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Business as usual by Lilachigh
 
Chp 1
 
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BUSINESS AS USUAL by lilachigh

What if Spike had been telling the truth when he made his sarcastic remark about a nice tea-room at the garbage dump during Season 5’s The Replacement?



The evenings were always the busiest. Trade really picked up when it began to get dark and by midnight she was usually taking a steady amount of money.

She sighed and rubbed at the dirt on her fingers and under her nails. She could never get them clean no matter how hard she tried. She didn’t understand why being a vampire meant being dirty.

It was as if the mud that had covered her when she rose had never been fully washed away, which was ridiculous because sometimes, when she had enough money, she booked into a little motel and took a shower.

She’d never been dirty when she’d been Agnes Pringle, forty-five, unmarried but always wistfully, hopefully searching for Mr Right. She’d worn nice tweed skirts and pretty pale pink and cream twinsets with a single strand of pearls round her neck.

Her hair had been washed and set every week at the trendy new Cutz shop, although she did think the youngsters talked too much over her head when they were at the washbasins and she didn’t understand the dreadfully loud music they played all the time..

But she’d been happy. She’d been so proud of her little teashop in Winchester, a lovely English cathedral city. Lots of tourists and cheerful, happy people who came in for morning and afternoon refreshment.

She’d chosen the furniture and fittings herself – nice dark oak tables and chairs and dainty blue and white crockery. And only the best cakes.

She’d made them herself every morning. Luscious cream horns, strawberry jam sponges, chocolate gateaux, fondant fancies, lemon curd tartlets, Chelsea buns, Eccles cakes and scones, fruit, cheese, plain full of jam and double cream. Oh, there was something different every day.

And such nice customers, no riff-raff just pleasant ladies and gentlemen – and even sometimes a member of the clergy from the Cathedral itself had popped in for a cup of tea and a slice of Dundee fruitcake.

She sighed and wondered what had become of the Ye Olde Willowtree Tea Shoppe?

Silly Agnes, she should have stayed at home, but winning that movie magazine prize of a trip to Hollywood and Los Angeles had seemed like a dream come true. And the gentleman she’d met on the coach trip, who’d sat next to her and smiled and flattered and raised her foolish hopes….

Well, she’d soon discovered he’d only been after ONE THING. And that, sadly, hadn’t been her virtue, although she’d been quite bravely prepared to offer that up to him. No, he’d wanted something else entirely.

So here she was, in a funny little town called Sunnydale that was nothing like Winchester, living in a cardboard box amongst all the trash because there was no way she could go home.

Here she could apologetically feed on the odd down and out who scrounged through the rubbish, but she had no idea what the food situation was like back in England. There was probably a law against feeding there, but, oddly, no one seemed that bothered over here.

But even vampires had to have money and so she’d gone back to doing what she did best. She’d set up a few old tables and chairs and brewed tea and served cakes and what the Americans called ‘cookies’ to any passing hungry vampire.

And, apart from the endless dirt, it was paying. She had quite a few regular customers and the nice, handsome, blond Englishman with the stunning blue eyes who called in regularly for tea and shortbread – well!

Agnes smoothed down her apron and fluffed up her hair. Silly to have such romantic dreams, but perhaps Mr Right wasn’t so far away after all!

end


 
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