by Alix Kelso
“But I don’t want to move on! I love Valentino’s!”
“In which case, I have no doubt the new owners, whoever they turn out to be, will be happy to keep you on.”
“But it won’t be the same here without you, Natalie.”
She smiled sadly. “Just as I think it’s not the same here without Angelo.”
Laura felt tears brim at her eyes and blinked them away. Furious embarrassment flushed her cheeks. At twenty-nine, she was too old to start blubbering in the boss’s office. But Natalie, noticing the tears, came around the desk and put her hands on Laura’s shoulders.
“We’ll always be friends, you and I. Don’t cry, I feel bad enough as it is.” She pulled her into a hug. “Everything will turn out fine. You’ll see.”
But Laura didn’t see how things could possibly turn out fine. Angelo was gone, and now Natalie would soon be gone too. The people she loved kept leaving her.
It was turning into the story of her life.
She hugged Natalie hard, wishing it didn’t have to be this way, and wishing she could find some way to change it.
“I’m not surprised she wants to sell the place. I’m surprised that you’re surprised.”
Laura and John were standing in line for popcorn. The little girl ahead of them couldn’t decide which snacks she wanted, and John had begun nervously glancing at the clock above the hot-dog warmer. Laura knew he hated to miss the movie trailers. He even enjoyed watching the advertisements that preceded the movie trailers, which she found bizarre.
“Why are you surprised that I’m surprised?”
He shrugged and selected an enormous bag of Minstrels from a display. “You must have known something like this was coming.”
“Why must I have known? I’m not a mind reader.”
“You don’t have to be a mind reader to guess that when a husband and wife run a restaurant together for forty years and one of them dies, the other might find it too hard to keep the place going.”
“I thought the restaurant would’ve been a comfort to her. I thought she’d want to hold on to all those memories.”
“Did you want to hold on to all the memories when your parents died? I mean, isn’t that why you sold the house, because it hurt too much to be there? Natalie’s just doing the same thing you did.”
She found herself staring, hard. They’d only had the briefest of conversations about her parents’ death and everything that had happened afterwards, and it had never gone as far as any serious discussion about how she’d actually felt about any of it. The truth was, she’d never talked to anyone about how she’d felt. It had just been too painful. And by the time the pain had begun to soften, she’d found she didn’t want to risk reopening the wounds by discussing it.
John had jumped to conclusions based on a few casual conversations they’d had. He didn’t know her well enough to make those kinds of observations, and it rankled.
“Look, I’m just worried Natalie’s making a mistake. Valentino’s is her livelihood, and it’s her life. If she sells it, she can’t get it back again if she decides she did the wrong thing.”
“She’s a grown woman. She’s probably talked with her kids about this and with her friends.”
“I’m her friend.”
He glanced up from the sweets. “You know what I mean. She can look after herself. Maybe you ought to leave her to it and think about yourself.”
“And wouldn’t it be a nice world to live in, if we ignored everyone else and only thought about ourselves?”
John held up some sweets. “Revels or M&Ms?”
She glanced at the other two bags he’d already tucked under his arm. “You’re going to eat three bags of sweets during the film?”
“I floss. Anyway, one of these is for you. Which do you want?”
She pointed to the Revels. The little girl ahead in the line had finally chosen her snacks, and her mother herded her away. John moved forward, stacked the sweets on the counter, and ordered drinks and a bucket of popcorn. Laura wondered if he’d really be able to eat so much junk in the next two hours or if he’d end up hauling half the sweets back home with him, like he did last time. And the time before that.
She studied his face while he pulled out his wallet and paid. Four months into their relationship and she still didn’t really get him. She wondered if that was good or bad.
They left the snack lobby and headed to their cinema screen.
“Natalie said she might be interested in starting to see men again,” she said. “You know, romantically. Maybe if she found someone new, someone to share things with, she’d see things differently about selling Valentino’s.”
“It’s probably hard to find someone when she’s working all hours at the restaurant. Once she’s rid of the place, she’ll have all the time she needs to get loved up again.”
Laura gave him a look, but he was oblivious, checking their tickets to see where their seats were and grumbling appreciatively when he saw advertisements still playing on the screen.
“What I’m saying is that if she found someone new, maybe she wouldn’t want to sell Valentino’s at all. Maybe the memories wouldn’t hurt so much.”
John settled into his seat, slotted their drinks into the cupholders, and organised the snacks. “I’m looking forward to this movie. I heard there’s a really great chase scene.”
She turned and looked at him. “You want me to shut up.”
“I wouldn’t put it like that. But I came here to watch the movie.”
She glanced at the screen. “This isn’t the movie. This is an ad for a mobile phone you already own.”
“Here, have some popcorn.”
She got it. She did. This was the most in-depth conversation the two of them had had in weeks, and she’d gone and bored him with her story of Natalie. They were her concerns, after all, not his. He just wanted a night of fun at the movies. There was no harm in that.
But she wondered if he truly had no idea how much her heart was breaking after what Natalie had told her, or if he knew and just didn’t want to get into it any more than he already had.
Settling back in the seat, she ate some popcorn before handing the box back to John. She wasn’t hungry. She tried to concentrate on the movie, but soon lost the thread of it.
Her mind wandered to Valentino’s and to Natalie, and just wouldn’t come back to the here and now, no matter how much she told it to.
Chapter 2
Bruce was enjoying the late morning quiet while cleaning the counter in The Crooked Thistle pub, when the peace was shattered by a blood-curdling howl from his Uncle Keith who, by the sounds of things, had just fallen down the back stairs.
Not all the stairs, though. Bruce had already heard his uncle’s footsteps come down most of them. Although with Keith’s mood currently being what it was, that wouldn’t stop him making a noise consistent with a gruesome fall from fifty feet above.
Bruce stuck his head through the back. Keith sat awkwardly on the bottom stair riser, a look of shock and fury spreading over his face.
“Okay through there, Uncle Keith?”
“No, I’m not bloody okay! Who left these stacks of paperwork sitting on the stairs?”
“You did, Uncle Keith. You said you wanted to take them up and look through them.”
“Well, for God’s sake.” Keith propelled himself upright and gestured to the spread of papers that now lay over the stairs and on the floor. “If you realised I’d forgotten, why didn’t you take them up?”
Bruce began gathering the spilled invoices and accounts and stuffed them back into the foolscap folders. “Did you hurt yourself?”
Keith scowled and raked a hand through the mad tufts of grey hair that sprouted from the top of his head. “I’ll have a bloody great bruise on my backside tomorrow, no doubt.”
Bruce suppressed a grin and laid the stack of paperwork on the hallway table. “Want me to fetch you a couple of painkillers?”
“No, I bloody don’t. Have you
changed the Tennent’s barrel yet?”
“Yes.”
“And have you cleaned the bar?”
“I was just doing it.”
“Well get back to it then, for God’s sake. We open in five minutes.”
Amused, Bruce returned to polishing the lager taps while Keith roamed through the public area, still scowling as he aligned the bar stools and set out fresh beer mats. Watching him carefully, Bruce decided that as his uncle’s mood couldn’t possibly get any worse, he might as well ask about the woman he’d been seeing, since he suspected she was at the root of his grumpiness.
“How was your big date last night with Tracy?”
Keith’s scowl deepened. “She didn’t turn up. I sat on my own like a fool for thirty minutes before she texted to say she couldn’t make it.”
“Sorry, Uncle Keith. That’s rotten.”
“Aye, it is.”
“I know you liked her. Will the two of you arrange to see each other again?”
“Not bloody likely.”
“There are other women out there, Uncle Keith. You’re a good catch, and decent company when you’re not in a foul mood.”
“Hey, enough cheek from you, son.”
Bruce laughed. “We’ll find someone for you, Uncle Keith.”
But he waved a hand. “I’m done. I’m not interested. I don’t need women messing me around any more.”
“They’re not all like that.”
“Aren’t they?”
Keith arched an eyebrow, and Bruce automatically ran his thumb over the inside of his palm and felt the absence of the wedding ring he’d been wearing until just a few months ago. It still felt strange not having it on his finger. And it still hurt any time he thought of the reason it was no longer there.
He cleared his throat. “Don’t be a pessimist, Uncle Keith. You have to have hope.”
“I do have hope. I have hope that you’ll get this place opened so we can make some money.” Keith looked out the window. “Look, Jimmy Pearson’s already out there waiting. Get a move on.”
Keith marched off in the direction of the kitchen, where Bruce assumed he’d start harassing Marek, the pub cook, about bar food matters. And right on cue, as soon as the kitchen door swung closed behind him, he heard Keith complaining and arguing.
The man needed a woman, Bruce decided. A woman who’d be good to him, unlike the women he usually ran after.
Bruce unlocked the pub doors and said hello to Jimmy Pearson, who took his usual stool at the bar, ordered a pint, and turned to the sports pages in the newspaper he unfolded from his jacket pocket. As Bruce pulled the pint, he gazed again at the still pale strip of skin on his ring finger.
Maybe he needed a woman too.
Yeah, sure. Possibly in ten years he’d have recovered enough from the tornado that Heather had brought down on his head to consider having a cup of coffee with a woman sometime.
He sat Jimmy’s pint in front of him, took his money, gave him change, and had just begun fiddling with the house music system when he glanced through the big glass window that overlooked Shaw Street and, on the other side of the road, saw the doors of Valentino’s open and saw Laura dash out and head in the direction of The Crooked Thistle.
The smile was already on Bruce’s face before he even knew it was coming.
Laura swung through the doors of the pub and smiled when she saw Bruce. “Mind if I have my lunch break here?” She held up a foil-covered dish.
“Pick a table. You want a drink?”
She waved the water bottle she’d brought. “I’m all set.”
“Valentino’s busy today?” He knew it must be. Laura usually took her lunch or dinner break in the restaurant at a spare table. Sometimes he saw her through the window, eating a sandwich or forking something from a plate while reading a book or flicking through a magazine. But if Valentino’s was busy, she came to The Crooked Thistle, bringing with her whatever food Tanya the chef was laying on for the staff that day. Laura had told Bruce that she couldn’t settle to eat her meal when the place was jammed, when her colleagues were run ragged and could use a hand. It was easier to step across the road, get out of the chaos for a short while, eat quickly and in peace, and then get back into the fray.
When Bruce had first come to work at The Crooked Thistle and was acclimatising to his uncle’s unpredictable moods, he’d been gobsmacked to discover that the older man had a soft spot for Laura and didn’t seem to mind her coming in to eat her lunch – and didn’t mind that she didn’t even buy a drink. But surprise had soon turned into understanding. Laura was someone a person could easily develop a soft spot for.
“We’ve got an early booking for a table of sixteen today,” she said. “A big family birthday celebration. It’s hectic.” She looked down at her covered dish and pulled off the foil. “Where’s Keith?”
“In the back shouting at Marek.”
She laughed softly. “That man’s all bark.”
“Yeah, and Marek’s all bite. He’ll only put up with a few more minutes of what Uncle Keith’s dishing out before he takes a chunk out of him.”
The pub door swung open and another local, Big Kev, ambled in. He grunted a greeting at Jimmy Pearson, who grunted in return, and took a bar stool beside him. While Bruce prepared Big Kev’s drink order, he watched Laura peer into her lunch bowl before poking unenthusiastically at the pasta it contained. He thought it looked delicious, and it certainly smelled delicious, but she ate only a few forkfuls before pushing the food around the inside of the bowl.
She had an odd look on her face. Whenever he saw her she wore a smile, and not just on her lips but in her eyes too. It made her glow in a way that few people did. Today, though, her expression seemed troubled. The fork had now been set aside completely and she was unhappily contemplating the mound of uneaten pasta.
Under the auspices of wiping down a nearby table, which he’d already wiped before opening up, Bruce strolled over, cloth in hand. “Everything okay?”
She glanced up and flashed a smile. “Of course. Why?”
“You look like you’ve got something on your mind.”
She waved a hand. “Oh, I’m fine, really.”
He folded the cloth a few times. “If there’s something you want to unload, feel free. That’s what barmen are for, you know. We get special training to turn us into good listeners. It’s compulsory. We can’t work without it.”
Laura laughed, and he liked hearing the sound of it. He watched her consider whether to share the thing that was racing around inside her head.
“If I tell you something, can you keep it a secret?”
“Absolutely.”
“You couldn’t even tell your Uncle Keith.”
“I understand the meaning of the word secret, Laura. Whatever you tell me goes no further.”
She nodded, then glanced around the bar, and when she spoke her voice was quiet. “Natalie’s planning to sell Valentino’s.”
Seeing the sadness sweep over her face, he pulled out a chair at her table. “I’m sorry to hear that. Not as sorry as you must be.”
She fidgeted with her pasta fork for a moment. “Natalie says she wants to move on. I know losing Angelo hit her hard, but I never imagined she’d want to leave Valentino’s.”
Bruce shifted in his seat. He could understand Natalie’s reasons only too well. Natalie’s bereavement was quite obviously in a league of its own. But in his own life, his wife’s betrayal of their marriage had left him stunned and floundering, and once he’d finally got his wits back, the only thing he’d wanted was to get away, to somewhere, anywhere. That was what had brought him to The Crooked Thistle – that desire to leave the past behind.
Still, he could see that her boss’s decision had left Laura surprised and shocked. “I know you think a lot of Natalie. It’ll be hard for you to see her leave.”
“I’ve worked there for ten years, Bruce. Natalie feels like family to me. Angelo felt like family to me too. Losing one of them was bad. Losi
ng them both—” She glanced up and shrugged. “I know how crazy that must sound. Employees aren’t supposed to feel this way about their bosses. But it’s just the way it is.”
“Will you keep working there once new owners arrive?”
“I don’t know. It’ll be strange having new people come in. Maybe I’d have to move on. But I don’t want to. I love it there.”
“A sale won’t happen right away. There’ll be time to think about what you want to do.”
“It’s not just me, though. I’m worried about Natalie. Her whole life is in that place. What if she sells up and then wishes she hadn’t?”
He watched Laura twist her hands together and saw the trouble that clouded her eyes. It touched him to know she cared so much about her boss. “It’s sweet of you to worry about her.”
Laura laughed, but it was filled with melancholy. “My boyfriend doesn’t think so. He says I ought to leave her to make her own decisions and just think about myself.”
“I’d hate to imagine the state we’d be in if everyone thought only about themselves.”
She looked up in surprise. “That’s exactly what I said.”
Just then, there was a great clatter of pots from the kitchen. The door was thrown open and Keith was propelled through it, with Marek shoving at his back. Bruce and Laura looked over at the commotion.
“Stay out of my kitchen!” Marek yelled. “I’m the chef. I decide what’s on the menu. Today, the special is chicken paprika. End of discussion! If you don’t like chicken paprika, then don’t eat it! Now leave me alone!”
Marek stuck out his chin and marched back into the kitchen. As the doors swung behind him, cooking smells wafted out into the bar. Jimmy Pearson and Big Kev sniffed the air.
“Smells good,” Jimmy said. “If that’s the chicken paprika, I’ll take a plate.”