The Vintage Cinema Club

by Jane Linfoot

  He gave a low laugh. ‘Not coming back for more of a good thing then…?’

  He couldn’t be serious. And to think five minutes before she was congratulating herself on a job well done, and thinking she was going to get away with this.

  ‘Good thing?’ Hearing her voice soar to a shriek, she yanked it down an octave, tried to cut the decibels, and ended up hissing. ‘If you think I enjoyed being snogged within an inch of my life, actually I didn’t.’ Slamming him down felt good, except from the way his lips were spreading into a smile, he seemed to have taken it as a compliment.

  ‘Oh, I almost forgot, Christina’s been adding to the shopping list suggestions.’ Great, it sounded like he was changing the subject. ‘She’d like two more daybeds, for in here, and a daybed for the playroom, all with cushions and covers. And thirty metres of bunting for the playroom, and the same for the children’s bedroom.’

  Izzy blinked as she took in the list. It was a relief to move back onto a professional topic, but her mind blurred at the scale of what this one, domestic buyer, was consuming. ‘What sort of bunting is it?’

  Xander screwed up his face. ‘Did she mention kites? It’s on your website. A lot of her letting clients have children. A well decorated playroom can close a deal.’ He took in her nod.

  Another order tying her in to Xander and The Pink House? It was enough to make anyone dizzy. Izzy’s heart would have sunk a very long way, if it hadn’t been beating so damned fast. As it was it stayed in place, battering her ribs.

  ‘Blue and yellow colour way, or red and green?’ She pulled herself together, and stretched up to secure the last piece of bunting. She only had to loop the fabric end over the hook, and now she was up there, ideally the chair needed to be another six inches to the left, but she was damned if she was going to get down and move it with Mr Marvellous watching her like a hawk. She fiddled, missed the hook three times, then stretched a bit further. Got it. But as she made that final stretch to get the loop over the hook, she felt the chair tilt underneath her feet, then she was tipping, and the world went into slow motion. One second she was falling, the next Xander was leaping towards her, the second after that she thumped into his chest, and his arms had her clamped tight against his T shirt. Too shocked to even gasp, yet somehow the delicious smell of him was intoxicating her. And then she was clinging onto his shirt, and somehow her mouth had locked onto his, and her taste buds exploded with the dark coffee and bitter chocolate and hot, velvet man.

  Her front brain was exploding, her body was on fire, but somewhere at the back of her mind, the sensible part of her brain was flashing up the danger signs, and reminding her a) she was locked in mouth on mouth combat with – ouch – a customer, who she’d just assaulted for the second time in a day, and b) she really should be home by now, making…

  ‘Chilli…’ Izzy gasped, broke away from the kiss, and struggled to get her feet back onto the ground. She pushed her fists against Xander’s chest and broke free from his support.

  Bloody hell. He leaps in to save her from a nasty fall, and she repays him by launching herself straight at his lips. And this time it had been light, nothing to do with the dark and confined spaces, and her blood was popping like shaken champagne. What’s more, when she snogged him it made her feel as if she wouldn’t be able to stop. Ever. And that wasn’t good, in fact it was totally bloody terrifying. She had never felt so out of control. ‘I need to go…’

  As she bolted, she caught a sideways glimpse of Xander, eyebrows on the ceiling, jaw on the floor. He was suitably and horribly appalled as he had every right to be. If she was thinking of customer relations – and realistically given the business Xander had brought their way, that should have been her number one priority – she should have stayed and made a full and sincere apology. One jumping in a day was dreadful, but two was beyond reproach. But it was too late for that, because she was already hurtling across the grass. Already gone.

  29

  Thursday Afternoon, 12th June

  LUCE & RUBY

  Luce’s flat

  Drowning not waving

  RE: VINTAGE AT THE CINEMA…NEWS AND ROTAS

  Hi Dida, and the rest of the guys,

  Cake of the week nearly had me booking my flight home…almost!

  *waving from the beach* Ollie

  Ruby glanced up from the falabella family she was colouring in, and fixed Luce with a quizzical stare. ‘Why did you throw your phone on the floor Mummy?’

  Luce dragged in a breath, and tried to blink away the image that was attached at the bottom of the email. Ollie, in the surf, surrounded by hot girls in bikinis. At least six of them. And the way they were casually draped all over him left her seething.

  She always made a point of telling Ruby the truth, but this once she was going to have to go with a porky. ‘Sorry, it slipped out of my hand, I need to be more careful.’

  No question, she needed to watch where she opened her emails, ideally choosing somewhere that would cushion a falling hand set. She wasn’t sure her phone would survive many more trips through space at seventy miles an hour, followed by a crash landing against the book case.

  But this had to be the worst of Ollie’s emails yet. If only she hadn’t been so pig headed and self-righteous when he left. If only she’d answered that first email he’d sent her when he’d landed, fresh off the plane in Bali, instead of blanking it. At the time she’d been so up in the air and confused about what had happened in those two hours before he left to get the plane, when he’d called round to say goodbye to her and Ruby. Two hours when her sensible, responsible brain had a total by-pass that she’d been trying to blank ever since. Not replying to his email had been her way of pretending those two hours never happened.

  Her denial about what they’d done had been so complete and all-encompassing at the time, she hadn’t ever stopped to think how Ollie must have felt when she didn’t reply. Somehow the very fact those two misguided hours had happened, were the reason she hadn’t been able to face a year long, small talking, email correspondence, based on a boat that she’d very definitely missed.

  Finding out that she and Ollie had the chemistry of the decade, when he was about to board a plane and go to the other side of the world was just plain bad timing. What hurt even more was that she’d known she only had to say the word that night, and he’d have been willing to stay. Even that close to getting on the plane, he was willing to throw away the trip of a lifetime, to stay with her and Ruby. But she hadn’t been able to make herself say the words, because she’d been too scared. Too scared it might all go wrong. Too scared to commit. Too scared they might all get hurt.

  Too scared. It was the story of her life.

  And today it had come right back to haunt her, big time.

  30

  Later, Thursday Evening, 12th June

  XANDER & IZZY

  The Pink House

  Making judgements and pointing fingers

  Accidentally stopping a woman from falling was one thing, not being able to keep your mouth off hers was something else entirely.

  Xander grabbed a handful of his hair, tugged very hard, and mentally collected the parts of himself which appeared to have been scattered across the summer house. And he’d managed to scare her off so much that she’d actually left at speed. He hurried to follow Izzy, but even before he got around the front of the house, he heard the door of her van clunk closed, the engine splutter, sounding, as always, as if it were never going to start.

  Despite the fact that he wasn’t religious, he made a silent prayer for it to fail. Then something beyond disappointment imploded in his chest, as he heard the engine roar to life. He forced himself to carry on, hoping, at least, to snatch a last view of her, as she headed off into the distance. One small woman, who’d blown through his life like a hurricane twice today, and now he’d driven her away. Well done with that one.

  He emerged into the driveway, to see the van slewed across the gateway, and Izzy jumping down to the floor.


  ‘Fuck, fuck, fuck fuck…’

  Flailing her fists, cursing loudly, why did that not surprise him?

  ‘Is there a problem?’ He raised his eyebrows in silent question as he walked towards her, and tried to shut out the football crowd, that had erupted into cheering, in his head.

  ‘Stuffing flat tyre on the front…’

  He could see that now. He gave a mental high five, then remembered himself, and tried to feel less happy. Now he was at the front of the van, he could see where the wheel had gouged into the earth beneath the gravel. Better and better.

  ‘Okay. Leave it to me.’ He headed off towards the nearby garage, to collect what he needed to change the wheel, and returned a few minutes later, with a trolley jack and a handful of tools. He sprang into action, shoving the jack around, and wielding the wheel brace. The wheel nuts came off no problem, but the wheel was proving more stubborn to shift.

  Once he’d brushed off Izzy’s vague offer of help, she’d retreated, propped herself against the tall stone gatepost, and had quietly watched from a distance, as he worked. He got the feeling her immediate urgency for flight had ebbed away. She kicked the gravel with her scuffed converse resignedly, as she wandered back towards him now.

  ‘Boys and their cars.’ She rolled her eyes. ‘This is just what my brothers are like – er, not that I’m knocking it, actually I’m really grateful.’

  Nice afterthought there.

  ‘The wheel nuts are off okay, but the wheel won’t come free.’ How much of a failure did this big macho caveman feel telling her that?

  ‘Shit.’ Izzy shook her head and grimaced. ‘Just my luck…’

  Xander had no idea why it was so important for him to appear like a mechanical whizz kid, other than the points he might gain on that invisible, yet vital, macho skill set scale. ‘It’s probably seized on after the winter. It’ll need heat on it.’ Instinctively trying to show he was bursting with testosterone, made him feel pretty pathetic. ‘I’ll get the local garage out in the morning – unless you have breakdown insurance that is?’

  She scowled at him, obviously exasperated. ‘Do I look like I have breakdown insurance?’

  True. She didn’t.

  He attempted to sound breezy. ‘It’s fine, the van can stay here until morning, and you can too. I could run you back to town, but that would be a pointless seeing as you’ll need to come back for the van first thing tomorrow. Unless you have something you really need to get back for, that is?’

  Her brow furrowed. ‘I need to get back, because…Well, I promised to do dinner for the twins.’ Her hesitant grimace suggested she knew how pathetic that sounded.

  Dinner for the twins? Now he’d heard it all. ‘Excuse me? They play in a band. They drive. Shouldn’t they be able to get their own dinner? How old are they anyway?’ Xander couldn’t hide his disbelief. If this was an excuse, it was a bad one. She surely didn’t really think she had to cook for a couple of over-grown teenagers?

  ‘Twenty-one.’

  ‘Twenty-one?’ He couldn’t keep the rise of incredulity out of his voice. ‘I think they should be able to sort out their own dinner, for once. Ever heard of take-away pizzas?’

  She gave a groan. ‘Pizza delivery is what they do. It’s just, well…they’re my responsibility. It isn’t healthy to eat pizza all the time, so I like to look after them.’

  His response was firm. ‘Text them, let them take responsibility for themselves for once, I’m sure they’ll understand. They might even be happy to get a break from their suffocating surrogate mother.’

  Izzy still looked unsure, and he grimaced, suddenly aware that she may be covering for worries of a different kind.

  ‘You’ll be quite safe here. Seven bedrooms should give you enough space to stay well away from me, and whatever may have happened before…’ Hoping that covered it, in a “less is more” nutshell. ‘I’m really not going to jump on you, okay?’

  He noted that her usual fuck you “attitude” had turned to quiet resignation, and wasn’t sure he was comfortable with that.

  ‘I guess it’ll have to be.’

  On balance, he probably preferred her rude and ballsy incarnation.

  ‘No need to sound so enthusiastic.’ He heard himself sniping, and switched to a more conciliatory tone. ‘A cool beer, stir-fry, and a DVD. How does that sound?’

  ‘Do you have rom coms?’

  ‘Sure.’ Fingers crossed that somewhere amongst the lifestyle props Christina had already installed, he could source some.

  Xander tried to keep the triumph out of his voice, although he wasn’t clear what he had to be triumphant about. Dinner with a girl who he’d failed to keep his hands off, not only once, but twice, who’d tried to leg it, who patently, would rather not be here? And who was going to make him sit through rom coms.

  Perhaps it had more to do with the disappointment that had engulfed him when he thought she’d gone. More to do with the fact that when he started something, he liked to finish it. He was about to face an evening when he obviously needed to be on his best behaviour, and he couldn’t remember a time in his life when he felt more like being bad.

  * * * *

  ‘I can’t remember the last time I sat and watched one DVD, let alone three, although I’m not sure The Hangover is strictly romcom.’ Izzy sounded as if she were confessing here. ‘In fact I don’t often sit down at all.’

  Xander looked across at her, curled up on the sofa opposite him, hugging her knees. She wasn’t the only shocked one in the room. He could barely believe he’d just sat through Bridesmaids and He’s Just Not That Into You, or more surprising still, that he’d enjoyed howling with laughter along with Izzy. He’d definitely drawn the line at Marley and Me though.

  They were sitting in the snug beyond the kitchen, which had had sofas reinstated after the renovations, and was already a haven of stripes, and rugs in shades of grey and pale blue. He tried not to notice the haphazard flash of upper thigh beneath Izzy’s bunched up dress, as she shifted her position.

  ‘If you’ve never seen Marley and Me you’re very behind on your girly films, so if you aren’t watching films, what do you do in the evenings?’ He asked, making conversation gently, because that was how this evening was.

  ‘Mostly I prep stuff for the emporium, or I catch up with home chores, or run round after my brothers.’

  She sounded laid back about it, but she was describing days and nights where she never stopped. In some ways it sounded as if her life was more full on than his.

  ‘So how come you do all the work? Aren’t you a bit young to be playing mother?’ If he was gently teasing information out of her to satisfy his curiosity, he wanted it to seem totally accidental.

  ‘It wasn’t planned, it’s just the way things worked out since our mum went away.’

  ‘Something doesn’t add up here. Your mother’s gone off and left you holding the proverbial babies, also known as your brothers.’ He was as surprised as Izzy to find himself wading in. ‘So I don’t suppose they even do the dishes? If you eat you wash up – that thought goes a long way.’ He couldn’t believe how cross he was on her behalf.

  ‘Anyway, what about your dad?’ He saw her flinch.

  ‘My dad left. It’s not something I discuss.’

  That told him. She was definitely shutting Xander down here. He rubbed his jaw but stayed silent as she carried on.

  ‘Now you mention it, the idea that someone who has totally disappeared should take responsibility is laughable, and pretty damned ironic too.’ She gave a bitter snort. ‘Actually I appreciate your concern, but I’m happy with things as they are. Our mum had a hell of a time bringing up four teenagers on her own, she did a great job, but it’s time for her to live her life. She can’t hang around forever now we’re grown up, and we wouldn’t want her to. When she had a second chance to be happy, we made damn sure she took it. Her new partner got the offer of a four year post in New Zealand, so it was a no brainer. She had to go.’

&
nbsp; Xander thought fleetingly of his own parents, of losing his mother. Her illness had taken her away a tiny slice at a time, until all that was left was her wasted body. That loss had made him flip and had changed the course of his life. Before his mum was ill Xander had a marriage he assumed would last forever, and only after his mum died did he discover that it hadn’t been as strong as he thought at all. And just like Izzy, Christina, the older sister, had always been there for him, trying to pick up the pieces as best she could.

  ‘So what about your brothers?’

  ‘Parker and Barney are the pizza delivery death metal guys, who only come home for band practice, meals, and to go to the toilet. And then there’s Ollie, who’s in Thailand. I’ve got his van and his share at Vintage Cinema while he’s travelling. Ollie’s not so bad, but the twins, given free rein, could total the place in seconds. It took my mum and I so much effort to make the house into a home, I couldn’t bear to see them trash it. If I keep control, I make sure it stays perfect, because for me a perfect home means we’re safe.’

  ‘And you’re so obsessed with home making, you’ve actually made a career out of it.’

  For someone like him that was a scary thought, but judging from the way her pout had flattened to a straight line, she wasn’t going to agree with him on this.

  ‘Okay, my situation is unusual, but it’s mine.’ Her eyes flashed. ‘When your family has broken up, a stable home is very important.’

  He’d guess from how jumpy she was, that “broken up” was a bit of an over simplification, whereas his own dad and mum had separated by default. They had lots of homes, and one day in his early twenties it had finally dawned on Xander that they never actually coincided in the same house any more.

  ‘It may be nothing to do with me, but at your age shouldn’t you be having a good time, not being a domestic slave?’ He needed to tread carefully, but some things needed to be said.

  Her chin was out now. ‘It’s my choice.’

  Xander felt his frown growing deeper with every word she said. That was the trouble, down trodden people were the last ones to see it. ‘So when was the last time someone cooked you a meal?’