Page 19 of Autumn at the Oak Leaf Café
Madeline cringed. ‘No, I suppose not.’
‘Caroline, dear,’ Margaret called to the receptionist, who was staring at her iPhone. ‘Don’t you have any friends looking for a part time job? You know, in between all the drinking and bonking?’
Caroline didn’t miss a beat. ‘I’ll ask around,’ she said.
Hazel had got stuck in one of Madeline’s plaits, and was swinging back and forth while trying to get her tiny claws into Madeline’s left ear. As Madeline reached up her left hand to pluck Hazel free, she felt a wet sensation on her other hand, and looked down to see the pug licking her fingers.
A door opened beside the reception desk, and a man in a mask leaned out. ‘Miss Fellow and Hazel, please.’
Madeline scooped Hazel into her hands and hurried into the consultation room, happy to leave the women and their dogs behind.
The vet, wearing a greenish-blue surgical gown and a face mask, frowned at Madeline as she put the kitten down, then tilted his head and let out a little chuckle. The strip of face she could see looked younger than she expected from a vet. He also looked vaguely familiar, but Madeline, wondering at what point she should mention the possibility of de-worming medicine for adults, couldn’t quite place him.
‘Who do we have here, then?’
‘This is Hazel,’ Madeline said. ‘I found her last night, around the back of my café.’
She explained the circumstances of her discovery, leaving out the embarrassing chase and the near miss with the bus.
‘Well, she looks pretty robust,’ the vet said. ‘You said she was running with a limp?’
‘Yes. On her left front leg.’
The vet lifted Hazel, who mewed and batted his hand with one tiny paw. He turned her over and peered closer.
‘She has a splinter,’ he said. ‘Don’t worry, it’s an easy fix.’
A few minutes later, Madeline emerged with Hazel in her arms. The vet had given her an injection, checked there was no microchip, removed the splinter, and armed Madeline with a bag of special formula for kittens, which he said would sort her out. She had to bring Hazel back for a checkup in a week’s time.
She was feeling pretty buoyant when she got back to the café. The park seemed quiet, just a handful of dogwalkers and joggers, a few mothers with pre-school aged children. The sun was high above the trees, and the air had a light chill, a refreshing scent of recent rain.
As she went to open the front door, a girl she hadn’t noticed before stood up from one of the picnic tables and slid a phone back into her pocket. She had hair dyed aquamarine blue tied back into a ponytail, with two orange strands hanging down either side of her face. She wore a black t-shirt with TURN OFF YOUR STUPID PHONE written in aggressive red lettering across the middle, black jeans, black shoes. A nose ring and too much makeup left Madeline unsure whether she was pretty or some sort of gothic art project.
‘Hello,’ the girl said. ‘Are you Madeline Fellow?’
‘Yes? Can I get you something? If you just hang on a minute, I’ll open up—’
The girl beamed a wide smile and stuck out a hand littered with signet rings. ‘I’m here for the job,’ the girl said. ‘My name’s Ruby.’
‘The job?’
Ruby grinned. ‘Yes. My mate Caroline sent me a message to say you were hiring. Ignore the t-shirt. It was a gift.’
‘I’m not—ah … hiring—’ Madeline began, just as a tour bus pulled into the car park outside the theatre, dozens of old women peering expectantly out of the windows. ‘—but I might be right now … Can you make coffee?’
Ruby beamed again. ‘Of course I can. I’ve been fired from every coffee shop in town.’
12
New Faces and Old
By the timethe tour group had gone off to the theatre, leaving the café a sea of empty cups and plates, Madeline had promised herself never to judge a book by its cover again.
Not only was Ruby really good at making coffee, but she had a manner with the customers that defied all logic considering her somewhat odd appearance. Even those few customers who appeared a little unnerved by her cartoonish hair were converted by the time she had taken coffee over to their table, stopped for a chat about the weather, or complimented them on their hair or clothing. It made Madeline wonder quite why she had been supposedly fired by all of Brentwell’s other coffee shops.
‘Well,’ Ruby said, holding up a hand as they sat together on two stools by the counter, the last customer of the morning rush having just gone out of the door. ‘Number one … the manager asked for a date three times in the same day. He was proper old, at least thirty. The third time, I yelled “No means no!” into his face, and stamped on his foot.’
She had accompanied the explanation with an actual shout and a crack of her boot on the floor. Madeline flinched.
