“You were right about the big custard creams, though,” mused Iona. “We should do more. Bourbon creams and jam sandwiches, people loved them, and they’re easy to do, you just need the molds. Markup’s good. Oh! And pumpkin spice.”

“What?” said Flora, carefully pretending she knew what Iona meant.

“We need to get pumpkin spice.”

“Uhm, what is that?”

Iona looked unsure for a moment. “I don’t know exactly . But it’s what you have to have on your coffee this time of year. Instagram says so.”

Flora blinked. “Instagram?”

“Yeah. You have your pumpkin spice latte and post it on Instagram.”

“And it makes your coffee taste of pumpkin?”

“I don’t know.” Iona started scrolling through her phone. “It’s just what everyone’s doing, that’s all. And people take pictures of the biscuits.”

“Do they?”

Flora had noticed, in the last year or so, people taking pictures of themselves more and more outside the pretty pale-gray-painted frontage of the little harbor café but hadn’t thought much of it; customers were customers, and tourists did tourist stuff, and even if these days it meant all of them lining up in the exact same angle to take exactly the same photograph, well, she didn’t really think about that very much.

“We need an Instagram page.”

Iona was quite pink in the face now, and Flora realized she was entirely serious and also that she’d thought about this a lot and hadn’t just been cutting sandwiches the whole time.

“We need to show off how lovely it is here and have people come in and link and make sure that tourists come even if it’s just to see us. And—”

Flora frowned. “Hang on . . . have you been having these brilliant ideas all this time?”

Iona looked perturbed and didn’t say anything.

“Am I a terrible boss who never listens to anything?”

“You never asked,” said Iona.

This wasn’t at all the way Flora had predicted the morning turning out.

“Also, I think we should do organic baby food for the mothers group. The markup is—”

“Okay, okay, you’ve got the Seaside Kitchen,” said Flora, smiling. “Just turn us into millionaires by Christmas, please.”

She looked at Isla, who was standing there quietly.

“Are you happy to come up to the big house?” she said. “I know it’s not as glamorous a job, but there’s lots of opportunity to learn in a bigger kitchen, try out different skills, cooking as well as baking . . .”

“Does she have to wash pots?” said Iona.

“Everyone has to wash pots,” said Flora. “That’s how small businesses work.”

Isla looked at Iona a bit sadly. “It’ll be hard to be separated,” she said quietly. In fact, she was gutted to be leaving her best friend. She didn’t like things changing. She wasn’t very good at it.

“You’ll be great,” said Flora.

“I don’t know if I have good ideas like Iona.”

“That’s not really how you should approach a job interview!” said Flora, then, when she saw Isla’s face fall, “I’m kidding! I’m kidding. I’ve seen you work your socks off here for three years. I know how good you are. I’m lucky to have you both and you’re both getting raises.”