Thinking of You

by Jill Mansell

  “Don’t you want me here?” There were now tears glistening in Laurel’s huge green eyes. “Do I have to go?”

  That was it. How could she say yes and live with herself? Shaking her head, Ginny said, “No, no, of course you don’t have to go. Everything’s fine.”

  Laurel blinked back her tears and smiled a watery smile. “Thank you.”

  Perry beamed with relief. “Excellent.”

  Instantly, Ginny felt better, no longer twisted with guilt. There, she’d done it. And she had a first date with Perry to look forward to, so everything was going to be fine. Forgetting what he’d told her earlier, she seized the champagne bottle and said gaily to Laurel, “Let’s celebrate!”

  “I’m not allowed to drink.” Laurel shook her head. “Because of my tablets.”

  Tablets. Everything was going to be fine, Ginny reminded herself. Aloud she said sympathetically, “Antibiotics?”

  Laurel blinked. “Antidepressants.”

  Oh.

  “Right, I’d better get back to the shop.” Perry jumped up. “I’ll leave you two girls to get to know each other. Bye.”

  Hastily, Ginny said, “I’ll just show you out,” and followed him to the front door.

  “She’s a lovely girl. You won’t regret it.” Perry kept his voice low. “Listen, I’ll be in touch. If I manage to pluck up the courage to ask you out to dinner sometime soon, do you think you might say yes?” His smile was playful.

  Ginny replied flirtatiously, “I might.”

  “Great. I’ll give you a call. Just do me a favor, don’t mention it to Laurel.”

  “Why not?” Ginny was puzzled.

  “Oh, it’s just that she’s been through a bit of a bad patch with men, you know? She’s kind of anti-relationships right now. I told her you were divorced and she liked the idea of sharing a house with someone else in the same boat. If she knew we were meeting up with each other, she might feel a bit odd-one-out.”

  Ginny wondered if she really was doing the right thing here. Somehow, in the space of a morning, all her plans had been turned inside out. What had she let herself in for?

  “Shhh, stop worrying.” Evidently capable of reading her thoughts—or more likely the panicky God-what-have-I-done look in her eyes—Perry raised his right index finger to his lips then smiled and tenderly pressed that same finger against her own mouth. “You two’ll have a great time. You’re just what Laurel needs to get over her dip.”

  Brushing his finger like that against her lips had set off a deliciously zingy sensation in Ginny’s knees. Crikey, if that was kissing by proxy, she couldn’t wait for the real thing.

  Anyway, of course she and Laurel would get on; hadn’t she been through dips of her own in her time? Together they would bond and forge a real friendship.

  “I really have to go.” Perry was glancing at his watch.

  Ginny opened the front door and said, “Bye then,” her mouth still tingling from the proxy kiss.

  Everything was going to be fine.

  ***

  “I think Perry got fed up with hearing me talk about it,” Laurel said tonelessly. “Men aren’t into that kind of thing, are they? Especially brothers. Every time I mentioned Kevin he’d try to change the subject. But I have to talk about Kevin,” she went on. “It’s like a compulsion. I loved him so much, you see. So much. And I can’t just wipe him out of my life because he’s still here.” She tapped the side of her head. “I think about him all the time. How can you forget someone who’s broken your heart, smashed it into a million pieces?”

  “Well,” Ginny said uncertainly, “er…”

  “Although he’s probably forgotten me.” Laurel wiped her eyes with a proper hanky. (Not even a tissue.) “Because I just don’t matter to him anymore, do I? Kevin’s moved on now; he met someone else in no time flat and loved her enough to ask her to marry him. I used to drive past his house, you know. One evening I saw them kissing on the front doorstep. I was so unhappy I thought I’d die. And you know what? She had fat ankles. Fat ankles, I swear! Really… chubby.”

  Ginny did her best to look suitably shocked and sympathetic, but a terrible urge to yawn was creeping up her rib cage, threatening to make a bid for freedom the millisecond she relaxed the muscles in her jaw. For ninety minutes now she had been listening to the Story of Kevin. Ninety minutes was the length of an entire film. She could have watched Anna Karenina and been less depressed.

  “I suppose I’m boring you,” Laurel said flatly.

  “No, no.” Hastily Ginny shook her head.

  “It’s just that I thought we’d get married and have babies and be happy together for the rest of our lives, but he changed his mind and now I’m just left without anything. He’ll probably have babies with her now instead. I can’t bear to think of it. Why does life have to be so unfair?”

  Oh dear, yet another unanswerable question. Slightly desperate by now, Ginny said, “I don’t know, but how about if you try to… um, stop thinking about him quite so much?”

  Laurel gave her a pitying look, as if she’d just suggested switching off gravity. “But I loved him so much. He was my whole world. He still is.”

  Oh God.

  Chapter 11

  Despite having promised to be in touch, Perry Kennedy hadn’t called and Ginny was in need of some serious cheering up. Carla, who hadn’t said as much yet but already wasn’t sure she trusted Laurel’s smooth-talking brother, made an executive decision and said, “Right, I’m taking you out to lunch.”

  Ginny looked up, surprised. “When?”

  “Today. Now. Unless you don’t want to.”

  “Are you kidding?” Ginny’s eyes lit up. “Of course I want to.”

  “Sure?”

  “Yesss!”

  Carla shrugged. “Because if you’d rather stay at home and have a lovely girly chat with your new best friend Laurel, I’d quite understand.”

  “Noooo!”

  “No, really, I mean who in their right mind would want to come out to lunch with me when they could sit in their kitchen talking about Kevin Kevin Kevin…”

  “I would,” Ginny pleaded.

  “Kevin Kevin Kevin Kevin… ooh, and then a teeny bit more about Kevin.”

  “Shut up and take me out to lunch.”

  ***

  Carla loved her job and was good at it. When potential clients contacted Portsilver Conservatories, she made an appointment to visit them in their homes and employed her own special no-pressure sales technique to persuade them that if they wanted the perfect conservatory, then her company was the one for them.

  And in almost every case Carla succeeded. She was great at charming the clients and enabling them to imagine the joy a sunny conservatory would bring into their lives. She traveled all over the southwest and often worked in the evenings and at weekends, but that was a bonus too because it meant she could take other days off whenever she liked.

  Like today, which she was determined was going to be a memorable one because the last few months hadn’t been easy for her friend Ginny. She deserved a break. Personally, Carla suspected that this sudden crush on Perry was largely down to the fact that it had been a long time since Ginny had been so comprehensively targeted by an attractive man. From what she could gather, Perry Kennedy had made quite a play for her and she had been flattered by the attention. For Ginny’s sake, Carla hoped she didn’t end up getting hurt.

  Ginny was enjoying herself already. Here they were whizzing along in Carla’s sporty black Golf, the sun was out, and she wasn’t going to feel guilty about leaving Laurel at home cleaning the kitchen floor. She hadn’t asked or expected her to, but Laurel had volunteered herself for the task, saying sadly, “I like doing housework; it makes me feel useful. I used to do the kitchen floor every day when I was with Kevin.”

  She had also, as Ginny was escaping the house, leaned back on her heels and said, “I do like living here. It’s nice us sharing, isn’t it?”

  Ginny hadn’t known how to respond to this. S
he could hardly announce that it was about as much fun as sharing a house with Sylvia Plath.

  Anyway. Three blissful Kevin-free hours stretched ahead. Maybe this was the answer to all her problems; she would simply have to become one of those ladies who lunched, every day of the week.

  Well, maybe if she won the lottery first.

  “I wonder what he’s doing now?” said Carla.

  Instantly thinking of Perry, Ginny said, “Who?”

  “Kevin.”

  “Don’t. We mustn’t make fun of her.”

  “I’m not making fun, I’m really wondering. I’d love to meet him,” Carla said mischievously. “Drag him into bed. Find out what all the fuss is about, see if he’s worth all the hoo-ha.”

  “Just as well he’s living in London, then. So what’s wrong with Jamie?”

  “Nothing at all.” Her boy toys didn’t usually last four months, but Jamie had spent three of them away in Australia. “He’s great, better than any keep-fit video,” said Carla. “But you know me; I like to keep my options open. You just never know, do you, when you might meet someone that little bit more perfect. Ah, here we are.” She indicated right and slowed down before turning into the driveway.

  Ginny, reading the blue-and-gold sign, said, “Penhaligon’s. It’s supposed to be good here. We tried to book a table over Christmas but it was full.”

  “One of my clients recommended it. Lunch cost him two grand,” said Carla, “and he still reckons it was worth it.”

  Two grand? Yikes. “I promise I’ll just have the stale bread and tap water,” said Ginny.

  The restaurant was housed in a long, whitewashed, and ivy-strewn sixteenth-century farmhouse with a gray slate roof and a bright red front door. A series of smartly renovated interlinked outbuildings extended from one end of the farmhouse, forming three sides of a rectangle around the central courtyard. As Carla parked the car between an old dusty blue Astra and a gleaming scarlet Porsche, a black cat darted out of one of the outbuildings ahead of a middle-aged man carrying a small wooden cabinet. The man proceeded to load the cabinet into the back of a van. The cat, tail flicking ominously slowly, looked as if it might be about to launch itself at the man’s legs.

  “It’s a restaurant and antiques center,” explained Carla, fairly pointlessly as there was a sign saying so above the door. “Quite a nifty idea. My client came here last week with his wife to celebrate their wedding anniversary. They got a bit tiddly over lunch, went to have a look around afterward, and ended up buying a Georgian chandelier for eighteen hundred pounds.”

  Ginny was out of the car gazing up at the buildings. Sunlight bounced off the windows, and the glossy tendrils of ivy swayed gently in the breeze. The smell of wonderfully garlicky cooking mingled with wood smoke hung in the air. Animated chatter spilled out of the restaurant, and from the antiques center came the sound of Robbie Williams singing “Angels.” Well, it probably wasn’t Robbie Williams in person. But wouldn’t it be completely brilliant if it was?

  The black cat took a swipe at the man who was now closing the van doors. Darting out of the way, he said, “Don’t get pissy; it’s mine now.”

  “Nnnaaarrh,” sneered the cat, before turning and stalking off.

  “Bloody animal,” the man called after it.

  “You’ve gone quiet.” Having watched him jump into the van and drive off, Carla gave Ginny a playful nudge. “Cat got your tongue?”

  And in a way it had. Well, maybe not the cat, but the sights and sounds and smells of Penhaligon’s Restaurant and Antiques Center. Captivated by the unexpected charm of it all, Ginny felt as if she was falling a little bit in love at first sight.

  ***

  “One more drink,” Ginny urged, waggling the bottle of Fleurie at Carla. “Go on, you can have another.”

  “I mustn’t, I’m driving.”

  “Leave the car. We’ll come and pick it up tomorrow morning. God, I love it here. Why can’t all restaurants be like this?”

  For a Tuesday lunchtime in February, Penhaligon’s was impressively busy. The restaurant, with its deep red walls covered in prints and original paintings, was eclectically furnished with an assortment of antique furniture. The atmosphere was unstuffily friendly and the food divine. Having guzzled her starter of scallops in lemon sauce, Ginny was now finishing her smoked beef main course. Not to mention the best part of a bottle of wine.

  “Go on then, you’ve twisted my arm,” said Carla. “Just don’t let me buy anything next door.”

  One bottle became two. They talked nonstop for the next hour and watched through the window as the black cat stalked and intimidated visitors crossing the courtyard. A selection of music ranging from Frank Sinatra to Black Sabbath drifted across from the antiques center and every so often they could hear the kitchen staff joining in and singing along.

  “Coffee and a brandy, please,” Carla told the waitress when she came to take their order. “Gin?”

  Ginny nodded in agreement. “Lovely.”

  The waitress looked startled. “Coffee and a gin? Crikey, are you sure?”

  “Two coffees and brandies.” Carla was grinning. “Her name’s Gin.”

  “Oh phew! I thought it sounded a bit weird! Just as well I checked.” The girl shook her head by way of apology. “Sorry, my brain’s had enough today. Busy busy.”

  “Hey, Martha,” one of the men at the next table called over. “On your own today, sweetheart? What happened to Simmy?”

  “Simmy shimmied off to Thailand with her boyfriend. Well, three hours’ notice—what more could we ask? So now we have to find a new waitress before my feet drop off. If you fancy the job, Ted, just say the word.”

  Ted, who was in his sixties, said, “I’d make a rubbish waitress, love. Don’t have the legs for it. Table six are asking for their bill, by the way.”

  “Thanks, Ted. Right, two coffees and two brandies. I’ll bring them as soon as I can.”

  Martha hurried off and Carla shared out the last of the second bottle of wine. She looked over at Ginny.

  Ginny gazed back at her.

  “What are you thinking?” Carla said finally.

  “You know what I’m thinking.” A little spiral of excitement was corkscrewing its way up through Ginny’s solar plexus. “I could work here. I’d love to work here.”

  “Are you sure? It’s only February.”

  “I don’t care.” Working seasonally meant she was usually employed from April to October, but what the heck? Penhaligon’s was calling her name. Last year she had worked in a tea shop down on the front, which had been busy but not what you’d call riveting. Currant buns and cucumber sandwiches lost their appeal after a while and practically their entire clientele—evidently attracted by the ruched cream lace curtains and the sign above the door saying Olde Tea Shoppe—had been over eighty. Ginny’s toes had been run over by more recklessly driven wheelchairs than you could shake a walking stick at.

  Her toes flinching at the memory, Ginny said, “It’s got to be better than the Olde Tea Shoppe.”

  Nodding in agreement, Carla shuddered and said, “Not to mention Kid Hell.”

  It hadn’t really been called that, but it should have been. Kid Heaven!—complete with jaunty exclamation mark—was the children’s activity center where Ginny had worked as a face painter two summers ago, struggling to paint animal faces on screaming, wriggling children who either had ice cream already smeared around their mouths, lollipops they refused to stop licking, or summer colds accompanied by extravagantly runny noses and cheeks awash with… well, let’s just say it played havoc with the face paints.

  Not that Carla had ever witnessed this debacle firsthand—she was no fool and children were in her view quite pointless—but she’d heard enough about it from Ginny to know that this was a job on a par with sifting sewage with your bare teeth.

  “I want to work here,” Ginny repeated. “I’ve just got a feeling about this place.” Counting off the reasons on her fingers she burbled excitedly, “It’s
only… what, three miles from home? And no problems parking, that’s a bonus. And the only reason I’ve never done proper waitressing before is because I didn’t want to work evening shifts while Jem was at home, but now she’s gone it doesn’t matter!”

  “And you’d be getting away from Laurel,” Carla drily pointed out.

  “Oh God, that sounds terrible!”

  “Terrible but true. You’ve gone and landed yourself with the world’s most boring lodger and any sane person would get rid of her. But you’re too soft to do that, so you’re going to take a job to keep you out of your own house because anything’s better than having to stay in it and listen to loopy Laurel droning on about Kevin.”

  This was only semitrue. OK, maybe she was soft—a bit—but there was also Perry to be factored into the equation. Ginny sensed that turfing his sister out into the street might not win her too many Brownie points in his eyes.

  Knocking back her wine with a flourish, she said, “Laurel or no Laurel, it makes no difference. If I want to be a waitress, I can be a waitress. I think this place is great, and I’d love to work here.”

  “Would you?”

  “Oh!” Ginny hadn’t realized Martha was standing behind her with their drinks, patiently waiting for her to stop waving her arms around before putting the tray down on the table. Filled with resolve, she exclaimed, “Well, yes, I would. Definitely!”

  “Hey, excellent.” Martha’s freckled face lit up. “I’ll tell Evie, shall I? She manages the restaurant. She’ll be thrilled.”

  “They’re desperate; they’re going to sign you up before you can say slave labor,” Carla murmured as Martha hurried away. “This must be a hellhole of a place to work. Now don’t go rushing into anything.”

  “I want to rush into it! Oh listen, now they’re playing Queen.” Ginny clapped her hands as the drumbeats of “We Will Rock You” rang out across the courtyard. “How can it be a hellhole when they play Queen?”