An A to Z of Love

by Sophie Pembroke

  “Unless a bus of seafood convention delegates breaks down on the Esplanade, I think we’ll probably be okay with Jenny.” Charlie gave up the pretense and pushed his chopping board away from him. “Why? Whatcha doing?”

  “I’ve got a date with Kevin.” Magda started cleaning up around him in a way he assumed was instinctual. Charlie only knew that, if he couldn’t find something he was still using, it was probably in the dishwasher already. “I’ll be here for the lunches, anyway, so it’s only the evening.”

  “That’s fine,” Charlie said, before thinking it through. “Hang on, won’t Kevin need to ask me for time off too?” He wondered where he’d been when this dating thing happened. There were only three of them in the restaurant, most days. He’d have thought he’d have noticed.

  “No.” Magda drew the word out, as if to remind him he was rather slow. “Because Kevin already has Tuesday off. It’s on the rota. You said it was pointless him coming in, because there were no bookings, and you could manage the kitchen yourself for any walk-ins.”

  Joe stuck his head around the door. “You two do realize that, if you’re both in here, there’s nobody up front?”

  Charlie stepped away from the counter and let Magda in to finish wiping down the surface. “That’s right, Joe. But since there are now more people in this kitchen than make it into the restaurant most days, I’m not too concerned.”

  “Things going well, huh?”

  Charlie shrugged. “Meh. So, what’s up?”

  “That’s what I wanted to ask you.” Joe boosted himself up to sit on Charlie’s expensive, sanitized surfaces, and just smiled at Magda’s glare. “All day I’ve had people in–buying next to nothing, I might add–asking if I’ve heard about Mia’s dad and saying Becky’s back in town. Now, obviously, I’ve been telling them that if the she-devil was in town, my good friend Charlie would have told me immediately. Same if there was any news on Mia’s dad...”

  “Yeah, um, mate...” Charlie trailed off with an apologetic wince.

  Joe waved a hand. “Joking, Charles. No, I just figured if I got the gossip, I might get a few more people in, and some of them might actually buy something in appreciation.”

  “Okay, then you can confirm Becky is, indeed, in town.”

  “Unfortunately,” Magda put in. Charlie gave her a look. “What, would you have preferred ‘for her own nefarious means’?”

  Charlie was beginning to regret filling Magda in on his history with Becky over a stiff drink after their lunch guests left.

  Joe looked intrigued, but Charlie moved on. “Mia...” He shrugged. “Who knows. She got a letter from her dad this morning. Far as anyone knows, she hasn’t opened it.”

  “That’s all anyone knows?” Joe sounded skeptical.

  “Yup.” He glanced over at Magda. “On that subject, anyway. Did you hear about Magda’s date, though?”

  Joe raised his eyebrows. “A date?”

  Magda turned her glare on Charlie, but he carried on anyway. “With Kevin, on Tuesday night.” Magda rolled her eyes. “She doesn’t seem very excited about it, mind.”

  “Kevin? Really?” Charlie assumed Joe was trying to give the impression that Magda was dating beneath her, but somehow managed to hit the ‘are you crazy?’ note instead.

  Magda settled against the counter, hands resting on the stainless steel behind her. “I am going to tell you boys something about love,” she said, in the tone Charlie had come to recognize as her ‘trust me on this, I’m smarter than you’ voice.

  “With love,” Magda said, her voice settling into a rhythm that made her accent all the stronger, “you do not settle. With love, you do not hide. With love, you must search everywhere, hunt and seek and keep your eyes open always. With love, you cannot make assumptions. You have to trust that the right person will find you, eventually, if you are willing to be found.”

  “So dating Kevin,” Joe said, frowning. “That’s you not making assumptions, right?”

  “It’s me still searching,” Magda corrected.

  But Charlie wasn’t really listening. Instead, he was thinking about Becky. Maybe Magda was right. He shouldn’t make assumptions. Maybe this was love finding him, finally. He couldn’t know she’d leave again. Maybe this time she was here to stay. He’d adored her once, enough to leave his home and move to the middle of nowhere with her, enough to buy a crumbling cottage and intend to restore it. Enough to imagine their future together.

  Didn’t that kind of love deserve a second chance?

  Joe, however, didn’t look convinced. “Tell you what, mate. While Cupid’s young dream is off having romantic notions, how about you and me hit the pub after you close up?”

  If he got any customers. Chances were, StarFish would be closed before ten. “Sounds like a plan.”

  “Good,” Joe said with a grin. “Then you can fill me in on the two women in your life, and whether they’ve had a cat fight over you yet. Wouldn’t want to miss that.”

  “Good night, Joe,” Charlie said meaningfully.

  Joe jumped down from the counter and held open the doors to the restaurant. “Ah, the path of truth love and all that nonsense. I guess it can’t be hearts and flowers in Aberarian all the time.”

  Charlie led Joe through the carefully laid wooden tables to the front desk. He really wasn’t in the mood to have this conversation again.

  “This is the point where you pretend not to know what he means,” Magda prompted helpfully.

  “He knows,” Joe said, folding his arms across his chest and leaning against the reception desk. “I’ll just pretend he asked.”

  “Can I just pretend you answered?” Charlie asked.

  “No.” Joe grinned at Magda, then turned back to Charlie and went into his usual speech. “Why, I mean Becky and Mia of course! Personally my vote’s on Mia. Everybody knows it’s only a matter of time. You two were made for each other!”

  “I hate you,” Charlie said, without any real feeling. His attention had already been drawn away to the beautiful auburn-haired woman on the other side of the street.

  Magda saw Becky too, because she pointed and said, “I know somebody who doesn’t seem to know it yet.”

  Charlie ignored her, and Joe’s resulting chuckle. Because watching Becky, he could see in her walk the way she moved with him, the way she loved. And maybe Magda was right after all. Maybe he had to be open to love and let it find him again.

  And if his head was telling him that was stupid, well, maybe it was time for him to listen to his heart for a change.

  * * * *

  The Grand Hotel was just how Becky had left it two years ago–old-fashioned, shabby, and smelling of overbrewed tea. Not exactly the Savoy.

  Apart from anything else, she was still lugging her own bags across the lobby.

  While Tony flirted with the world’s most unhelpful receptionist, Becky inspected the rack of local attractions leaflets, noting half of them were over a hundred miles away, and the others weren’t particularly attractive. A craft community in the old mill in Felinfach, a dance club for pensioners in some inn outside Coed-y-Capel. Nothing to exactly set the pulse racing. God, this community really needs me.

  Up in her single-masquerading-as-a-double room, Becky settled on the lumpy mattress and dust-ridden coverlet and watched Tony pull out his mobile phone and check his messages. She knew from past experience Tony would treat her room as his own. The man had no sense of personal boundaries.

  Eventually, he hung up on his answering machine, and Becky sprawled back a little on the bed, resting on her elbows and crossing her legs, waiting for him to notice.

  Instead, he moved to the window to look out over bloody Aberarian.

  “You know, Bex, I’ve been thinking.” He drummed his fingers on the windowsill. “Places like this are very insular. Very cliquey. You have to win over the influential people.”

  “You think Ditsy was the wrong place to start?” Becky refrained from reminding him he’d been the one to say, ‘Let’s
start with your aunt. Better the devil we know.’

  Tony shrugged. “I’m just not sure how much say she or Mia or Charlie, for that matter, have in what goes on here.”

  Becky sat up. No point being seductive if he wasn’t even looking. “I think you’re wrong about Charlie. Yes, the A to Z shop is an anachronism, but StarFish is a modern business. Just the sort of thing we want to encourage.” She ignored the small part of her that said she just wanted an excuse to spend more time at StarFish under the guise of work. Of course, StarFish was her business, wasn’t it? She could spend as much time there as she wanted...

  “I suppose it might be worth hanging onto Charlie.” Tony turned back from the window, and Becky tried to regain her previous pose without looking too obvious. “He needs us–or rather his restaurant does. I got the impression your aunt would rather let the shop decline into cobwebs. But Charlie... He’s young. He’s got to be ambitious.”

  Not really, Becky wanted to say, but didn’t. The limit of Charlie’s ambition was probably the restaurant. He might be willing to fight for StarFish.

  Might still be willing to fight for her, she hoped. Because she planned to fight for him.

  “I want to do more here, Bex.” Tony came to sit beside her on the bed and stared at her with hard eyes, as if she were the one trying to stop him. “I want more than convincing people it’s not the end of the world if they have a casino on some side street. I want the heart and the soul of this town. I want this place to become a tourist Mecca, without the bleeding hearts and the environmentalists telling me I’ve ruined their town.” He put a hand across her knee. “For once, I want these people to be grateful. I want them to bloody well thank me for saving their silly little town from extinction.”

  He was so compelling when he was like this. He drew her in until she believed in his vision utterly. It was kind of scary.

  Tony trailed his fingers across her thigh, and Becky swallowed. “That’s what I want too. How do you plan to do it?”

  “We need the heart of the community. And thank God that’s not the church anymore–they’re never in favor of progress.” His touch reached the bottom of her skirt and kept moving up. “No, these days it’s the shops and the restaurants. The consumerist center. They’re the people who’ll win big under our plans. People like Charlie Frost and his restaurant. You think anybody here appreciates food like that?” Becky was finding it harder to think as Tony’s hands roamed higher. Harder to remember why she’d wanted to come back to Aberarian, except to make his dreams come true. “So, you do still want me to get Charlie on board?”

  Tony nodded and placed a kiss to her neck.

  “Any instructions how I go about that?” she asked, gulping when Tony’s fingers brushed her knickers. It was just as well she’d be breaking things off with him once she had Charlie back. Tony had far too much power over her like this. She wanted to make him proud, for heaven’s sake.

  “Whatever works,” Tony mumbled against her breast, and Becky thought she had some ideas. Really, Tony had taught her so much.

  * * * *

  Later that evening, Mia found herself pausing outside StarFish again, wondering if Charlie was even expecting her for the tasting, after the lunch from hell. Wondering if she should be there at all.

  She peered through the window, trying to make out exactly who was inside. It was gone nine-thirty, already late enough usually to be confident the odd local diners who’d stopped in had finished their meals and headed home. Mia could see one couple near the door putting on their coats. She smiled; any customers at all tended to put Charlie in a better mood. Still, given it was a Saturday night, she hoped he’d had more than one table filled.

  Beyond the couple, she could see Magda at the till. The kitchen doors were closed, and the remaining restaurant looked empty. In other words, no Becky, unless she was haranguing Charlie in the kitchen. Deciding to take her chances, Mia held the door open for the exiting couple and made her way inside.

  Magda smiled at her from behind the bar. “Good,” she said, slamming the till drawer closed. “He was worried you wouldn’t come after this afternoon.”

  “And miss out on the potential for breaded prawns?” Mia shrugged off her coat, draping it over the coat rack by the door. “Not a chance.”

  Shaking her head, Magda said, “I don’t know how you two can call it a tasting when Charlie just keeps making your favorite dishes. They’re not even on the menu.”

  “We have a deal,” Mia explained. “For every new and suspicious dish he wants me to try, he has to make me one he knows I love.”

  Magda didn’t look convinced, so Mia decided to change the subject. “Many people in tonight?”

  “More than had booked, which is something.”

  Mia nodded. They’d all pretty much take what they could get, the way business was at the moment.

  The kitchen doors opened and Charlie appeared, a plate of tempura and breaded prawns with chili sauce and garlic mayonnaise already in his hands.

  “I thought I heard you,” he said with a smile. Obviously Becky’s visit hadn’t been too traumatic for him. He turned to Magda, adding, “You can take off now, if you want. I can’t imagine anyone else is going to come in tonight.”

  Magda gave Charlie a grateful smile, and Mia realized she already had her coat and bag in her hand. No one knew better than Magda the likelihood of more customers.

  When she was gone, Charlie led Mia over to their table at the rear of the restaurant, and Mia sank gratefully into her chair. She loved their table. It was close to the fire in winter, and far away from the windows and prying eyes all year round.

  Charlie put the plate of prawns in the center of the table, along with a couple of napkins, then disappeared over to the bar. When he returned, he brought with him a bottle of white wine and two very large glasses. Mia smiled in appreciation as he filled hers.

  “Quite the day,” Mia said, lifting the glass to her lips.

  Charlie slumped down in the chair beside her. “I’m sorry.”

  “For dating a crazy woman?” Mia picked up the plumpest prawn on the plate. She deserved it.

  “I didn’t know she was coming back,” he said.

  “Or else you would have warned me to run for the hills.” Mia bit off the tail of her prawn dipped in garlic mayonnaise, chewed and swallowed. “Fair enough.”

  “I just...” Charlie shook his head and reached for his glass. “I can’t believe she’s here.”

  Which, Mia reflected, could be taken one of two ways. One, he was horrified at her arrival and even more disgusted by the way she’d spoken to his best friend, and was looking for ways to run her out of town. Two, he was just amazed at the second chance he’d been given at love.

  Call her a coward, but Mia wasn’t sure she wanted to know which it was.

  Charlie shifted in his chair, turning his body to face her, wineglass dangling between his strong hands. Watching them in the candlelight, Mia could see hints of the scars and burns she supposed were inevitable in his profession.

  “But never mind about my absurd day,” he said, and Mia shifted her attention from his hands to his chocolate brown eyes. “What about this letter from your dad?”

  Mia looked away. She hadn’t forgotten about the letter–she could almost feel it pulsing away in the bottom of her bag. But she’d tried to push it aside, out of her mind. It was a lot easier to concentrate on the evil of Becky Thrower than the disappointment of her father.

  Still, she really didn’t want to talk to Charlie about Becky.

  Taking a large gulp of wine for courage, Mia dug into her bag and pulled out the envelope Jacques had given her. Laying it on the table, facing Charlie, she ran a hand over it to smooth out the creases, then grabbed another prawn instead.

  “Still not opened it?” Charlie asked, not touching the letter.

  “I don’t know if I want to know what it says.” Something occurred to her. “You could open it for me. Then you could decide if I should know what
he has to say or not.”

  For a moment, Mia thought Charlie might actually do it. Then he shook his head and nudged the envelope toward her with two fingers. “I think this is one of those things you really have to do yourself.”

  Mia sighed. “Just because you’re right doesn’t mean I have to like it.”

  Chuckling, Charlie took a prawn, and Mia cast about for a change of subject. “You haven’t got any weird concoctions for me to try tonight?” Fish wasn’t actually her dream food, usually. Charlie said that was what made her such an ideal taster. Mia thought he just liked making her eat new and outlandish creatures. They’d started with basic salmon and were working their way up to the really freaky types of shellfish.

  Mia wasn’t looking forward to the start of the Anglesey oyster season in October. If StarFish survived that long.

  Charlie shrugged. “I figured after today we both deserved a break. And, to be honest, I wasn’t sure you’d come.”

  “Of course I came,” Mia said, surprised. “It’s Saturday night. It’s what we do.” What they’d done for almost a year and half now, since Becky left and they’d got talking in the Crooked Fox one night. There weren’t a lot of twenty-something locals in Aberarian, single or otherwise. They had to stick together.

  But maybe they wouldn’t be doing it so much now Becky had returned. Charlie might have better things to do.

  Frowning, Mia grabbed her wine again.

  “What are you afraid it says?” Charlie asked, and it took Mia a moment to remember he was talking about the letter. Apparently her sour turn of thought had been visible on her face, even if the reason for it wasn’t.

  “I don’t know,” she answered honestly. “I just can’t imagine what he could have to say to me after all these years.”

  Charlie looked confused. “Then why not open it and find out?”

  Mia glanced down at her fingers, tightening around the stem of her wineglass, and mentally told her hands to relax before it shattered. “It’s not what he has to say that I’m worried about,” she admitted, her voice soft.

  “Then what?” Charlie asked, brow furrowed.