Chapter 28
I spooned fresh coffee into the Lemon Tree Café’s old Italian coffee machine and smiled fondly at it. It might be grumpy and fractious and completely unpredictable, but just seeing the little Italian flag on its shiny chrome front made me glow inside. I’d always been proud of my heritage, but now having spent some time there, I felt a deep connection to my Italian roots. I fetched two mugs and glanced outside while I waited for the machine to come up to pressure.
Outside the café windows, the sky was heavy and grey and couldn’t have been more of a contrast to the glorious weather I’d woken up to this morning.
We had packed our cases, deposited them with the concierge and had left the hotel straight after breakfast, determined to make the most of our last couple of hours in Sorrento. I’d accompanied Nonna as far as the Piazza Sant’Antonino where she’d arranged to meet her sister-in-law Alba. The two old ladies soon made themselves comfortable under the shade of a parasol for coffee and a catch-up. I’d left them to it and had spent a lovely hour exploring the marina, soaking up the sun reflected off the water and gazing out at the magical sight of Mount Vesuvius across the bay. I’d been tempted to hop on a ferry to Capri, but I’d have to save that for another time. Because there would be another time; Sorrento had got under my skin and I felt refreshed and energized.
It had been an amazing two days, I mused; emotional, but amazing. But now my short sojourn in Italy was over and I was back to earth with a bump. I mentally ran through what I had to do in the next two days and the sheer enormity of it made my stomach loop the loop.
Dad had collected Nonna and me from the airport, and I’d asked him to make a detour past Garden Warehouse on our way home. It was open, of course, as it was every day of the year except Christmas Day, and there were plenty of cars parked either side of the road. Clementine had placed a row of orange traffic cones at the end of her drive, I noticed, and customers were trundling back to their vehicles with big black and yellow carrier bags and trays and trays of plants.
But what had completely floored me was an enormous billboard advertising the opening of the Cabin Café with ‘special celebrity appearance’ on Tuesday. As in the day after tomorrow.
I’d felt sick when I saw it.
Less than forty-eight hours from now the Lemon Tree Café would cease to be Barnaby’s only café. And with a celebrity on the premises, to boot, there’d be no surprises as to who would have the most customers on Tuesday.
Unless, that was, I came up with something even better very quickly.
Which meant there was no time to waste, so after I’d unpacked, I’d gone straight to the café and asked Lia to meet me there. I was so fired up after my trip that I couldn’t wait to start planning. I didn’t have time on my side but I did have determination, a head full of ideas and my talented sister.
I took our coffees to the conservatory and sat down opposite her. I’d left her scrolling through the pictures of Sorrento on my phone. She handed it back to me and picked up a teaspoon to scoop up the froth from her latte.
‘Buffalo,’ I said, noticing which picture she’d been looking at. My mouth watered as I conjured up the memory of last night’s dinner, which Paolo had insisted was on the house. ‘That’s Paolo’s secret. The most amazing steak I’ve ever had. You should try it.’
‘Yeah, I’ll remember to look for it in Asda next time I go,’ she muttered.
‘Good point,’ I said, choosing to ignore her tone. ‘It might be more of a specialist butcher thing, I’ll google it.’
‘I wouldn’t bother; I can’t see buffalo catching on in Barnaby somehow,’ she said, raising a sceptical eyebrow.
She was in a bad mood, which was unlike her; she was normally such a sunny person.
‘Look at this one.’ I showed her a picture of Nonna trying to fit a huge slice of pizza into her mouth. The corners of Lia’s mouth twitched. ‘The pizza is fantastic. Light crispy base, loaded with flavour. Even the simple tomato, mozzarella and basil was amazing.’
‘Stop,’ she groaned, rubbing her stomach. A stomach which, I noticed with a jolt, was an awful lot smaller than it had been a month ago. ‘I’d kill for a slice of pizza right now. I can’t remember the last decent one I had.’
‘Sorry,’ I said with a grin, ‘I’ll stop talking about food now.’
‘So you had a good time by the look of it?’
I pulled a face and rocked my hand from side to side.
‘There were some tough moments. Visiting the cemetery was hard for Nonna and I thought she was going to have a heart attack when Marco’s sister Alba chased us down the road. But she enjoyed being back in the lemon groves and, of course, going back to the family home on Via Vittorio has made her so happy.’ I smiled at Lia. ‘The main thing is that she has finally closed the door on a very unhappy time in her life. I was glad I was there for her.’
‘Rosie Featherstone to the rescue,’ she said, blowing on her latte.
‘Hardly!’ I said, hurt.
I hadn’t meant it like that. Having only just confronted my own unhappy time, I knew how it felt to draw a line under something, to feel like a weight had been lifted from your shoulders. But of course I couldn’t say any of that, so I bit my tongue and steered the conversation back to something lighter instead.
‘You’d love Sorrento.’ I sighed, reaching for the milk and adding a splash to my coffee. ‘You’ll have to go – you, Ed and Arlo – this summer, before it gets too hot. Honestly, the sea, the mountains, the lovely square and the shops! Talking of which …’ I pulled the present I’d bought her from out of my handbag. ‘For inspiration.’
She smiled her thanks and took the recipe book out of its paper bag and began flicking through it.
I sipped my hot coffee. It was nice but not as nice as the one I’d had this morning at the harbour.
‘And the coffee in Italy,’ I said, eager to tell her all the details, even if she didn’t seem too impressed. ‘Seriously. It is an art form over there. I had this one called caffè alla nocciola: espresso with hazelnut cream. It was so delicious I almost wept.’
Lia let out an exaggerated sigh as if she had heard enough about Sorrento to last a lifetime.
‘Sounds great,’ she said flatly, closing the book and sliding it away from her. ‘But I hope you didn’t drag me into work on a Sunday evening to brag about your trip? And I say work, but of course, only one of us gets paid for being here, so, technically—’ She broke off and smiled sweetly. ‘Anyway, thanks for the book.’
I stared at her, confused. I’d suggested that she do some work at the café as experience to help her decide if a career in food was something that she’d really like. And I certainly didn’t think I was bragging. I didn’t like the way this conversation was going at all.
‘You’re welcome,’ I said stiffly. ‘And no I didn’t drag you in for that. Paolo says that we need to revamp our menu to see off the competition and I’d really value your input.’
Lia gave me a hostile look. ‘I said we should do that ages ago. I suggested being more adventurous. You ignored me.’
A niggle of guilt crept over me.
‘I’m sorry, I didn’t ignore you; I was just, well, being cautious. But that was before we had competition. Now we need to stand out. You were right.’
There was a moment’s silence while Lia eyed me warily, chewing the inside of her cheek.
Finally, she shrugged a shoulder dismissively. ‘So what are you thinking?’
‘Well,’ I cleared my throat, ‘Paolo’s success comes from doing something unexpected, offering what nobody else does. So while everyone in Sorrento claims to serve the best pizza in town, he lets them fight it out amongst themselves and serves buffalo steak. We already know that the Cabin Café menu is almost identical to ours—’
‘Except not such good quality,’ Lia put in.
‘Exactly.’ I nodded, grateful that she hadn’t bitten my head off again. ‘So I thought you could help me think of something that tastes fabulous but is cheap, quick and easy to cook which people can’t get elsewhere.’
‘I don’t know,’ said Lia, sounding bored, ‘chips?’
Ed had dropped her off outside the café earlier and driven straight off without returning my wave. I’d thought at the time he simply hadn’t seen me, but now I was beginning to wonder.
‘Perhaps we could do some research.’ I took a deep breath. ‘Let’s have a look.’
I reached for my iPad, but Lia finished her coffee and set the mug down heavily.
‘It’s Sunday, Rosie.’
‘I know. Thank goodness.’ I flashed her a grin. ‘It means we can spend some time on this without the café being open.’
‘Bank holiday weekend?’ she reminded me.
I blinked. ‘Gosh, I’d forgotten about that. Oh well, even more time to get our heads round trying out a new menu tomorrow. Brilliant! My thoughts are these. The Cabin Café opens on Tuesday serving the bog-standard menu: soup, sandwiches, cakes, etc. Our customers have been eating that kind of stuff for donkey’s years. So we launch a brand-new super-duper-never-been-seen-in-Barnaby-before menu, which will put theirs totally in the shade. What do you think?’
‘Go for it,’ she said, inspecting her nails.
‘Lia, is everything OK?’
She shrugged and refused to meet my eye.
‘Ed says I should stop working at the café; he says you’re taking advantage of me. I argued with him, but he’s right, isn’t he?’ She sank lower in her chair and pushed her hair roughly out of her eyes. ‘I’m always going to be the little sister, hovering in your shadow, while you stand in the spotlight, the star of the family. I thought it might change once I started at the café. But it hasn’t; now that you’re the boss and I’m just the skivvy, it’s even worse.’
I felt like I’d been slapped. Tears pricked at the back of my eyes. Not for myself, but for her. I couldn’t believe that was how she felt, how I’d made her feel.
She scraped at a mark on the table with her thumbnail.
‘Lia, you’re right. It’s not fair that you’re working for free when everyone else is getting paid. And it’s not fair that I’ve asked for your help on a Sunday. I’m so sorry. I didn’t think it through.’
I reached across the table and took her hands and she gave me a wan smile.
I was truly sorry. The problem was that I didn’t know what I could do about it. I’d seen the takings for yesterday while I’d been waiting for Lia to arrive. We had broken even. Just. In theory, now that Nonna wasn’t taking a wage, there should be enough to pay Lia, but Nonna had never taken much as a salary. I was only paying myself a fraction of what I’d earned in my last job, but I needed something to live off. And we’d had to get Juliet and Doreen in for extra shifts over the last week when I’d been so preoccupied with Nonna’s saga. There simply wasn’t enough in the pot to pay for an extra pair of hands. And when the Cabin Café opened on Tuesday, there could be even less.
‘It’s not all your fault.’ She sighed. ‘I was chuffed when you suggested I come and work in the kitchen. I know you were doing me a favour. But now that I’ve told the leisure centre I’m definitely not going back to work as a swimming teacher, I need to start earning. I never earned a fortune, but it helped and now Ed’s feeling the pressure and that’s not fair on him.’
They’d moved into a new house last year when they were expecting Arlo and I’d always known money was tight. Oh what the hell …
‘Look, I need your creativity in the kitchen. I can’t do it without you. We’re a team. How about I pay you to come up with a new menu for the Lemon Tree Café?’
‘Really?’ Lia leapt out of her chair and hugged me till my ribs hurt. ‘This is brilliant! Are you sure?’
‘Absolutely. But not today. You should go. Call Ed to collect you and go home. It’s the weekend; you should be with your family. I’ll … I can work out how we’re going to advertise our new menu.’
She looked at me and frowned. ‘You should go too; bank holiday weekends apply to you as well.’
I wrinkled my nose. ‘The café is all I’ve got, Lia. If I don’t work, what else do I do?’
She looked appalled. ‘Have fun?’
‘Fun,’ I repeated, rolling the word around in my head. I waved a hand over my iPad. ‘Isn’t devising business plans fun?’
‘No. It’s work.’ She tutted. ‘It’s OK to love your job but it can’t be all you do. What about chilling in front of a film, spending time with people you love?’
I felt my chest tighten. Yeah, right, because people were queuing up to fill that vacancy.
‘You’ve always been better at that than me,’ I said, clicking on my emails to avoid looking at her.
She eyed me suspiciously. ‘So you’re saying I’m lazy?’
‘I’m saying you’re lucky.’ I smiled and this time she smiled back warmly. ‘Ring Ed and leave me in peace.’
‘Pizza,’ she said suddenly. ‘You wanted something that people will eat every day. It’s cheap and quick to make and has the added bonus of being one of the most authentically Italian things in the world. We can make fresh, hand-stretched pizza. I guarantee the Cabin Café won’t be able to do that.’
She folded her arms smugly and grinned, her eyes sparkling.
My heart gave a thump. I loved that idea: Barnaby’s first pizza café. It was certainly different yet at the same time, in keeping with our Italian theme, and not too adventurous …
‘And how will we do that? Doesn’t it need a special oven?’
‘We’ll cook it in a traditional wood-fired pizza oven. You sort out how we’re going to promote it and leave the oven to me.’
She pulled out her phone. ‘Ed? Can you come and fetch me, please? And you know we’re due at your parents’ tonight? Do you think they’d lend me their pizza oven? Really? I love you too.’ She blew kisses and ended the call.
‘Sorted,’ she said, tucking the phone and her new recipe book in her bag. ‘See you back here tomorrow afternoon to try out some pizzas.’
‘I thought it was a bank holiday?’
‘It is.’ She winked at me. ‘But it will also be fun.’
‘You are BRILLIANT,’ I cried, grabbing her hands and bouncing on the spot. ‘I knew you’d come up with something.’
‘Culinary genius me,’ she said, feigning nonchalance.
Ten minutes later Lia had gone home with Ed and I got stuck into some promotional ideas as Lia suggested. We only had a couple of days to make an impact, but after the success of the Spring Fair, I was confident that I could use Twitter and Facebook again to launch our new-look menu. We didn’t have time for big changes to the decor, I thought, tapping a pen to my cheek as I surveyed the café. But it would be good to have something new to feature in our relaunch as well as the food. The tables already looked good, thanks to Gabe, and it looked like he’d finished the old dresser too. My eyes searched every corner of the café looking for inspiration, but to me the café was authentically Italian and already full of character, nothing needed changing. I closed my eyes trying to conjure up Bar Bufalo and suddenly remembered Nonna’s reaction when she saw those old black-and-white photographs: the pictures of her family business in the cobbled streets of Sorrento.
Yes! Paolo could send me digital versions of those and we could frame them. Now that was real heritage. You don’t get much more authentic than that. The Cabin Café could keep its plastic tables and chairs, the Lemon Tree Café had real history!
I fired off a quick email to Paolo and rubbed my eyes. It had been a long day and I was beginning to flag. I stacked our mugs in the dishwasher, turned off the coffee machine, cleaned down the milk pipe and switched off the lights before locking the door and heading for home.
It was already dark when I set off across the village green, but it wasn’t cold or raining and I hummed happily to myself, pleased with what I’d managed to achieve today. It was only when I reached my cottage that I remembered I’d left the key behind the counter in the café.
Thank heavens for the spare! I put my hand into the bird feeder and found the key, remembering how Gabe had teased me that he’d be able to break in now he knew where it was.
As I opened the front door Lia’s words came back to me, about weekends being a chance to spend time with people you love. And I suddenly felt very alone.