Are You Ready?
Authors: Amanda Hearty
Ready for . . . love?
Ready for . . . a new job?
Ready to . . . grow up?
Ready for . . . change?
Ready for . . . Life?
Life has been good for Ali, Molly, Ben and Sarah, things have seemed easy and uncomplicated and they have had the world at their feet. But now as they say goodbye to their twenties and thirty looms, they begin to question themselves . . .
Is Ali really ready to get married and become a wife, or is everything moving too fast? Molly has followed her dreams and changed jobs, but has she made a big mistake? Ben is still living at home â surely it's time he moved out? And will Sarah ever find someone to love or will she always be single?
Life is full of twists and turns and change is inevitable. Now they must ask themselves . . . are they ready?
Contents
Amanda Hearty
For the love of my life, my husband, Michael
âFlip. Flip. Flip, Sarah, flip! The pancakes are burning. Flip them over quickly.'
Sarah stared at the melted butter and pale batter in the frying pan, watching as it turned a golden colour.
âMum, just because I'm your only single daughter doesn't mean we need to pretend that these pancakes are really important,' she protested.
âSarah, it's a family tradition on Pancake Tuesday to make plenty of them.'
âWell, as my married sister is busy making pancakes for her husband, I'm just making pancakes for you, me and the cat! It is hardly the massive family gathering it used to be. I don't even think Pumpkin is home, she's probably out with her cat boyfriend.'
âOh, Sarah, you were always so dramatic. No wonder you're single. I've been looking forward to this day all week, looking forward to whipping up a storm in the kitchen. It's a nice tradition, love, don't ruin it with talk of not being married and cats,' sighed Catherine Doyle, Sarah's mother.
âI'm sorry, Mum. These are perfect. You are great to have made so many pancakes for just the two of us, so let's just get on with it ⦠flip.'
As Sarah flipped the pancake she wondered how many more Pancake Tuesdays she would be single. As much as she loved her mother and appreciated her excitement at keeping the pancake tradition, it wasn't the same now that she was the only daughter at home. Her elder sister Mel was married, and had left home two years ago. And although she loved Mel's husband and was so happy for them, it was hard to be the singleton, still living in the red-brick family home in Monkstown Park, South Dublin, with her widowed mum and cat. She didn't know how she had got here, how life and men were just passing her by. How had she got to be thirty and single, with all her friends now fiancées, brides or mothers? What was she doing wrong? It had to change. If only she could flip her life over instead of these blasted pancakes.
Across town in Heavenly Bakery and Café there was more flipping going on.
âFlip those pancakes, Mum,' Molly Kennedy cried. âSterling Bank have ordered two hundred to be delivered by 11 a.m., and O'Keefe's Public Relations want seventy-five by 10 a.m. too. Wow, this is so exciting, I could make these all day long. Life is great, isn't it, Mum?'
âWhat are you talking about, Molly?' Helen Kennedy argued, flushed with effort. âWe have about four hundred pancakes to make this morning and we are running out of eggs. I can barely see through my glasses for all the batter firmly attached to them, and if I've to cut one more lemon I'll become allergic to them like your cousin.'
âWell, Mum, trust me, this is heaven compared to filing client reports. A few months ago the only thing I made was the odd error in a bloody Excel document, and now I'm making pancakes, buns, cupcakes, salads, quiches. Compared to working in a boring office job,
this is a dream come true. Life is great, Mum, I'm telling you.'
âOh, love.' Helen softened, staring at her only daughter, whose pretty face, long brown hair and petite frame hadn't changed since she was young. âI'm happy for you. It's lovely for me to be working alongside you, too, but if we could leave the heart-to-heart chat until after this blasted batter has been peeled off my glasses and every inch of this kitchen it would be better â and I would be a lot calmer. Now, flip!'
Molly just couldn't believe her luck. She was finally working in her dream job. Ever since she was a child she'd loved cooking. Her favourite bedtime reading had been cookbooks and her mum used to joke that she was the only seven-year-old making pavlovas and pudding to go with the Sunday roast each week! But when you are in college it is hard to see how you can make a proper living from baking, and before she knew it she had studied finance and ended up working in the funds department â in a very big impersonal bank in Dublin's Financial Services Centre, which she hated. Moving money from one account to another, and watching it grow by a few euros or dollars a day was hardly fulfilling. She had never been that good at funds and investments, and found it boring â her heart wasn't in it â but still it paid the bills, and so time had ticked on. The older you get the harder it is to make a change, it is nerve-racking to enter the unknown; so if it hadn't been for her boyfriend Luke's support â both emotional and financial â she would never have
changed jobs. It had upset him to see her so unhappy and bored with her job and life, and one night when they had drunk too much wine and she had started complaining again, he had told her that if her job was making her miserable she should: âFor God's sake, go and do something you like.' And so she had.
After handing in her notice to the bank, she had gone and signed up for a twelve-week cookery course at Cork's famous Ballymaloe Cookery School. Afterwards she had been delighted when her Aunt Fran had insisted she come and work for her in her small delicatessen and bakery on Mount Street in Dublin's city centre, where Molly's mother often helped out. It was a family-run business, with Molly's cousin Eve and Eve's boyfriend working there, too. It was a small café cum bakery, but they made most of their money from their take-out menu of sandwiches, salads, breads, lasagne, cakes and buns. And they had recently begun to supply the many local offices with daily sandwiches and lunch treats. They hadn't really needed another employee, and hadn't been able to afford to pay much, but Luke had known Molly had to be given a push to go for it, so he had started saving to help her out financially, and she hadn't looked back. She was so grateful to Luke, and because of his generous support she now felt so happy. Sometimes you just needed to make a change.
âMum, I've about 2.3 seconds to talk before that dragon Mary comes back into the office. So be quick and tell me what's new down home on the farm, and remember, if Mary walks back in I'll have to refer to you as Mr Barrington, and ask you about a deposition,' Ali McEvoy whispered, glancing around the high-ceilinged room.
âOh, Ali! For God's sake, you must be allowed to make a personal phone call every once in a while. It's a solicitor's office not a prison cell. I'm sure your boss makes calls, too.'
âI swear, Mum, she doesn't. She has no friends to call! She even gives me dirty glances if I go to the bathroom. She is a sad old dragon who is taking her single status out on me. She is jealous of me being young and madly in love with Robin, I mean MR BARRINGTON. Yes, Mr Barrington, I'll fax that deposition to you right away. Goodbye.'
* * *
Ali grabbed a blank sheet and headed for the fax machine. Once again she was going to have to fax a blank sheet home to cover up a personal call. How had this happened? Ali had worked hard in school in Kilkenny to get enough points to study law at University College Dublin, and even though the move to the âbig smoke' had been hard, she had loved law in college, and hadn't minded all the endless exams, as she had known she could be a great solicitor and make a difference in the world. She had thought she could help the small people fight their cases. But seven years later, and with everyone in Dublin desperate to be a solicitor and become wealthy overnight, it was getting harder and harder to get a job, and she had got stuck working for Hewson & Keane â a very small law firm located in hard-floored offices in a tall draughty Georgian wreck of a building on Merrion Square. The firm was tight on budgets, salaries, holidays and any kind of fun! They specialized in property law, and all Ali seemed to do was help wealthy clients with the legal side of buying and expanding their property portfolios. Ali spent her whole day checking mortgages, deeds and planning permissions. It was a far cry from protecting the innocent and fighting for justice â the ideals which had made her want to study law in the first place. Her boss, Mary Lynch, was a forty-year-old who was single and seemed to take all her frustration out on Ali. She tried to control everything Ali did. Ali wasn't even allowed to make a work phone call at the same time as Mary, as Mary said it distracted her! With her tall, thin frame, tightly tied-back bun of mousy brown hair, and
assortment of black, grey or navy suits teamed with a variety of striped shirts, Mary really did look like an old spinster who had nothing better to do than boss Ali around. It was like working with a strict school teacher or old librarian. Ali was actually waiting for the day when she would be given a detention for speaking! Mary really was awful to work for, but what could Ali do? Law was the only thing she knew, and she needed a job, so unless something exciting happened or changed she was stuck with Mary the dragon.