Epilogue
Two years later
Aggie
Itake the thermometer out of the Beef Wellington and study the dial. One-thirty. Still at least twenty minutes until resting time, but that’s perfect because the kids won’t get here until two.
“Aggie,” Krissy calls from behind me. “Is it okay if Blake comes to family lunch today?”
“Course, love,” I say. I don’t know why she asks. She and Blake have been together for months now. Krissy dropped a wineglass when she first saw Davis’s best mate, and as soon as Blake dived to help her clean up, I knew it was a done deal.
“Thanks,” Krissy says cheerfully. “Need me to do anything?”
“Check if the laundry’s arrived, will you?”
“Right away, Chef.”
“Not a bloody chef,” I mutter. If I live another hundred years, I’ll never get used to being called anything other than ‘Aggie.’ But all the kitchen staff call me ‘Chef’ and Krissy’s picked it up too.
I wouldn’t have stood for it in the old days, but Afterglow isn’t a pub anymore.
It’s a hotel. A proper, fancy little hotel.
I wasn’t sure when Cece first asked me to stay on.
I’m a pub cook through and through, and I didn’t know a thing about fine dining.
But it turns out I’m bloody good at it. And hiring staff for a posh place is a hell of a lot easier than convincing some ex-con to sweat over a fryer until two in the morning.
I’ve got an eye for talent, and Cece knows it. Before we opened, she made me the hiring manager and executive chef.
All that means is I plan the menu and sniff out scumbags when they come for job interviews. I’m proud to say none of the kids I’ve brought on have given us any grief, and the place is thriving.
It all started after my girls got back from that school reunion. I don’t know exactly what happened that weekend down in Pukekohe, but nothing was the same after.
They showed up at the pub on Monday after the reunion, Ada, Cece, Jake and Davis, to inform me half the town got arrested, including the bitch who had the mice and the bloke who’d been sending Cece flowers.
Still, I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t more shocked at seeing Cece and Davis all loved up, and Ada wearing Jake’s ruby.
“The hell happened?” I asked, and though the girls tried their best to explain, I never quite wrapped my head around it. But that doesn’t matter. The girls were happy, and their men were behaving, and no one was dead or in jail—well, none of them, at least.
But the kids being coupled up was just the beginning.
Ada informed me she’d tossed her vape and wouldn’t be drinking anymore.
I didn’t know whether to believe her, but she meant it.
Started playing the flute again, too. I heard her upstairs the next day, and I swear to God I cried.
I’d thought the girl’s talent was sassing pricks who deserved it, but that’s nothing compared to what she can do with a flute.
She’s performing with the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra these days. Working on an album, too. She says none of her new songs are about Jake, but she’s lying. Doesn’t matter that there aren’t any words; you can feel it.
Cece made her own big swings after the reunion.
Stopped letting pride get the better of her and admitted the pub was dead in the water.
But instead of selling the place, she let Davis draw up a proper hotel business plan, borrowed money from his secret little investment firm, and then they tore the place apart.
If you’re thinking I was sad about it, you’d be wrong.
Mitch’s pub had more bad memories than good.
It’s better as a hotel, with its lavender frontage as clean as a whistle and flower boxes in every window.
The punters are better, too. Nice couples.
Families. Tourists who don’t give too much lip.
The kitchen’s world-class, thanks to me.
All new ovens and stainless-steel overheads.
I don’t mind saying we make the best grub in the country, because we got a Good Food Award last month.
I’m a part owner now. Me, Cece, and Ada. The three of us are making a tidy little profit, according to Davis and his spreadsheets. He pops by to pick Cece up from work every afternoon, and I keep a running supply of Anzac biscuits on hand for him.
I don’t know how Cece got her brother off her back about the building, but apparently, he signed everything over to her, and we haven’t had a problem since.
Good luck to him, I say. He’s living in Amsterdam these days, engaged to some twenty-three-year-old Dutch bird.
Well, idiots do that kind of thing, don’t they?
He’ll learn a trophy wife won’t solve his problems in the end. They always do.
Ada and Jake’s wedding, on the other hand? I would have given over my bank balance to be there. Seeing as they decided to tie the knot in Italy, I was about to do just that, but Jake paid for me. Me and Des. Wouldn’t take no for an answer.
“Please let me do this, Aggie,” he kept saying. “We wouldn’t be getting married if it weren’t for you.”
That’s bollocks, he and Ada were made for each other, but it was still a hell of a time attending an Italian wedding. Ada looked like an angel in her white dress, and Jake was handsome as you please.
I bawled all through the ceremony. Me, Cece, Jake’s nan and damn near everyone else. Even Davis had to put his sunglasses back on when Jake said he’d spent his whole life waiting for Ada. That she was his dream come true.
I’m glad Des and I went along for the ride. I’d never set foot in Italy before, and it really does do good pasta. Not that I ever plan on telling Ada that.
As for me and Des, I told him plain, I’m never getting remarried, and he respects it.
But his crap’s all over my house, and my shed’s full of rusty old bollocks no one needs, so I guess you could say we’re ‘living together.’ God knows, he never shuts up calling me ‘his woman.’ It’s embarrassing, having a boyfriend at my age, but there you go.
I check the Wellington again. It’s perfect.
I leave it sitting on the stovetop and head out to check that the table’s been set properly.
Back when this was a dodgy pub, hosting a nice Sunday roast was like feasting in a war zone.
Now I just close down the private dining room, and we have a grand old time.
Ada, Jake, Cece, and Davis are regulars, but we usually get Betty and Gavin and their little boy, as well as Krissy and Blake. Sometimes Grace and her new bloke, Samuel, come too.
I met Grace after the reunion. She and Ada got friendly while the court case was going on, and now she’s part of the furniture around here. Which is one good thing that came out of that bloody kiwifruit farm…
Lord, that case dragged on. For months, it felt like Ada and Cece spent their waking hours giving statements, talking to barristers and trying to prove what everyone already knew: The place was rotten to the core.
Muck and money go together, as they say. And that farm was up to its neck in it. Drugs, money laundering, tax fraud, stolen property, and illegal labour dating all the way back to the 80s.
Still, Thrasher had buckets of cash for lawyers, and it was a job getting him locked up. The girls did it in the end, though. Twelve years in the can, nine before the prick can apply for parole.
His mates got what was coming to them, too, eventually. The bloke who sent Cece those flowers got ten years, and his ex-missus, the one who put the mice in the pub, won’t be out till she’s forty.
I don’t mind saying I took real pleasure in seeing that bitch standing in the dock, with three inches of brown roots, crying like they all do when they get caught.
The farm was bought up by a big corporate outfit, but most of the workers kept their jobs, and that’s as close to a happy ending as you get in these situations.
And at least a corporation has lawyers and HR.
And the undocumented ones who got fucked over all managed to wrangle payouts and permanent residency in New Zealand, though most went straight back to their birth countries, though.
I can’t say I blame them. Not a lot of good memories around here, I’m sure.
Grace got the best deal of the lot and rightfully so, after what Thrasher put her through. Citizenship, a free ride at uni, and two million bucks. No one deserves it more, in this old goat’s opinion.
Krissy’s set the table just fine, but I take a second to adjust the forks and re-fold the napkins. Make sure everything’s just so. It’s a pleasure now, getting food ready with all the time and good china in the world.
A door opens downstairs, and I hear Jake and Davis shouting so loud you’d think they were on opposite ends of a rugby field.
They still lock antlers, the way men with egos always do when they’re mates, but at least now it’s all in good fun. Caught them arm-wrestling the other day. Gave them a good whack with a spatula for it, too.
I hold up a wine glass and rub off a smudge as Jake says something about taking Ada to Bali. Part of me hopes it’s one last holiday before they start trying for a baby. They’ve got a pointer puppy for now, but it’s training wheels, and we all know it.
I keep telling Ada to hurry up while my knees are still strong enough to lift a kid, but as much as things might have changed around here, there’s still no telling that girl what to do.
Same with Davis. I’ve been on him to propose to Cece for ages, but he’s held off, claiming Cece needs to focus on the hotel. But the hotel’s going gangbusters, and he needs to get a move on. Cece’s not getting any younger, and neither am I.
“Why don’t you marry Des, then?” he always shoots back. Cheeky bastard.
The door opens again, and this time it’s the unmistakable sound of my girls walking in. Ada’s laughing, probably at something Cece’s said. The pair of them are still thick as thieves. I smile as I put the wineglass back in its proper place, everything ready for the Sunday roast.
I tell Davis I’m not getting any younger, but sometimes, when I’m sitting at this table, looking at all the people around me, laughing and happy, it feels like I might be.
Cece didn’t change the name of the hotel.
As I head back to the kitchen to grab the Wellington, I take a second to stop in front of the sign sitting on the hostess station.
I tap it with my finger, the way I always do, smiling at the word Cece chose way back when.
Only, no one calls this place ‘Stabbies’ anymore. Just Afterglow.
The End