B01ESFW7JE

by Cathy Bramley

  It sounded ridiculous when she said it out loud. At least now she’d recognized it for what it was: a meaningless goal that had caused more harm than good.

  ‘So I hope nobody minds,’ she said with a surge of pride, ‘but I’m changing my wish, I’m no longer going to let my dad rule my life.’

  Jo lifted her glass. ‘Bloody hell. I’m with you on that. Cheers!’

  ‘So my next move is to find premises.’

  She told them about wanting to move into the flat above the old post office and turn it into an office, if only the other party didn’t get in there first.

  ‘They won’t get planning permission for a café,’ said Carrie, reaching for the crudités to nibble on.

  Sarah frowned. ‘What makes you so sure?’

  ‘The owners tried that themselves a couple of years ago.’ She crunched on a carrot stick. ‘Got turned down. Planners said there wasn’t enough parking and it would result in congestion or something like that.’

  Sarah stared at her open-mouthed. This was brilliant news, particularly as something Carrie had said sparked an even more amazing idea. The sensible thing to do would be to mull it over and consider this brainwave from every angle. But knickers to that.

  Sarah’s face broke into a broad smile. ‘Carrie, are you free next Friday?’

  Carrie nodded, intrigued.

  ‘Good. There’s something I’d like to show you,’ Sarah said mysteriously. ‘But now it’s time for birthday cake.’

  Chapter 33

  From: SarahDaveZac

  To: Jo Gold (work)

  CC: Carriebikinibod@gmail.com

  Guess what?? Carrie and I have got a surprise for you! Can you meet us on Friday night in Woodby at the old post office?

  From: Jo Gold (work)

  Will there be wine? If so, yes.

  From: Carriebikinibod@gmail.com

  To: Jo Gold (work)

  There’ll be champagne. You OK, Jo?

  From: Jo Gold (work)

  To: Carriebikinibod@gmail.com; SarahDaveZac

  Absolutely marvellous. Not. Time is running out for Gold’s and I’m running out of ideas.

  Jo came back from a quick lunch break to find Ed Shaw waiting in her office.

  ‘Hello?’ She summoned up a polite smile.

  ‘Surprise!’ he said with a boyish grin.

  On balance, she decided, after an awkward air kiss, it was not a nice surprise. Three weeks had gone by since the meeting with the Department of Trade and Industry on the day of Zac’s party, and as much as she recognized that government departments had to be thorough, unless they hurried up, she was going to run out of time for the export of Gold’s Footwear to have any impact on her September deadline. And seeing Ed’s perky smile was like rubbing salt into a particularly nasty wound.

  ‘No Patrick today?’ said Ed, ignoring the chair that Jo pointed him to.

  Jo shook her head. ‘He’s at a meeting.’

  With the bank. Trying to negotiate a bigger overdraft – thanks to Shaw’s.

  ‘All set for the big launch, then?’ He rubbed his hands together gleefully.

  She gave him a tight smile. She couldn’t for the life of her see why she had been so enamoured with him when they’d first met. He was aiming for the casual, nonchalant look, but in truth he was simply scruffy. Designer brands maybe but still scruffy. A crumpled Ralph Lauren polo shirt hung loosely over a pair of marked Armani jeans. Even his Paul Smith brogues needed a polish.

  ‘The three-month exclusivity period plus the impending departure of our operations director has hit us where it hurts, Ed,’ she said, forcing herself to keep her voice calm.

  He irritated her with his lazy smile and the way he was wandering around her office picking up her things, studying them and putting them back down in the wrong place.

  ‘I don’t know what your father would have thought of the way you’re doing business,’ she said, folding her arms, ‘but I know mine won’t be impressed.’

  Ed laughed. ‘Don’t tell me you still go running to Daddy with your problems?’

  She bit back a retort and clenched her fists. She was so close to telling him where to stick his order.

  ‘You’ll have to make do with just the shoes for September; the boots will follow in October. And our credit terms are strictly twenty-eight days. Any later and Shaw’s forfeits the exclusivity.’

  Ed’s eyes widened and he sucked his breath in sharply. ‘Twenty-eight days is a bit steep. We might not have sold many shoes by then.’

  ‘Maybe not,’ said Jo, tilting up her chin, ‘but we will have bought the materials and manufactured the shoes, packaged them and delivered them to you. Besides, you promised Patrick a glitzy advertising campaign; don’t you have faith in your ability to turn that into sales?’

  Ed set down the paperweight that he had been throwing carelessly from one hand to the other and dropped down into the chair opposite Jo.

  ‘Thing is, Jo,’ he said silkily, ‘with all this new shop fit expenditure, our cash flow is taking a real bashing.’

  ‘Your cash flow?’ retorted Jo. ‘Look at this!’ She pulled a folder towards her and flicked through the pages. Showing a customer her financial statements was unorthodox, but she couldn’t see another way of getting through his thick skull.

  ‘These are our set-up costs to produce the Josephine Gold collection.’ She jabbed the paper with a manicured finger and flicked on to the next page.

  ‘This is the price of the logo and packaging design.’ She turned the page once more.

  ‘And these are the unit costs to make each shoe, which due to the very small numbers, are exceptionally high.’

  She snapped the folder shut, making him jump. ‘So don’t you tell me about cash flow. I’m sorry, Ed, you’ve done a great job with Shaw’s but restricting sales of our new collection to your stores this autumn is crippling us.’

  Ed sat back in his chair and rubbed his nose. ‘I can see your dilemma. Actually, I wanted to talk to you … Um, any chance of a coffee?’

  Liz was in with a tray of coffee and biscuits before Jo could say ‘caffeine fix’. She set it on the desk and gave Jo an encouraging wink.

  Jo sipped her coffee and watched as Ed swirled a biscuit around in his mug, lifting it out at the last second before it disintegrated. He shoved it in his mouth whole and gave her a cheeky grin.

  All right, maybe he was attractive. But he was still married and after seeing the damage that even thinking their husbands had been unfaithful had done to Carrie and Sarah, Jo had turned over a new leaf in that regard. No more married men. Ever.

  In fact, from now on, she’d only date men who’d give her all their attention; she wasn’t interested in sharing. She wanted someone to love and who’d love her in return. God, she was beginning to sound like Carrie …

  ‘Jo? Hello?’ Ed waved a hand in front of her face and laughed. ‘I said, I might have been overzealous with the exclusivity demands.’

  He reached for another biscuit and glanced at Jo sheepishly.

  ‘You think?’ she said, giving him a loaded stare.

  ‘Look. This is my first proper season of buying shoes. It has been quite good fun, placing orders,’ he admitted. ‘I thought insisting that we were the only ones allowed to sell your new stuff made good business sense. But you’re right. Dad wouldn’t be impressed with me making these sorts of demands. I mean, what difference does it make to Shaw’s if your range is available in London or Bristol? We haven’t even got branches there.’

  Jo felt her mouth go dry. She liked the way this conversation was going and hardly dared speak in case she ruined it.

  ‘So …’ Ed spread his hands out on the desk in a gesture of peace. ‘I know it’s probably too late to be of any use, but I retract the exclusivity requirement.’

  ‘Thanks,’ said Jo shakily, letting out a breath. ‘You’re right, it might be too late, but I really appreciate it. It just might make the difference we need.’

  He shrugged and his
humble moment was over. ‘To be honest, in the cities where we operate, our stores are so much better than the competition that frankly there is no competition, some of them are so out-dated that—’

  ‘Well, thank you again,’ Jo interrupted. She needed to get rid of him straight away. There was no time to lose; they would get everyone on the phones, even the workroom. Cesca could design an eye-catching mail-out and they’d email it to all the independents today …

  ‘Am I forgiven now?’ He smirked at her. ‘I’m surprised my coffee hasn’t frozen over with the icy looks you’ve been giving me.’

  Her lips started to twitch. He was such a charmer. But no, he wasn’t forgiven. There was something else he had done, something that had hurt even more than the exclusivity demands …

  ‘Not quite.’ She gave him a steely glare. ‘Why poach my staff?’

  Ed looked shifty. He exhaled at length, ran his fingers through his unruly brown hair and then folded his arms, mirroring Jo’s defensive posture.

  ‘He’s the best in the business, but then you already know that,’ he said simply. ‘I’ll see myself out.’

  Jo showed Ed to her office door, his words running over and over in her mind on a loop. They shook hands. Ed reached the end of the corridor and pushed open the door to the reception area. He looked back at her and lifted a hand.

  ‘And I thought I was doing you both a favour,’ he said with a grin.

  She gasped with frustration. ‘Favour. Are you kidding me?’

  ‘You know what they say.’ He tipped her a tiny wink. ‘Absence makes the heart grow fonder.’

  She watched him cross the car park, wondering what the hell he was talking about. Whatever, she didn’t have time to dwell on Ed Shaw’s games. She charged down the corridor to Liz’s office.

  ‘Can you get everyone together, please?’ she said to her startled secretary. ‘Staff meeting. Five minutes! Oh, and check how long Patrick is going to be. Thanks,’ she finished with a grin.

  Jo dashed back to her own desk and pulled the phone towards her. August might be a bit late in the day to sell in the autumn range, but if she were to stand a chance of showing her father a profit by September, she owed it to the whole team to try.

  Later that evening, Jo called goodbye to Abi, closed the door to her friend’s cottage and set off along Main Street to the old post office, armed with a bottle of Prosecco.

  Abi and Tom had just arrived back from Australia and looked sunkissed and happy, or at least Tom did. Underneath Abi’s tan Jo detected deep-rooted grief suggesting that she was far from over losing Fréd. Unsurprising really; Fréd had been there all Abi’s adult life. Coming back to the home they’d built together had hit her hard. All Jo could do was be there; to listen, to lend a shoulder to cry on, but that didn’t feel like much and seeing her friend so sad had taken the edge off her own good mood after the most positive day she’d had at work for weeks.

  Still, she had no doubt that Sarah and Carrie would cheer her up; Sarah had sounded so excited on the phone earlier. She stopped outside the post office and smiled. It didn’t take a genius to work out what the news was and Jo felt inordinately proud of her.

  She peered through the windows expecting to see Sarah hopping around like a woodland sprite, but the place was oddly deserted. She pushed the door open and a bell tinkled above her head, but there was still no one in sight.

  ‘Hello?’ Her heels echoed on the tiled floor as she stepped into the shop.

  Upstairs a cork popped and two familiar voices shouted, ‘Surprise!’

  Two sets of rapid footsteps then charged down the stairs. Carrie appeared first, her face wreathed in smiles. Jo couldn’t help but smile back; Carrie was so different these days to the awkward mouse she’d met in January. Sarah was right behind her.

  ‘Welcome to the new commercial hub of Woodby,’ Sarah cried, pouring them each a glass of champagne. ‘You’re our first visitor.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Jo with a laugh, raising her glass. ‘Congratulations!’

  ‘This is going to be my very own florist’s,’ said Carrie, waving an arm around the space.

  Jo’s jaw dropped. ‘Wow, really?’

  ‘And I’m converting the flat upstairs into an accountancy practice,’ added Sarah, doing a little shimmy.

  Jo laughed. They were already halfway to becoming a double act. ‘Congratulations to both of you. I’m seriously impressed.’ She clinked her glass to theirs. ‘Come on, then, tell me more.’

  The evening sun cast a golden glow through the shop’s windows. Jo leaned on the old post office counter and Sarah wiped the dust from the low windowsill and perched on it as Carrie darted here and there, demonstrating what she was going to do with the place.

  ‘I’m going to leave the counter where it is, but take out the glass panels,’ she explained. ‘I can keep the cash register there and do the arrangements and stuff along this area. The shop is quite shady so the flowers can go in buckets in the windows. Over here, I thought I might sell a few greetings cards, you know, to go with the flowers.’ She waved her arm towards one wall and then stood back with her hands on her hips, looking totally exhilarated. ‘And I’m going to do online orders too.’

  Jo sipped her champagne. Carrie was so excited and she was delighted for them both. Absolutely. She was. But their success served to highlight her own lack of progress.

  Everything seemed to be going to plan for Carrie and Sarah. Their wishes might have altered over the last few months, but they had both managed to change their lives for the better. She, however, was still in the same place as she had been when they met: a workaholic, with a non-existent love life and an annoying fear of heights. She had given up smoking, she supposed, but to be honest, she hadn’t been a heavy smoker anyway. Although she could do with one now.

  Sarah linked her arm through Carrie’s. ‘What do you think?’

  Jo raised her nearly-empty glass.

  ‘I think it’s bloody amazing!’ She grinned, bemused. ‘When did this all happen? Five minutes ago Carrie was going to start up slowly and this place was on its way to becoming a café.’

  ‘Carrie was right,’ said Sarah happily. ‘As soon as the owners knew that the potential tenants wanted to apply for planning for a café, they rejected their offer. I couldn’t afford to rent the whole place, just for my accountancy business—’

  ‘So she asked me to go halves,’ Carrie finished off.

  Sarah giggled. ‘Anyone would think I’d asked her to jump off a cliff naked. It took Dave, me and Alex to persuade her, over dinner, to give it a go. The lease is initially for twelve months. If it doesn’t work out, we don’t renew it.’ She shrugged casually.

  A pang of jealousy prodded at Jo’s heart. Over dinner. She tried to tell herself it didn’t matter. She realized it was childish, but she felt left out. Would they have invited me if I was one half of a couple? she wondered.

  ‘Good for you, Carrie.’ She plastered on a smile. ‘Show me upstairs, then.’

  After a tour of the delights of the shell-pink bathroom and small bedroom, they settled into three deckchairs, on loan from Carrie’s garden.

  Carrie ripped the foil off a second bottle, giggling nervously in case the cork made a bid for the ceiling. Jo noted her long eyelashes, radiant smile and high cheekbones. She had always thought Carrie was a natural beauty, but being in such a happy place had highlighted her good looks even more.

  Sarah had come clean about her hidden motivation to be so ambitious, Jo had admitted her penchant for happy-ever-afters, and yet she couldn’t ignore the feeling that Carrie was still hiding something. Why had she taken so long to do something with her life?

  She accepted a refill from Carrie and took a fortifying gulp.

  ‘It’s great to see you so positive about life, Carrie, but what I don’t understand,’ she said gently, ‘is what led you to be unhappy in the first place? You had a lovely husband, beautiful house and yet …’

  ‘Yeah,’ Sarah added, frowning with cu
riosity. ‘You were practically a hermit when we met.’

  Carrie shrank back immediately and Jo’s heart sank, worried that they had probed too much, but to her surprise, after a moment’s hesitation, she spoke up.

  ‘My unhappiness started at university, when I met a boy called Ryan Cunningham.’

  With the help of the rest of the champagne and an entire packet of tissues, Carrie filled them in on the regretful night out at university that had defined the next thirteen years of her life. The one-night stand that had resulted in an unwanted pregnancy, an abortion she bitterly regretted and the unborn baby she had grieved for ever since.

  ‘I had no one to turn to.’ Carrie sniffed, twisting a tissue round in her hands. ‘My friends were all still partying and having fun and I felt detached from everyone, even from myself. I dropped out of uni to try to shake the depression, to force myself to start afresh. And it worked, sort of. But until I started hypnotherapy, I’d never forgiven myself.’

  ‘But what about when you got married,’ Sarah asked softly, reaching for Carrie’s hand. ‘Didn’t Alex help?’

  She nodded. ‘He loved me and that made me feel better about myself to begin with, but then I saw a way to cut myself off from real life by retreating to being a homemaker. His own mum worked hard but was never very homely. So I cooked, I looked after him and I made our house a home – and Alex loved that. But along the way I lost my purpose, my identity. She’d have been twelve now. A girl on the cusp of becoming a woman, friends of her own. A life of her own.’

  The sun had sunk from the sky and Jo sat in the shadows, united with Sarah in their sadness at Carrie’s story.

  ‘Why didn’t you tell us?’ asked Jo quietly.

  Carrie shrugged nervously. ‘You two are such strong independent women. When we met and decided to start a wish list, I saw an opportunity to start living my life to the full again. But I thought if I told you the truth, you wouldn’t want to know me. Especially you, Sarah, being a mum. So I guess we all told a bit of a white lie.’