Chapter Twenty Nine

Pen put her elbows on the counter and leaned her chin in her hands. The sun was shining through the window and the morning rush was over, which meant there was nothing to distract her at all. And she needed distraction. If she wasn't busy, all she did was think about Ash. About the way her hair fell over her eyebrow, the way she rolled her eyes, the way she smelled and tasted and felt.

It was hard enough when there were other people around, but when she was alone it was even worse.

"Meow," Fabio said, rolling on the floor in front of the counter.

"Sorry, bud, you don't count," she said, then felt bad about it. She was about to go and stroke his belly when the bakery door opened.

"Pen, just who I wanted to see," Councilwoman Thurst said, marching in.

Pen refrained from asking her who the hell else she thought she'd find in the bakery, after all, she was the only one working here. Instead, she straightened up, smiled, and asked how she could help.

"I thought I'd come and tell you the news myself," the councilwoman said, iron gray curls bobbing as she talked. "The council has come to a decision."

"About?" Pen asked, one eye on Fabio as he slunk around the corner into the kitchen.

"About the bookshop that you were so very eager to buy," Thurst said, raising an eyebrow at Pen.

"Oh, right," Pen said, snapping back to attention. She really wasn't herself today. "Sorry, it's been a tough week and I'm distracted."

"Be that as it may, this is important business," said Thurst. "As I said, the council has come to a decision and we have decided that the development grant will be awarded elsewhere."

Pen swallowed, the bottom finally falling out of her little world. She should never have been so hopeful. If she hadn't been hopeful, this wouldn't hurt as much. Her hands gripped the edge of the counter and the councilwoman's face softened.

"I'm sorry, Pen. I know that you were hoping for a different answer. But the truth of the matter is that we just couldn't justify buying the place. It's a private business and there are things our community needs more."

"I understand," Pen said, stomach sinking, the sun disappearing behind a cloud.

"I've shopped at Mended Hearts enough in my time," Thurst said. "And I don't want it leaving the town anymore than you do, Pen. But the money is going to go to a new children's center, a place that children can go to after school when parents are still working, or a drop in where they can be left safely for a few hours. Surely you can agree that's important?"

Pen, thinking of Moira Hadley, nodded. "It is, it really is."

Thurst stepped closer to the counter. "The council can't be seen to fund the purchase of a private shop. But perhaps there are other things we could do? The shop is a part of our town, maybe you can talk to Sarah Hanson about taking up a collection for the place. Or talk to the vicar about running a fundraiser."

"It's a lot of money, Marjorie," Pen said dismally.

"But you have a lot of hope," Thurst said, eyes twinkling a little. "With some determination and effort maybe you can save the place, if that's what you truly want?"

Pen sighed.

"I'll take three of those buns, if you please," Thurst said.

Pen served her and then watched as she left, heart falling as she realized that everything she'd hoped for over the last few weeks was really gone.

"WHAT ARE YOU doing?" Lucy asked when she came into the shop to find Pen with a cloth in her hand washing the inside of the windows.

"What does it look like?" asked Pen, busily cleaning the painted flowers off the window.

"But… but they're nice," said Lucy.

"They're silly," said Pen. "Unrealistic and sunshiney and just plain silly."

Lucy stared at her for a moment, then gently tugged the cloth from her hand. "Come and sit down," she said. "Let me make you a coffee."

"I don't want a coffee."

"Fine, tea then," Lucy said firmly, placing Pen in a chair and pulling out her mobile phone. "Just sit right there and don't move."

She went behind the counter and a minute or two later, George came crashing into the bakery. "What? Where is it? What's the emergency?"

Lucy nodded over to where Pen was sitting and Pen rolled her eyes. "I'm not an emergency," she said.

"When I came in she was washing the flowers off the windows," said Lucy, pouring hot water over a tea bag. "She's said hardly a word since I came in and she hasn't smiled once."

George shook his head and pulled out a seat opposite Pen as Lucy brought over three cups of tea. "Pen, what's wrong?"

"Nothing's wrong," she said. "Except the council put the development grant toward a new children's center."

"Well, we knew it was a stretch," said George. "I know it's a disappointment, but there must be other things we can do. Let's brainstorm, shall we?"

"But what's the point?" asked Pen. "Ash is gone and the place doesn't belong to her anyway, does it?"

George took her hand. "That's not what this was about though, was it Pen? This was about keeping the bookshop open, keeping it in town, not about keeping Ash here. In fact, it was about buying the shop from Ash so that she could leave town."

"Yeah, but…"

"But you thought she might stay in the end," Lucy said. "But she hasn't exactly left you in the lurch or anything. I mean, you're still together, just a bit further apart is all."

"It's not ideal though, is it?" George said.

Pen snorted. "Ideal doesn't even begin to cover it." She sighed. "I had this picture in my head, about Ash in the bookshop, me in here, maybe knocking through and having the two places be one. The sun was shining and the tourists were coming and every night we went up the stairs to bed and… and…" She couldn't finish, her throat felt like it was full of cotton wool.

George looked at Lucy who shrugged back at him.

"Pen, come on, this isn't like you," George said. "You're the optimist, remember? The sunny one? The one with hope that thinks that every cloud is lined with silver and unicorn tears?"

"That's the problem though, isn't it?" Pen asked. She'd been thinking about this for a long time now, since Ash had left the morning before, since she'd been alone and the air had seemed to go out of her life.

"It's not a problem being optimistic," Lucy said.

"But it is," said Pen. "I need to stop living my life like a sixteen year old convinced that everything is always going to turn out alright. Because I'm not sixteen and because sometimes things don't turn out alright. Just look at me, almost forty and in debt up to my eyeballs with the woman I love a million miles away and stupid flowers painted on my stupid windows.

"I like the flowers," George said. "And you're not stupid. You're… you. You dream, Pen, and that's what's so nice about you. And your debts are being taken care of, they're under control, you only have them because you help so many people out."

"They're under control because someone with half a brain, namely Ash, came in and did the realistic and sensible thing, rather than what I did, which was to bury the letters under a pile of mail and forget about them. Which sort of proves my point, doesn't it?" Pen asked, looking at them both in turn. "I need to straighten up, be more sensible, stop believing in unicorns."

George looked at Lucy and Lucy looked back at him and Pen felt like she was being excluded from some kind of decision.

"Listen," said George. "I only came by to check on the shop and Fabio, so I'm not exactly doing anything. Why don't you take a break, go have a walk on the beach, get some clarity. Lucy and I will look after things here for a while."

"I don't want a walk on the beach."

"Nonsense," said George, standing up and offering his hand to pull Pen out of her chair. "Of course you want a walk on the beach. Go on, off you go. The bakery will still be here when you get back."

Pen felt herself being ushered out of her own shop, bundled onto the pavement until she had no choice but to start walking toward the promenade.

Lucy and George were being kind, she could see that. But she thought that she had a fair point. It was time for her to grow up a bit, to stop being eternally optimistic about everything. To stop dreaming so big.

Maybe if she were a little more realistic, Ash would come back and realize that they could build a relationship together, a proper grown-up one.

Or maybe Ash would realize that this was never going to work out. That the silly little baker next door wasn't the woman she wanted to be with.

Pen couldn't help but blink back a few tears as she made her way down onto the sand. She hadn't expected her life to end up quite as empty as it currently felt. She was surrounded by people who loved her, yet she felt alone. The only person who could make her feel better was Ash, and Ash now had no ties at all to the place that Pen loved so much.

The place she'd thought they could be happy in.