Page 18 of Love, Lilly

“OK, have fun. I will just finish up here.” I wave towards the kitchen. “And then I will head home. See you tomorrow?”

“Yes, I will be there bright and early.” He heads towards the bathroom. “Don’t forget to set your alarm clock for the morning!” he yells over his shoulder.

“Alarm clock, he reminds me,” I mutter to myself after Oliver has left the room. “Like I am some incompetent, forgetful child.” I huff to myself before conceding that sleeping in and missing the market altogether does sound like something I would do.

Oliver rushes out of the house fifteen minutes later, with what looks like a manila folder tucked under his arm, yelling goodbye as he runs out of the door. I lie back down on the couch and close my eyes. It has been a very long day, and now I have trays upon trays of baked goods to pack away into airtight containers, ready for the trip home. Maybe if I close my eyes just for a minute, I will find the energy to get moving.

The next thing I notice is someone placing a warm blanket on me and taking off my shoes. I snuggle down deeper into sleep and mumble, “Thanks,” to the helpful stranger who is making me more comfortable. As I fall back deeper into sleep, I feel a soft kiss on my forehead, followed by a gruff voice saying, “Night, Lilly.”

CHAPTER 10

Lilly

I wake the next day to sunlight streaming onto my face and a sore neck. Where am I? With some trouble, I sit up, wincing as I straighten my spine and look around. Am I still on the Harlows’ couch? Did I really sleep, like, fourteen hours last night? Wait! That means it is market day, and I have left all my market stall food out on the bench all night.

“No!” I groan as I get to my feet, noticing I must have kicked off my shoes at some point and somehow found myself a blanket? Everything will be stale or soggy, having been left out all night.

“Good job, Lil,” I tell myself as I limp to the kitchen. “Way to mess up your first trial run.” As I enter the kitchen, I rub my tired eyes, trying to make sense of all the neatly packed away cookies and muffins on the counter and the brownies in the fridge where they belong. Hmm? How did this happen? I think back to last night, Oliver rushing out to see Emma, my procrastinating cleaning up with a power nap that raged out of control, a kiss on the forehead—wait. Was that a dream? Oliver must have come home, seen me passed out on the couch—please god, not snoring or drooling—and come to my rescue, again. As much as it bothers me to always be in his debt, I do owe him for this one.

I look at the time and see that I need to get home and get ready to make it to the market on time, so I leave a note to my hero, thanking him yet again for saving the day, and gathering up my stuff, I rush out the door. Once home, I hurry through a shower, washing my hair and plaiting it in a big braid, Lara Croft–style, to keep it out of the way. Now on to my outfit. What does a successful business-type woman wear to her opening event? In the blistering heat? I settle for a fitted black T-shirt tucked into high-waisted shorts, paired with Roman sandals tied in a criss-cross pattern up my legs, stopping mid-calf. There! Comfortable, stylish, and sweat resistant. I glance at the time and start loading up my car again, waving goodbye to the ever-present Johnny, excited to be on my way.

When I get to the market, having had to park miles down the road because of the busy nature of the event, I look around for the stall Oliver reserved for me. Number 132. As I crane my neck to look at the stall numbers around me, balancing my trays and Tupperware containers precariously in my arms, I see Oliver up ahead. And he is putting up a sign, a sign with the Love, Lilly logo he crafted last week, the one I raved about. He had it printed for me? I rush up to the trestle table, dumping my stuff, and grab Oliver.

“When did you do this?” I ask.

He turns and, as he so often does, runs his eyes over me, pausing on my long braid and sandals with a smile.

“You can’t launch your business without identifying your brand, Lil,” he replies like a true marketer. “You must have a logo that people can recognise and search for.”

I squeal as I look at it again and pull him into a hug, this one going for thirteen seconds as we both appear happy to stay in each other’s arms.

“Ahem,” Amy says from somewhere behind me. “I am here too and very early for a Sunday morning, might I add.” With a lot of reluctance, I pull away from Oliver and see my best friend grinning at me, looking adorable in her short denim overalls.

“I see that, Ames, and I am ever so grateful.”

“You are welcome. Now let’s get this set up before your hordes of customers arrive.”

As we lay out the treasures baked with love the day before, Oliver fusses over the sign, “aiming for maximum visibility,” he informs us. Once everything is set up, I turn to see a few people waiting in line and get to work.

“What can I get for you?” I ask the first customers, an older lady with her two teenage sons by her side.

“We will take two cookies, a slice of banana bread, and a brownie, please.” The older lady pulls out her wallet. As I attend to this, my first ever sale, Oliver is taking photos, again fixing the logo until it is just right.

“Did you see that, guys?” I ask as my customers walk away, munching on their treats with enjoyment. “I sold something! If nothing else comes from today, I made one sale.”

“Well, don’t look now,” Amy replies, “but you are about to make some more.” I look to see a queue forming in front of the stall and leap into action. Amy, god bless her, jumps in to help too, and before long, we have sold out of almost half my stock. My stall has had a constant stream of customers, including the very excited Madi and Sammi, both purchasing a lot and demanding I take selfies with them to post on their socials. And of course Johnny also made a visit, though with him in line, the queue shrank in size somewhat. Maybe he is scarier to look at than I think.

“I should have made more,” I tell Amy as I wipe some sweat off my forehead when we finally hit a lull. Where have all these people come from?

“Your booth is a featured post on the Market Place Instagram page,” a young man says to me from the booth next door. “So people who log on to see what is happening at the market see your booth first. It’s smart marketing. Wish I had thought of it,” he adds as he turns away to serve a customer. Wish I had thought of it too, I think as I turn to see Oliver messing about on his phone, playing with filters for some of the photos he took earlier.

“Oliver? Did you organise to have my Love, Lilly stand featured on the Market Place Instagram account?”

Oliver looks a little sheepish. “I hope I didn’t overstep my bounds. But it just makes the best sense from a marketing perspective. You don’t want to be just one of the many stalls here. You want to be the stall that everyone is talking about.”

“But, Ollie, what if I hadn’t been able to get it all together for today? What if you hadn’t stepped in to save the day and I had left all the stuff out on the bench last night, rendering them all inedible? Then you would have featured a stall on Instagram with no food!”

“I knew that wouldn’t happen, Lil,” he says. “I knew you would be amazing today, and look! You have almost sold out of all the cookies and brownies. People are raving about your food online.” He takes his phone and shows me the comment section from the Love, Lilly Instagram post.

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