Page 6 of Finding Love at Roseford Blooms
‘I noticed that the flower shop has changed its signs and logos from the last time I was here,’ she said, turning her attention back to Bee, desperate to backtrack from a potential path of introspection she wasn’t quite ready to go down yet.
‘Well, it has been quite a while since you visited,’ Bee replied. ‘I might be approaching my dotage but there’s still life in the old dog, and shop, yet!’
Lizzie, with her keen eye for marketing, voiced her approval of the new colour scheme.
‘Have you thought about going online yet?’ she asked her aunt. Although marketing was the last thing she wanted to think about, having made her exit from that world so recently, she couldn’t help herself. She’d immersed herself in the finer points of how to market and promote businesses for more than a decade. It wasn’t something she could easily just switch off.
‘Oh, I think that’s for the person after me to think about,’ Bee replied. ‘I get kept busy enough with local orders, especially in the summer.’
‘Even so, it couldn’t hurt to at least set up a website,’ Lizzie said. Then, abruptly, she paused and laughed nervously. ‘Sorry,’ she continued. ‘Just can’t seem to stop thinking about work, can I?’
‘Well, you’re going to have to learn, at least for a few weeks.’ Bee laughed too. ‘And there are worse places to do that than Roseford, aren’t there?’ With a creak of bones, she got back up from the sofa. ‘Now, shall we see about another cup of tea? I’ve got some lavender cupcakes from Roseford Café to bridge the gap between now and dinner time, if you’d like one?’
‘Thanks, Aunt Bee,’ Lizzie replied. ‘That would be lovely.’
As Bee walked out of the living room and headed towards the kitchen, Lizzie felt a flutter of nerves. Bee, for all her positivity and cheer, couldn’t have been more wrong about Roseford. Even though the thought of convalescing with her parents was immeasurably worse, Roseford held its own secrets; secrets Lizzie wasn’t sure that she was strong enough to confront.
7
After a night’s sleep born more of exhaustion than relaxation, Lizzie awoke in the quiet back bedroom on the ground floor that Bee had prepared for her, feeling a whole lot better than she’d thought she would. Despite Bee’s raised eyebrow, she’d left the sash window open, and a slight breeze was ruffling the flower-patterned curtains, letting in slivers of warm sunlight as it did. The scent of the honeysuckle growing adjacent to the window and the lavender below it reached Lizzie as she tried to roll over on her left side, before the cuff on her arm reminded her.
Every. Single. Time.
Sighing in exasperation, she rolled to the right and got out of bed. The varnished floorboards felt warm under her feet, and she mooched over to look out of the window. Drawing back the curtains, she smiled to see the beauty of Bee’s back garden, which was just as well kept as the front. Although she got most of her flowers from larger suppliers, Bee liked to bundle the lavender, which was abundant, and other seasonal blooms from her own garden for those who wanted to keep their shopping a little more local.
Lizzie’s peaceful contemplation of Bee’s garden was interrupted by the abrupt buzzing of a large bumblebee past her face and into the room. Lizzie jumped back reflexively, and then berated herself for having taken fright at a creature that had obviously just lost its way. She watched the bumblebee’s leisurely progress around the room before, obviously realising it had taken a wrong turn on its quest for sweetness, it continued its languorous flight back out of the sash window and the buzz faded away once again.
The day was going to be warm; that much was already obvious. Lizzie slid her feet into her slippers and then decided that coffee was in order. In her ‘normal’ life, she couldn’t function before she’d had a measure of double espresso from the machine in the corner of her modern kitchen. She hadn’t spotted a coffee machine in Bee’s kitchen when she’d gone to grab a glass of water before bed the night before, but she hoped she could find some ground coffee or, at a push, some instant to see her through until she could find another source. Paul had always known better than to talk to her before she’d had her first coffee of the day. She felt a pang of loneliness as she thought back to the times he’d gently teased her for her muddle-headedness in the mornings, and then brought her the first, perfectly brewed cup while she was still in bed. Despite everything, she missed little gestures like that. She didn’t regret the break-up, but she missed the little things.
When she got to the kitchen, she saw that Bee had left a note for her, propped up against a small posy of wildflowers, presumably also from the garden that she’d just been admiring.
Dear Lizzie,
I hope you slept well. I’m expecting an early delivery so I’m off to open up the shop. Help yourself to what you want for breakfast but most importantly… RELAX!!
See you later,
Bee
Lizzie smiled when she saw that Bee had added that same doodle of a bumblebee after her name, as she always had when she’d signed birthday cards to Lizzie and her sister when they were kids. And, most recently of course, the card with the flowers she’d sent.
When the quest for coffee, even a jar of instant, came up fruitless, Lizzie decided to get dressed and go on the hunt for it elsewhere. As the taxi had travelled up Roseford’s main street yesterday, Lizzie had noticed a café that hadn’t been there the last time she’d visited. Although she couldn’t recall the sign over the door, she assumed it was the Roseford Café that Bee had bought those delicious lavender cupcakes from. She figured that it was as good a place to start her hunt for decent coffee as any. Taking a careful shower, happy to remove the collar and cuff for a few minutes, she managed to get a strappy top and a pair of skinny jeans on, before pulling the sleeve of her hoodie over her good arm and wriggling until the other side was draped over her shoulder. Tying her hair back proved rather more difficult, so she just brushed it and left it loose. It was a contrast to her usual style, which was to tie the wavy, dark, shoulder-length mass back as often as possible, but for the moment it couldn’t be helped. It felt weird to have it loose; she far preferred it out of her face, but, she figured, at least she could hide behind it if she saw anyone she didn’t want to talk to.
Not that she imagined that that was really a possibility. Two decades was a long time to stay away, after all. Trying to put the past out of her mind and concentrate on the present, Lizzie strolled down the hill towards the village centre. She was pleased to see that, with the arrival of the British Heritage Fund, the village was looking more prosperous. Freshly painted cottages butted up against those who’d clearly had their local stone cleaned up, and most gardens were a riot of tubs, hanging baskets and shrubs. Overhead, magpies chattered in the oak trees and blackbirds swooped down, busily searching for food to take back to nearby nests. The tang of meadow grass was in the air, and the musky scent of lime hedges, interspersed with buddleia and the sweet, almost cloying scent of philadelphus. She remembered Roseford for its scents, and was assailed by them as she passed the well-kept gardens of the parish.
Walking up the main street, she noticed that, even at ten o’clock on a weekday, the place was doing brisk trade. The tourist season was well under way, and Roseford’s popularity had clearly increased over the years. Lizzie hoped that Bee’s flower shop had seen a similar uptick in trade. Perhaps her aunt was right when she said she had no need of a website just yet. Although Lizzie wondered what happened in the winter months, when most of the tourists stayed away. She’d pop in after she’d had a coffee and see how trade was.
Soon enough, she was walking through the door of Roseford Café, and was relieved to see a large, serious-looking chrome coffee machine behind the counter. A pretty blonde woman was chatting to a customer while she put their order together, and Lizzie waited, next in line, appreciating the scent of what smelled like perfectly percolated coffee. While the previous customer paid, Lizzie took in the array of freshly baked cakes and scones under glass cloches on the counter, wondering if it would be too decadent to have a slice of carrot and walnut cake, complete with mascarpone icing, for breakfast. As her stomach gave an almighty rumble, she decided that it wasexactlywhat she needed.
‘Hi.’ The woman behind the counter beamed as Lizzie’s turn came. Lizzie noticed that she had the name ‘Lucy’ embroidered on her apron, just above and to the left of the café’s name. ‘Welcome to Roseford Café. What can I get you?’ Her eyes flickered to the sling, but she didn’t ask. Lizzie was relieved; she didn’t want to go over it again, and not with a total stranger.
‘Can I have a latte with a double shot of espresso, and a slice of that carrot cake, please?’ Lizzie asked. She was amused that just saying the name of the cake made her salivate. She hadn’t had much of an appetite since she’d come out of hospital, so she took this as a good sign.
‘Of course,’ Lucy replied. ‘Why don’t you take a seat and I’ll bring them over to you?’
‘Thanks,’ Lizzie replied, presenting her bank card to pay. She managed to pour herself a glass of water from the jug on the counter, and took it to the table in the front corner of the café. Sitting so that she could look out of the window and see who was coming through the door, she spent a few minutes just watching the world go by, until Lucy came over with her cake and coffee.
‘Here you go,’ Lucy said, carefully setting the plate and the mug down in front of Lizzie. ‘Can I get you anything else?’
