The Café at Seashell Cove_A heart-warming laugh-out-loud romantic comedy

by Karen Clarke

  My eyes swung round and my mouth fell open.

  I couldn’t have been more wrong.

  Everything had changed.

  Chapter Three

  ‘Cassie, you’re here!’ Mum couldn’t have looked more surprised if Catherine Zeta-Jones had pitched up at the café and demanded two cream buns. ‘I thought you’d be having a lie-in,’ she added, as I made my way to the new, mosaic-tiled counter, gazing around as though I’d landed on Mars.

  Where were the dark-wood tables and chairs left by the previous owners? The red-and-white checked tablecloths; the ancient clock that never told the right time; the faded, signed picture on the wall of Frank Sinatra (he was rumoured to have visited, once) and the green and mustard linoleum that had been held together in places with gaffer tape? Even the gingham curtains, which had graced the bottom half of the windows for about a century, had disappeared. That’s why the windows looked extra big and sparkly.

  ‘Wha… what’s happened?’ I managed, eyes darting from the array of delectable- looking cakes, cookies and pillowy scones, nestling beneath glass domes, to a gleaming, state-of-the-art coffee machine behind the counter, and rows of cheerful cups and saucers arranged on fancy shelving edged with bunting. There was even a new machine for dispensing hot water, and the chipped old sink – where the tap used to drip – had been replaced by a shiny white one with a fancy, chrome-fronted fridge underneath. In place of the leaking metal teapots were an assortment of chubby earthenware pots in cheerful colours, and the eclectic mix of old teaspoons had been exchanged for a gleaming set that matched.

  ‘So, what do you think?’ Mum was eyeing my reaction with a mixture of suppressed excitement and apprehension. ‘Do you like it?’

  I turned once more to scan the interior, though it was hard to take in when the place was so busy, the noise level only just tolerable. ‘It looks… bigger,’ I managed. It was true. The whisper-of-lemon paintwork, sand-coloured floorboards, and ocean-shaded fabrics covering the scattered cushions had brought the outdoors in. The wall behind the counter had been stripped back to warm brick, while the brightly tiled counter lent an almost tropical feel. ‘Where’s all the old stuff?’ I murmured, eyeing the pale-wood tables and chairs. ‘They were practically antiques.’

  ‘They’re the same ones.’ Mum pointed eagerly to the nearest table, where an elderly man was doing a newspaper crossword, while his younger, female companion scanned her iPhone. ‘They’ve all been sanded down and smartened up. I had no idea they could look so good.’

  ‘Those are new.’ I nodded to a couple of leather tub chairs in the corner, where a pair of mothers in almost identical narrow-legged jeans and floaty-sleeved tops were sipping drinks with their toddlers on their laps, as if sitting in their own living rooms.

  ‘They came from a junk shop,’ said Mum. ‘The chairs, not the customers.’ She laughed at her little joke. ‘They’ve been repurposed. Or upcycled. One or the other. The chairs, not the—’

  ‘Customers,’ I finished. How had this even happened without me knowing? ‘It must have cost a fortune.’

  ‘Not really, the leather was in good condition—’

  ‘I mean the whole thing.’ I turned to look at her. She’d always been proud of the business, but her face was as shiny as if it had won an award.

  ‘We thought it would be a good investment,’ she said. ‘We had some savings and your nan chipped in. You know how keen she is to get rid of her money.’

  ‘She could always buy me a house,’ I said, only half joking. Nan was pretty well off, thanks to some shrewd investments my grandfather had made in his lifetime, and had no qualms about spending the money now he was dead, on account of him being a cheating bastard. Her words, not mine.

  ‘I’m sure you can afford a house whenever you want, with all the money you’ve been making, and then there’s the severance package you mentioned. I imagine that’s quite substantial.’ Mum’s smile was comfortable. She was just stating the truth, based on what she knew about my life. Or, thought she knew.

  ‘Well, it looks amazing.’ Deciding to ignore her comment, my eyes roved round once more, spotting details like the overhead lighting, which no longer consisted of old-fashioned floral shades and low-watt bulbs, but dangling glass pendants, and a row of upside-down cups in saucers above the counter.

  ‘They’re playful, don’t you think?’ Mum said, seeing me looking, sounding as if she was quoting someone else.

  ‘They certainly look like they’re having fun.’ I felt a bit mean when her smile dipped. ‘Honestly, Mum, it looks brilliant. I like the new menu, too.’ I nodded at the board, where a list of drinks and ‘cake of the day’ (Earl Grey and blackberry) were chalked out in fancy script. It was a far cry from Dad’s illegible scrawl, but then customers had never needed to look at a menu as they’d tended to know what they wanted – a cup of coffee or a pot of tea and a toasted teacake, or a slice of whichever cake Mum had baked the night before. Usually fruit, or lemon drizzle.

  ‘Flat white?’ I said, shaking my head as I read. ‘Since when?’

  ‘It’s just a milky coffee really.’ Mum lowered her voice as though people might walk out if they overheard. ‘But the newer clientele likes to think they’re getting something modern.’

  I hid a smile at her use of the word ‘modern’, which only revealed her lovely, old-fashioned core. ‘Did you write it out?’

  ‘What?’ Mum turned her head to look. ‘Oh, no, that was Danny. He did the new sign outside, too. Quite a dab hand at the signwriting. We’re still called Maitland’s though, we’d never change that, it’s our name.’ She looked suddenly stricken, as though I’d suggested otherwise, but my mind had snagged on one word.

  ‘Danny?’

  ‘Danny Fleetwood.’ Mum was all smiles again. ‘Apparently, you were at the same school for a while. He remembers you.’

  ‘Does he?’ My heart gave an odd little throb. ‘He was a bit of an idiot, back then.’

  Danny and I had shared art classes in our final year, but, although talented, he’d been too laid back to put in much effort, and too aware of his own good looks and the effect they’d had for my liking. He’d unexpectedly asked me out once, and when I’d told him loftily that he’d need to do more than scrawl, Will you be at the leavers’ party on Saturday? on his canvas, he’d said, ‘Meet me there and I’ll win you over,’ and had given me a sparkly-eyed grin. Only, when I’d arrived he wasn’t there, and I’d felt stupid for even agreeing to meet him… for secretly looking forward to it. Clearly, he’d loved the chase more than he’d wanted the prize.

  The last sighting I’d had of Danny, he was chatting to a girl outside as I was leaving.

  I’d made sure he didn’t see me, and within days he’d slipped from my mind.

  ‘He’s definitely not an idiot.’ Mum’s voice broke in, her tone of reproof channelling heat to my cheeks. ‘He did a very good job.’

  ‘Well, obviously he’s grown up now.’ Though probably not much if he was still hanging around south Devon, painting signs. ‘I didn’t notice the sign outside,’ I added, but Mum had shifted along to serve a customer.

  A small queue was building, and people seemed content to wait for a table to become vacant. A smiley young waitress in a turquoise, short-sleeved shirt, which matched the ones Mum and Dad were wearing, was clearing up, while Dad was in deep conversation with a customer I recognised as my old geography teacher from Kingsbridge Academy, Mr Flatley – or Lord of the Dance, as we used to call him.

  Dad hadn’t noticed me come in, and was still deep in conversation, so I looked around again, letting the changes sink in, while Mum dealt with the waiting customers. Part of me was shell-shocked by the transformation – it was so different to the café I remembered, sitting out the back with my colouring book on rainy Saturday mornings with Rob, while Mum and Dad were working – but I could see it was a massive improvement, and just the shot in the arm the place had needed – except I’d wanted to do it. Well, not the nitty-gritty, but the o
rganising of it.

  ‘You can’t have done this all on your own,’ I said, when Mum had taken the final customer’s order and passed over two cups of frothy coffee and a plate of chocolate cookies. ‘Did you get someone in?’

  ‘It was Tilly,’ she said, pouring a cup of tea the way I liked it – strong with a splash of milk. A middle-aged member of staff I didn’t know sidled behind the counter and started taking orders, as if Mum had summoned her telepathically. ‘Thanks, Gwen,’ she said.

  ‘Tilly? Tilly Campbell?’ I said at the same time. ‘My old school friend Tilly, who decorated my bedroom?’

  ‘The one and the same,’ Mum confirmed, eyes flicking around to check nothing needed her attention. ‘Hasn’t she done a wonderful job?’

  My brain whirled. ‘But Tilly and her family moved to Canada years ago,’ I said. ‘That’s why we lost touch.’

  ‘Oh, she’s been back a while.’ Mum gave a casual shrug. ‘She’s still doing a bit of interior design when the fancy takes her, and she does walking tours around the coastal paths. She’ll be in later. The cafe’s a stop-off point, it’s on TripAdvisor.’ Not seeming to notice I was stumped for words, Mum carried on, ‘Meg works here now, did I tell you?’

  ‘What?’ I gawped. ‘Meg Larson?’ As if I knew loads of Megs.

  Mum nodded, smiling over my shoulder as she threw a wave to a leaving customer. ‘She needed another job when her hours were reduced at the bakery, so does a few afternoons here, as well as supplying the cakes.’

  I had a sudden, lurching recollection of Mum coyly mentioning a new member of staff, during one of our calls last year, but I’d been busy sourcing a ‘haunted’ castle for a Halloween bash and hadn’t really taken it in.

  My gaze dropped to the nearest glass dome, beneath which a two-tier cake squatted, oozing lashings of buttercream. ‘Meg made this?’ Mum nodded. ‘Wow.’ She’d always liked baking, even when we were at school – had even talked about owning her own bakery one day. ‘Meg works here?’

  ‘Like I just said.’ Mum did a little head-wobble, indicating I was being a bit slow on the uptake. ‘You know she’s worked at the bakery here for ages.’

  ‘I did not know that.’

  ‘Are you OK, Cassie?’

  I brushed away an image of Legal Mystics belting out ‘Never Ever’ in my parents’ back garden that burnished summer, almost fifteen years ago. ‘I’m fine,’ I said, not sure that I was. ‘It’s just a bit “school reunion” all of a sudden, that’s all.’

  ‘I told her you were coming to visit,’ Mum said. Visit. It sounded so… temporary. ‘She’ll be thrilled to see you.’

  I wasn’t so sure. We’d drifted apart after Tilly’s father uprooted his family to Canada, where his parents lived. Meg had been wrapped up in her boyfriend Sam, and hadn’t had much time for anyone else.

  ‘How come I didn’t know any of this?’

  ‘Oh, well, you were always so busy,’ Mum said, vigorously wiping down the counter. ‘I didn’t think you’d be that interested in our little redecoration.’

  I noticed a muscle flexing in her upper arm as she wiped the surfaces. Wiping was probably good exercise, but you’d have to alternate arms to get even results. ‘Of course I’d have been interested.’ I tried not to sound hurt. ‘Why wouldn’t I have been interested?’

  ‘Oh, Cassie, you’ve got so much going on in your life, and you were in New York when we started. It was just a tiny project, it didn’t take long at all. We were only closed for a week, would you believe?’ She stopped wiping and smiled at me. ‘When you mentioned putting the café on the map,’ she said, ‘I was going to tell you then that we’d made some… changes. But your dad and I thought it would be a lovely surprise if you came and saw for yourself.’

  ‘It’s certainly that.’ I took a deep slurp of tea, which almost emptied my cup. They really were too small.

  ‘You get a couple of refills,’ Mum said, topping it up, and a guilty flush travelled over my face. ‘So…’ She paused. ‘Is it modern enough?’

  From the look on her face it was clearly a rhetorical question, but I’d just noticed, with a flash of relief, that they were still using the same brand of coffee they’d used for years. ‘Well, actually,’ I said, in my perkiest voice, ‘it’s perfect. All you need now are a few events to boost business, and I’ve already made a start by ordering some unusual coffees and teas for a tasting session. We did one for a start-up café in Berlin last year, and it went down really well.’

  Mum’s smile became fixed. Her Stepford smile, I used to call it. She pulled it on like a mask when hearing something she was unsure of, but didn’t want anyone to know. ‘Did you hear that, Ed?’

  ‘What’s that?’ Dad materialised, and slung his arm around my shoulder. ‘Thought you’d be relaxing, Cassie.’ He planted a kiss on my hair. ‘Isn’t that why you’re home?’

  ‘She’s ordered some fancy teas and coffees for an event. Here.’ Mum’s eyes skated between the two of us.

  ‘Oh?’ Dad’s mouth started smiling too. ‘I’m not sure that’s necessary, love,’ he said, scratching under his clean-shaven chin. ‘Our customers seem very happy with what we’re offering.’

  Tension cramped my chest. I wasn’t about to give up before I’d even started. ‘They won’t know until they’ve tried,’ I said, with the ‘fake it ’til you make it’ air of confidence that Nina had instilled in me when I started at Five Star. She’d been a big fan of sayings and inspirational quotes. ‘Like I said, I’ve already placed an order.’

  ‘Well, I think it’s a terrific idea.’ Mum’s smile grew brave. ‘Cassie knows what she’s talking about,’ she said to Dad, and they nodded in tandem. ‘She can do this sort of thing in her sleep, can’t you, love?’

  At times, it had felt like I had. ‘I have some other event ideas, too,’ I said. ‘They’ll definitely help fill the place up.’

  Mum and Dad glanced at each other, then at the tables all filled with chattering customers, and out to the terrace, also heaving with people.

  ‘If you think we need to.’ Mum’s smile was straining at the edges.

  ‘We’ve been turning people away just lately,’ Dad said, the corners of his mouth quivering slightly. ‘We’ve got some excellent reviews on TripAdvisor, especially now we’ve got Wi-Fi.’

  ‘I suggested that ages ago.’

  ‘Did you?’ He looked surprised. ‘Tilly thought it would help business, and it seems to be working, though I don’t really approve, as you know.’

  ‘Right.’ So, they’d listened to Tilly, but not to me. Then again, it sounded as if Tilly had been around a lot more than I had. I wondered why she’d come back, and how come she’d been in Seashell Cove, and whether she was back living in Ivybridge.

  ‘I’m not sure we need any more changes, love,’ Dad said.

  For god’s sake. How could I become a self-employed event planner if I had no events to plan? ‘Well, you definitely need some pictures on the walls.’ I was grasping at straws, but Mum leapt on my words.

  ‘Oh, yes, we didn’t get round to that,’ she said with gusto. ‘We meant to sort it out, but you’re right, those walls look far too bare, and we didn’t want to put Frank Sinatra back up; he’d got a bit stained.’

  ‘I could arrange for some local artists to display their work.’ Some of the tension lifted from my muscles. Art was something I did know a bit about – even if I’d decided against studying it further after my A levels. ‘They could sell their paintings, which would benefit the artists too. Like in a gallery.’

  ‘Ooh, that’s brilliant,’ Mum gushed, clearly glad there was something she could get on board with. ‘What a super idea!’

  ‘There’s lots more where that came from.’ I tapped my temple, hoping they wouldn’t ask what.

  ‘Like what?’ Dad crossed his arms and looked at me with such mingled fascination and respect that I immediately felt like a fraud.

  ‘Well, er, there are lots of things I could organise that would attract new
customers and keep business ticking over, or even take things to a whole new level of… business,’ I floundered. ‘I could spread them over a week perhaps, to maximise interest, sort of like an entertainment blitz.’ The thought was taking hold. ‘Perhaps we could have a music night—’

  ‘We close at six,’ Mum interjected, her hand shooting across the counter to grasp Dad’s arm. ‘We need our together time in the evenings.’

  Dad jiggled his eyebrows at her.

  Ugh. ‘Of course you do,’ I said. ‘But it wouldn’t hurt to stay open until ten for a few nights, and if it’s a success perhaps you could roll it out permanently, say one night a week.’ I felt a bolt of excitement. ‘It would be great in the summer. You’d be quite the place to hang out,’ I said, attempting a twenties flapper tone and twirling a pretend pearl necklace.

  ‘Ten o’clock?’ Mum looked aghast. ‘But what about our Monday quiz nights at the Smugglers Inn?’

  ‘Ooh, we could have a quiz night here,’ I said.

  ‘We don’t want to compete with the pub. Bill wouldn’t like it.’

  ‘What about board games then?’

  ‘Board games?’ The smiling had stopped as Dad screwed up his nose. ‘Bit old-fangled.’ Said the man who’d only recently got the hang of texting, and still used paper maps to navigate, if the well-thumbed stack in the kitchen was anything to go by.

  ‘It’ll be a novelty.’ I tried to squash my impatience. ‘It doesn’t have to be board games, but I can think of lots of other things.’

  Dad squared his shoulders. ‘I suppose we could at least give it a try.’ He looked to Mum for confirmation.

  She nodded. ‘I’m up for it,’ she said, her smile slightly glazed. ‘If Cassie thinks it’s a good idea, who are we to argue?’

  ‘Good point,’ agreed Dad, and they exchanged a look I couldn’t place.

  ‘Great!’ I did a little handclap. ‘I’ll put something on social media about it. I take it you’ve updated the website?’ I’d have bet my life that they hadn’t even considered it.