Page 14 of I’ll Be Home for Christmas

After swapping numbers they headed their separate ways; Warren to get a feel of the area for his article, and Fred to find Coast Roast.

The James Barrie Arcade was a small cobbled courtyard accessed via an arch in the stone wall between two shops on the main high street.

From the outside it gave nothing away; even the sign for the arcade was so modest that you could walk straight past and never know that, through the archway, was a cluster of the prettiest hotchpotch of shops you ever did see.

Between the ivy tumbling down the walls, the generosity with fairy lights, and the brightly colored crooked shop fronts, it felt like stepping into Christmas all year round.

The air was filled with the inviting aroma of freshly roasting coffee.

Fred followed the scent to a sweet double-fronted shop with bags of Coast Roast coffee, wrapped in red ribbons, nestled in wooden gift boxes in the windows.

The door was open, and she stepped in behind a cluster of French tourists who appeared to be buying up the shop.

The walls were lined with shelves showcasing thick paper bags of coffee of various strengths and bars of chocolate from the handmade chocolate shop on the high street, Cocoa Me, specially chosen to complement each blend.

A small coffee machine sat behind the counter with a stack of paper cups on top of it.

She spotted Ryan serving alongside a woman sporting a sharp black bob and perfect eyeliner flicks.

They had the air of two people well used to working together, and between them they fulfilled the orders with a swift and practiced ease.

Fred had a sudden yen to still be the one who knew him best. She gave herself a talking-to.

It was nostalgia, nothing more. When she’d left for university, despite how they’d drifted apart those last few months, she’d truly believed they were still BFFs, that in the near future they’d pick right back up where they’d left off.

But seventeen years had passed since then, and neither of them had cared to revisit their friendship in the intervening years.

Despite the enticing sense of familiarity, they didn’t know each other anymore, and the thought made her sadder than she’d expected.

The crowd in the shop thinned, making the deep whirring sound of machinery coming from a door behind the counter more acute.

“Hi, can I help you?” asked the woman serving.

“Oh…um.”

Ryan looked up from his till roll at the sound of her voice.

“Fred, you came!” He smiled at her, and she felt the warmth of his greeting twinkle inside her. “Mina, this is Fred, my oldest friend…I mean, we knew each other when we were kids, we were best friends.”

She couldn’t help the wide smile spreading across her whole face. If Mina noticed, she was polite enough not to show it.

“It’s lovely to meet you, Fred,” said Mina. “Are you back in town for the holidays?”

“Ah, no, I’m staying. Temporarily. Or not. I’m in a transient phase.”

“Well, you came back at the right time. There’s nowhere like Pine Bluff at Christmas.”

“I’m starting to remember.”

“Fred, Mina is my right-hand woman. This place would go to the dogs without her.”

Mina gave him a friendly shove. “He’s lying. I am the manager, although since I’m the only member of staff I guess that’s not so impressive.”

Self-effacing and gorgeous. Great! Not that it matters. In the least.

“Wait, if there’s only two of you, how do you manage to supply the whole of Pine Bluff and half the delis in London?” Fred asked.

“Firstly, it’s not half by a long chalk, but I am working on it.” Ryan grinned. “And secondly—”

“He works harder than anyone I know,” Mina put in.

Ryan scratched the side of his head and Fred recalled this was what he did when he felt self-conscious. She might not know the man he’d become but she still knew the essence of him, and she was surprised by the warm pleasure it gave her.

“Do you want to take a look around?” he asked, looking at his watch. “I need to check the roaster; it should be about done.”

“Sure.”

“Holler if you need me,” Ryan said to Mina as he opened the door behind the counter, releasing the roaring sound of the roasting machine and an intense burst of hot coffee-scented air. He motioned to Fred to follow him.

The large coffee roaster took up most of the room and the giant sacks of coffee beans took up the rest. To the left was a small office and a kitchen, to the right a packing and storage room with shelving units housing more of the pre-packed coffee bags.

Ryan checked the machine and, seemingly satisfied with what he saw, he turned it off.

The deafening sound—like a hailstorm clacking on a tin roof as the coffee beans were tossed around the drum—abruptly died down.

“So, it’s ready to grind now?” Fred asked.

“Not quite,” he said, emptying the beans into what looked like a giant version of the sieves prospectors used to pan for gold. “Now we need to cool the beans down really fast, or they’ll keep on cooking in their own residual heat and the roast won’t be right.”

The whirring of fans picked up speed, and a rotating arm in the tray began to swish the beans around in the cold air.

“And then we can grind them?” Fred asked.

Ryan chuckled. “I’d forgotten how impatient you were.

No, once they’ve cooled, I’ll leave them to rest for a couple of days and then they’ll be either bagged whole, or ground, depending on the customer’s preference.

Most coffee shops grind their own beans as and when, for optimum freshness, but we sell to a lot of people who just want to enjoy a nice filter coffee when they wake up, so we offer ground too. ”

“Like Aunt Aggie.”

“Your family are some of my best customers.”

“I’ll bet. This machine must be going day and night to fulfill all your orders,” she said, looking over at the packing room.

“I’ve got another machine—bigger than this one—in one of the buildings behind the hardware store. I really need to look for larger premises.”

“You’ll leave the shop? But it’s so cute.”

“No, I’ll keep the shop but get an additional space for roasting.

I can continue selling the beans locally from here and serve coffee too, but I’d like to make this more of a coffee shop than just a shop that sells coffee; maybe have a couple of tables in the courtyard.

The people next door are planning to retire next year and I’d like to knock it through, have a proper little Coast Roast Café.

I’ve had my eye on a La Marzocco coffee machine for a while now, I just need to bite the bullet and put my ideas into action. ”

“What’s stopping you?”

“You mean apart from the potentially crippling debt I’d have to take on?” he asked, and then shrugged. “I don’t know. Me, I guess. I get in my own head about it, and then can’t move forward.”

“But you’ve already done so much, what is it about this next step—aside from the financial implications—that’s making you pause?”

“I suppose it’s that I didn’t intend to have a big coffee brand, it all kind of happened organically.

When I was getting mentally healthy again, I took a job in a little Italian café near where I lived.

As part of my barista training, I got sent on a course that taught you the whole process, from raw bean to cup, and I was hooked.

It all just kind of came together after that.

But I worry about expanding. I mean, what if I burn out again?

Maybe I’m not cut out for big business.”

“I can understand your worries, but you’ve already proved yourself to be a natural entrepreneur, and this time you have the support of friends and family around you, people who would notice if you were spiraling. I don’t imagine Martha misses much.”

He smiled at her. “Not much, no. When did you get so wise?”

She batted away his praise, not wanting him to see how much she liked it. “Oh, I’ve been wisdom personified for years.” She grinned.

“I’m glad you’ll be perching for a while,” said Ryan. He caught her gaze and held it. In his eyes she saw that same guilelessness that had always made him so easy to trust.

“Me too,” she replied, smiling. Oh, behave, stupid heartbeat!

—

It wasn’t until she was back at Hallow House, late in the afternoon with the light outside fading fast, that she settled down in her old childhood bedroom, surrounded by boxes yet to be unpacked, and opened her letter.

Breath held, she began to read. Three sentences down she was able to exhale.

They had agreed to her higher severance payout request. “Thank god,” she whispered.

She still had no idea what she was going to do next, but now at least she had enough money to tide her over while she figured it out.

It wasn’t a life-changing amount, but given that she no longer had rent or bills to pay— thank you, Mum —at least she wouldn’t have to resort to asking her family for a loan.

This much-needed grace period as far as her revenue was concerned also meant that she could think more rationally about her mum’s offer to join the family business.

Maybe Bella was right; just because something felt like the path of least resistance, that didn’t mean it was the wrong one.

What was it with her and this need to suffer in order for any achievement to feel valid?

Why did she always have to do things the hard way?