The Cherry Tree Cafe Read Free

in the covers feeling thoroughly ashamed of the pang of jealousy I felt when thinking about Jemma’s perfect life and good fortune. She had a husband who
loved her, an adorable daughter and now her dream business; the Café was going to be the cherry on her cupcake.
    I managed to get through the rest of the torturous weekend with the comfort of my other two best friends, Ben and Jerry, and I can honestly say it was no sickie that I was
planning to pull the following week. My ice cream consumption had reached epic proportions and I was in danger of succumbing to a severe sugar overdose.
    Jemma had eventually stopped ringing, probably on the assumption that Giles and I were engaged and consequently otherwise engaged in a marathon weekend shag fest. Which unfortunately we
weren’t, well, he probably was but with the perfectly pristine Natasha, rather than the frayed around the edges me.
    Disconcertingly my mother had also rung a couple of times. Her messages were left in the voice she saved especially for Giles and his family, painstakingly pronouncing every syllable, and along
with her nauseating tone there was the added concern that she hardly ever called. Her life was a blur of Wynbridge WI meetings and coffee mornings for orphaned orang-utans. I hoped Jemma
hadn’t bumped into her and said anything about not being able to get hold of me, but that was highly unlikely. The pair hardly moved in the same social circles.
    I finally managed to get to sleep on Sunday night and unfortunately I stayed asleep. The cunning but face-saving Ferris Bueller style message I’d spent hours devising didn’t quite
pan out. Blagging myself a few sick days would have given me enough time to compose myself and return to work looking confident, over Giles and with the world at my feet but unfortunately, fate it
seemed, wasn’t quite finished with me yet.
    ‘It wasn’t all me,’
I groaned, increasingly convinced that this torturous hell was my comeuppance for so readily forgiving Giles when I discovered that he had been the
one who left Natasha at the altar, not the other way round.
    ‘Elizabeth Dixon!’
I cringed under the duvet as the voice of my usually calm and kind-hearted boss Henry Glover echoed around the walls of the flat. ‘
Where the hell
are you? In case you’ve forgotten, you are supposed to be heading up the sales meeting this morning! You have all the data on your computer and no one else can access it! Hurry the fuck up
will you, everyone’s waiting!’
    Reluctantly I shuffled out of bed, knowing I couldn’t put it off any longer.
    ‘Sally,’ I sniffed into the receiver, trying to sound more flu-ridden than heartbroken. ‘Hi, I’m not going to make it in for a few days. Can you tell Henry for me? I
don’t think the message I left yesterday got picked up.’
    OK, so it was a lie, but given the circumstances, surely I was allowed just one?
    ‘Oh Lizzie, bless your heart. I was hoping you’d ring.’
    I swallowed hard but couldn’t rid myself of the lump that had recently taken up residence in my throat. Sally, Henry’s secretary, knew everything. I could hear it in her voice. If
I’d been genuinely ill she would have been sympathetic but brisk. I couldn’t stand it. If she knew, then so did everyone else. All the people it had taken months to win over when I
first moved in with Giles would now switch allegiance again, wouldn’t they? I couldn’t say we were ever bosom buddies, but I hated the thought of going back to work and not having
anyone
to talk to.
    ‘Can you tell Henry that I’m sorry? I think it’s just a bug,’ I lied, struggling to stop my voice cracking. ‘I think I must have picked it up over the
weekend.’
    Sally sighed.
    ‘If it’s any consolation, love, no one blames you. It’s Giles, the little shit; he’s always wanted what he shouldn’t have.’
    The tension in my shoulders had only just begun to loosen its vice-like grip, when the phone rang again. This time it