“It’ll just be a minute,” the barista said. “You’re from the new barber’s across the street, aren’t you?”

“Aye, that’s me. I’m Mack.”

“Susie.”

Susie extended her hand to shake Mack’s. Her touch lingered on Mack’s hand. “So there’s an actual Mack of Mack the Knife?”

“Yep. That’s me. It’s a really nice street.”

“Yeah. It’s a prime territory for the higher-end businesses like ours. The customers from the designer shops on the next street up all come down this way. You’ll do really well, I’m sure.”

Little did Susie know that she knew exactly how prime a spot this was for her business, as the Sharkeys owned the land, including the one this coffee shop stood on.

“What about the sweet shop, Sweet Surprise? What’s it like?”

“Hmm.” Susie scrunched up her eyes. “It a nice enough traditional sweet shop, but it attracts a lot of kids. I’ve had them in here trying to steal things. Plus the owner is a bit of a weirdo.”

Mack’s defensive hackles immediately rose, and anger rolled around her stomach at that description of Flora, but she played along to get the information she wanted. “Oh? How?”

“She never talks or looks at any of us other business owners. She’s, like, a mute. Flora, that’s her name, is the actual owner of Sweet Surprise, but any business meetings we have locally, she sends Sandra, her other staff member. If you pass her in the street, she puts her head down, so she doesn’t have to say hello. As I say, weirdo.”

As annoyed as it made Mack to hear someone talk about Flora that way, without any knowledge of what she had been through, she was so happy to hear that it wasn’t just her Flora had difficulty talking to. Flora wasn’t frightened of her, as Mack had feared.

Susie’s workmate brought over her two coffees, and Mack said firmly to Susie as she picked them up, “It not good to judge other people when you don’t know anything about their life.”

Susie’s face fell and Mack walked out.

* * *

“I’m so sorry I wasn’t here, Flo,” Sandra said as she took off her coat the next morning.

“It’s okay. You can’t be here all the time,” Flora said. “You do enough for me as it is. Your hospital appointment was important. You can’t be babysitting me all the time.”

“It’s not babysitting. I’m only too happy to help you. You know that.”

Flora smiled. She was so lucky to have Sandra. Having grown up with her, she knew and understood, to some extent, that Flora had difficulties with the public-facing side of the business. She manned the till, attended local business meetings, and handled any other face-to-face duties that were difficult for Flora.