Saturday lunch began with a customer asking whether the garden was closed for Lena's wedding.
“Not yet,” she said, smiling. “Two weeks today.”
The words startled her. All the conversations, two trips, one kiss, one room, and somehow the date had kept moving toward them anyway.
The customer congratulated her. Lena took the order and went inside with the familiar embarrassment of being made happy in public while feeling less certain in private.
Jo was boxing little cakes for a collection.
“Bea wants us to look at the flower stands next Saturday,” Lena said. “Could we close the garden a little early?”
“No.”
“Only an hour.”
“The birthday lunch is next Saturday.”
Lena had forgotten. Or not forgotten exactly—put it somewhere she didn't need to hold it. A customer's sixtieth birthday, eighteen people, paid food and a long afternoon in the garden. It had been booked before the wedding date was confirmed.
“We could move the trial indoors.”
“You can move the trial wherever you like. I'm working.”
“I need you to see it.”
Jo set the cake box down.
“You need me at the customer event more.”
“I've been taking the extra closes.”
“Starting next week. Which I appreciate. That doesn't erase next Saturday.”
A customer at the counter cleared his throat. Lena took his payment too quickly and gave him the wrong coin. He noticed kindly, which made it worse.
Jo waited until he went outside.
“Could you not do this in front of everyone?” Lena whispered.
“Then stop asking in front of everyone.”
She felt her eyes burn.
“It's my wedding.”
“Yes.” Jo leaned close enough to keep her voice low. “And it's my café. I get to keep that too.”
Lena looked away. She wanted her sister to hear how much this mattered without having to explain why she was suddenly frightened again.
“I thought you'd want to help.”
Jo's face changed.
Lena knew she'd hit the right place. She was ashamed of knowing it and didn't take the words back quickly enough.
Her sister picked up the cake box.
“I do want to help. I've done quite a lot of it. Go and bring table six their drinks.”
The lunch rush became difficult. A wrong plate went out. Somebody complained about waiting. Lena had to keep moving while Jo dealt with the complaint she couldn't stop to hear.
At two, the little boy from the spilled-drink lunch came back with his father. He remembered Lena and asked whether she had got married yet. She told him not yet. He asked if she would wear a crown.
“No crown,” she said.
He looked disappointed enough that she nearly apologised.
When he went, she took the cups into the kitchen and stood beside Jo without pretending she had only come for the washing-up.
“That was rotten,” she said.
“What?”
“Saying you didn't want to help.”
“Yes.”
“You've done more than anyone.”
Jo kept rinsing a plate.
“I don't want it held against me every time I need you to do your job,” she said.
“I won't.”
Her sister looked at her then, not angry enough to make the promise easy.
“We'll see.”
Lena took the towel and dried the plate. They worked for several minutes before Jo asked whether she could handle the later garden tables alone while Jo went through the birthday lunch menu.
“Yes.”
“No disappearing for ten minutes to talk to Bea.”
“I'll be here.”
Lena was. She had tired feet, a sticky sleeve and a customer who wanted another clean spoon because he had used the first to catch a fly. She stayed until the last table had gone.
Daniel had said he'd stop by and help take the chairs in. He arrived after Jo had already gone upstairs and Lena had carried them herself.
“I'm sorry,” he said. “The man on Bell Street kept adding things.”
She almost said he had been at Bell Street for weeks. It was the same house, more small work, not a secret. She was too tired to turn it into another question.
He held out a bag.
“Your favourite buns.”
She looked at them. The icing had stuck to the paper.
“Thank you.”
“I can do the floors.”
“I've done them.”
“Then we can go.”
She took the bag. Her hands ached from carrying the chairs, and the icing smelled lovely.
She took a bun and sat on the clean chair nearest the door.
“Just a minute,” she said. “I need to stop.”
Daniel sat beside her. He didn't try to make the bun into the right answer.
After a while she leaned against him, and ate it.