Buttercup [H.S]

Chapter One

Ten Years Later

Saturday.

Saturday mornings were always a swell of anxiety for me; a frantic rush to set up my little market stall on time. Wake up, shower, pack my pull along trailer with the muffins and pastries I'd baked the evening before, pull it along to the tube station. Fumble said trailer onto the tube, much to the annoyance of the other early morning commuters. Awkward smiles and mumbled apologies. The smell of coffee and newspapers.

I had a love-hate relationship with Saturday mornings. I loved that I got to go to work, that it was the busiest day of the week which meant opportunity for new customers, loved the busy buzz of the market.

Hated digging under sofa cushions and rummaging into old jackets to collect enough change for the tube, or admitting defeat and having to inch further into my over draft.

Today was leaning toward the less pleasant end of the scale, because on this stuffy, sunny, July Saturday in London, not only was I skint, I was also hungover.

Not that either facts were a particularly new occurrence, if anything it had become progressively worse and more frequent in recent months.

I'd usually hold out on the drinking until I'd finished up work for the day, when I was no longer preoccupied with egg washing pastry and shuffling croissants in and out of my oven, before the silence would creep in.

Each corner of my little house would feel like it was expanding, the emptiness stretching out before me. I would switch on the TV but there was no one to enjoy it with. I couldn't laugh at a comedy, or cry at a drama without being callously reminded of how the other side of my sofa was pristine and firm, un touched and unoccupied and how my phone remained silent all evening.

So I'd down a couple of shots or fetch a bottle of wine from the corner shop. A couple of drinks would see me through until it was an acceptable time to sink into oblivion under my bedsheets. That's just how it went.

However last night, after stewing in an especially ripe bowl of self pity, I'd made my way well into a second bottle. The result being that I could practically feel the Merlot exuding from my pores as I sweat on the muggy and packed tube carriage.

My eyes were crisp and dry, red rimmed meaning I'd had to make a small effort to conceal the purple bags that surrounded them with a little make up. Hoping that my garish appearance wouldn't ward off too many customers. My stomach jumped worrisomely at each bump of the tube carriage, and it took all of my effort not to have a reverse wine tasting with my fellow passengers.

Note to self: red wine hangovers are the worst.

I pulled my phone out of my pocket with a sigh, opening up the message that had vibrated in my denim shorts.

Lucy
8.06am
Just opening up and your new Market neighbour is setting up already. Looks to be some sort of music stall! Excitinggg.

Thank goodness for Lucy, my best (and only) friend and fellow market vendor. I'd almost forgotten that the empty market pitch next to mine was being filled today. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't nervous to meet whoever I'd be working beside from now on. Making friends didn't exactly come easy to me.

I think Lucy and I had only clicked so well because her overly extroverted and outgoing nature cancelled out my social anxiety. And I provided her with free coffee each morning. That probably helped.

I'd opened my own coffee and cake stall, Buttercups, at Islington's Indoor Market last summer, and the entire time the pitch next to mine had been empty. It would be weird to have a little work buddy after all these months. I'd gotten used to my seclusion in my corner of the market.