The Sunshine And Biscotti Club

by Jenny Oliver

  But now Eve was wide awake. The sun was up, grinning with the promise of exquisite ferocity. She went over to the open window and looked down the garden to the outhouse. She thought about how good she had felt when Frank the journalist had tasted her cake. She hadn’t thought it would mean quite as much as it did but it was like a validation of her talent at exactly the time she needed it.

  She felt a mounting urge to make another; to get dressed and go down to her workstation and perfect the flavour. Instead she got back into bed. It was stupid to start baking at six a.m.

  But, as she lay with her eyes shut, Eve was hit by an equally strong urge to read Peter’s emails. Temptation buzzed through her like the bees in the lemon trees.

  So she got up, got dressed, and headed outside. Wearing a grey cotton skirt, yellow vest, and no shoes she felt like a local, especially with the scarf tying her hair back. She imagined herself living here, frolicking about in the heat. Then she stopped herself, pausing for a moment by the pink chairs and table, and made herself acknowledge that it was another dream, another greener grass. She looked back at the hotel. No. She didn’t want to live here; she saw the stress Libby was under, she just wanted to be on holiday here, exactly as she was, not wishing it was something else.

  Opening the outhouse door she felt like a burglar. No one aware she was there; her feet silent on the concrete floor. Time seemed to still as she worked—steeping the smashed pine needles for different lengths of time to test the best strength, slicing the chinotto thinner, testing the addition of a maraschino and lemon syrup drizzled down holes she made in the oven-fresh cake, sampling her different bakes as she sat on a stool and looked out at the garden. She could almost hear the prickly pear cactuses groaning as the heat began to build.

  She saw Libby before Libby saw her.

  ‘Oh, hi!’ Libby stopped up short in the doorway.

  ‘Hi,’ said Eve, sliding off her stool and going back to her workbench. ‘I’m just practising some stuff.’

  ‘Great, that’s great,’ said Libby, walking over to her own bench. ‘I didn’t expect anyone else to be up. But that’s great. That’s what this place is meant to be for. Do whatever you like. That’s great.’

  Eve could tell she had hoped the place would be empty by the slight flush on the tips of her cheeks. ‘I won’t get in your way,’ she said.

  ‘No no, not at all.’ Libby waved a hand. ‘I didn’t think you would. I was just going to practise some bakes.’

  ‘Yeah, go ahead,’ said Eve. ‘I have stuff I’d like to do.’

  ‘OK.’ Libby nodded.

  ‘OK.’ Eve nodded.

  For half an hour or so they didn’t talk. Not a word. Just worked in concentrated silence. Neither of them referred to yesterday’s conversation about Peter; acting almost as professional colleagues rather than friends.

  Giulia appeared to ask Libby a question and then returned with a tray of piping hot coffee that she poured into little cups and put on each of their workstations with a biscotti. Her respect for the pair of them was growing with their diligence.

  Outside the sun was hard and sharp. Inside it was still relatively cool and smelt of lemons and coffee, sticky pine sap and grated chocolate. As she put another cake in the oven, Eve found that she didn’t want to leave, didn’t want this to be the end of her session; her urge to work on her own ideas was still unsatisfied. The others had started to wake up. She’d seen Jimmy walk past with a towel over his shoulder, off for some mindful meditation. Dex was reading a book on one of the pink chairs.

  ‘I can take your cake out if you like. When it’s ready,’ Libby said. ‘If you wanted to go.’

  Eve frowned. ‘Why would I want to leave?’

  ‘Oh, I just thought you were done. That’s all. No need to go if you aren’t ready to go. Carry on.’

  ‘Do you want me to go?’ Eve asked, head cocked, trying to work out what was going on.

  ‘No, no, of course not. I was just going to record a new video, that’s all.’ Libby shrugged as if it were nothing.

  ‘You can record your video with me here. I won’t make any noise.’

  Libby made a face to say no.

  ‘Really,’ said Eve, ‘I won’t get in your way. Or I can absolutely go and leave you to it.’

  ‘No, this is your time, your holiday. I don’t want you to have to go or be quiet. No.’ Libby shook her head, emphatic.

  ‘Honestly,’ Eve pressed, ‘do it. Otherwise I’ll leave.’

  ‘No.’ Libby paused. ‘It’s embarrassing.’

  ‘What is?’

  ‘Being watched.’

  ‘But you post it online.’

  ‘After loads of edits.’

  Eve made a face as if this was ridiculous. ‘Libby, I know what you look like. And anyway, I’m going to be concentrating on my stuff. Please. Don’t not do it because of me.’

  Libby winced; Eve knew she had won. Libby couldn’t bear the idea of someone not doing something because of her. She was a people pleaser. Of course Eve could see why recording in front of someone would be embarrassing, but part of her wanted to see Libby suffer the same way she’d made her twist with guilt at her comments about Jimmy in Dex’s bedroom.

  ‘OK,’ Libby said in the end, and walked over to the corner of the room where she pulled open a drawer to retrieve her make-up bag and a small mirror that she propped up on the shelf.

  A little smug, Eve trotted out to the garden and picked a few more of the small, hard, chinotto oranges and the only ripe fig, then with a tea towel wrapped round her hand and a kitchen knife, went to saw a couple of the huge red prickly pears from the prickly cactus. She dropped one when a spine jabbed through the folded tea towel, and the fruit, so fat and ripe, bounced like a tennis ball. As she followed after it, walking half-crouched through the grass, she looked up to see Libby doing her hair in the little mirror. She watched her pin the final curl in place then liberally douse with clouds of hairspray. Eve reached for the escaped prickly pear, intrigued. It hadn’t all been goading; she’d always actually quite wanted to see Libby record, impressed by her success. She’d seen the wink to camera after a guilty forkful of raspberry swirled pavlova supposedly baked for a dinner party that night; now she wanted to know what it was like behind the scenes.

  Eve walked back into the outhouse trying to prise a cactus needle out of her finger with her teeth. Libby was gathering up the mirror and her make-up bag and, after a quick double-check of her face, hair, red and white striped vest top and necklace, shut them back in the drawer. When she turned ready to go back to her workbench, Eve forgot all about the needle in her finger.

  ‘Blimey,’ she said, ‘I almost didn’t recognise you.’

  Libby’s make-up was caked on like a flight attendant—glossy red lipstick, liner outside the line of her lips to add faux plump, dark blusher streaks on her cheekbones, thick black eyeliner swishes, and lashings of mascara top and bottom. She’d piled her hair on top of her head and styled it with pin curls, her fringe swept to one side half covering one eye. A diamond solitaire pendant that she hadn’t been wearing earlier glinted round her neck, along with a couple of other simple gold chains. It took Eve a second to notice she’d also slipped her big emerald engagement ring back on.

  ‘This is what I wear,’ said Libby, a touch too brightly. ‘For the camera.’

  ‘You look stunning,’ said Eve. ‘It just looks like a lot of work.’

  ‘No. It’s easy now,’ Libby said, getting a selection of bowls out from a cupboard—all the beautiful earthenware Eve had seen on the blog.

  ‘Like a uniform,’ said Eve.

  Libby shrugged.

  Eve went back to her bench and got on with removing her prickly pear splinters then peeling and sieving the fruit to get rid of the hard seeds, all the while trying not to stare in fascination at Libby who was busy weighing out ingredients.

  The prickly pear pulp smelt like fresh cut grass and sherbet and needed something to slice through the sweetness. She squeezed
in a few drops of her chinotto orange and a bit of fresh fig and tasted it, shut her eyes and let the flavour infuse her, then she put the bowl down and went to the larder of herbs and spices, dried fruits, flavourings, anything and everything, and stared at it while her brain got to work plotting, planning, imagining.

  She glanced up at one point to see Libby mouthing to the camera, lifting up bowls and showing the contents mechanically like a Barbie doll. Then she’d scuttle round, rewind, watch, adjust, change the bowl, and do it again. It looked exhausting.

  When Libby looked up and caught her watching Eve grabbed the nearest ingredient to hand and strode back to her bench, trying to seem indifferent to the minutiae of video preparations.

  It wasn’t until Eve got back to her workstation that she looked down and saw what it was that she had picked up.

  Liquorice.

  Eve never ate liquorice.

  All it reminded her of was the slowly hardening Liquorice Allsorts in a cut glass bowl in the centre of her grandparents’ coffee table in the good living room. The one they saved for best. The one she never went into when she stayed with them, but was always used if she was there with her parents, visiting for lunch. Her dad would fidget uncomfortably on the hard, unused sofa, itching to go out for a fag. Her mum would defensively bat away questions about taking responsibility for Eve. About growing up, acting like adults. Her grandparents would ask what they did in all the ‘together-time’ they needed just the two of them. Eve would sense her dad’s body tense like clay cracking and drying in the sun until he’d snap and stand, patting every pocket to find his Golden Virginia. And her grandfather would sigh, and her mother would stalk out, and her grandmother would stand up to make tea, and Eve’s hand would creep forward, scoop up as many Liquorice Allsorts as she could get and stuff them all in her mouth till she could hardly breathe.

  Libby had started filming again.

  Eve silently grated the bitter, salty liquorice. Then she dipped her finger into the shavings and brought it up to her mouth. It smelt like stuffy living room and tobacco. But then she touched her finger on her tongue and tasted salt, smoke, fire, and mud, like she’d fallen to the centre of the earth. She dabbed her other finger into the chinotto, fig, and prickly pear mix, tried the two together and a rocket went off in her brain. The taste of waves crashing over her head and tumbling her through the surf.

  She almost laughed at the potency. Whether it would work as a fragrance, who knew, but there was an unexpected alchemy in the combination that made magic in her mouth.

  Eve glanced up and realised Libby was wrapping up. To camera she licked her spoon, said, ‘Mm, just scrumptious,’ then dropped it in the hand-thrown white bowl and did the same beaming fake smile she always did in every photo they’d ever taken of her.

  Libby hated being snapped unawares. She’d always manage to pose in the split second it took for the camera shutter to close.

  But Eve remembered one photo of her, taken on the terrace of the Limoncello, Libby really laughing at a story told by her aunt. She hadn’t known Eve was watching and the snap was of her mid-toothy guffaw—double-chinned, eyes closed, hair wet from swimming. Eve considered it the most beautiful photograph she’d ever seen of Libby.

  Libby had self-consciously grimaced at the copy Eve had had printed. Over her shoulder Jake had laughingly agreed that she looked hideous. Eve had been left fuming, aware that that was the moment she would lose Libby to him. And then to the many blog followers who fell in love with the perfect version of Libby as well.

  ‘OK, I’m done now,’ said Libby, packing her stuff away, wiping her lipstick off with a cleansing wipe and then her eye make-up.

  ‘Yeah, me too,’ said Eve. ‘I’ll just clear all this away.’

  ‘OK.’ Libby nodded, her jewellery back in the drawer, her hair loose again. ‘Well,’ she said. ‘I’ll see you back upstairs.’

  ‘Yep.’ Eve nodded.

  ‘Lots to do today,’ Libby added, her face back to normal but the big fake smile she gave Eve as she walked out of the door still the same.

  JESSICA

  Jessica’s arm ached. She had never rollered a wall before. Her skin was speckled with paint, all different colours like a rainbow of freckles. The shower water was almost black with dust and dirt when she scrubbed her skin. She found the renovations quite invigorating. She’d loved that it brought them together on the same everyday level that living together had. She liked it when their different iPhones were plugged into the speakers and she heard songs she hadn’t heard for years, so clearly aligned with the playlist owner. She liked the way the tea and coffee tasted familiarly different depending on which one of them made it—Jimmy always adding too much milk, Miles never enough. She liked that after ravenously scooping up spaghetti and parmesan at lunch Dex would try and squeeze in a small snooze while Libby would have them straight back to it. The only problem through it all was Jessica’s brain—her thoughts, unoccupied by emails and work, in moments of silence could tunnel into a Miles and Flo spiral or drift into anxiety about Bruno, trying to interpret his nonchalance, trying to align it with her own, but also wanting his to be equally uncertain. She’d be happily reminiscing about him kissing her in the boathouse when someone would say, ‘More paint, Jessica?’ and she’d have to remember that they lived countries apart, annoyed with herself for giving it any thought at all.

  When Libby mentioned that there was live music that night at Bruno’s bar and everyone decided to stroll down after dinner, Jessica refused to acknowledge the butterflies in her stomach. When they arrived and she heard the sound of Bruno’s laugh, and looked over to the bar to see him chatting with a couple of women, she swallowed down a surge of proprietorial jealousy. But as they walked under the fairy lit trees, past busy tables and kids running to jump in the lake, the sun setting behind them, she found herself wondering what was so funny, what he’d said to make them laugh so much. Annoyingly, as they reached their table, she glanced back over her shoulder for another look and he caught her, his eyes meeting hers with amused confidence. Jessica of course immediately looked away.

  ‘The place is packed,’ Jimmy said as he sat down. ‘I didn’t know this many people lived here.’

  Libby pointed over to the makeshift stage on the jetty where a group of five old men were playing gypsy jazz wearing white suits and fedora hats as the last of the sun gilded the gently lapping waves behind them. ‘It’s this lot,’ she said. ‘They’ve been going since I was little. It’s an institution.’

  ‘Wow,’ said Eve, standing up in her seat to get a better view. ‘And look, there’s people dancing.’

  As they were all craning their necks for a view of the band and the bopping locals, Bruno strolled over, stopping with his hand resting on the back of Jessica’s chair. ‘Everyone all right? You have a drink?’

  They shook their heads. Jessica didn’t turn round.

  ‘My staff are useless,’ Bruno said with a shake of his head. ‘What can I get you?’

  When he’d taken their order he nodded towards the band and said, ‘Anyone can join in, feel free.’

  Dex bashed Miles on the arm and said, ‘Now’s your chance, buddy.’

  Miles rolled his eyes. ‘Unlikely, Dex,’ he said.

  ‘Why not, you should.’ Eve leant forward, smiling.

  Miles turned round to look at the band. A woman in her seventies was just taking the microphone from the main singer who stood back and counted them in with his fingers clicking for the start of her song. Miles looked back, vaguely intrigued, but said, ‘There’s no way I’m going on stage.’

  ‘You should,’ Eve urged. ‘You don’t have to sing. Just to play.’

  One of the hipsters brought a tray of beers over and handed them out with a sullen frown like he was doing them a favour.

  ‘Thanks,’ said Dex; the guy ignored him.

  Miles took a swig of beer. ‘I’d maybe play. But it’s been years. And I’d have to be pretty drunk.’

  ‘Well then,’ sai
d Jimmy, lifting his beer in a toast. ‘Let’s get pretty drunk.’

  They got pretty drunk. The alcohol flowed in rivers. There were trays of shots handed round, more beers; Negronis. Even a bottle of champagne at one point that Dex decided to order.

  When Dex then dragged Libby up to dance and Eve asked Miles, presumably to prevent any awkwardness with Jimmy who sloped off to the bar on his own, Jessica found herself suddenly alone at the table, a sea of glasses and little candles in front of her.

  ‘Everything all right?’ she heard Bruno say as he pulled out the chair next to her.

  ‘Yes, fine,’ she said, all her sense suddenly alert.

  Bruno nodded, leant back in his seat, his hands behind his head, and looked over at the band. ‘They are good, no?’

  ‘Yeah, they’re great.’

  ‘You not having fun?’

  ‘No, I am.’

  ‘Why don’t you dance?’

  ‘I don’t have anyone to dance with.’

  Bruno immediately started to stand up. ‘I’ll dance with you.’

  ‘No, no, no.’ Jessica shook her head. ‘I didn’t mean I wanted to dance.’

  Bruno looked confused and sat back down again. ‘Why don’t you dance?’

  ‘I don’t really like dancing.’

  ‘Why not?’

  She shrugged.

  Bruno narrowed his eyes as he studied her. ‘You think people are looking at you?’

  ‘No!’ Jessica shook her head. But that was exactly what she thought.

  Bruno didn’t say anything for a second. Then he sat forward, his elbows on his knees, his fingers steepled under his chin, and said, ‘You know no one is looking at you, don’t you?’

  ‘Thanks a lot,’ said Jessica with a half-laugh.

  Bruno sighed. ‘I don’t mean it like that. I mean they are looking at themselves.’