An A to Z of Love

by Sophie Pembroke

  They passed the Grand Hotel, a hulking old-fashioned building that dominated the Esplanade and still served high tea for its guests every afternoon. Then up King Street, past the bakery and more holiday flats, describing everything they passed. “And this is Joe’s, and...”

  But Tony was transfixed by Joe’s. “What is it?”

  Mia glanced up at the sign. Seemed self-explanatory to her. “Well, this half’s a butcher’s shop and the other is a fishmonger’s. It’s just Joe runs them both. Saving people time when they’re shopping.”

  “Sort of a primitive supermarket, then?” Tony asked, grinning.

  “Not exactly.” She shrugged. “Aberarian’s not big enough to support both separate shops. So Joe’s father amalgamated them.” She didn’t mention that at the rate the local housing was becoming holiday homes, occupied for just a few months a year, soon the town wouldn’t even be able to support Joe’s.

  Tony shook his head. “Baffling. Only in Wales. What’s next?”

  Something in Mia’s middle clenched at his tone, but she couldn’t think why. After all, it wasn’t anything Joe himself hadn’t said from time to time.

  She looked around her, wondering what on earth to show him next, and spotted, past the A to Z shop, the old Coliseum cinema. Perfect. Surely Tony would appreciate the sight of a proper old movie theatre, not one of those modern superplexes that charged more for popcorn than a ticket.

  But Tony, apparently, was more of a modern cinema man than an appreciator of the classics.

  “But that came out months ago!” He pointed at the poster jammed crookedly into the rusting frame on the front of the building. “And what’s a wet weather matinee?”

  Mia shrugged. “Makes it cheaper if we wait a bit for the films. Helps Walt keep the place going, and it doesn’t make a lot of difference, really. And the wet weather matinees are just for the school holidays. Walt opens up earlier in the day when it’s raining. Gives the kids something to do.” She smiled at the thought of the last one she’d attended, with Charlie the summer before. “It’s fun. He puts on some classic kids movies and hands out big bowls of popcorn, included in the ticket price.”

  Still staring at the faded and peeling yellow paint on the brickwork, Tony didn’t look convinced. Mia didn’t bother telling him about Walt’s Festive Film Festival, running from October to December, showing all his favorite Christmas movies. “Come on,” she said instead. “Come in and meet Walt. You’ll see.”

  Inside the Coliseum, the lights were dimmed and the popcorn machine turned off. “Walt?” Mia called out, watching Tony taking a tour of the small lobby, fingering the grubby red and white ropes set up to keep non-existent queues in order.

  Walt Hamilton stuck his head out from behind the box office door, and Mia could see Tony taking in his balding head, and butter-stained red and white shirt. “Mia? There’s no film this afternoon. Not until...” His voice trailed off as he eyed up Tony. “What are you doing here?”

  “Walt, this is Tony.” Mia took Tony’s hand again and led him to the box office. “He’s in town on business, and I’m giving him a bit of a tour.”

  “Right.” Walt stuck out a hand. “Well, hello, then.”

  Tony took the proffered hand, and Mia saw Walt wince at the force of his handshake. “Interesting place you’ve got here,” Tony said, running a hand down the dusty frame of a black and white forties starlet’s photo.

  Walt shrugged. “I like it.”

  Obviously Walt wasn’t going to help her sell the Coliseum as a reason to love Aberarian. “We all love it,” she said with more enthusiasm. “Always packed out on a Saturday night, and the kids think it’s the best thing in town!”

  Tony’s face was full of disbelief, and Walt cringed at the lie, so Mia decided it might be time to call it quits and move onto the pub instead. Surely Tony would have to like the pub.

  “What are you doing here?” Susan Hamilton’s voice behind her made Mia more determined to make a run for it. “Walt?”

  “Just leaving, Susan,” Mia assured her and, grabbing hold of Tony’s sleeve, dragged him to the door. “Bye, Walt.”

  Outside, she dropped Tony’s arm and made her way down the cinema steps toward Main Street, and the pub.

  “So, what’s next on this magical mystery tour?” Tony asked.

  “The Crooked Fox,” Mia said. “You’ll like that at least, I bet.”

  Tony took her arm again, and they started in the direction of the lower end of town. “Crooked Fox?”

  She smiled. “You think only the cities have pubs? What do you think we do out here, all winter?”

  Tony laughed, a bright, honest, surprised chuckle, and squeezed her arm as she led him to the pub.

  “But enough about the town,” he said, once they were settled at a rickety corner table by the old fireplace. Tony put down his pint and focused solely on Mia; it was quite disconcerting, she found. “Tell me about you. All I know so far is that you like a rundown cinema.”

  Mia shrugged. “Walt has always been very kind to me. He gave me a job there when I was in sixth form.” Back when the cinema actually made some money, every now and then, she didn’t add. It had been the best job in the world, and Walt had almost cried when he’d had to let her go. “I figure catching a movie a couple of times a week is a small way to make it up to him.” She’d go more often, but Susan was...less fond of her. For a lot of people in town, the scandal her father had left behind still tainted Mia.

  But Tony didn’t need to know that.

  “Have you always lived here?” Tony asked.

  Mia nodded. “Always. Well, except for when I was at uni in Manchester. My father was a teacher at the secondary school for most of my childhood, actually. Then, well, he left when I was sixteen. I got my A Levels and ran off to university two years later. But after I graduated...I wanted to come home.”

  “Really? I’d have thought...” Tony said, a tinge of disbelief in his voice. Apparently realizing he might have offended, he covered by asking, “What did you study?”

  “History.” Mia took another gulp of wine. “I’ve always been fascinated by how we got here. I mean, history can explain pretty much everything to ever happen in the world, if you look at it right. That’s important.”

  A slow smile spread across Tony’s face. “Personally, I’ve always preferred where we’re going to where we’ve been. After all, there are still so many things to see and do. So many new people to meet.” His thumb ran over the back of her hand, and Mia swallowed. Hard.

  As his hand left hers, she found herself babbling to catch up with the conversation. “Charlie always says it’s where we are now that matters most.”

  Tony reclined in his chair. “Charlie? Your boyfriend?”

  Mia laughed and shook her head. “Not at all. Just friends.”

  “Glad to hear it.” He was leaning forward again, suddenly very close. “Since it means I can ask you to lunch as a thank-you for the tour.”

  “Lunch?” Mia asked, surprised. Was this an actual date? Had one of Ditsy’s plans had actually worked? If so, it had to be a first. “That would be...”

  “Great. What about the fish place we passed on the way to the beach? Is it any good?”

  * * * *

  Charlie slipped back behind the counter at StarFish and checked the bookings log with what he was aware was becoming frightening obsession. Nothing new. “Magda?”

  Magda’s head appeared from behind the kitchen door, followed by the rest of her. “You bellowed?”

  “Has Mia been in?” Maybe Magda had got a good look at whoever had been grabbing hold of Mia’s hand. Perhaps she was being abducted. Perhaps she needed Charlie to save her. Perhaps...

  “No.” Magda slid onto the nearest table, her neat black pencil skirt smooth over the rough and ready wooden surfaces Charlie had chosen. “But I did see her walk past with the most delicious man.”

  Which was, of course, just what Charlie had been hoping to hear. “Any idea who he was?” />
  Magda shrugged. “Not a clue. But she’ll be here for the tasting later, won’t she? You can ask her then.”

  “Yeah.” Charlie returned to obsessing about the bookings log.

  “Ooh, look.” Magda dropped from the table and into her best professional stance. “There might be some actual customers coming our way.”

  It didn’t seem very likely, but Charlie looked up anyway, and promptly forgot all about bookings and restaurants and Magda and Mia’s mystery man. Because right there in his restaurant was a much, much bigger problem.

  “Hi, Charlie,” Becky said, with just enough grace to look a little sheepish but apparently not enough to just stay the hell away from him after tearing his heart out and stomping on it twice already.

  “Becky.” He glanced at her companion. “And Ditsy.” Who really should have known better and managed to stop this before it reached his door.

  Ditsy stepped into the ensuing silence, smile widening with what Charlie was pretty sure was fake brightness. “We’d like a table for two, for lunch, if that’s possible.”

  Charlie shook his head and managed to find his voice. “Magda will be taking care of you today–one of the window tables perhaps, Magda?”

  With a nod, Magda instantly flowed into her best customer service spiel, guiding Ditsy to a window table and almost managing to get Becky to follow by sheer dint of her politeness.

  But at the last moment, Becky gave a little shake of the head, as if she were coming out of a daze, and took the three small steps necessary to bring her in front of Charlie.

  “Hi,” she said. Then, when he didn’t respond, she answered his original question. “I just wanted to see you. I came... I’ve some business in town. But I couldn’t not come and see you.”

  “You left without seeing me,” Charlie pointed out, before his brain could censor his mouth. “Just a note on the counter was all I got.”

  Her face crumpled a fraction under her powder and lipstick. “I know. And that was... It was unforgivable. I know that.”

  Over at the table, Magda was watching them with concern in her wide hazel eyes. Ditsy’s face, Charlie noticed, showed only fascination. Was she enjoying this train wreck of a reunion?

  “What does it matter now?” Charlie lowered his gaze from hers and stepped away, heading for the kitchen and solitude. “Enjoy your lunch.”

  “Charlie!” She grabbed hold of his hand before he could escape. “Can we talk? After? Please?”

  He shook his hand free and carried on beating his retreat, murmuring, “Sure” and “Whatever,” as he went. It was enough, it seemed, because Becky gave him one of those wide, wide smiles he remembered so well from her bedroom before she turned and glided over to the window table.

  “Well that was a mistake,” Magda muttered under her breath as she passed him, fetching drinks for their surprise customers.

  “I know,” Charlie groaned and stepped into the kitchen, letting the door swing shut behind him.

  Chapter 3

  It would be much easier, Charlie mused while reorganizing the main fridge for the third time, if he could just fall in love with Magda. Assuming she fell in love with him too, of course. Charlie rested his head on the cool metal of the fridge and wondered why there had been no portents in the sky that morning about just how bad this day was going to be.

  Becky.

  The woman who was supposed to be the love of his life. The very reason he was battling to stay in business in Aberarian. The reason he owned a house that could have fallen down by now, it had been so long since he’d visited it.

  And now she wanted to talk. Fantastic.

  “Are they still out there?” he asked when Magda returned to the kitchen, plates in hand. In forty-five minutes, Becky and Ditsy had only managed starters and two bread baskets. Charlie was starting to worry it would be dinnertime before they finished lunch.

  “Still deciding on main courses,” Magda confirmed. “And waiting on more drinks. She also wanted me to ask you, and I quote, ‘Why you’re not using the darling water jugs and glasses we sourced from that charming glassblower down the coast.’”

  Charlie shut his eyes and pretended he couldn’t hear Becky saying those words in his head. She’d want to make it clear to Magda exactly who she was, of course, without having to come out and say it. She’d assume, rightly, he wouldn’t have told the young Polish girl about his humiliating abandonment, so all she needed to do was make it obvious she had been there first, that she had history with him. Just enough to warn Magda off, in case she was getting any ideas.

  Except the only ideas Magda would be getting were about her crazy boss hiding in the kitchen and when to call in the mental health professionals.

  “What are they talking about, anyway?” Charlie asked. “What can possibly be taking this long?”

  “Well, you know I don’t like to eavesdrop on the customers,” Magda lied, “but I did happen to overhear...”

  Charlie decided this wasn’t the occasion for a lecture on professional ethics. “What?”

  “She’s here on business. Apparently her company has got some plan for something in Aberarian, and she’s heading up the project with her boss.” Magda paused, seeming uncertain about whether to add the next bit. “From what she said to Ditsy, it sounds like she’s planning on hanging around.”

  “But she hates it here!” Charlie said, banging his head on the fridge door as he stood up. “That’s why she left last time. Why on earth would she... Wait. So she’s not here to...”

  “To win you back? Not so far as I can tell,” Magda said, smirking.

  “I was going to say, ‘make my life a misery,’” Charlie lied.

  “Oh, well. I wouldn’t rule it out.”

  Charlie checked his watch. Two o’clock. Still prime late-lunch time. No escape just yet.

  “I need to talk to Mia,” he said. Mia would make sense of it all for him. She always did.

  “And I need to get their drinks.” Magda moved toward the doors out to the bar. “Are you going to sneak out the back like a little girl, or are you going to face up to the crazy woman like a man?”

  Charlie thought about it. “What are my chances, do you think?”

  “She’ll hunt you down, my friend. I’ve seen that sort of look in a woman’s eyes before. You’d be better off getting it over and done with.”

  “You’re right,” Charlie said with a sigh. Then he considered. “But I’ll just wait until they’ve finished their meals. And post-lunch liquors.” Becky was always more pliant and considerate after alcohol.

  “Maybe wait until they’ve paid the bill too,” Magda suggested, pushing open the doors. “Just in case.”

  Charlie groaned and yanked the fridge open again.

  * * * *

  Once they’d finished their drinks, Tony dragged them out of the Crooked Fox and down Water Street, which meant it was only when she was standing outside StarFish that Mia had a moment to wonder what Charlie would make of her having a lunch date.

  Which was ridiculous, of course, because what did Charlie care who she had lunch with? He probably wouldn’t even notice if Tony kissed her over the bread basket.

  Not that she thought he was going to, or anything.

  Tony was, at present, far more interested in the menu hanging beside the door. “Doesn’t look bad,” he said, sounding surprised. “Come on, then.”

  Once inside, any concern Mia might have felt about Charlie’s feelings melted away at the sight of Ditsy and Becky sitting together. And any thoughts she’d had about kissing Tony followed shortly afterward, when Tony headed directly to their table and said, “There you are, Bex. Mia, let me introduce you to my colleague, Becky Thrower.”

  Charlie, hovering in the open kitchen doors, was looking guilty, although Mia couldn’t quite figure out why. Stupidity, perhaps, for letting Becky into StarFish in the first place. At the table–and Ditsy better not think she wasn’t going to ask what the secret society social they’d got going on was all ab
out–Ditsy was making expressive yet indecipherable eyebrow movements at Mia from behind Becky. Mia figured it was easier just to ask later, when there were less satanic goings-on to deal with.

  “Oh, Mia and I are old friends,” Becky said with a tinkling laugh at the end.

  If she included the first fourteen years of their lives in Aberarian, when they’d been inseparable best friends, perhaps. Personally, Mia tended to remember the following four years, after her father left, when Becky and her new friends had made life unbearable for her until she went to university.

  Becky, however, obviously had a different recollection of events.

  “It’s so wonderful to see you again!” Becky scampered out from behind the table and gave Mia one of those hugs where she didn’t need to touch her, and Mia refrained from slugging her because it wouldn’t look good for Charlie’s restaurant. “You’re just the person we need.”

  “Need?” That sounded ominous. “For what?”

  Becky shooed her over to an empty seat at the table, and Mia eyed Ditsy for some clue to what was going on. Ditsy, in turn, made more expressive movements, this time including her hands, which still meant absolutely nothing to Mia.

  “Tony and I have a business plan,” Becky said, settling back down in her seat. Tony pulled up an extra chair beside her. Mia wondered how a round table could have a head because, despite the seeming geometrical impossibility, Becky was most definitely sitting at it. “The council have already agreed in principle, and we all think it could save Aberarian!”

  “Have you, now.” Mia gave Charlie a significant look and he scurried off behind the bar to return with a very large glass of chilled white wine. Which enabled Mia to feel more kindly toward him when he pulled another seat up to the table. “So, this plan. Ditsy and Charlie are both already on board with it, are they?”

  “Becky and I were just discussing it now,” Ditsy broke in, before Becky replied. “I still have some...questions.” And for questions, read reservations, Mia thought, Ditsy’s previous attempts at communication becoming clearer. “Basically, Becky and Tony want to turn Aberarian into a gambler’s paradise.”