Page 59 of Best Summer Ever

‘Need a hand?’ I asked, as I ducked under the counter.

‘Oh, Daisy.’ Penny smiled. ‘No, it’s okay. I think I’ve just about got a handle on it now.’

I dreaded to think what the situation had been like before if she thought the current one was under control.

‘Sure?’ I frowned.

‘Well,’ she said, as she slid a packed tray over the counter to an exasperated-looking customer who had clearly been waitinga while, ‘maybe you could just clear some tables. It shouldn’t take a minute.’

‘Josh is already doing that,’ I told her and her face flushed.

‘I need to grow an extra pair of arms,’ she said, her voice wavering.

‘You do,’ I smiled, ‘and while you’re working on that, how about I take orders and make drinks and you focus on sorting the food?’

With another family now waiting, there was no time for her to turn my offer down and we set to work, clearing the queue as quickly as we could. It took a while and by the end of it I felt exhausted.

‘You can’t carry on like this, Pen,’ I said, once there was a break in customers long enough for us to have a conversation. ‘You’ll be frazzled by the bank holiday.’

Josh was washing dishes in the kitchen because there was no time to wait for the dishwasher to go through a cycle and Penny had quickly set to, prepping more salad and whipping up a dressing in anticipation of the next wave of hungry sun worshippers.

‘It’s fine,’ she said airily, ‘I’m still finding my feet. I just need to work out what’s achievable. There are a couple of things I added to the menu that are proving too time-consuming to prep, so I’m taking them off.’

I thought it was going to take more than a slight tweaking of the menu to keep control of the footfall, especially if the sun continued to shine.

‘Honestly,’ she said, when I didn’t say anything, ‘I can do it.’ I wasn’t questioning that she could do it. I just didn’t think it was achievable for her to do it on her own. ‘I really appreciateyou and Josh helping, but I would have got there if you hadn’t shown up.’

‘I know you would,’ I said, not wanting to rain on her parade.

I knew how excited she was to have the opportunity to run the café and share her passion for delicious food right at the time when she was considering her future.

‘Now,’ she said, as Josh appeared, all suds and dishpan hands, ‘what can I get you guys for lunch? Late lunch. On the house as payment for helping out.’

Josh opened his mouth to name a dish, but I shook my head.

‘Thanks, but we’re good,’ I told Penny. ‘We only came in to ask if you were still up for quiz night in the pub. I’m working, so I won’t be able to take part, but Josh’s keen. Aren’t you?’

He looked hungry, rather than willing to pit his intellect against the Wynmouth great and good.

‘Ever so,’ he said sardonically and right on cue, his tummy gave the loudest rumble. ‘That’s excitement, not hunger,’ he clarified, knowing everyone in the vicinity of the village must have heard it.

‘Like I said yesterday,’ Penny repeated, clearly not believing Josh, ‘I’ll be there. And now I suggest you go back to the cottage to eat, as Daisy won’t let me feed you.’

I was about to say I was only trying to save her some time, but a couple of customers arrived and Penny turned her attention to them.

‘I’ll see you later,’ she said. ‘And thank you. Both of you.’

Josh and I walked back to the village and straight to the shop to fill a bag with snacks, which we then greedily devoured on the sofa in the cottage.

‘Jeez,’ said Josh, once he’d made short work of a huge sausage roll that was made on a farm just outside the village, ‘I needed that.’

‘I know you did,’ I said, sitting back. ‘Your stomach let everyone within a five-mile radius know how hungry you were when we were in the café.’

‘Being surrounded by all that food Penny is selling didn’t help,’ he tutted, defending his rumbling tum. ‘She’s clearly a great cook, but she really isn’t going to be able to manage on her own, is she?’

‘No.’ I frowned, as I pursed my lips. ‘No, I don’t think she is. And I’m worried that attempting to will take the edge off what she’s trying to achieve by running it.’

‘Which is?’

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