Pennies From Heaven By Rowan Coleman

It’s shaping up to be a day that will test all of Julie’s resilience – and the wisest of her nan’s sayings!

It was just as Julie was bending down to pick up the penny she had seen gleaming faintly on the wet pavement that the car ploughed through the puddle in the road and soaked her from head to foot in muddy water.

“You –” Julie called after it, but there was an old lady and a mum with a baby and toddler at the bus stop, so she swallowed the rest of that sentence and pocketed the penny anyway.

“Find a penny, pick it up, and all day long it brings good luck.”

That’s what Julie’s nan always used to say. It was kind of hard to subscribe to that point of view now that she was wet and muddy – and on her way to a job interview, to boot.

Though, if there was one thing that Nan had taught her, in the years she’d brought Julie up after her mum died, it was to always look on the sunny side.

There didn’t seem to be much of a sunny side today, or even any hint of sun – but it could be worse, Julie thought. And then she thought some more to figure out exactly how. At least the car hadn’t run her over. There. That would do.

“Ugh!” Julie sighed as she looked down at herself. “Not sure this is the look I was going for.”

“Here you are, would these help?” The young mum, while attempting to hang on to her energetic little boy, offered Julie a packet of baby wipes.

“Thanks so much!” Taking the packet, Julie cleaned the mud off her face and her shoes at least. When she got into town, she could nip into Debenhams and buy new tights, and take her stained jacket off before she went in. She’d be good as new.

“Every cloud has a silver lining,” Julie’s nan was also fond of saying.

The bus was on time, and Julie helped the young woman on with her buggy, holding the fidgety toddler as his mum folded the buggy and stowed it away, her baby held under one arm. “Thanks so much,” she said, when she was finally seated with her two charges on her lap. “Normally people just give me evils for even getting on a bus with a buggy. My name’s Sarah.”

“Well, one good turn deserves another,” Julie smiled, tucking the wipes packet back inside the changing bag. “And I’m Julie.”

“Job interview?” Sarah asked.

“Yes, vet’s receptionist,” Julie said. “I am actually a baker. But a baker without a job, right now.”

“Well, we wish you lots of luck – don’t we, Donny?”

Donny replied by trying to escape and bolt up the steps to the top deck. Julie fetched him back again.

She took her seat and gazed out of the window as the streets slipped by, gradually transforming from rows and rows of houses to shops and businesses, pavements thronged with people. When she was little she and Nan had taken this trip every Saturday to window shop and maybe have an ice cream or a piece of cake, if Nan was feeling flush.

Julie sighed, feeling a familiar pang. She missed her nan very much.

When it came to her stop, Julie smiled at Sarah, waved at Donny and took a deep breath. Today was the day her luck was going to change. She’d had a bad run of it, that couldn’t be denied.

Nan had died almost a year ago now. As her granddaughter Julie got to stay on in the housing association flat she grew up in, which was much better than anything she’d normally be able to afford, but although she was grateful, going from room to room in her modest home and not finding Nan there ready to gossip about the neighbours or launch an opinion on Countdown made it feel huge and lonely.

In January, the family bakery Julie had worked for since she left school went out of business and she’d lost her job. Since then she had only managed a little temping here and there.

In April Tony had dumped her. He’d

said, it wasn’t him, it was her. That he needed more excitement in his life, and that all Julie wanted was to be happy. Julie was boring, he said.

Julie had pondered this statement and for a while she felt sad, inadequate and like maybe she should get a tattoo or have her ears double-pierced.

Then she imagined what Nan would say to her, if she’d been around. Nan would have said that finding happiness in the little things was the secret to a good life. Tony was a moron, Julie decided. She was glad to be shot of him.

After donning a fresh pair of tights, Julie was pleased to see she was still right on time for her interview. The vet’s was just across the busy high street but then, just as she was about to cross the road, she saw another penny, this time in the gutter, almost covered in litter; it seemed to be winking at her. Julie looked around, the rain had stopped and there was a long gap in the traffic. She found she couldn’t just leave that penny there, Nan would never forgive her for passing it up.

Checking the road once again she bent down and picked up the coin, reciting Nan’s mantra to herself. But as she straightened, Julie felt something give in her new pair of tights, and a long ladder puckered its way down from her thigh to the ankle.

Well, this is what you get for wearing a skirt, she sighed. It was too late now – she’d just have to hope that the foremost qualities looked for in a vet’s receptionist didn’t involve hosiery.

Dropping the second coin into her pocket, Julie crossed the road and paused for a moment outside the vet’s to compose herself. That had to be her lot of misfortune for the day – what could possibly go wrong now?

Julie wondered how she had reached the age of 24 without discovering that she was violently allergic to cats.

It had all been going so well, right up until the moment that the vet had taken her into his examination room to observe while he treated a cat with an injured paw. Within three minutes Julie’s eyes and nose were streaming, and she was fishing her rarely used inhaler out of her bag, taking four puffs in a row.

Lucky I remembered to pack it, thought Julie, thinking of the second coin in her pocket as she sat on the low wall outside the vets and waited for her breathing to return to normal.

Itcouldbeworse, she mused. Again she had to think for a moment to work

It could be WORSE, she thought, taking a MOMENT to work out HOW

out how, and then decided it could have been a dog that the vet was treating, and that way Julie would never have known to add cats to her long list of allergies. So that was that, at least.

Checking her purse she saw she had one £2 coin, just enough for a nice coffee in that pretty-looking café that she’d spied a little further along the street. Enough for a small jar of it if she went to the supermarket instead – but just this once Julie wanted to have someone else make her coffee, to enjoy the aroma and people-watch as she sipped a full-fat latte.

A little of what you fancy, does you good, Nan would say.

As she hopped off the wall, Julie heard a faint but distinctive metallic tinkle and to her amazement saw a third penny, spinning on its edge for a few seconds, before rolling right to her feet.

Julie checked her pockets. The other two she had picked up were still there.

Three lucky pennies in one day, what were the odds?

Julie whistled as she walked into the little café, and took her place in the queue. A moment passed, and a small boy blew a wet raspberry at her, before she noticed Sarah whom she’d met on the bus, in the queue ahead of her.

“That’ll be five pounds exactly please,” the guy behind the counter told Sarah, with a smile.

Julie looked at him sideways, as if she wasn’t really interested in the fact that he was nice and tall, and somehow looked cool wearing a candy-striped apron. Good-looking too, even though he had one of those silly hipster beards.

Sarah hoisted the baby onto her hip as she reached into her handbag. Meanwhile her toddler was already cramming the small percentage of chocolate muffin that he hadn’t smeared all over his cheeks into his mouth.

“Oh no, I can’t believe it.” Sarah sounded dismayed. “I left my purse at home. And I’ve only got…” She counted her change onto the counter, “… £2.97 on me…” She looked round at her son. A constellation of chocolate crumbs encircled his mouth as he sucked intently on a carton of juice. “Can I give you this coffee back? And this juice?”

“Here, let me,” Julie said, taking her two pounds and three pennies, putting them on the counter. “I have exactly the amount you need in my pocket. Seems like fate, right?”

“Julie?” Sarah smiled and flushed red at the same time. “Honestly. That’s so kind, but –”

“Kindness is as kindness does.” Julie recited another of Nan’s favourite expressions. “Come to think of it, I don’t really know what that means, but I do know that I really want to buy you that coffee and that juice, OK? Please let me. It would make my day.”

“Thank you so much.” Sarah smiled. “Meet you in here tomorrow and I’ll pay you back and buy you a coffee at the same time?”

“Great!” Julie grinned as Sarah chased Donny in and out of the chairs, eventually pinning him into a corner.

“And what can I get you?” the handsome man with the rather stupid beard was asking her.

“Oh!” Julie patted her pockets. “Actually, I don’t have any more cash. So… anyway, bye!”

“Don’t go,” he said, a little more quickly than Julie might have expected, if she had been expecting it, which she hadn’t. “What you just did – it was really nice. Let me stand you a coffee – on the house.”

“Thank you.” Julie smiled, meeting his eyes. Nice chocolate brown eyes.

“You have a lovely manner about you, er –?”

It took a second for Julie to realise he was trying to discover her name. “I’m Julie.” “Bill.” He stretched his hand across the counter and shook hers. “And I like your style, Julie. Don’t suppose you are looking for a job, are you?” “What – a job here?” “Yes – waitressing, making sandwiches. Nothing fancy, but it’s friendly and I’m opening another branch soon, so maybe a chance of a promotion if things work out?”

“Could I bake?” Julie asked, on impulse. “I’m a baker, by trade.”

“A baker? No way!” Bill’s nice brown eyes widened. “That’d be awesome.”

“It’s just…” Julie hesitated, looking around as if someone might be playing a trick on her. “It seems too good to be true. Like pennies from heaven.”

Then she thought about the three lucky pennies she’d found today and something else that Nan used to say. Don’ t look a gift horse in the mouth. “Tell you what,” Bill said. “I’ll come and join you for a coffee and we can talk it through. And you can give me some advice on whether or not to shave off this stupid beard. The trouble with being a single guy is, I don’t have a woman in my life to tell me these things.”

Julie smiled as she took a seat at a window table for two and waited for Bill.

Guess what, Nan? Julie thought, seeing a tiny patch of blue in the cloudy sky. I think my luck is finally changing.

He was NICE and TALL, and somehow looked COOL in a candy-striped APRON