The Little Board Game Cafe

But first, the books.

You’re firing me? Seriously?’
Emily slumped back in the chair and folded her arms.
‘I wouldn’t say firing, exactly.’ He pressed his hands together in a prayer-like pose under his chin and fixed her with a steely gaze. ‘With regret, I am making you redundant.’
‘With regret? That’s what Lord Sugar always says in The Apprentice, when he fires people.’
‘It isn’t personal. We’re having to let a few people go.’
She stood up. ‘How? How can this not be personal?’
‘Do you think you could keep your voice down a little, please? We don’t want everyone to hear now, do we?’ He stood up too and walked past her to the windows that separated his private office from the rest of the open-plan area. She turned to watch as he closed the venetian blinds, obliterating the view of Annie from Accounts who was staring, open-mouthed. Annie would probably put a glass to the wall if she thought she could get away with it. Not that you needed a glass with these walls; they were paper-thin.
He turned back to Emily, put a hand on

having her best summer ever.

Most teenagers, if asked how they’d spend their ideal summer, would say surfing on a Cornish beach or backpacking round Europe or even just hanging out with their mates.
Not many would choose working as a waitress, especially not in the same café as their mother.
But Emily was having her best summer ever.
Mind you, she was looking forward to going back to school; she needed a rest.
She arrived home most evenings with an aching back, an aching head from adding up bills all day – the café needed a new till but that would have to wait until the owner got back – and aching feet despite wearing flat shoes. Granny shoes, she thought on her first day, hoping that none of her classmates would come in and see her. But Mum had been right to insist that she wore them; you definitely needed comfy soles in a job like this.
They’d forgone their usual fortnight in Devon. Dad hadn’t minded. ‘There’ll be plenty more summers for family holidays,’ he’d said, though he knew in his heart of hearts that wasn’t strictly true; his little girl was growing up.
Mum had squeezed his arm. ‘Are you sure you don’t mind?’ she’d said. ‘Only it’d be like a trial run. For the day when Em and I have our own place.’
‘Of course I don’t mind,’ he’d said, smiling at her.
He probably did mind, thought Emily. He loved Sidmouth. He was less keen on the six-hour drive, the traffic jams on the M5 and the petrol prices at the service stations, but once they arrived, he was in his element. But he never refused Diane anything. It was a bit embarrassing sometimes, Emily thought, how he still looked at his wife. How they walked down Thornholme’s high street, hand in hand like a pair of teenagers themselves. She’d even caught them snogging on the sofa when they thought she’d gone to bed.
‘It’s too good an opportunity to miss,’ Dad had said to them both. ‘You should definitely say yes.’
Mrs Benton, who ran Tricia’s Treats, was going on a six-week cruise with a man she’d met through a dating agency. She’d asked Diane, Emily’s mum, to run the café in her absence. The plan was for Diane to take over the kitchen – a move she’d been longing to make for years but Mrs Benton liked to do all the cooking and baking herself – whilst Emily did Diane’s job waiting tables.
‘Imagine if this were ours,’ Mum had said as they’d opened up on the first morning. ‘What would we do?’
‘Fresh white tablecloths. Much classier than these wipe-clean things.’
‘That’s a lot of laundry, Em.’
‘And a better menu. Steak and kidney pudding. Liver and onions.’ She screwed up her face. ‘I’d get rid of those for a start. Why does Mrs Benton serve that stuff?’
‘Cheap, nutritious and the customers like it. Well, the older ones anyway.’
‘And the walls are such a dull colour. How about sunshine yellow? Or pale blue?’
And so it had gone on. A whole summer of playing fantasy café owners together. If Emily had had a pound for every time one of them said, ‘If this was our place, we could…’ she’d have had far more money than the contents

‘To be so in love with someone that your world falls apart when they die

Loneliness shouldn’t be par for the course. At any age.

She arrived home most evenings with an aching back, an aching head from adding up bills all day – the café needed a new till but that would have to wait until the owner got back – and aching feet despite wearing flat shoes. Granny shoes, she thought on her first day, hoping that none of her classmates would come in and see her. But Mum had been right to insist that she wore them; you definitely needed comfy soles in a job like this.

she walked on, still not sure where she was heading.

Sometimes her feet seemed to have a mind of their own. She stood up and walked, without thinking about where she was going.

An afternoon off should feel like a treat, only it didn’t. The time stretched ahead of her, empty, purposeless.