by Stella Quinn
‘Um … because people aren’t usually that nice. Not where I moved from, anyway.’
Graeme gave her the full benefit of his megawatt smile. ‘You’re in Hanrahan now, Vera. Besides, I am one fussy renovator. If I’m going to be looking at that fireplace all day, I’m going to be needing some precision grout lines.’
‘Huh,’ she said. ‘I don’t like to boast, but I’ve watched three online tiling tutorials. I’m pretty much an expert now.’
Graeme grinned. ‘I think we’re gonna make a great team, boss. You got an apron hiding in that pyramid of stuff?’
Aprons she had. They were works of art, chocolate brown and piped with cream edging. There was no way in hell she was letting one of her new aprons anywhere near a DIY tiling project.
‘I can offer you a plastic garbage bag or a grease-stained old tea towel?’
‘Ew. Why don’t I pop home and get into my overalls. I’ll be back in an hour.’
She reached out and touched her new café manager on the arm. ‘Are you sure you want this, Graeme? Building something from the ground up like this? It’s going to be a lot of work.’
Graeme rested his hand over hers and turned to give the interior of her café one long look. ‘Girlfriend,’ he said, ‘this place is going to be a sensation.’
She hoped so. She really hoped so. She looked through the smudged glass windows, to where The Billy Button Café sign swung in a breeze curling up from the narrow northern arm of Lake Bogong, and squared her shoulders.
She couldn’t afford to let anything get in the way of this café being a hit.
CHAPTER
2
Josh Cody slid a loop of gut into his hooked needle and carefully knotted the last suture.
‘How many?’
He looked up at his sister, who’d popped her head in round the door of the surgical room. ‘Eight. Three black, one chocolate, four yellow. You owe me ten bucks.’
Hannah flashed him a grin. ‘You’ve got mad diagnostic skills, Dr Cody.’
He ran his hand over the chest and stomach of the plump labrador on his stainless steel table. She’d been exhausted when the man who’d found her in his shearing shed had brought her in—luckily, he’d performed more than one emergency caesarean by now. The operation had gone smoothly, which made being called Dr Cody, Veterinarian, feel less like the dream of a moron who’d screwed up his chances and more like the hard-earned truth.
‘Did you find a microchip? I can run it through the database.’
‘Nothing. Her fur’s in a poor state, nails are brittle and torn up, and she’s a little long in the tooth to be having a litter. She’s not underweight though. Hard to say if she’s a stray, or just has owners who haven’t got a clue how to look after a pregnant dog.’
He glanced down into the plastic tub on the bench, where eight furry lumps the size of vegemite scrolls snoozed atop a pink fluffy heat pack. The cause of this morning’s drama, the chocolate pup who’d tried to enter the world sideways, lay on his back, a tiny pink tongue poking from his snout.
Hannah moved in next to him and reached a hand into the bucket of pups. ‘Poppy’s going to go nuts when she sees them.’
He sighed. ‘I hope so.’
He’d not seen his daughter for weeks. And her absence from his life had chiselled a hole in his heart that even the excitement of his new vet career couldn’t fill. She was mad with him for moving from Sydney to ‘the boonies’, as she called it, and kept finding new ways to make him suffer. The first time he’d brought up the idea of relocating to Hanrahan she’d flounced off back to her mother’s, returning a week later with a second set of ear piercings. Dragging her feet about visiting was Pop’s latest brand of torture.
Sure, he got it, school and assignments and Year Ten exams mattered … but didn’t he matter too?
‘Give me a hand with getting her off the table, will you, Han?’ he said, turning his attention back to a problem he could do something about.
‘Sure.’
They lifted the sedated dog and carried her through to a pen. ‘You written up the chart yet?’ said Hannah.
‘No time. She looked ready to pop when Trev carried her in.’
‘Trev? The old bloke from out near Stony Creek? Wow, I haven’t seen him in yonks. I thought he hated the hustle and bustle of town.’
He snorted. ‘Hannah, I hate to be the one to break it to you, but Dandaloo Street in Hanrahan can in no way be described as hustle and bustle.’
‘That is so not true. You haven’t seen the fuss and bother going on in the old bank building. Some fancy new café is opening up. Hanrahan is cosmopolitan these days, big brother.’
He rolled his eyes. ‘Noted. I’d also like to point out that the only hustle and bustle we need to worry about right now is the fleas on this dog. I’d better find the old girl a flea collar.’ He rested his hand on the brown dog’s head. ‘You’ve got fleas as big as bandicoots, Jane, you know that? Don’t worry, we’ll get rid of them for you.’
‘Jane?’
He shut the pen gate and returned to the bench to collect the pups. ‘Jane Doe. Isn’t that what they call unidentified people in cop shows?’
Hannah put her hands on her hips and gave him the you’re-an-idiot look she’d been sending his way for nearly thirty years. ‘Only the dead ones, moron.’
He pulled her long brown pigtail. ‘My case, so I get naming rights. I say it’s Jane Doe.’
He put the pups into the whelping box next to their mother’s cage. She’d be waking soon enough, and once he was sure she wasn’t so sedated she’d roll on the new arrivals, he’d pop them in with her. One happy family.
Just like he and Poppy could be if she ever condescended to pay him a visit.
‘Before you get into the paperwork, I want to show you something.’ Hannah dug into a pocket of her navy scrubs and pulled out a thin card. ‘A box of these arrived this morning. What do you think?’
He read the card in her hand and flashed his sister a smile. Finally. Finally. ‘I didn’t know you were getting these printed.’
She punched him in the arm. ‘I don’t have to tell my new partner everything.’
He read the words a second time: JOSH CODY, CODY AND CODY VET CLINIC, CNR DANDALOO STREET AND SALT CREEK FLATS ROAD, HANRAHAN. It had been a year since his little sister had invited him to buy into her growing vet practice in the historic mountain town where they’d grown up. He’d still been a student then, Poppy living with him every second week, and working construction on weekends to keep the bills paid. It had taken him three seconds to decide that was the move he wanted to make, but it had taken another three months before he’d told Poppy his move to Hanrahan was no longer a dream but reality.
She’d been so thrilled she’d moved all her belongings out of her bedroom in his apartment and taken up residence permanently at her mother’s.
‘Just getting used to be being abandoned,’ she’d thrown at him.
Happy days.
What Poppy didn’t understand was how much Hanrahan was a part of him … of all the Codys. His grandparents had lived here back when the Snowy River still flowed in all its glory from the mountains to the Southern Ocean, flooding pretty much everything in its path when the snows melted. Despite her current refusal to reside with him, Poppy was as much a Cody as he was, which meant she needed to know that city life wasn’t the only type of life she could have.
And then there was the other thing. The personal thing. Fifteen years in Sydney, scraping and saving and working his arse off to get by had just about done him in. He needed this. He needed respect, and he needed to be valued. And—he rubbed his hand over the Poppy-sized ache in his chest—he needed his daughter to be the one doing the respecting and the valuing.
Maybe then he could finally quit beating himself up for blowing his chances.
As he slipped the card into the back pocket of his jeans, he choked down the lump in his throat. ‘I love it. Thanks, Hannah.’
She grinned. �
��You can thank me by sweet-talking Sandy into opening a pack of the good biscuits. I’ve got surgeries back-to-back this arvo, and if I don’t get some chocolate into these veins, I’ll be too weak to cut the boy bits off Mrs Grundy’s dalmatian.’
Josh winced. Why was it women vets always said that with such relish? ‘Enough said.’
Hannah moved to the workbench and started assembling gear. ‘Before you disappear, there is something else I need to tell you.’
Josh studied his sister’s face. ‘Why do I get the feeling this other thing isn’t as fun as a shiny new business card?’
Hannah pulled a mask off the storage shelf, gloves, a canister of the jerky treats they fed to the furry patients to remind them that their vet visits could be fun, despite the needles and indignities they might suffer. ‘It’s in the mail-in tray. The local newspaper.’
‘Why would the local newspaper put an expression of doom on your face?’
‘Remember the community section? The Hanrahan Chatter?’
‘Sure. Someone hit a birdie at the golf course. So-and-so got married. Garage sale on Brindabella Avenue followed by bingo at the community hall.’
‘Not this week.’
He clamped a hand down on the sterile dressings she was layering on a tray. ‘Just spit it out, Hannah. What are the noisy miners twittering about now?’
She flicked him a look. ‘Maureen Plover took it over some years back. Remember her?’
‘No.’
‘Sure you do. She used to work in the pharmacy.’
‘Lots of hair? Gimlet eyes? Stood guard over the condom display?’
‘Wow,’ his sister said, with the deadpan inflection his daughter had also mastered. ‘That’s what you remember, huh?’
He shrugged.
‘Well, these days she keeps herself busy nosing around everyone’s business and writing a column for the Chatter, and this week, you’re her hot topic.’
‘Crap.’
‘Uh-huh. High school hero returns … some titillating backstory about Beth, none of it true … finishes with a plug for the vet clinic, as though that makes it all friendly and sweet.’
He closed his eyes. When would this town let it go?
‘I’m sorry, Josh.’
He sighed. ‘Yeah, me too. We got any wood out back in the shed? I’m feeling a strong urge to drive an axe through something, and firewood would be a better option than finding Maureen Plover’s home office and trashing it.’
He left Hannah to prep for her afternoon list and stepped into the cluttered office out back where they kept their case notes and work desks. He tapped out a quick Have You Lost Your Dog? flyer, then frowned at the social media logo on the screen as he waited for the printer to rev up. May as well use the internet for good as well as evil, he thought, and posted a message on the clinic’s community page. Found, one chocolate labrador, aged 8–9 years, contact Josh. Thank god the gossips of Hanrahan hadn’t been switched on about social media back when he was making waves on the town’s news radar; the backlash then had been bad enough.
He had to ignore it. Gossip in the local paper was no reason to sour his return to Hanrahan. Poppy’s passive-aggressive texts were a different matter, but he couldn’t blame the old biddies of Hanrahan for that.
He looked at the text message he’d received that morning in response to his reminder that her two-week school holiday was about to start, and she still hadn’t said when she’d visit.
It’s not all about you, Dad.
True. But couldn’t it be a little bit about him? He was two biscuits into a self-pity snack when the idea struck him. Assurances and pleas and begging hadn’t worked … maybe it was time for a new strategy. He’d been busting a gut to make everything work for her to visit him, offering to book train tickets, pick out a new doona cover, coordinate with her mum and her school term and whatever activities she had on so it would be easy for her.
Maybe that was part of the problem?
He picked up his phone before he could overthink it.
She answered on the second ring.
‘Shouldn’t you be in class?’ he said.
‘Hey, you called me, remember? Anyway, I’ve got a spare this arvo.’
‘Phones in lockers. That’s the school rule.’
Her sigh carried with it the weight of teenage girls everywhere who had to put up with dorky dads asking them tedious questions. ‘I can hang up, Dad, if you’re concerned about the minutiae of phone usage rules at Rosella State High.’
She was right. He didn’t want her to hang up. ‘About Hanrahan,’ he said.
‘Can we not get into this again? I’ve said I’ll come out sometime, all right? I’ve got a lot on so I can’t commit. I only get two weeks break in October, and I don’t want to waste half of that time on a train.’
‘Cooma Train Station is five hours from Sydney, not five days.’
‘Whatever.’
Ouch. The sting of that three-syllabled word was worse than a snake bite. He should know—he’d had someone’s pet python latch onto his arm twice in the last fortnight.
‘Anyway, the reason I was calling …’
‘Yes?’ she said.
He took a breath, then worked at injecting a note of frazzle into his voice. If this strategy was going to work, he needed to give it some heft. ‘I’ve kind of lost the plot with getting the flat ready.’
‘In what way? You didn’t pick some gross colour for my room, did you?’
‘Baby pink, just like you asked for.’
‘I so did not! Bloody hell, Dad.’
He chuckled. ‘Just winding you up. I haven’t got around to paint yet. I only just got the planning notice sign erected out front.’
‘What do you need that for?’
‘It’s a formality for council. Gives the locals a chance to make comment before council approves the plans. The building is heritage listed, you know.’
‘Huh. Like I care about old buildings.’
‘Oh? Well, that’s too bad, because it’s your heritage. I don’t want to mess it up by making a dumb building decision.’
‘What … my heritage?’
‘Well, the building will be partly yours one day. And it’s part of Snowy Mountains history. Not everybody gets to restore a three-storey Victorian stone building built during the gold rush.’
‘Wow. I had no idea it was so old.’
Was that interest he was hearing in his daughter’s voice? She delivered her comments with such a chilly tone, sometimes it was hard to tell.
‘Plus, I’m no good at choosing sheets, or any cooking appliances besides a sandwich maker, and the tiling in the bathroom’s only half done.’
‘You do make epic toasted sandwiches, Dad.’ Yeah—she was definitely warming up a little.
He sighed. Mournfully. ‘I don’t know, Pop. It’s so difficult making all these decisions all by my lonely lonesome self.’
Silence pulsed down the phone line for a long moment.
He broke first. ‘Poppy? You still there?’
‘No. The deputy principal just saw me on my phone, so I’m currently being dragged off to the interrogation room to be torn apart by alsatians.’
He grinned. ‘So, what do you think? Could you spare a teeny-weeny bit of time over your break to help your old dad out?’
‘If this is your idea of bribery, it sucks.’
‘Will you think about it?’
The silence dragged out again, but this time Poppy was the one to end it. ‘I’ll try,’ she said.
‘I love you,’ he said.
‘I know,’ she said, and the line went dead in his ear.
CHAPTER
3
It’s done, Jill, Vera wrote on the letter pad she had perched up against her knees. Our café is open.
Her thoughts wandered as the bubbles in her bathtub made gentle popping noises against her skin. Her aching feet felt better now she had them submersed in hot water, and the lavender oil she’d dolloped into the tub was
doing wonders. A half-hour in the tub relaxing, a quick dry of her hair, and she’d be out at Connolly House to see Jill for a sunset tipple of the monstrously sweet sherry her aunt was partial to.
She could call the egg supplier on the drive down to Cooma. She’d need to double her order for the coming week if their first day’s sales were any indication, and she’d need to go visit the local butcher, too, and start prepping the more substantial meal menu she was hoping to offer.
She tapped her pen against the porcelain. Kitchen logistics could go on hold for now, she had to think how to describe today—opening day of The Billy Button Café—to her aunt. She’d been so busy working her butt off, the details were a blur.
How many business openings had she attended in her old life? How many dry, emotionless little articles had she penned for the South Coast Morning Herald?
The old bank building in the small town of Hanrahan has been given a new lease on life this week with the opening of The Billy Button Café. Vera De Rossi serves Italian-style sweets as well as some old-fashioned country favourites, and plans to open—
‘Blah blah blah,’ said Vera, and grinned, surprised at herself. Journalism had been her life, once, and she’d prided herself on her cool, dispassionate prose.
She took a sip of the green tea she’d perched on a stool by the tub. That was the old her.
The new her baked fancy tarts and made epic beef bourguignon and could use whatever flowery words she damn well chose.
‘Opening day at The Billy Button Café was frazzling and glorious,’ she announced to her imaginary audience. ‘It was nerve-racking and frantic. It was’—she hunted for the perfect word to capture how she was feeling—‘empowering.’
She smoothed the top page of her notepad, where lavender steam was making the corners curl, and continued her letter to her aunt.
I hope you’ve settled into your new room and you’re enjoying the garden. Such a pretty view! So much better than that gravel carpark your window at the old place looked out on. Have the local birds found you yet? I wonder how the butcher birds of Queanbeyan are coping without your toast crumbs keeping them plump?
