Page 86 of A Winter Kiss on Rochester Mews
‘I don’t feel comfortable doing that,’ Sam said, as he tried to hide behind the baby reindeer, which was looking decidedly the worse for wear. They were never going to get the deposit back. There was a sudden commotion at the door and Mattie, fearing that the queue was about to turn nasty, hurried over to tell them to pipe down. That was when she saw Nina standing there.
She had to be hallucinating because Nina should have been at home, convalescing after breaking pretty much every bone in her body – not standing outside the shop on crutches, sporting a fetching neck brace, and generally being held up by Noah.
Mattie quickly unlocked the door to let them in.
‘It’s so good to see you!’ Mattie cried, moving in to hug Nina, but she was body blocked by Noah.
‘Mind the ribs!’ he said as Nina began to make her very slow and very laborious way to the sofa.
‘Sophie, I need you to deploy cushions,’ Nina ordered, as Mattie quickly shut the door and held up her hands to the queue to indicate that they might be open in another five minutes. Possibly.
‘I can’t believe you’ve come to help us in our hour of need,’ Mattie exclaimed. ‘Nina, this is really going above and beyond.’
‘I know,’ Nina agreed, wincing a little as she sat up so that Sophie could stick a couple of cushions behind her back. ‘But I’ve just been so bored at home. I did a whole binge watch ofSex and the City, which, by the way, hasn’t aged well, and if I had to spend one more day cooped up in our flat, I was going to scream.’
‘Oh dear. But … you can work though, can’t you?’ Mattie asked urgently.
‘No,’ Noah said firmly.
‘Yes,’ Nina said equally firmly. ‘I can operate an iPad so people can pay me and I can direct them from here to any book in the shop. In fact, I’m amazed that you managed without me for even these last few days.’
‘Great!’ Mattie said, rubbing her hands in agitation. ‘I’m going to open up now. Sam! Why haven’t you gone upstairs and dragged Tom out of his bed?’
‘Because I’m already up.’ Tom staggered through the door that led to the flat. ‘Evidently.’
He was barely up, clinging to the counter with a white-knuckled hand, and his face was grey. Mattie had zero sympathy.
‘Well, you should have been down here ready to start work ten minutes ago.’ She turned round sharply so she wouldn’t have to look at the man who was apparently done with her. ‘I’m going to open the shop now and you’ll have to manage without me for fifteen minutes because I do have tearooms to run as well, you know.’
‘Why has Mattie got a massive stick up her arse?’ Mattie heard Nina ask as she flicked the shop sign to ‘Open’ and unlocked the door. Mattie was quite tempted to tell Nina exactly why, but there was no time.
Meanwhile, the tearooms were in chaos. There was a large and grumbling queue snaking back from the counter where Jezebel was making a series of angry hissing noises like she was about to blow at any second. Mattie could empathise.
‘What’s going on?’ she asked Cuthbert who was not looking his usual unflappable self but very frazzled. He was down to his shirtsleeves as he prodded at his beloved coffee machine.
‘Jezebel is very unhappy today,’ Cuthbert explained. ‘She doesn’t want anything to do with steaming milk.’
Mattie tugged on her fringe in frustration. ‘Bloody Jezebel!’
‘It’s that sort of attitude that’s made her so ornery,’ Cuthbert said sadly. ‘I’ve called the engineer, but he can’t come out until the new year.’
‘Typical!’ Mattie groaned. ‘Well, it’s black coffee, then, or nothing.’ There came a frantic beeping from the depths of her apron pocket. ‘Oh God, that’s my alarm, I need to take stuff out of the oven.’
It was a morning from hell. Even though Mattie had written an apologetic note and pinned it to both tearoom door and the recalcitrant Jezebel, she had to explain countless times (at least one hundred and forty-seven, at a conservative estimate) to furious customers what the hot-drink situation was.
Added to that, she kept being called to the shop to help out because of all the thoughtless people who’d left their present buying to the very last minute. Sophie was trying to man the Mistletoe Booth queue but no one was respecting her authority. Nina was reclining on the sofa like an elderly monarch and serving people in a very languid, not-at-all speedy way. Sam and Tom were behind the counter and being monosyllabic with their customers.
‘I haven’t seen them mouth “Merry Christmas” to a single customer,’ Posy complained on her fifth phone call of the morning. ‘Tell them off! Do it now!’
‘I would love to but I don’t actually have time to tell anyone off,’ Mattie said, as one of the timers in her apron pocket started beeping. ‘In fact, I’m going back to the tearooms now.’
‘Before you do that, can you angle the webcam so that I can get a better view of the counter?’ Posy asked. Mattie had never been more tempted to throw her phone in the nearest body of water. ‘Also, you and Tom haven’t had a single row this morning, which is quite disappointing.’
‘The day is young and Posy, spying on your employees and then reporting the spying back to your husband, who then tellshisemployees, such as my best friend, Pippa, has to be breaking several laws,’ Mattie panted as she shouldered some customers out of the way on her journey back to the tearooms.
‘I’m pretty sure it isn’t,’ Posy said cheerfully; enforced bed rest was obviously agreeing with her.
‘I haven’t got time for this,’ Mattie said, hanging up on Posy and vowing that, unless the shop was on fire (and given how today was panning out, that was a distinct possibility), she wasn’t going to answer any more of Posy’s calls. She felt very good about this decision.
