The Kindness Club on Mapleberry Lane - Part Two: An Autumn Promise

up outside. ‘Honey, join the club,’ she said, switching back to her conversations with Sam. ‘I’ve got three young adults living at home and they’ve gone from barely speaking to me in their teens to being out so much it’s as though they’re figments of my imagination rather than people who eat me out of house and home.’
‘I’m pleased Audrey doesn’t hate the new school; I was worried she would. I’ve spoken with her form tutor and apparently she’s making friends, getting her work done on time and her expected GCSE grades are good.’
‘All we can ask is for them to be happy,’ Clare smiled as she excused herself to take over the coffee to table two, calling over her shoulder, ‘although I wouldn’t mind their help around this place to give it a bit of a facelift, get the walls around the counter painted.’
Sam laughed, imagining how that suggestion had gone down with Clare’s kids. She’d tried to get Audrey to help her paint the study once and she’d made every excuse under the sun not to do it until Sam had given up trying.
Sam served another customer, thinking how much she wanted Audrey to be happy. It was why she was making an effort to listen to her daughter more whenever she mentioned make-up artistry. She’d even faked needing advice from Audrey last week when she woke up with a spot on her chin. She was thirty-nine, well past the spotty stage, but it seemed just when you thought you had everything under control, life liked to remind you who was boss. Audrey had talked about the importance of blending, removing the cover-up at the end of the day to let your skin recover. It had been one of those moments where, watching them, you’d never know they had problems. And with a wedding to attend in December, Sam had been able to ask for more advice, about make-up subtle enough for an afternoon event but that would last into the evening.
Sam wiped down a few of the tables, threw away discarded napkins and took a plate and cup to the kitchen. When she came back through to the café, she looked up to see Charlie coming in through the door, still in his paramedic uniform. ‘You just finished or just starting?’ she quizzed. ‘And where’s your coat, it’s chilly today?’
‘I finished a night shift a couple of hours ago – my coat’s in the car,’ he grinned. ‘And I don’t feel the cold. Well, perhaps I do, but I’ve been traumatised. I’ve come from Layla’s school where I was required to take part in emergency services week and talk to sixty kids about the work we do as paramedics.’
‘Layla must’ve been proud.’
‘She was – she loves it when I show up at school in my uniform.’
Layla wasn’t the only one to appreciate the uniform. Dark cargo trousers showed off a taut rear and biceps stretched the T-shirt sleeves as far as they could go. Although Sam sensed Layla’s appreciation would be summed up a little differently to her own.
When Clare called over a greeting to Charlie and winked at Sam, Sam wondered whether she’d let something slip out loud. Clare now seemed to have made it her personal project to ensure nobody but Sam served Charlie whenever he stopped in, which so far was frequent enough for Sam to wonder whether he had a bagel and coffee addiction or perhaps was interested in her as more than a friend.
Sam hadn’t been out with a man since the time she went to the movies with a guy from work who’d kissed her goodbye at her front door. Audrey had seen them and lost her temper, screaming at her that she was an embarrassment and should know better. Sam would never understand why it was okay for Simon to have someone else in his life but not her, and she’d grown tired of trying to figure out the teenage psyche. All she knew was that she had to put Audrey first and since that date she’d avoided having another one. She’d thought it best to do so for as long as it took for Audrey to see that her mother wasn’t the enemy; she was on her side and always would be.
But all those feelings had been before Charlie came on the scene. Since the first time he’d come for dinner at her mum’s, when Sam had expected a polite but likely dull guest, and he’d turned out to be someone she’d known a long time ago and who was now jaw-droppingly handsome with his dark hair and slightly crooked smile, she’d thought about Charlie a lot. Her tummy did a little jolt whenever he came into the café, she listened carefully whenever his name was mentioned at home, she always checked her hair in the mirror before she answered the door at home in case it was him, and every time they crossed paths she found herself wondering when they’d next bump into each other. But Sam still wasn’t sure about dating anyone right now, especially a man who had a little girl of his own. She couldn’t help sometimes getting ahead of herself and wondering what would happen if she and Charlie got serious. Audrey would end up with a little sister, she’d have a stepdaughter, and the thought sent a chill creeping up her spine because she knew she was doing a pretty bad job of being a mother to Audrey, let alone having responsibility for Layla.
‘What was so traumatic about talking to a bunch of kids?’ Sam asked Charlie now, preferring to focus on his predicament than her own.
‘One kid put his hand up in front of everyone and asked me if I’d ever used a vibrator on anyone.’
Sam’s laughter had Clare turning around with an approving look her way. ‘You can’t be serious!’
‘I am. Turned out he meant a defibrillator.’
‘I’m a little relieved, I have to say.’
When Charlie laughed and he got those crinkles