Chapter 43
43
Ruth
Bryan was delighted to receive the signed documents first thing Monday morning. When I rang the accountants, they offered to communicate directly with Selina after I’d briefed her.
After lunch I messaged Selina and then walked around to her house so we could talk face to face. She met me at the front door of their newish homestead-style home and we went through to the petitioned-off space in the family room she used as an office. Unlike the house, there was nothing out of place in her tiny corner.
‘I’m having a coffee. Can I get you something?’ she said on our way through.
‘No, thanks.’
She gestured for me to sit down on the same old chrome and red vinyl kitchen chair she’d dragged in every time I’d visited. She made herself comfortable at the desk, picked up her drink and waited expectantly.
When I didn’t speak immediately, her brow wrinkled and she said, ‘Are you all right, Ruth? You look a bit pale. You’re not coming down with something, are you?’
‘No, I’m fine,’ I said, caught unawares by how nervous I felt. I’d rehearsed what to say on the way over but instead of delivering the carefully prepared speech, I just blurted out, ‘I’m going to sell the cafe. I’ve already signed an agency agreement.’
She nodded slowly, her mouth forming an upside-down U. ‘Good for you, Ruth. Let’s hope it sells quickly,’ she said. ‘And I guess you’ll need me to prepare the financial statements for the accountant as soon as possible?’
‘Yes, please. The person I spoke to advised that you communicate with this person.’ I took out the slip of paper on which I’d scrawled the name and mobile number.
‘Ah, yes,’ she said. ‘He’s easy to work with. Gets the job done faster than others.’ She pinned the slip of paper onto a cork board. ‘When will you tell the girls?’
‘This week. They’ll be concerned about their jobs, which is understandable. All I can say to them is they’ll have a job as long as I’m calling the shots.’
‘Any new owner would be crazy not to re-employ them, at least when they first take over.’
‘Especially if it’s a novice like I was. I’d worked in cafes but never owned and operated one.’
‘Is the building and flat up for sale along with the business? Do you want out of Cutlers Bay as well as out of the cafe?’
‘Ideally, it all goes together: the business, the shop and the flat. That said, I don’t know where I’ll live if it does. The one thing I am certain about is that I don’t want to be Ruth from Rosie’s Cafe for any longer than necessary.’
‘You’ll have to reinvent yourself. How exciting.’
‘Reinvent myself? I’ll be happy just to rediscover the person I was before Rosie’s took over my life. She used to have fun, she didn’t have to censor every word she said and she lived a life that wasn’t always about work.’
‘Totally get what you’re saying. I love how my life is now but that doesn’t mean I don’t look forward to the day when priorities shift and I’m Selina first, before I’m somebody’s wife or mother or bookkeeper or general dogsbody.’
Her vehemence made me chuckle. ‘Don’t ever lose sight of that, Selina. But realistically, there won’t be much for me to stay for once Rosie’s is gone.’
‘Don’t underestimate the connections you’ve made, Ruth. You might be surprised by how many people regard you as a friend.’
‘But what would I do if I stayed here? After I’ve had a holiday, which is non-negotiable. And I’ll need a job.’
‘You could always work for whoever buys the cafe.’
‘Oh no, I cannot imagine that. No way! And the last thing a new owner would want is me peering over their shoulder.’
‘What about volunteering? The Country Fire Service is always looking for volunteers and so is the ambulance. I know they don’t pay anything but you get to know other people and that can lead to a paying job down the track. What else can you do besides run a cafe? Lots of transferrable skills there.’
‘Right now my primary goal is to get through each day at a time.’ What she said was true, but my brain was in overload. I’d noticed that about getting older: I couldn’t keep as many balls in the air at one time, not anymore, no matter how many lists I made and how hard I tried.
When I left Selina’s, the afternoon sea breeze was brisk. A line of fluffy white clouds clung to the western horizon. I set off for Gordon’s garage. Supposedly, he’d fixed my car. I didn’t use it all that much but I didn’t like to be without it. The last time I’d spoken to Elliot, he’d given no indication he was planning to drive to Cutlers Bay any time soon and that meant I’d be visiting him on my next days off. Who knew how many more trips I’d make up and down that road? Lana hadn’t called again and I took that as a positive; either Elliot had stopped bothering her or she’d called the police when he had.
Gordon apologised profusely that it’d taken him a week to fix what he described as ‘a relatively minor problem’. Suffice to say, the invoice he delivered along with the car was far from ‘relatively minor’. Back at the flat I hosed the dust off the station wagon before I went inside and rechecked the wholesaler’s order and phoned it through. Then I baked several slabs of pasty slice for the coming week. The meat and vegetable filling was seasoned with Mum’s secret mix of herbs and spices and the fragrant aroma soon filled the cafe kitchen. Pasty slice was an autumn and winter favourite, along with homemade tomato sauce. By seven pm, I was ready to sit down with a cup of tea and put my feet up. In the interests of quality control I sampled a generous chunk of pasty slice and gave myself ten out of ten.
* * *
Erin baulked at my suggestion she change her shifts to Thursday and Friday. ‘Liam is only just getting used to me not being there to get his lunch on Tuesdays and Wednesdays!’
Poor Liam … I remembered a time when employees were always on the lookout for more hours and you’d bend over backwards to do whatever your employer asked.
‘You don’t even want to think about it?’ I said. ‘Ask Liam if he minds? He could always come to the cafe for lunch.’
She screwed up her face. ‘Nah, I don’t think so. I get why you want me to change, but I’d rather leave things the way they are, if you don’t mind. After all, this is only my third week.’
‘Fair enough,’ I said. It was the end of her shift. She slung her bulky handbag, a designer rip-off, over her shoulder. It was now or never. I took a deep breath. ‘Oh, and by the way, Erin, Rosie’s Cafe will be going up for sale in the next few weeks.’
Her cupid’s-bow mouth formed a perfect O. ‘You know, the clothes boutique took two years to sell and then the new owner went bust in less than a year,’ she said in a breathy tone, a portend of doom.
I almost rolled my eyes, except that she might turn out to be right. ‘Oh, well, none of us know what the future holds. Probably just as well.’
‘But what will happen to my job?’
‘Not for me to say, except that you’ll all keep your hours while Rosie’s still belongs to me.’
An hour or so later, Mia paused the mopping for a moment while I told her. ‘Wait until I tell Mum. I wish she could afford to buy the cafe,’ she said and went back to the task with renewed vigour.
Allie was knocking on the kitchen door at seventeen minutes past five. ‘Ruth!’ she said and burst through the door. ‘Why didn’t you tell me you were thinking of selling up? Not that you had to and I couldn’t afford to buy it even in my wildest dreams.’
Mia had done well. The community grapevine was off and running.
‘Come in, Allie.’
Allie sized me up. ‘Now, you’re sure about this, Ruth? It’s all very sudden,’ she said, sounding a lot like my mother.
‘Not as sudden as you might think. Believe it or not, I was about to warn you I was seriously considering it when you handed in your resignation. After that there was no reason to tell you.’
She propped herself against the handbasin and folded her arms. ‘It was Graham Wurst retiring, wasn’t it? That’s when I noticed a change in you. And then Theo died and Hamish came along.’
‘What’s Hamish got to do with any of it?’
She lifted a shoulder and let it drop. ‘The chance of a life after Rosie’s Cafe?’
‘Hamish and I have become friends, that’s all. He’ll move on when he’s fixed up his parents’ place and it sells, which I think it will. It’s a nice old place, lots of character, big block, plenty of potential. And who knows where I’ll end up?’
Allie didn’t comment, although she smiled as if she knew something I didn’t.
I kept at my closing-up duties otherwise I’d never get home. ‘I’d offer you a coffee only the machine’s already done.’
‘Thanks, but I was on my way to the supermarket when I got Mia’s message.’ She yawned and I noticed how tired she looked.
‘Has the job improved?’
‘A fraction. I’m beginning to feel less of an outsider. But five early morning starts in a row, week in, week out … I’m knackered by eight and in bed by nine. On weekends all I do is cook, clean, wash and iron and get everything ready for the next week.’
‘You’re not the first working woman to say that and you won’t be the last. How’s Brett’s back coming along?’
‘Slowly. Unfortunately, Leon had to give the job to someone else, not that I blame him. But there’s not a lot of work to be found in a small town at the best of times and even less for a bloke with a bad back. At least Brett’s helping out around the house a bit now. I think Cody prefers his cooking to mine.’
‘How is Cody?’
‘Good, for a teenage boy,’ she said, her mouth a flat line. ‘Brett can be tough on him. Our parenting styles are very different.’ She closed her eyes as she gave a tiny shake of her head. ‘He might be Cody’s father but he hasn’t been around much and it was only ever for the good times. Cody resents it if Brett tells him off and tells him how he should behave. I might just resent it a bit myself.’
‘And I guess there’s always a tension because Brett might up and leave any day.’
‘That too,’ Allie said. ‘Cody’s even thrown that in his father’s face a couple of times when Brett’s been laying down the law.’
‘Tricky.’
‘Part of me wishes he would just go. Life would be so much easier. But then I feel guilty, because he is their father and once upon a time I loved him enough to marry him and have children with him.’
That would be the trickiest part of it all to my way of thinking. We surprised ourselves and hugged before Allie left. Was this one of the connections Selina had been talking about?
‘If I thought it’d make any difference, I’d pray that the business sells in the first week it goes on the market,’ Allie said.
When the door in the service lane closed after her, I stopped in my tracks: she hadn’t asked me if I would stay in Cutlers Bay after the cafe sold.