‘You can come for the walk if you want. I’d have thought you’d be tired of being stuck inside. Or you can stay here. Do what you want. I don’t care.’
He could say he didn’t care, but the squaring of his shoulders and the frostiness in his voice told her otherwise. Stupid, Poppy. She’d just pooh-poohed his business idea. Pooh-poohed him. It was one thing to listen to her horrid inner critic that always tried to make her second-guess her abilities, her worth, but she had no right to project that inner critic onto Ben. Not when she knew how determined and disciplined Ben could be. He could have taken night classes. Watched online tutorials. Done any number of things to learn how to bake for the masses, and she wouldn’t know. Their steady stream of communication when she’d first left had turned into a trickle over the years as Ben had become busier. His emails shorter. To the point. And, eventually, she’d got the point, Ben didn’t have time for her. Yet she’d still emailed on occasion, whenever she moved, just so someone at home knew where she was in case anything went wrong.
Poppy jogged a few steps to catch up with Ben. ‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to offend you. I’m an idiot. I should know better. Whenever you put your mind to something you make it work. More than that, you succeed. You always have. I bet you could enter a baking competition on the telly and win. Easily.’
‘I bet I could too. And it’s not like I stopped baking once I left school. It’s been my stress relief for as long as I can remember. It also made me very popular at work when I brought in the previous night’s goods.’ Ben turned onto a bustling side street, dotted with shops that hadn’t been there when she left. A generic chain-store coffee shop, a designer clothing store, a store selling cutesy baby gear. She spotted the charity store where she’d got most of her wardrobe from as a youngster. Got? More like stolen. Hunching in the doorway in the middle of the night, rifling through bags left at the door, praying she wouldn’t be caught, not wanting to admit to anyone that her mother was too busy with her art and friends and gregarious lifestyle to be bothered to think her daughter might need clothes. To be bothered to think, or care, about her daughter at all.
Give big anonymous donation to store. Poppy added the thought to the top of her mental ‘to-do’ list.
Next to the charity store stood an empty shop, a ‘for lease’ sign hanging in its window. Was the sign a sign? Was that the shop she could set up her business in? Lightness infused her heart, dispersing the dread she hadn’t realised had been sitting dark and heavy. She’d take note of the number and call the shop’s owner once she was settled in her new place.
Ben crossed the street then stopped in front of the shop. Her shop. No, surely not. He wasn’t stealing her shop from underneath her, was he? Not that he knew it was her shop, but it had to be. She felt it deep down. The same way she’d known deep down that it was time to come home.
‘How do I look?’ He straightened his shoulders, ran his hand over his perfect-as-always hair and flashed her a winning smile.
‘Perfect. Is the shop around the corner? On the main road?’
‘No. It’s this one, right here.’ He angled his head towards the space. ‘It suits my budget, and the street’s busy, and close enough to the main street that people won’t be put off making a small detour to visit.’
‘You’ve thought it all out.’ Of course he had. That’s what Ben did. His life had been mapped out since he was young. He didn’t do anything without careful thought. The opposite of herself. She’d figured she’d come home, find a flat, nab herself a space, place an order for a bunch of cute unicorn product and watch the customers and money roll in. She’d not even thought about budgets, other than to have enough money in the bank to start the business.
The squeak of the front door snapped her out of her darkening mood. ‘Mr Evans? You’re on time. Excellent. I like that. You didn’t mention anything about bringing someone? No matter though. There’s not much to see, just the main space, the kitchen behind, and there’s a small office. But it’s always good to have a second opinion. Come in. Come in. Lovely to meet you, dear, I’m Monty Gilbert. Call me Monty.’
‘Actually, she was going to stay out—’ Ben went to correct the bespectacled gentleman who’d greeted him, but stopped as he was hustled inside.
Poppy gave him a ‘what can you do’ shrug, trailed inside and then stepped to the right, giving Ben some space to chat to the landlord and giving herself a moment to view the shop that would have been hers if Ben hadn’t seen it first.
It was beautiful. Perfect. Polished wooden floors gleamed under subtle downlights. One end of the shop was lined in redbrick, the other plastered and painted a barely-there cream. She could imagine white-painted shelves pushed up against it, filled with unicorn stationery – holographic pens, unicorn stickers, writing sets. Mugs from bombastic and brilliant to sweet and subtle. Stuffed unicorn toys could take pride of place in the corner, and a range of unicorn-printed clothing could hang from a rack by the far wall.
She glanced over at Ben and saw his eyes brighten as he took in the brick wall. She knew what he was seeing. She could see it too. Wooden shelving stained the colour of long-steeped black tea would be perfect against that red and would look marvellous holding tea-sets and tins of tea. And the ornate timber counter could easily be stained the same colour and would provide a striking centrepiece for the shop. It was the perfect space for his venture.
‘I must apologise, I was a little misleading in my advertisement.’ Monty shoved his hands in his brown corduroy pant pockets and rocked back and forth on his feet. ‘You see my son told me I was asking too little rent for this space. I haven’t had to rent it out in years, you see. The only reason I’m renting it now is because the previous tenant passed, may she rest in peace, and I thought a little hike in the lease was fine. Turns out I was going to be doing myself no favours…’
‘Oh.’ Ben’s face stilled. His eyes narrowed. Was that panic flashing through them? Or had Poppy imagined it? ‘What kind of rent are you looking for?’
Monty paused, then uttered a number.
The colour drained from Ben’s face. ‘That’s twice what you were asking in the advertisement.’
‘I know, and I’m sorry if I’ve wasted your time.’ Monty looked up as the door opened and two gangly teens walked in. A boy and a girl, both the same height, with hair the identical shade of auburn.
Fraternal twins, Poppy guessed.
‘Sophie, Joseph. Didn’t I tell you to wait outside if you saw I was with people?’ Monty folded his arms and fixed the twins with an irritated stare.
‘Sorry, Grandad. Forgot.’ The girl, Sophie, shrugged, then held up her hand and began inspecting her nails.
Monty’s chest rose and fell as a huff of irritation filled the room. ‘I’m so sorry for the intrusion, Mr Evans. Would you mind giving me a minute while I sort these two out, then send them on their way?’ His palms flipped up in a silent apology, before turning his attention to the twins. ‘So, how did the job search go?’ Monty’s pitch heightened with hope.
‘Nowhere.’ Sophie leaned against the counter, her petite nose wrinkling. ‘The job search went nowhere, right, Joe?’
Her brother nodded, his eyes fixed on the floorboards. ‘Nobody wants us.’
‘And we tried, Grandad, we really did.’ Sophie pulled out her phone and buried her nose in it.
Poppy grinned. Sure they’d tried. That explained the splodge of what looked like chocolate ice cream on Joseph’s shirt. And the leaf attached to the bottom of Sophie’s shoe. Grabbing ice cream and going for a walk through Queen’s Wood was hardly what she’d call a job search.
‘Well, you’ll have to try again tomorrow.’ Monty shook his head. ‘I can’t have you two underfoot all holidays. And I promised your parents we’d keep you busy, keep you out of mischief, until you decided what