Page 68 of The Little Board Game Café

‘Great idea,’ said Mr B.

‘And we can make the food ourselves. Stan and I will help.’

‘We will, and I have the best idea,’ said Mr B, his face brightening a little. ‘Since Ludek didn’t get to taste your Polish food on Wednesday evening, we’ll serve it tomorrow instead. Pierogi, pączki and makowiec. Perfect finger food.’

‘Won’t that seem a bit weird? I’m launching a board game café, not a Polish café.’

Mr B’s face fell again.

‘Perhaps…’ Emily didn’t want to disappoint him so racked her brains for reasons why it might be a good idea to serve Polish snacks when launching a board game café. ‘Perhaps people will be more likely to remember the evening if the food is a bit unusual.’

‘Exactly,’ said Marjory. ‘It’s a genius idea, Stan.’

‘And,’ said Mr B. ‘I could do a slideshow in the coffee break. Polish wildlife. I haven’t had my slides out in years. I hope my projector still works.’

Pierogi and pączki. Beavers and board games. An odd combination if ever there was one.

Emily was about to say that there wouldn’t actually be a coffee break – she would welcome everyone, serve drinks and snacks and then everyone would play games till they went home – when Marjory elbowed her in the ribs.

‘That’s a great idea, isn’t it, Em?’

Emily looked at Mr B’s hopeful face. She couldn’t disappoint him. He was her most loyal customer. Some days, her only customer. And he’d painted all those tables, traipsed round charity shops in search of games, supplied her with home-made chicken noodle soup and heaps of encouragement. The least she could do was let him have his slideshow.

‘Brilliant idea,’ Emily said. ‘Thanks, Mr B. I think we’d better start cooking.’

*

Making a few pierogi had been tricky enough, but assembling a hundred of them – it took hours. Even with three pairs of hands and even though Emily had decided to keep things simple and stick to one filling.

*

At half past twelve, they were interrupted by a knock at the door.

‘I’ll go,’ Emily said.

She washed the flour off her hands. A woman was waiting outside. She was probably early forties, Emily would guess – and well-groomed with smart jeans, newly coiffured hair and manicured nails.

‘Oh hello,’ she said as she tried to peer past Emily into the café. Perhaps Kate had been right and the sheet across the window had created a bit of intrigue. ‘I wondered if there were any tickets left for tomorrow evening. My husband and I would love to come along.’

The café was small: only twenty-four seats. By the time she’d allocated places for Mr B, Marjory, Ludek and his friends from the board games group, there’d been only a handful left, and, to Emily’s surprise and delight, they’d been bagged very quickly after the article had appeared in the paper.

She shook her head. ‘None, I’m afraid. Sorry.’

‘Oh, that’s a shame. My mother’s offered to babysit our boy George and well… Well, that’s quite a rare event, to be honest, so we wanted to make the most of it. Do something a bit different.’

‘Your boy George?’ Emily had a vision of a small child with braided hair, a black hat and a lot of eye make-up singing Karma Chameleon over and over to his increasingly fed-up granny.

‘Don’t worry. We should have booked sooner.’

The woman turned away. It seemed a shame. After all, Granny didn’t often offer to babysit and Emily still had the two tickets she’d put aside for Kate and Dad, didn’t she? She reached into her jeans pocket. Yes, there they were. ‘Hang on,’ she said. ‘I’ve got these two, but they’re a bit tatty. You’re welcome to them.’

‘Wonderful, thank you,’ George’s mother beamed. ‘See you tomorrow.’

*

The pączki and makowiec were ready. The pierogi sat waiting to be fried; they were all slightly different shapes and sizes, leaving her with even greater admiration for those contestants on The Great British Bake Off who managed to produce batches of cakes and pies that looked identical. She wouldn’t be entering that any time soon.

The sheet had been removed from the window, Emily had slipped into the Scrabble pinafore and placed a bouquet of helium balloons – another gift from Kate – outside the door. The stage was set.