Connie's Cafe/Book Shop

Chapter 1 - The Start

"...and this is the best part of the shop." The Estate Agent continued as she climbed the curved wooden steps to the top level. "You could perhaps put your speciality books up here, or maybe make this part the cafe section, it's big enough." As she reached the top of the staircase she turned to look at Connie with a big smile on her face.

Connie smiled back, "I agree, this is lovely, so bright and airy and with so much space." She looked around again moving over to the edge and looked down at the lower floor. "Yes." She said turning back to the Agent, "Yes, I'll take it!"

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"Tim, can you move those three boxes upstairs, no not those, those." Connie pointed to the three rather large brown boxes sitting by the entrance door to the shop.

"Really!" Tim rolled his eyes dramatically, "They have to be the heaviest boxes in the whole shop!" He gave an exaggerated sigh and walked over to the boxes, he lifted them with ease and took them one by one up the stairs.

Connie watched him from the counter, if it wasn't for his exaggerated comments and occasional stances you wouldn't guess that he was gay. He was tall, strong with pronounced muscles in his arms and legs and a perfect six pack. 

Tim enjoyed working out at the gym just down the road.  He was proud of his looks, together with his muscles he  boasted thick, blond, wavy hair and sharp blue eyes.  He also thoroughly enjoyed teasing straight men, he would often make suggestive comments which clearly made them feel extremely uncomfortable.

Connie had only received a handful of interviewees for the position of shop assistant. Tim had been the last one she interviewed and as soon as he walked through the door she knew he was the one for the job.  He was pleasant, assertive and had a wicked sense of humour.  His strength would also come in handy for moving the heavy boxes of books on delivery day!

Tim came down the lovely wooden staircase and joined Connie at the cafe. Connie had re-designed the shop, customers now walked through the door and were greeted with the main bookstore right in front of them, to the left a seating area which offered freshly brewed coffees and teas, pastries and cakes, in the middle was the main circular counter where the coffees and teas were made, the pastries displayed and the till for payment. Upstairs offered a small area for foreign language books. 

 She had scoured the wholesalers and small publishes to find books in Spanish (her biggest sellers in foreign language section, Russian, Polish, French, Italian and even Portuguese. More recently Connie was hoping to find some Asian language books to add to her collection.

"So what's in the boxes?" Tim asked as he slid onto the stool by the cafe side of the large round counter. Connie closed her laptop which sat next to the till on the cashier side of the main counter island and walked the couple of steps to the cafe side. 

"They're the books from that little shop by the train station. You know, Burt's?"

"Oh yeah, that's the place that closed down last week."

"Yep, that's the one. These were all the books he couldn't sell so he gave them to me at rock-bottom prices.  Most of them are in French and Italian but he also said there were some valuable old German books in there."

"German!" Tim's voice rose a notch, his finger started to move towards the base of his nose, 

"Stop!" Connie called out laughing, "Don't you dare!"

Tim laughed, he sat back down, "OK, OK no German jokes"

Just at the moment  Betty and Pat walked through the door.

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BETTY AND PAT

"Have you got the coffee on?" Betty asked as she slowly made her way to the closest table. "Come on Pat, stop dawdling and sit down." Her voice was sharp as she waved her companion over.

Pat slowly made his way to the table and painfully sat down. Betty and Pat rented the two apartments over the shop. The two had life-long rental contracts so Connie had 'inherited' them when she had bought the shop and the apartments.  There were two apartments directly above the shop, Betty lived in the apartment at the front and Pat had the back apartment.  The apartment on the top floor spanned the entire of the shop and Connie had that one to herself.

Betty was 88 years old and Pat had just turned 90. They had known each other all their lives.  Their respective partners had died many years ago and neither of them had children.  It was sad. But they seemed happy with their lives and with each other, although Betty was a little rude and obnoxious most of the time, she genuinely cared about Pat and Pat simply took everything in his stride.

"Here you go Betty. Freshly brewed coffee, just the way you like it." Connie placed the small cup of piping hot, black coffee in front of her. "Here you are Pat." Connie placed the tall glass of latte in front of Pat with a smile, "and here, have some fresh croissants." She placed the plates down onto the little table and added a small bowl of assorted jams and butters. "On the house." She added with a smile.

"Of course." Betty responded harshly, "You don't expect us to pay for this do you?" She waved her hand over the coffees and croissants in a disdainful manner.

Pat smiled up at Connie who smiled back. Everyone knew and expected Betty to make such comments. Connie couldn't remember during the last six months, either Betty or Pat ever paying for any of their daily coffees or cakes!

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