by Eva Scott
‘Morning,’ she called cheerily as she retreated behind the counter. She’d stashed a pile of leaflets there and wanted the old guys’ opinions, even though she knew she may not like what she’d hear. At least they’d be straight with her and she needed that right now.
‘You got a coffee machine yet?’ asked Terry by way of greeting.
‘Not since Saturday,’ said Annalisa with a big grin.
‘What’s with her?’ Terry hooked his thumb in her direction as he sat down with Joe.
‘I have no idea,’ said Joe. ‘You bring the cards?’
‘I’ve got ’em.’ Terry fished inside his coat pocket and pulled out a pack of playing cards. ‘How’s the boyfriend?’
‘He’s not my boyfriend,’ said Annalisa automatically.
‘Bet he’s the reason for her good mood,’ said Joe, leaning in as if she wasn’t standing right by.
‘I can hear you,’ she said with a sigh.
‘Good, you’re not deaf,’ said Joe with a chuckle.
Terry took his place at the card table. ‘Where’s Dave?’
The door swung open, admitting Dave.
‘What’s with the stalker?’ He nodded towards the window as he hung up his coat.
‘Where?’ Annalisa stepped towards the window to take a look.
‘Whoa,’ said Dave, grabbing her arm. ‘First rule of stalkers is to steer clear of them.’
‘I’m not going out to speak to him or anything,’ said Annalisa. ‘It’s probably just someone parked up on the phone or something.’
Dave shrugged. ‘Got any decent coffee?’
‘Not since the last time you asked.’
She waited until Dave had engaged the other old guys and forgot about the would-be stalker before she took a sideways peek out of the window. A big white ute had parked up across the street and she could make out someone in the front seat. Beyond that, there was no indication of any stalking going on. There were other houses and shops along the way and the car could be connected to any of those.
Another car pulled up out the front and two women climbed out, chatting animatedly. One saw her and waved. Annalisa raised her hand in response, embarrassed to be caught staring. They looked vaguely familiar, the memory refusing to come forward and declare itself.
Moments later, the two women entered the store.
‘Hello, I’m Matilda.’ A bright, confident brunette took the lead. ‘We met at Luna’s party on Saturday.’
Annalisa took a minute to recalibrate her thoughts. All the colour and energy the women brought with them contrasted sharply with the three old guys bickering in the corner over their cards, today’s game of choice being euchre.
‘Of course,’ she said as she struggled to put together this mother with a child from the party.
‘And I’m Kelly.’ A fresh-faced blonde hovered two steps behind Matilda. ‘I’m Lilly’s mum,’ she said, answering Annalisa’s unspoken question.
‘I can see the resemblance,’ said Annalisa, grateful to be on more solid ground. She’d been flat out remembering the names of Luna’s friends let alone the parents who had brought them. ‘How can I help you both this morning?’ Surely they didn’t want hardware, but one could never tell.
Matilda looked at Kelly, as if they were having an entire conversation telepathically. ‘Well,’ she said at last, ‘we wanted to talk to you about Luna’s doll house.’
Kelly tucked her hair behind her ears in a quick nervous gesture. ‘We were wondering if you were open to making doll houses for each of our daughters.’
‘If you have the time of course,’ said Matilda quickly. ‘I mean, you must be busy with a business to run and everything.’
A snort of laughter sounded behind her and she couldn’t be sure if it was in response to the busy crack or something to do with the card game. And while she’d planned to sell doll houses and furniture along with her craft classes, it was only a day since she’d begun contemplating this new direction and she barely had solid plans yet.
‘Um, sure,’ she said. ‘What kind of doll house did you have in mind? Single or double storey?’
The women did their silent communication thing again.
‘We were thinking something just like Luna’s if that’s okay.’ Matilda spoke for both of them.
Annalisa’s thoughts whirled in her mind like a snow flurry. She still had the list of things she’d needed to make the original doll house. As for the cost of labour, she’d have to guess that bit, having paid no attention at all to the number of hours the construction had taken.
‘We know you made hers as a gift and probably don’t know what you’d charge yet,’ Matilda added.
Spot on there. ‘I know,’ she said with sudden clarity. Picking up a couple of her homemade flyers off the counter she handed one to Kelly and one to Matilda. ‘Jot down your contact details on the back and I’ll email you the price once I’ve worked it out.’
‘Macramé class.’ Kelly read the leaflet. She looked at Matilda, her eyebrows raised—a gesture Matilda clearly had no trouble interpreting.
‘Sounds like fun,’ said Matilda. ‘I could see one in the lounge room with one of those donkey’s tail plants.’
‘Can we take a few of these?’ asked Matilda, holding up the flyer.
‘To give to our friends,’ said Kelly.
‘Of course.’ Annalisa, a little shell-shocked by the entire exchange, nodded her head. ‘By all means, take as many as you’d like.’
‘Awesome,’ said Kelly as she scooped up a handful of leaflets.
‘So, we’ll hear from you soon?’ Matilda made for the door with her friend in tow.
‘As soon as possible,’ said Annalisa as she watched them leave, get in their little red car and drive off. ‘Wow,’ she said. ‘Did that just happen?’
She turned around slowly to find the three old guys staring at her.
‘Looks like your new side hustle is off to a good start,’ said Dave.
‘You need to get better organised,’ said Joe.
‘Get an order book or something,’ said Terry. ‘Maybe a price list.’
‘Good idea,’ said Joe. He held his hand out for a leaflet which Annalisa dutifully passed him. He read it in silence. ‘Get a website. You might even be able to afford a coffee machine if things go well.’
Terry and Dave burst into laughter and Annalisa joined them, buoyed by the morning’s visit and the possibility of her first craft class being a goer. With a bit of luck and hard work, she might be able to save her family’s legacy after all. Just not in its original form.
She took a look at her phone to see an incoming message from GardenerGuy94. Her heart gave a little bump and glowed with a new-found warmth. Today was going to be a good day indeed.
GardenerGuy94 MON @ 9:15 AM
How are you this morning? I missed our chat yesterday. What did you get up to?
GoldfieldsGirl MON @ 9:25 AM
Hello you! You will not believe what just happened!
GardenerGuy94 MON @ 9:26 AM
You got some new pyjamas? Something sexy in a leopard print maybe?
GoldfieldsGirl MON @ 9:28 AM
LOL very funny! I just got my first two orders for my doll houses. I cannot believe it. I am so excited I could burst.
GardenerGuy94 MON @ 9:30 AM
Congratulations. What a great start to the week. Wish I could be there to celebrate with you.
Ed read Annalisa’s messages for the fourth time. He was here; he could celebrate with her. Once he was done with Cappelli’s Hardware he’d message her and tell her he was in Bendigo, suggest they meet and have a celebratory dinner. He’d start fresh, tell her he’d been shocked and tongue-tied when he met her at the bakery. Ed knew exactly what he wanted to say now.
Which was more than he could say for his current situation. He’d been sitting in front of Cappelli’s Hardware, with its faded old-fashioned sign and weathered clapboards, for half an hour. He’d watched people come and go. He’d rehearsed his
speech a million times; every time it went differently until he had no idea what he would say at all.
The vision of a woman, dressed in red, had darted past the window briefly, like a flash of warmth on this chilly day. All he had to do was tell this woman, Nancetta, that while he represented the possible downfall of her family business, he also represented a new opportunity. He’d talk her into taking the payout from his family, which would be more than she could ever hope to receive if she sold the business.
Nancetta needed to understand that Carpenter’s Warehouse would drain away her business until there was nothing left, nothing worth selling.
God, he hated having to do this. No wonder Rosie and Oliver sent him. They were making him the bad guy so they didn’t have to get their own hands dirty. Ed ran his hand through his hair in frustration.
‘Okay,’ he said, avoiding his reflection in the rear-view mirror. ‘This doesn’t have to go badly. Let’s take it slow. Just go in there and buy something, anything, and have a chat. Harmless. How hard can that be?’
He caught his own eye. ‘Don’t look at me like that,’ he growled. ‘We are doing this.’
Now that he was referring to himself as the royal we and doing it out loud, Ed finally opened the car door and climbed out. Without giving himself another minute to second-guess what he was about to do, he strode across the street and took the steps to the store two at a time.
A wave of warmth met him as he pushed open the door. He hesitated, taking a moment to look around at the old-fashioned interior of the shop.
Wide shelves lined the walls and marched across the room like ranks of soldiers. Each shelf was filled with goods tumbling along in a disorderly fashion, giving the place a much cosier effect than Carpenter’s Warehouse.
What was different was the energy of the place. Rosie would call him fanciful but he could feel it: the weight of generations of Cappellis giving advice and offering solutions to the locals.
The timber walls were painted a buttery yellow and the counter looked as if it had been built in the early twentieth century, a relic from more affluent times. He half expected to see an old-school cash register and was disappointed to see a more modern version atop the counter.
A wood stove blazed in the corner and a card table had been set up nearby. Around it sat three old men deeply engrossed in their game.
‘I got nothing,’ one of them was saying.
‘Don’t be all day about it,’ said the one in the Tigers beanie.
‘Leave him be. You know he’s an old man,’ said the third, who resembled a decrepit butler from a B-grade horror movie; he wore an oversized grey cardigan and his hair was sticking up every which way.
‘Who’s calling who an old man?’ said the first, as he worked up a head of steam.
‘Just get on with it,’ said the beanied old guy.
Ed couldn’t see Nancetta.
Quietly, to avoid drawing attention to himself, he slipped down the first aisle and began to inspect the goods.
To be fair, he didn’t know a lot about hardware. As a kid, he’d preferred to be in the garden learning about plants with his mother rather than touring about the stores with his dad and siblings. Mostly due to the fact Rosie and Oliver liked to torture him every time Dad had his back turned, which was a lot.
He picked up a hammer and weighed it in his hands. The price tag indicated it was worth twice the value of the same thing at Carpenter’s. This was not going to go well.
‘Hey, you.’
Ed jumped.
‘What are you doing down there?’ The B-grade butler stood at the end of the aisle, blocking the light. Any minute now, he’d produce an axe and corner Ed in the back with the plastic buckets.
‘I’m just looking for a … hammer.’ Ed raised the tool and smiled.
‘Right.’ The decrepit butler nodded. ‘The stalker looks like he’s a legit customer after all,’ he said to his cronies.
‘Lock the door and don’t let him get away,’ called one of them.
‘Better get her out here,’ said the other.
He heard a chair scrape back, some shuffling and a bit of muttering before someone hollered ‘CUSTOMER’ with surprising volume and power.
‘Hang on,’ he heard a woman’s voice call from way out the back somewhere.
‘Better hurry before he gets away,’ yelled Decrepit Butler.
‘Before who gets away,’ said the voice as a door at the end of the aisle opened.
And there she was.
Annalisa stopped dead. It was that man, the one from the bakery. The one who smelled good and gave her tingles when she’d gotten too close. She’d nicknamed him Delicious Man.
‘Hello,’ she said as if it were a perfectly ordinary day.
Delicious Man regarded her as if he’d never seen a woman before. Her hand unconsciously crept to smooth down her wild curls. ‘Hello,’ he said eventually.
‘Think this bloke here wants to buy a hammer,’ said Terry, indicating with a bony finger. ‘Joe was all for tying him up but we couldn’t find the cable ties.’
Delicious Man turned to stare at Terry with alarm.
‘Don’t worry,’ said Annalisa quickly. ‘They don’t mean it.’
‘She’s right,’ called Joe. ‘Terry didn’t mean cable ties. We were going to use duct tape.’ The three old guys roared with laughter, leaving two of them in fits of wheezing.
‘Ignore them,’ said Annalisa. ‘How can I be of help?’
With a second look over his shoulder, as if to make sure the old guys were not a real threat, Delicious Man held up the hammer and shrugged one shoulder. ‘I don’t suppose you have any nails to go with this?’
His voice was as rich and smooth as she remembered it. Secretly, she’d thought she’d embellished him when she’d indulged in a little light fantasy on the weekend. Only, it turned out, she hadn’t. He was tall enough to block the aisle and those shoulders? Well, an hour or two could be lost exploring that real estate.
‘Sure. If you’d like to …’ She made a circling gesture with her hand.
‘Oh, okay.’ He turned and headed down towards the front of the store.
He was as fine from behind as he was from the front. She picked up a box of nails on the way through and walked to the counter, conscious of him now following her and (hopefully) checking out her behind.
He placed the hammer on the counter next to the box of nails. ‘Nice shop you’ve got here.’
‘You from around here?’ Dave squinted at him again, with more determination this time.
‘No,’ he said. ‘Just staying in these parts for a bit.’
‘Brought the family with you?’ asked Joe, as he laid a card down. Acting like the question was a throwaway. Annalisa knew better and while his interference wasn’t necessarily welcome, she wanted the answer to the question.
‘Nope,’ Delicious Man said with a smile as if he were onto all of them. ‘No family. I’m single. Just me.’
Joe nodded, satisfied with his answer.
‘I like your beanie,’ said Delicious Man.
‘You a Tigers supporter?’ Dave squinted again, this time with a hint of suspicion.
‘As it happens, I am.’ Delicious Man’s shoulders visibly relaxed as he leaned against the counter, looking like he was enjoying himself, which meant Annalisa could go on enjoying him.
‘Come and have a cup of coffee while Annalisa rings up your sale.’ Terry had resumed his seat and waved Delicious Man over.
‘I don’t want to intrude,’ he said, holding up his hands as if in a stick-up. Perhaps he had somewhere better to be. She hoped not.
This town had no eligible bachelors left, and by eligible she meant those she fancied. Since she’d come back home, this guy was the first man to cross her path who made her feel … anything.
‘No intrusion,’ said Joe. ‘We like a bit of new blood. Annalisa, we’re going to need another cup.’
Delicious Man turned with an unspoken question in his eyes. The
force of his smile hit her physically. All the air rushed out of her lungs, and the world narrowed to the contours of his face, and the volume turned all the way down until it felt like no one else was in the room but the two of them. Time seemed to stop as their worlds collided.
‘Annalisa?’ Joe yelled. ‘Wake up. How long do you think we’re gonna live?’
‘What? Oh, yes. Another cup.’ She blushed crimson and headed to her kitchen as fast as possible.
Once safe inside her house with the door to the store firmly closed behind her, she let loose.
‘What is wrong with you?’ she hissed to herself. ‘Get a grip, would you? So what if he’s the most attractive man you’ve met since … well, let’s not get into that now.’ She opened the cupboard and took out a cup. ‘No, not that one.’ She picked another, looking for one with fewer puppies on it.
‘What matters here is that you can still feel something. That’s why The Universe has brought him here, to remind you that you’re still alive. So, go back in there and act like everything is normal.’
The Book of Cappelli sat on the end of the kitchen bench. Annalisa touched it for luck as she straightened her shirt, pushed her hair back from her face, and prepared to act reasonably. She could do it. She could be a professional, grown-up businesswoman.
‘Here you go.’ Annalisa placed the cup on the card table, staying a safe distance from Delicious Man as he smiled his thanks, blue eyes sparkling with humour.
Joe picked up the cup. ‘Seriously? Unicorns?’
‘I happen to like unicorns,’ said Delicious Man.
‘Mmm …’ Joe seemed unconvinced as he poured the never-ending coffee from his thermos. ‘Annalisa, this here is Ed.’ He screwed the lid back on the thermos and placed it carefully on the floor. ‘Ed, this here is Annalisa.’ He passed Ed’s cup across to him.
‘Thank you,’ said Delicious Ed. ‘And nice to meet you.’ He gave her one of those mischievous smiles, the kind that made you feel you were in on the same private joke together.
She couldn’t stop the grin spreading across her face even though she was aware of the looks the old guys were passing between them. So what? Ed happened to be the first cute guy who’d crossed her path since she’d come back home and she was determined to enjoy him while he lasted.