Are You Ready? (3 page)

Sarah was so excited that, before she knew it, she was chatting away to Ross about what kind of godmother she would be. It involved a lot of going to the Lambert
Puppet Theatre, and face-painting, and within an hour she was pretty tipsy, but he didn't mind. She was so happy for Mel and John, and about them asking her to be a godmother. Her excitement lasted, and so, when Ross was leaving and asked if he could take her number she didn't do the usual – and back off or give him a fake one – she gave him the right number and a quick peck on the cheek. It was an exciting evening, and Sarah felt life was good. For once she went to bed imagining that her single days might soon be over, and she dreamed about what her children would look like with Ross as a father.

‘Molly, the orders for Sterling Bank are in, can you start work on them, please?' Fran, Molly's aunt, asked.

Fran was delighted to have Molly working for her. She knew Molly was talented and had a passion for food, but unfortunately for years she had not been able to afford to hire her, so apart from helping out at weekends Molly had been stuck working in her finance job. But since the business had grown and got more and more customers, it had been wonderful to be able to hire her favourite niece.

Fran had worked in various restaurants in Dublin over the years, and then five years ago had made a big jump and bought a nice basement café on Mount Street. It had needed months of work, but eventually she had opened the Heavenly Bakery and Café. They kept their prices reasonable, yet they weren't fools and knew all the young business people in the area could afford to pay extra for homemade delights like speciality breads and outsize filled vol-au-vents. And even though the café had seats for customers, they
found more and more offices were asking them to deliver.

Molly's mum, Helen, and Fran had both learnt to love cooking from their own mother, and even though Fran owned the bakery and café, Helen came in to work a few days a week to help with baking. No one could make a chocolate fudge cake like Fran's sister Helen!

Fran's own daughter Eve and her French boyfriend André also worked full-time in Heavenly. Eve was young and very chatty: great with the customers and at making sandwiches. André's tall, dark, handsome looks persuaded many a young single girl to pop in for a sandwich or small salad, only to find out their French dreamboat was very much in love with the waitress.

So with both Eve and André working full-time for her, Fran had never thought she could offer Molly a role in the café, but then when she saw how sad Molly was getting, and how disheartened about everything, she knew she had to try to help. So when Luke had told her he would help Molly out financially if Fran could at least pay her the minimum wage Fran had eagerly agreed. And now she did not know where she would be without her niece. Molly's cooking, enthusiasm and ideas were brilliant! Fran was used to doing the majority of the cooking, and struggling to create new dishes by herself, but with Molly by her side, they now had time to enjoy choosing ingredients, discussing new ideas, even staying late to try out different kinds
of salads or quiches. She could not imagine Heavenly without Molly now. Her food – and her passion for it and for life – was irresistible.

‘Right, where is my apron, Molly? And let's get going on all these young bankers' lunches.'

Molly sat down on the old park bench in Merrion Square. What a day! She must have made ten lasagnes, 120 brownies, twelve salad plates, and God knows how many sandwiches, but she loved it. She still couldn't believe how quickly her life had changed. Her finance job felt like a lifetime ago, and although the gossip and chat with the girls had been good fun in there, and drinks on a Friday had always been wild, she didn't miss the work. Towards the end she had found the constant talk of who got what bonus, and who was on what salary, very cold and materialistic. She had wanted a job that she was passionate about, that made her smile, that stretched her mind, and most of all gave her joy. Salaries and bonuses shouldn't come into it, and although everyone needed to pay the bills, you did have to weigh up what made you happy and how you wanted to live your life. And Molly wanted to be surrounded by food, ingredients, tastes, smells, chatter and laughter. Sometimes you needed to take a pay cut to get where you wanted, where your heart wanted to
bring you to; and you needed to listen to that heart, and not your bank account.

Of course if it hadn't been for Luke's encouragement and support and her Auntie Fran's belief in her, she would still be stuck working in the bank, earning lots of money but being totally unhappy. But now Molly felt lucky, so blessed. Life was good.

Molly clipped back her long dark hair, and unwrapped her Parma ham and Italian cheese on ciabatta bread. It was hard to get a few minutes to yourself during the day, so she often didn't eat her own meal until well after the lunch crowd had left. That was why, at four thirty, she was finally eating.

As she washed down her lunch with a bottle of the organic apple juice they kept in Heavenly she got a text message from Luke reminding her he was finishing work at five, and not to be late. He had booked to go to the latest James Bond film in the Savoy cinema at half past five, with the intention of grabbing dinner after the film. Luke didn't like her being late, he was always on time. Molly knew she had a few more cakes to finish and deliver to a local firm that wanted to celebrate a birthday after work, and she worried that she might not make it to the Savoy on time; she didn't want to upset Luke, he had been so good to her. Molly had been so unlike herself, so moody and depressed for the last year in her job, and had often taken it out on Luke, and they had fought almost every night. But now that he had helped her move jobs she felt they were getting on better; even though he didn't understand her need to go to work extra early just so
she could have the kitchen to herself and invent new recipes. Still, she knew he loved her and wanted things to work out for them. She quickly finished her drink and started to walk back to work. She needed to get her cake icing done ASAP!

Ben wolfed down his cornflakes while trying to read the newspaper and iron a shirt for work. He was late as usual, and yet ‘the more haste the less speed' was his philosophy, so he was re-reading the
Irish Times
report on that weekend's Liverpool match. He crossed the pristine Shaker-style kitchen and opened the dishwasher to pack his cereal bowl, but saw the dishwasher had just finished and was full of clean dishes and cutlery. Damn, he thought, to pack this one dish I'm going to have to unpack about fifty other ones. No way, he decided, and instead washed his cereal bowl in the sink and replaced it in the press. Mum will never know, he thought!

Ben hopped on the 46a bus and put on his iPod, and as U2 blared away in the background he thought about what lay ahead of him in work that day. He was a sports correspondent on one of the daily free newspapers. He was not an editor, or even a full-time reporter, but he didn't care. He loved sport, especially football, and was having a laugh being able to go to matches and report
on them. And although the money wasn't that good, he couldn't expect it to be, either. He hadn't trained as a journalist, he hadn't even studied English in college. He had actually studied commerce at UCD, and specialized in accounting, mainly because his father owned a small accounting firm. His father had taken over O'Connor & Son from Ben's grandfather, and his dream was that Ben would also work with him and eventually take it over. And although Ben had at one stage wanted that, the older he got the more he had felt pressurized into it, and hadn't wanted the responsibility of running a family company. He liked to feel free and not be tied down, and he knew that the minute he went into the company he would be in it for life, no turning back. And Ben was not that kind of person: he liked freedom and no responsibilities. He liked to feel he could do whatever he wanted, whenever he wanted. But, of course, he did feel guilty quite often. He saw how disappointed his father was with him. His father should have retired a few years ago, but Ben knew he was holding out in the hope that Ben would change his mind and run the business. His father was the perfect gentleman and family man. Always there to help his mother around the house, and then head for a round of golf in Foxrock Golf Club, but making sure he was back in time to get the house ready for the dinner parties they threw almost every second weekend. Both Ben's parents had plenty of friends and were great at having parties, going on holiday and socializing. His father was a fine host, and always made sure everyone felt comfortable in any occasion, and while his mum
was always nagging Ben, it was her concern and interest in others that made her so popular. She was always first to visit a friend in hospital, or bake a cake for a family in times of grief.

They were a great couple, and even though seeing them so happy should have made Ben want to settle down and experience what they had had for almost forty years, it didn't. He knew eventually he would settle down, but for now he needed to experience the opposite: live life to the full with whoever he wanted. He wasn't the biggest womanizer or anything, but he just had itchy feet, and liked to work and be with whoever felt right at that time. And at this moment he felt like being an underpaid yet happy and relaxed sports correspondent on his oldest friend Jeremy's latest venture – a free Dublin daily paper. He had only got the job because of Jeremy, and even though he knew that all the sports staff had felt a bit miffed that he had got it without any qualifications, he was able to hold his own and, after a few articles, started receiving praise from the editor and getting on better with the staff. They were a relaxed bunch, really, and usually great for drinks after work on Friday on Dawson Street. Though sometimes, when he ran into his old University College friends, all coming back from work in Dublin's biggest accountancy firms, he did feel a pang of guilt, and regret that he wasn't working alongside them. But then he would always think of O'Connor & Son and tell himself, not yet, or maybe never, and remember he was only thirty, and that was young enough.

Maura O'Connor came back from her hour-long walk around leafy Foxrock and Cabinteely. She did it every morning, not only to try and stay fit but also to try and tire out the family dog, Honey. Honey, their golden Labrador retriever, was as mad as a hare, and needed a good long walk every morning to at least tire her out until Joe came home and could take the young dog out again.

As she walked into the kitchen, she noticed Ben must have left in a hurry: the ironing board and iron were still out, as was the milk and a cornflakes box. Tidying them away, she went to put his coffee cup into the dishwasher, and saw it was still clean and full from the wash she had put on earlier. The lazy so and so, she thought. As usual he had hand-washed his bowl to avoid unpacking the dishwasher. He thought she didn't notice his careless ways, but of course she did. Like she noticed how he flung his clothes on his bedroom floor, presuming they would magically walk themselves into the washing machine and then out on
to the line to dry. She noticed how he hadn't once helped hoover the house since he had moved back home, even though it was his rugby boots that every Thursday night trailed mud and bits of grass right through the hall and up the stairs. She noticed he never once offered to make dinner, or clean up after it. She loved him deeply, but saw that he was getting more and more lazy each day.

He was never as bad in college, back then he'd been like every regular boy: needed a push when it came to helping around the house, but would do it eventually. But ever since he'd moved back home this second time he'd seen the house as a hotel – somewhere he was temporarily staying and so did not need to help out at all. It saddened her to see him so lost. He had changed jobs three times since college, and never settled. If only he could see how he was wasting his training and talent as an accountant.

Maura and Joe were heart-broken that he refused to go into the family business. At first, when he left college, Ben had said he didn't immediately want to go into Joe's office, he preferred to experience working for other people and not be tied down to the one job for the whole of his life. So Joe had got him work in a friend's company: it was small but well respected. Ben had only lasted one year and eventually left to do a year's travelling in Australia. It had been embarrassing for Joe, and upset the friendship he had had with the company's owner, but that was nothing to the embarrassment he now felt when people could not understand why his one and only son, a qualified
accountant, refused to join him in his company, refused to work side by side with him as a business partner.

Maura did not know what to do, and swung between disappointment and sadness. And even though Joe was heart-broken, he was a perfect gentleman. Not wanting to ever cause a scene, he had welcomed Ben back home when he couldn't afford to buy a place of his own. Ben was great fun, and Maura did love having more company around the house, and fussing over him and hearing all the gossip about his friends, but she knew Ben needed to change, and soon.

Ali walked across Merrion Square and up Mount Street into Heavenly, feeling really in the mood for one of their spinach and ricotta tartlets. As she got into the busy queue she could see one of her best friends, Molly, covered in flour and what looked like tomatoes, laughing away with her mother. The two floury, petite, dark-haired women could have been sisters. As Ali approached the till and went to pay Eve for the tartlet, she caught Molly's eye and Molly came out from behind the counter.

‘How's work, Ali?'

‘A nightmare,' replied Ali. ‘Mary has got me checking the legal aspects of planning permissions all morning. It's so boring, I'm dreading going back.'

‘But Ali, imagine, in a few weeks' time you will be in South Africa! I'm so jealous, I would love to go there one day with Luke, and visit all the Cape wineries. The food and wines are supposed to be the best in the world. Think of all the treats I could bring home to sell here!'