The Grand Reopening of Dandelion Café

by Jenny Oliver

  She was just examining the plastic menu, the laminated corner coming unstuck and peeled apart by fiddling fingers, when the bell above the door chimed and someone else walked in.

  Annie glanced up, expecting another of the motley crew of waiting staff, but paused when she caught sight of the man elbowing the door closed. Tall, serious-looking, he pulled off aviator sunglasses and slid them into the neck of his dark-green T-shirt. It was the colour of seaweed, the sleeves bleached by the sun. He was wearing grey marl tracksuit bottoms, rolled up to reveal tanned, sinewy calves and flip-flopped feet that were still damp. He’d clearly just come off the water, probably been rowing or maybe paddle boarding.

  She didn’t realise she’d been holding her breath until he’d strolled past her and then she had to exhale really slowly so that no one realised she’d stopped breathing.

  ‘Morning,’ he said to the boy when he got to the counter.

  When no one replied, Annie glanced over her shoulder, intrigued. She just caught the boy hanging his head and sloping out the back to the kitchen. Martha moved into his place and nodded to the man.

  ‘Usual, Matthew?’

  Matthew… Annie realised she knew exactly who he was. Two years older than her brother at school, he’d been head boy, won loads of sport trophies. She remembered school assembly, when all the first-formers, her included, would sit cross-legged staring up at him in awe as he sauntered on stage to collect his prizes, all cool and terrifyingly grown-up. She couldn’t remember his surname. Watson, maybe. Windsor? She could remember the scandal though, he’d got Pamela Chambers pregnant and she’d gone into labour in the middle of her physics A-level.

  Annie watched as he took a seat on one of the faux-leather covered barstools, nodded to Martha and said, ‘Yeah and I’ll have a bacon sandwich. Heard anything from the new boss yet?’

  Annie flipped her head back round as quick as she could as she saw Martha raise her eyebrows in her direction.

  There was silence behind her. She was just wondering whether to stand up and say something when she realised there was a mirror on the furthest wall from her and she could see Matthew reflected in it.

  As Martha bustled back into the kitchen, tearing off the bacon sandwich order for Ludo, she watched as he upended the sugar pourer into his espresso, granules cascading down till it seemed they might overflow. When he stirred it she was reminded of her dad, the teaspoon having trouble through the thickness of the liquid. As he took a sip she watched him watch the boy, his feet tapping against the bars on the stool, his eyes hooded, and narrowed.

  When the boy came over to take her cup away she realised the two of them looked almost the same. Same eyebrows, same look like there was a whole world going on behind the slit of eyes that they allowed you to see.

  Was this the physics A-level baby? ‘Are you two related?’ she asked as casually as she could while he wiped down the Formica.

  The boy looked back at the guy at the counter, shrugged and then walked off back to the kitchen.

  ‘Wow,’ Annie blew out a breath. She’d forgotten how closed the island could be. The gossip was there, bubbling away beneath the surface, but fiercely guarded, like whispers between leaves. It was her fault for prying. She hated it when people brought up her past, so why had she tried to burrow into his? She sat back, ashamed of herself, and watched as a couple of tourists arrived with a guide book. Sitting down they asked tentatively whether the cafe still served the famous cherry pie.

  Cherry pie.

  Annie watched as the boy brought out two bowls of it on a tray. Custard in a jug and cups of tea with saucers. She watched as he rested the tray on the side of the table and handed the couple their pie. Watched the steam rise and twine with the sunlight. Watched as they closed their Lonely Planet and each took a bite, from a spoon, she noted.

  The woman shut her eyes and put her hand on her chest and gave a little moan of delight, and the boy’s lips allowed a hint of a smile. As if even the most bored of waiters couldn’t disguise his pride in this sticky, sour cherry pie.

  ‘Hey, ’scuse me?’ Annie caught him as he loped past her.

  ‘Yeah?’ he said, the tray hanging empty by his side, his eyes narrowed at her.

  ‘Can I have a slice of pie?’

  He shrugged. ‘Yeah.’

  Annie smiled. ‘OK then, thanks.’ He began to walk away. ‘Oh, hang on, no custard. Do you have cream?’

  ‘Dunno, I’ll check.’

  As he disappeared into the back she heard Ludo call from the kitchen. ‘Turn it up. Turn it up. This is my favourite.’

  The yelling startled her and she twisted round to see Matthew leaning over the counter and twisting the knob on the radio so that Shirley Bassey’s ‘Goldfinger’ belted out into the room.

  ‘Ahh.’ Ludo stood with the spatula clasped to his chest. ‘I love it. I love her. River, do you love Shirley yet? Stop. Listen. Listen to that. Ahhhh. You must appreciate that volume. That depth. Your band, they could benefit from listening to Shirley.’

  The boy blushed and sniggered from behind his fringe. Ludo whacked him with a tea towel and made him laugh.

  Annie rested her chin in her hands and took it all in via the big mirror. The fact the poor kid was called River and then the way Matthew was watching, lips closed, muscles in his cheeks taut like he was clenching his teeth, feet no longer tapping on the base of the stool, hand stilled on the page he was about to turn on his book.

  Was he jealous, she wondered. But then he glanced up and caught her eye in the mirror and she dropped her eyes to her phone as quick as she could. She could feel him still watching her. He kept his head turned her way, kept his eyes on her in the mirror, almost like a punishment for her snooping. His moody, dark gaze fixed on her blushing, embarrassed face.

  ‘One cherry pie.’ It landed in front of her with a slap. ‘We haven’t got any cream.’ River put down a jug of milk instead and walked away.

  Annie stared down at the bowl. The same off-white china with brown flower trim round the edge. The familiarity of the sight made her breath catch in her throat. The wobbly lattice across the top, the cherries glistening, dark like velvet, sticky and squished. The thinnest layer of frangipane just coating the base, enough to sweeten with a hint of almond, Enid would say, but not so much that you would know it was there. Everything you’re doing is to bring out the best in the cherries. Let them do the work. And then sit back and watch.

  Nabbing her teaspoon from her coffee cup, Annie was just about to take a bite when the bell above the door went again and her mother sat down in the seat opposite.

  She was accompanied by Valtar, her lovely Latvian husband, an accountant and occasional Elvis impersonator. He’d come to the island a couple of years ago to perform at the pub and heroically taken on the job of wooing Annie’s mother. She often wondered if he knew what he was getting himself into, but he still gazed at her with adoring eyes and, for Annie, there was nothing more important than that. It was what her dad would have wanted. That her mum would be loved and looked after. He hadn’t let her mother so much as touch a bill or take any part in the business and in doing so had left her floundering when he passed away.

  ‘Sweetheart, you’re here. Why didn’t you phone me? I had to hear it from the bloody milkman, and you can imagine how delighted he was to pass on news that I didn’t know.’ Winifred Birzgalis (née White) huffed as she glanced at Annie over the shabby laminated menu.

  Before she could reply, her brother Jonathan and his wife Suzi, their twin nine year olds, Gertrude and Wilbur, and their dog Flash, a tiny fluffy thing that was some expensive hybrid and terrified of everything appeared as well.

  ‘Shove over, Sis.’ Jonathan jabbed her between the ribs so she’d move chairs and then sat down with Wilbur on his lap. ‘Wil’s starving, can he have your pie?’

  Chapter Three

  Annie pushed the bowl of cherry pie over to Wilbur and he started scooping it into his mouth like he’d never eaten before in his life.

/>   ‘He’s always hungry,’ sighed Suzi as she pulled up a chair and sat at the end of the table. Immaculate as always, she was dressed in diamanté jeans, a jumper with a zebra sequinned on the front and a jacket with a huge fur collar. ‘Have you said thanks, Wil?’

  ‘Thanks, Aunty Annie,’ Wilbur said, voice muffled with pie.

  Annie nodded, feeling herself shrink back into the corner of her seat. Overwhelmed by so much family. She blamed the pie. If she hadn’t ordered it then she’d have left fifteen minutes ago.

  ‘Aunty Annie?’ Gertrude said in the kind of up-talking singsong voice that they use in Gossip Girl.

  ‘Yes, Gerty?’ Annie adored her niece. She was naughty and funny and like a quirky little munchkin.

  ‘Granny Winifred said the other day that she thought I might be like you and Daddy pulled a face and said that he hoped not.’

  Suzi gave an embarrassed giggle but Jonathan glanced up from his menu and barked a laugh as if it was the funniest joke he’d ever heard.

  Valtar put his newspaper down. ‘Is not good to be like Annie? What’s wrong with Annie?’

  Her mum did a little eye roll and said, ‘There’s nothing wrong with Annie. Not now anyway.’

  Annie didn’t say anything, just looked up to see River standing with a huge tray of cappuccinos and pots of tea, clearly intrigued by the chat.

  ‘She was a nightmare,’ Jonathan said as the drinks were being divvied out. ‘She was married and divorced by the time she was twenty-one. And the less said about that the better. I’d be driving around in a 1956 Jaguar XK140 if Dad hadn’t had to sell it to pay off that disaster.’

  Annie blew out a breath. ‘I can’t believe you’re still going on about that car, Jonathan.’

  ‘I’d like to be like Aunty Annie,’ Gerty said without looking up from her iPad, and banging her trainers against the legs of her chair. ‘I think she’s cool.’

  Annie held in a smile but couldn’t help wishing that the conversation wasn’t taking place with River watching, listening.

  Jonathan snorted. ‘Yes it’s just all the stuff it took to get to this stage.’

  Annie suddenly felt really warm.

  ‘She was a bit of a terror, darling,’ Winifred said to Valtar.

  ‘A bit?’ Jonathan frowned as if that was a huge understatement.

  River smirked.

  ‘Life was never dull,’ Winifred appeased.

  ‘Gerty, sit up straight.’ Suzi leant over and pushed her daughter’s shoulders back so she wasn’t slouched over the iPad.

  Annie couldn’t sit there any longer.

  ‘I have to go to the loo,’ she said, starting to stand. Jonathan sighed because it meant he had to move as well, along with Wilbur.

  The bathroom was outside. Through the kitchen and out into a tiny yard that backed onto the cherry orchard. On the ground, scattered over the many pots of herbs and green shoots, the winged seeds of the sycamore still lay where they’d helicoptered down in autumn. Annie didn’t need to go to the loo at all, she needed a moment just to get herself back.

  It was always the same. Whatever she did, they’d still just remember her for the bad exam results, the late nights, the cigarette packets stashed in the shed, the teenage stuff that everyone did apart from her bloody brother. The arguments, the parties, the secrets, the mistakes. The marriage. The money.

  She thought about her brother, raised as high as the family pedestal would allow without him bashing his head on the ceiling, with his perfect family and his degree from Oxford and his PhD from Cambridge and his GP practice and his comments about how Dad should never have had to bail her out.

  Her one regret was not being able to pay that money back. She’d had these fantasies of buying her dad another Jaguar and leading him over the bridge to see it parked by the river, sparkling like the sun catching the waves.

  ‘You OK?’

  Annie jumped when she heard the drawl.

  ‘Shit! Sorry, you startled me. I was just erm—’ She pointed to the cherry trees. ‘Just, you know, looking.’

  The guy from the bar was standing in the doorway. Matthew. She noticed in the daylight how tanned his face was. The lines of his cheekbones rusty with sunburn and his nose freckled. His hair was pushed back from his face, like it was held back with salt water from the sea, brown with dirty-blond streaks.

  He didn’t say anything and the silence made her nervous.

  ‘I just needed a…’ She pointed again to the cherry trees and then, not wanting him to think that she was talking about needing to go to the loo added, ‘I just needed a break.’

  ‘Understandable,’ he said.

  ‘I should probably go back inside,’ Annie said, pulling the sleeves down on her sweater and wishing she went to the gym a bit more given the lines of muscle down his arms and legs.

  He strolled over to where she was standing looking over the wall at the trees. The slight breeze was making Annie shiver and the branches rub together like little animals were tapping at the bark.

  ‘So you own this place now?’ he said after a moment.

  ‘Yeah,’ Annie said with a laugh. ‘Yeah. I’m not sure anyone’s too happy about it.’

  He shrugged. ‘They’re just scared.’

  ‘Of me?’ She shook her head as if the idea was preposterous.

  He turned around so his back was leaning against the crumbling wall and raised a brow to suggest she was deliberately misunderstanding him.

  Annie looked from him down to her shoes and then out across at the orchard. She spotted one of the trees that was about to burst. Tomorrow, maybe the next day, it would be full colour.

  ‘You gonna close the place?’ he asked.

  She sucked in her bottom lip. A fat wood pigeon landed on one of the branches in front of her making it bend almost to the floor. The pigeon grappled to hold on.

  ‘I have no idea.’

  ‘Well you’d better come up with something quick,’ he said. ‘There’s people depending on you.’

  Annie was surprised by the sudden queasy feeling she had in her stomach at that comment. As if someone had sliced through her and she’d just fallen to the ground.

  ‘Have a word with my brother,’ she said, adding a self-deprecating laugh. ‘He’ll assure them that that’s the worst situation to find themselves in. Get new jobs quick!’

  Matthew put his hands in his pockets and pushed himself up from the wall with his shoulders. ‘I have very little time for your brother. As far as I can tell it’s his fault there’s that horrific development on the island. On land he’d agreed to sell to me,’ he said before walking away, back towards the door of the kitchen. He paused on the step, turned her way, hands still in his pockets, and he added, ‘I think we’re all hoping you might be a little different.’

  Chapter Four

  Annie refused her mother’s invitation to stay for dinner. They’d taken a family walk around the island and been back to her mum’s for another cup of tea and now all Annie could think about was going home. Gerty wanted her to go to their house so she could show her her new trampoline but Annie politely declined. Although the look of horror on Suzi’s face at the idea of an un-arranged pop-in had almost been enough to make her take her niece up on the offer.

  ‘When are you coming back?’ Her mum asked as she stood on the doorstep in her slippers, wrapping her cardie round her against the afternoon chill coming off the river.

  ‘I’m not sure. I’ve got to tie up some stuff with work. You know?’ Annie ran her hand through her hair, trying to save it from frizzing up in the moisture.

  ‘I like your hair like that,’ her mum said. ‘Very modern.’

  Annie rolled her eyes, reached up self-concisely to touch the shorn edges of her hair. When she’d finished the shareholder document and presented the mortgage company with her stupidly large cheque, she’d decided that maybe now was the time to celebrate. She had finally achieved what she set out to do. No longer would she have to scrimp and save, squirrelling away m
oney, in an attempt to prove herself. When she couldn’t pay her dad back her loan, it seemed vital to put that money into something else. To prove that she wasn’t the flake they all thought her. That she could create a business, she could be a success. She could invest as her father invested.

  Why she never mentioned it to anyone still confused her. Especially when Jonathan’s every success was flaunted on the family WhatsApp group. But it felt like this was her little secret that none of them could take from her. She was triumphant. And none of them could tarnish it with their set-in-stone views of her character.

  Sending over her finished files she wasn’t ‘Oh, Annie!’, she was Annie White, owner of White Graphics and Illustration, home-owner. For the first time she hadn’t felt like she was masquerading under a flashy title that she’d made up. It actually felt like her. Like she could relax and believe it. So, to celebrate, she’d bought herself a latte from Caffè Nero, one glossy magazine and one trashy one, a whole big round chocolate orange, and then as she was perusing a new scarf in the window of a far-too-expensive boutique she’d seen a girl walk out the salon next door with dip-dyed pink hair and she’d thought, I want pink hair. Or at least new hair. She felt like suddenly she was allowed to let a little bit more of herself back in. She had paid for her mistakes.

  ‘I’m all yours,’ she’d said to the hairdresser. He’d waffled on about side-swept fringes framing the face, textured ends and on-trend jagged cut layers transforming a traditional pixie cut. When he’d said that white-blonde streaks were very now she’d nodded and told him to go for it.

  And when she’d left the salon, the man from the deli had wolf-whistled and given her a free cannoli.

  But now, embarrassed by her mum’s attention, Annie lied and said, ‘It’s been like this for ages.’