Page 43 of The Vet from Snowy River
Wednesday. Bloody hell. Tonight was the inaugural craft group gathering at The Billy Button Café and she’d done nothing to prep for it!
She pulled her phone out of her pocket and texted Graeme, who was on the early shift.Graeme! I totally forgot, tonight is curtain’s up for the first craft meeting. Six o’clock start. I’ll be there after lunch to get prepped … would you mind checking milk and egg stocks? I can pick some up here in Cooma before I drive back up the mountain.
Her phone beeped seconds later.
Milk and eggs in stock. I’ve set Poppy to work prepping a tea station on the buffet in the back room. Maybe some fresh flowers, if you’re passing the markets, would be a nice touch. Might want to buy a bottle of gin and some fresh lemons too, Vera, in case you need a sneaky G & T in the kitchen to get you through the evening, LOL.
She grinned. Her lovely Graeme … always brainstorming the good ideas.
Love your thinking,she tapped back.
You’re the only one rostered after five pm. Want me to ask Poppy or Jackson if they can work late?
She hesitated. Having a spare pair of hands was marvellous, despite the pain her till takings felt every time she paid her casual staff their wages. And who knew how many would be coming to Marigold’s evening craft group?
Let’s ask Poppy. She’s going back to Sydney early next week for the start of Term Four, and she’s keen to get as many hours in as she can. If it’s quiet, I can duck out to walk her home.
You’re the boss, boss.
She smiled. Damn straight, she was. She glanced at her watch. There was no need to hurry back. Graeme could run the café with one of his manicured hands tied behind his back, and Poppy had taken to café work like a duck to water once she’d overcome her outrage at the early starts. Vera had plenty of time to work up some sandwiches and cake for the evening ahead.
She leaned back in her wicker chair, held her aunt’s hand, and turned her face to the sun.
CHAPTER
13
Seven hours later, Vera was knee-deep in fabric scraps and empty teacups and had a headache playing rap music in her skull. Sixteen residents of Hanrahan were gathered around the big table in the back room of the café, but from the noise you would have supposed there were six hundred of them.
The table bristled with jugs of knitting needles, pots of glue, little yellow wheels which looked like pizza cutters but seemed to be designed to cut fabric into weirdly thin strips. Ribbon making? Hair ties?
Whatever. She’d given up trying to make sense of any of the activity going on. The food she’d prepared had been inhaled within minutes, and she’d be needing to restock her tea caddies first thing in the morning.
Kev caught her eye as she bent down to wipe up some glue that had dripped from a hot glue gun, down her second-hand sideboard, onto the wide floor planks.
‘It’s going well, isn’t it, Vera?’
‘Absolutely,’ she lied, wondering if she should go get her icing spreader to lever the glue off before it became a permanent fixture.
‘Even George turned up. Marigold’s set him to work on detangling Mrs J’s basket of embroidery threads.’
‘Excellent.’
The last of the glue flicked up under her fingernail, and she stood up. Perhaps it was time for that sneaky gin and tonic.
Kev leaned a hip against the sideboard. ‘Now, why don’t you tell me what’s got you in a bother?’
‘I’m not in a bother at all, Kev. You need something? More hot water?’
‘I need you to take a breath, love. If this is too busy, we can think about a new venue. Just because Marigold loves a bit of crazy craft chaos, doesn’t mean you have to love it. Let’s go find a table in a quiet corner and have ourselves a minute.’
Vera sighed. She would love to sit a minute. And the rush for sandwiches and cakehadslowed. She followed Kev to a table tucked between the antique bookcase she’d restored and the fireplace and fell into a timber chair.
‘It’s not the craft,’ she said.
‘You want to tell an old man what’s got you so quiet?’
She did want to unburden herself. The weight of doubt had been eating at her since leaving Jill so non-responsive in her wicker chair. The truth was, Jill was dying. Soon, too soon, Vera would be on her own, and that future frightened her. Even in a whole room full of chattering, cheery people, she felt apart, like a biscuit that had been discarded on the baking tray because its edges were a little too burned.
