.
I already knew what he’d say. You’d better say yes, Lang.
Jess’s words echoed in my head. Grow your own tree. There wasn’t a doubt in my mind that Alistair would support me in that. He had done from the very start. Pushed me. Believed in me, when I didn’t believe in myself.
Even when he’d paid for the school trip, as ill-advised as it might have been, he hadn’t done it to be flash, or to try to win me over. He’d sat back, ready to let Cameron take the credit. He’d been trying to help me while taking nothing away for himself.
Wasn’t that what a partner was supposed to do?
Bloody hell. I couldn’t believe I was actually considering this.
Any of it.
“Hey, Jess . . . If I win the Cairn & Crust on Saturday, five thousand will be enough for a few months’ rent.”
Grinning, she bumped her shoulder against mine. “Then yer’d better win.”