cease and desist in its clean-up efforts. “By the way, Emily.” Paige wanders towards me again with her floating ladder bot in tow. “I wanted to help you out with your wedding menu, okay? Especially after the supermarket horse meat scandal, you don’t want any of that grocery store crap at your wedding, now do you?”
What’s all this then? “Are you being serious, Paige? You’re going to supply me with food for my guests?”
“Why sound so surprised, Emily?” Paige gives me a manly slap on the back, exacerbating her lumberjack, plaid shirt appearance. “After everything you’ve been through, I wouldn’t want you thinking you had to push your wedding date back or anything.”
Why does everyone keep assuming I’ll be changing my wedding date all of a sudden? Okay so I have had a few minor setbacks up until now, but I’m a tough girl and it will take more than malfunctioning robots and a week in bed to keep me from marrying my soul mate!
“Knock, knock.” A voice emanates from the rear of the cafe.
Oh bloody hell. “Who’s there?” I question mildly, even though I feel like throwing out our newest intruder. When I see who it is, I’m even more convinced that this person will not be staying on these premises.
It’s the lifeguard boy from the Meli Spa and he’s shown up with Brenda.
***
Apparently there are a lot of helpful people in this town. Callum’s mum had heard of my cafe disaster plight and so had the boy who works with her. Why Brenda had let him tag along is beyond me, but they’re both helping with the kitchen clean-up efforts, so I’m not complaining too much about their presence.
“Have you found Oliver yet?” I’ve snuck into my trashed office and I’m talking to Callum on the phone.
“Nope sorry, babe. The man is an elusive ghost.”
I frown deeply. “Have you been doing online RPG again?” My slightly nerdish fiancé only talks like this when he’s been sneaking in some internet Role Play Game time while at work.
“Nooooo.” Callum’s voice sounds guilty down the phone line.
When I ring off with him I call Anika into my beyond cluttered office. “So how do you think the robot got in?” I ask her.
“What do you mean, boss lady?” She answers my question with a question. “I thought you decided to keep the robot because it was here in your office.”
“It what…? It was…?” This is strange news indeed. “Do you mean the robot was here the whole time I was away and stuck in bed?”
Anika nods. “It stood right there.” She points to the corner of the room we’re in. There’s nothing in here now though. No sign of the behemoth black oven-robot anywhere. Just heaps of mess left in the bot’s destructive wake.
Scratching my head I’m feeling clueless as to how the robot got back into my cafe. I know I left the thing outside for Oliver to collect last week.
“Oh my god.” Suddenly, I realise something. When the robot disappeared from the back entrance outside, I’d just assumed Oliver had picked it up. It must have been then that the bloody thing had floated back into my cafe. I must have failed to notice it in the dark corner of my office.
“Is something the matter, boss lady?”
“No, no.” I reassure Anika. “Nothing to worry about, you can have the rest of the day off if you like.”
She puts her hand on my shoulder and looks me in the eye. “Are you sure you don’t want me to stay. Maybe you will recant your offer later today.”
Recant my offer? Oh! I get it. It’s her word of the day and she thinks I’m going to go back on my word. “Honestly, Anika, you more than deserve a day off after filling in for me for so long.”
I reassure her that she can go and I set to work on clearing up the disaster hole that is my office. Once I’m finished tidying up I come out into the main cafe area fully expecting everyone to be gone by now.
I was wrong. There are a couple of people still here. Brenda is sweeping up some final remains in the kitchen area and the lifeguard boy has organised the table tops quite nicely.
“Oh hey, thanks so much for your help, Brenda. Really, you didn’t have to—”
“Nonsense, my dear,” she says, standing fully upright and stretching her back. “This is great exercise.”
She’s right about that. I’ve been sweating my face off all day and