Love & Freedom by Sue Moorcroft

Author:Sue Moorcroft
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub, mobi
Tags: Romance, Love Stories, Americans, Fiction, General
ISBN: 9781906931667
Publisher: Choc Lit
Published: 2012-03-27T23:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eighteen

It was a busy week at the Teapot, the last of July and the English school summer holidays in full swing.

Sophie decided to like her pink hair, humming David Bowie songs as she clattered around the steamy atmosphere.

Ru, almost silent, a baseball hat on back-to-front as his nod to hair hygiene, stood at the steamy, soapy sink washing the eclectic white crockery and stacking it in the wall racks to drain. Kirsty made a short appearance each day, scarily skeletal and snapping at everybody, then clutching her forehead and apologising.

Honor got right into her waitress’s stride of rapid and economical movement, taking orders, serving, clearing tables, sanitising, watching the tables fill and empty, fill and empty. She was astonished when Sophie, having organised a Finnish student, Aletta, to help serve, opened a door that Honor hadn’t really noticed at the rear of the inside seating area to reveal a whole other room. The twenty tables in there began to fill and empty, too.

Very beautiful, with apple-round cheeks and soft full lips, Aletta’s English only failed her if a customer showed any hint of irritation, when she would smile gently and drift away, leaving one of the native English-speakers to get yelled at instead of her.

Through the bustle, Robina serenely made cakes, whipping up sugary frostings or boiling glistening jams to sandwich together layers of moist sponge or crispy meringue. Her drunkenly risen scones were treated by many customers as a meal in themselves and so many were baked that Honor was sure that she went home at night smelling like a steaming trayful.

On Tuesday, Clarissa dropped in for lunch. ‘Hello, Honor. Baked potato with cheddar cheese and crispy bacon, please. This place can’t be good for me. What jam has Robina made? Plum? I’ll have a jar, then.’

Honor reached for a stubby jar with its white cotton cap. ‘I’m sure you can work it off. You Mayfairs are never still.’

‘True.’ Clarissa glanced at her watch. ‘Martyn says you run, so you’re pretty active, yourself?’

Honor wrote the jam on Clarissa’s bill and dropped it back on to the table. ‘I used to dance and stuff, too. But I haven’t got into that here, yet.’ The instant the words had left her mouth she wanted them back. Clarissa’s face lit up.

‘But I take dance classes – tap, ballroom …’

‘I’m more hiphop, these days–’

‘And Zumba,’ Clarissa finished, triumphantly. ‘Zumba sounds right up your street. It’s tonight, at the community centre.’

‘I have taken Zumba classes back home.’ Honor made as if to move on to the next table but the hope in Clarissa’s eyes made her pause. The economy was bad and Clarissa was probably finding her numbers falling. And then the classes would end and Clarissa wouldn’t have a job and that would be awful … ‘I’ll try to come,’ she promised.

By the time she’d finished at the Teapot her feet burned and Zumba class didn’t sound like a good cure. She’d just jump in the shower and veg out with a meal from the freezer and a magazine.

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