1
Gracie pulled the leaflet out of the letterbox, glanced at it in disgust, and promptly tossed it on the floor with the rest of the junk mail.
“Come on Chris, school time,” she called, as she opened the front door. She smiled as her tiny son waddled up to her, all wrapped up in his orange and green bomber jacket. Andrew said it made his son look like a council estate chav, but Gracie didn’t care, she thought he looked adorable, as well as toasty and warm.
She opened his car door, waited for him to climb inside and sit in his booster seat, and then she fastened his seatbelt.
“Mum, can I have your phone?”
“Sure,” she passed him her iPhone and got into the driver’s seat. Gracie reversed out of the tight parking space, and headed to Christopher’s school. On the way they passed Melana’s, her ex partner’s and his new wife’s brand new restaurant. Thankfully Chris was too busy staring at the screen to have noticed, but Gracie knew it was only a matter of time before she had to drive an alternative way to Greenwall Primary school, unless she wanted to hear on a daily basis, “mummy, look there’s daddy’s restaurant!” Melana’s was such a pretentious name for a restaurant, who did the skinny bitch think she was? Lady Muck and the Queen of Sheba rolled into an obnoxious, perfectly manicured, size six package? Gracie found a parking space two streets away from the school, she quickly got out and urged Christopher to be just as quick.
“Thing is some of these mums only live around the corner,” she muttered to herself, although Chris was a captivated audience. “They could just walk!”
“Dylan!” cried Christopher, yanking his hand away from his mum’s.
“Chris!” she snapped, running after him, and seizing his hand. “We’re near a road!”
“Kids!” smiled Dylan’s mum sympathetically.
“Tell me ‘bout it,” she sighed. The two mums and their boys headed towards the school, and once they were inside the playground, they both released their grips on their boisterous sons.
“So how’s things Gracie?”
“Not bad, yourself?”
“Got hospital later,” she paused as Gracie voiced her concern. “Yeah all these routine appointments get tedious, but at least the chemo’s working.”
“I don’t know how you bloody manage.”
“Same like everyone else, you just get on with it. So how are you really keeping? You looked stressed out.” Gracie was about to say she was fine, after all how could she have the nerve to tell her best friend what was troubling her, especially when Lisa’s own problems were a million times worse.
“I got an invitation from Melana’s yesterday,” said Lisa breaking the silence. “Plus Facebook have kindly allowed them to spam me every five seconds.”
“I’ve blocked the advert, so annoying,” she grumbled. Chris and Dylan came running up to their mums, waved frantically goodbye, but as always their mums pulled them in for a big hug, and watched them run into school.
“Oh to be five again,” Lisa smiled wearily.
“The treatment is working right?” Asked Gracie, hoping that she got to hear what she wanted to hear. Once again Lisa smiled, and said she was fine.
“Good,” she replied enthusiastically, although she didn’t believe a word of it. “Are you free for lunch this week?”
“Tomorrow.”
“Brilliant, come in the cafe at about 1pm, I’ll be on my break then.”
“Your boss won’t mind?”
“He can’t stop me from taking my break, anyway hun, I’ll message you later, find out how your appointment went.” They both got in their cars, and drove off.
Gracie knew she should’ve been thinking about Lisa, and the struggle she was facing, but she couldn’t get her own problems off her mind. For years Andrew and her had made plans to open their own restaurant, and call it Gracie’s Cafe after his beautiful fiancé, but he soon changed his tune once she made it clear that their baby wasn’t a distraction to their business endeavours. She hoped the scan would change his mind, but he refused to look at the monitor, and even made the sonographer feel uncomfortable at his lack of interest.
“Wait a minute,” said the monographer leaning closer to the screen. Gracie’s heart pounded with fear, she desperately prayed that nothing was going to be wrong with her son, but even if there was, she already knew that she was going to keep him. She glanced over at Andrew, expecting him to look just as worried, but instead he could barely conceal a slight smile.
“Get out!” she roared at him. He looked taken aback, and stared hopelessly at the sonographer, who refused to get involved. “You’re hoping something’s wrong!” she cried, sitting up, and swinging her legs of the bed.
“Careful,” cried the sonographer, thinking of her medical equipment.
“Well if something is wrong, it’s not too late is it?” He said, almost smugly.
“For what?”
“You know.” Gracie felt so enraged that she knew if she hadn’t been in such a public place, she would’ve lost control.
“Baby is fine, it was just a blur on my screen.” The words caused Gracie to sob her heart out, whilst Andrew quietly snuck out of the room, and out of the hospital, thinking how his life was now ruined.
Of all the places to open their restaurant, they had to open it near her work place. Gracie refused to wallow in the bitter anger that was now consuming her, she increased her speed and briskly walked past Melana’s restaurant, convincing herself that she wasn’t wishing it would burn down, or by divine will, be struck by lightening. If either event occurred, it would be purely down to coincidence, or a result of their bad karma, and nothing to do with her at all.
“Hiya,” chirped Vickie, leaning on her elbow.
“Hi, busy?” Asked Gracie, glancing around the almost empty cafe.
“Run off my feet,” she groaned. “Anyway I’ve got to show you this,” she opened her Facebook account and read through the thread about Anthony and Melana.
“Well I wish them all the best,” said Gracie through pursed lips.
“Really? You’re taking it well. He was supposed to open a restaurant with you, and…” Gracie’s laugher stopped her from continuing.
“He was also supposed to marry me, and be a full time dad to his son, remember?”
“Yeah, that was pretty shitty of him.”
“Melana is more than welcome to him.”
“Customers!” Snapped Geoff, interrupting their girl talk. Gracie acknowledged the old man waiting patiently to pay his bill, all the while thinking Geoff could’ve served him. “You two need to get to work, we’ll have the lunch time rush soon.” Gracie couldn’t resist letting out a slight groan, which for some reason he didn’t remark on, although when Vickie rolled her eyes, he almost pounced on her.
“Chill out mate,” she snarled, once again leaning on her elbow. Gracie let out the tiniest of giggles and got to work cleaning the clean eight tables. Afterwards she rearranged the menus and plastic floral arrangements in an artistic way, and checked the soup of the day, which incidentally was chicken and butternut, and then there was nothing to do, no lunch time rush, just a drizzle of customers, which included two mums with toddlers and a pensioner.
“We need to liven up this place before it closes down,” said Gracie.
“His lordship won’t agree,” grumbled Vickie, who despite her lacklustre approach to her job, was just as fearful as Gracie that she’d soon be out of work, and back down the job centre.
“He’s gonna have to do something, we’re hardly getting any customers,” sighed Gracie, handing the young mum her change. “Come again soon,” she smiled sweetly.
“I don’t know why though.”
“I do, we’ve stopped serving proper food. This cafe used to be known for its homely cooking, now we serve chicken nuggets and plastic burgers just like everyone else. There’s nothing special about us anymore.”
“I know…bye, thanks for coming,” called Vickie, as the gentleman left the cafe. “Hopefully he’ll bring his friends next time.”
“Hopefully, we need all the customers we can get,” replied Gracie. By the end of her shift, all Gracie could think about was all the meals that would look good on their new menu. Homely meals, such as chicken curry, shepherds pie, bangers and mash and spaghetti bolognese.
“Geoff,” she began confidently, as she stood in the doorway of his tiny, cluttered office. He briefly looked up to acknowledge her presence, then lowered his large crooked nose back towards the letter he was perusing. Her insides knotted up with anxiety, but she knew she had to say what was on her mind. She gulped down her fear and knew it was now or never.
“Geoff, I’m a great,” she paused briefly, then continued more forcefully, “I’m an excellent cook. I would like to be head chef of this establishment.” He stared at her curiously, and allowed his silence to suffocate her. She felt like a complete idiot, if only she had simply said, “let me do the cooking,” instead of trying to sound professional by using fancy words.
“I don’t need a head chef, this isn’t the Ritz,” he replied sardonically.
“Precisely!” she snapped, taking the liberty to sit on the edge of his desk, much to his annoyance. “We’re just like everyone else in Medway, we all serve the same food.”
“People like good old fashioned cooking.”
“Fish fingers and pizza is not good old fashioned cooking,” she said hotly, standing up off his desk.
“We have regular customers who don’t like change.”
“You don’t like change more like. This place will close down soon.”
“That’s enough! You’re just a waitress, stop telling me how to run my business,” he hissed impatiently.
“Fine! Perhaps I’ll open my own cafe, and put you out of business.”
“The door’s that way, and until you open your fantasy cafe, you can still clean my tables.” He returned to writing whatever he was writing, and refused to speak to her anymore. (TBC)
Annmarie Chanel Harrison 