Adriana's Corner

Chapter 26

It's been a week since I've been in the café. . .maybe longer. There was no point going there and making myself feel worse about the whole thing but since I got the okay for the other building, it's been full on and a meeting has been called here to discuss it.
Taffy's here, Teresa is here, the good-looking builder is here and the other two along with him. Milla and Vin. The historic buildings expert is young. I was expecting an old bloke with bad breath and a stutter but he's like the builder, around thirty. Lively too, not at all as boring as you'd think a man with that job would be.
His wife, the interior designer is a small, pretty woman who goes into what her team members call the Art Trance. This is what's been going on for the last half hour. The two guys have been wandering around tapping things with their foot and mumbling while the woman, Milla meanders around from place to place looking deep in thought.

"This is excruciating." Teresa sighs, rubbing her forehead.
"Not from where I'm sitting." I mumble, arms folded and legs crossed. Both Taffy and Teresa turn around to see what view I have. They look back at me and smile. 

"Married remember." Taffy says.

"So is Antonio Banderas. Ain't gonna stop me from looking at him." 

"Amen to that sister." Teresa says shifting her chair around slightly. This is when Milla decides to join us, supporting a confused look.

"Ummm, this place is called Oxford Food Garden right?" she asks.

"Not any more. It's going to be re-named." Taffy offers.

"For obvious reasons." I add.  Milla looks at me then around.

"Is that obvious reason because there's no garden?" 

"No. It's because the name was terrible."

"Oh..." is all she says, biting her bottom lip.

"Because . . .I was thinking..."

"Oo! Here we go. . .." Vin says as the two men join us. 

"The space next door is larger. Larger than in here. Instead of having two spaces that join, what about three?" I screw up my nose confused and I soon notice that I'm not the only one.

"What do you mean?" A few people ask at the same time. She smiles a little and clasps her hands together. 

"Okay so...I'm a customer." she says, walking to the entrance, "I come in here to the café, lunch time...you're going to add more seating but alas it's Summer, I still don't want to be confined to a hot, busy café bustling with tons of people especially when the sun is out. Now, there's no room out the front of the shop for any chairs BUT, what if the customers had the option of coming through here..." she gestures to where a wall is going to be pulled down, " and into an out door space with umbrella's, patio, flowers...whatever. Half of your new building can be for your shop and the other half can be more seating which leaves more room in the café for seating to be a bit more spread out or the office to be a bit bigger. From the road people will just see two conjoined buildings but when they get in, there's that nook out the back away from the road and in the sun." she looks at Danny. "Would it be doable?" she asks.

"Sure, I mean, there is no building there at the moment really is there? So anything's possible. What do you guys think?"

I look at Teresa and Taffy and they look at me.
"It's your building remember." Taffy says. 

"But are you against it?" I ask, "It's still going to be attached to the cafe, in fact it will really be an extension."

"I don't mind. Crowd control has always been an issue here so it'd help. It is cutting into your shop though."