Her eyes strayed to the folder and then back to my face.
‘Damn it. Now I’m curious,’ she said, reaching out a hand to slide the folder towards her. She paused with one finger on the corner. ‘If this thing erupts with a load of “I’m sorry” confetti, you and I might be done for good.’ It wasn’t a big smile, but it was a glimmer of one, and right now that was way more than I deserved.
‘It won’t,’ I assured her.
‘You’re going to need to appoint trustees – at least three of them,’ Mel said, nibbling absent-mindedly on the end of a biro as she scanned the sheet of paper in her hands.
I added Trustees to my to-do list that already covered half a sheet of A4.
‘But not if you decide it will be a social enterprise rather than a registered charity. You won’t need them if it is.’
I added an oversized question mark beside Trustees and then three exclamation marks for good measure.
‘And how do I work out which one it should be?’
Mel shook her head, not quite in despair but more in resignation. She pulled her own notepad closer and scribbled rapidly upon it.
‘I’ll do it. It can be a minefield if you don’t know what you’re doing and it’s quicker and easier than trying to explain it to you.’
I wasn’t stupid, but I took the veiled insult on the chin.
Leaning back against the slats of the wooden garden bench, I resisted the urge to slip on my sunglasses. True, they’d shieldme from the midday glare, but they’d also hide the gratitude and admiration in my eyes. And it felt important that Mel saw just how much it meant that she was willing to help me. Except it wasn’t really for me, I knew that. It was for all the potential visitors to the old yarn shop, who would now hopefully still have somewhere warm and comforting to go where they could enjoy a drink, a bite to eat, but more importantly some much-needed companionship.
‘I knew you’d be the right person to help me with all this,’ I said, daring a tentative smile.
‘Please don’t blow smoke up my arse. You’ll set off the detectors in the kitchen.’
I just about managed to smother a laugh, even though we were out of range of the alarms. We’d moved from the house to the garden and Mel had generously spent the last hour going through the contents of the buff folder, sometimes nodding wisely, sometimes shaking her head at whatever she read.
‘It’s a good idea. But it needs quite a bit of fine tuning to make sure you’re doing everything legitimately and by the book. Have you given any thought to who’ll staff the place? How many days it will be open, and the general running costs?’
‘Not in great detail,’ I answered truthfully. ‘I think all the shop owners who’ve said they’ll contribute financially are also willing to volunteer a few hours each week to run the place.’
Mel’s eyebrows had risen at that.
‘Even you?’ The incredulity in her voice had stung.
‘Yes, even me.’
This time it was Mel’s turn to lean back in her chair and eye me speculatively.
‘Something’s different about you.’
I didn’t bother pretending that she was referring to the way I currently wore my hair or did my make-up.
‘Yes. I feel different.’ In a thousand ways and for a great many reasons, but this wasn’t the time to share any of them.
The biro found its way back into her mouth as she bent to the next item on the list she was compiling, but not before I heard her murmur: ‘You remind me of someone I used to know, someone I’ve not seen for a really long time.’
My eyes were overbright, and while I could have pretended it was the glare of the sun, we both knew that wasn’t true.
Once Mel had grasped the size of the proposed project, she’d wordlessly disappeared into the kitchen, returning five minutes later with a plate of hastily constructed sandwiches.
From the outside peering in, we probably looked like two old friends enjoying a lazy al fresco lunch in the sunshine. But not every picture tells the full story. We were wallpapering over the cracks for now, but that didn’t mean they weren’t still there.
‘Have you decided what you’re going to call this place?’ Mel asked, tapping the point of her pen on the notepad as she waited for my reply. ‘Ripping Yarns doesn’t really work if you’re going to drop the crafting element.’
As I scarcely knew one end of a needle from the other, she made a good point. The answer came so easily to mind it was as though the decision had already been made a long time ago.