The Little Gift Shop on the Loch by Maggie Conway

Author:Maggie Conway [Conway, Maggie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Published: 2019-05-05T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 12

Lily had arranged to meet Beth at the café in the activity centre. Now that she knew how good the coffee was, she’d suggested it as their meeting place. Lily had arrived first, the two-minute walk making it literally on her doorstep - something even Edinburgh’s abundant coffee shops had never afforded her the luxury of.

The café itself didn’t disappoint either. It was all very modern with chrome tables and chairs, background music playing and young, energetic staff buzzing around. They were sitting at a table overlooking the loch and had been served by a young boy who had brought them coffee and fudge brownies which Lily had managed to demolish hungrily in a few mouthfuls while Beth had only picked at hers.

She glanced over at the other woman, sensing her nervousness. Like the first time they’d met, Lily could see her grief etched on her face. She looked wary – even more so today as if being out was a new experience to her. Earlier, the clatter of dropped cutlery had almost made her jump out of her skin.

Lily had just finished explaining to Beth her idea to open the shop for a short time. She took a sip of her coffee and sat back, keen to hear her response. ‘So, what do you think?’

‘It’s a lovely idea,’ Beth replied tentatively. ‘But you’re not doing it just to sell my products? You don’t owe me anything, honestly.’

‘No.’ Lily shook her head firmly. ‘It makes sense for me to sell all the stock.’

Now that she’d had time to think about it she was sure opening for a time was the right thing. She reckoned it would take a couple of weeks for it all to sell, depending how busy it was. It would give her something to do while she waited to hear back from her job applications and give her time to apply for anything else that came up. In the meantime, she had decided to view this time as a bit of a working holiday. She rooted in her bag now for her notepad where she’d jotted down some ideas for pricing. ‘You and Mum hadn’t discussed costs or anything?’

Beth gave a little helpless shrug. ‘Your mother and I had joked about how neither of us had business brains.’

Lily had spent a few hours researching similar products and combined with her own knowledge, had made some estimates. She flicked through a couple of sheets, asking Beth a few questions about her overheads which, as she had suspected, were reasonably low. Her priority was making sure Beth was paid a fair price and she showed her the figure she had in mind.

‘You’ll think they’ll sell for that?’

Lily smiled at her surprise. ‘Pretty sure.’

‘I suppose it would be exciting to see how they sell.’

Lily saw something ignite in Beth’s eyes, as if for the first time she’d allowed herself to think she really might have a successful business that could make money.

‘There’s something else I wanted to mention to you.

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