Rosie's Little Café on the Riviera

by Jennifer Bohnet

  ‘Rosie waited for him to elaborate but when he didn’t she asked, ‘So what are we going to talk about?’

  ‘Firstly, I need your help,’ Charlie said quietly. ‘Suggesting James asked you for a job wasn’t just me selfishly wanting to know what you were up to. It’s also a case of needing you to keep an eye on James without him suspecting, which is why he believes he’s there to report back to me about you.’

  ‘And does he?’

  ‘Report back? Well, I gather you’re getting busier and need more staff. Oh, and you’ve already poisoned somebody.’ Charlie forked up some pasta. ‘Need any help with that, by the way? Firm’s new lawyer is a hot shot.’

  ‘I’m still waiting to hear precise details,’ Rosie said. ‘I keep going over and over the dishes we served that Saturday evening and wondering if anyone else was ill but didn’t make an official complaint.’ Rosie sighed. ‘I guess I’ll just have to wait and see what these people are claiming. Anyway, James. He’s a good worker and I like him. Why do you want me to spy on him?’

  ‘Dad seems to think he’s mixing with the wrong crowd down here. Wants an eye kept on him.’

  ‘In that case – why not give him the chef’s job on A Sure Thing like he wanted? He’d be too busy then to get in trouble,’ Rosie said.

  Providing food from the tiny galley onboard the yacht had been hard, continuous work, usually in the sweltering heat of summer, leaving her exhausted by the end of the season. ‘No time to go ashore,’ she added.

  Charlie poured more wine into their glasses. ‘He does genuinely need more experience before he takes on that responsibility.’

  ‘So what d’you want me to do?’

  ‘Keep him as busy as possible and let me know if… oh hell, Rosie, I don’t know. Basically keep an eye on him and let me know if something seems awry. I never realised having a kid brother could be so worrying.’

  ‘OK. Against my better judgement I’ll keep an eye on him,’ Rosie said. ‘But I honestly don’t think you need to worry. James is a sensible boy.’

  ‘Thanks. Now we’ve got that out of the way, let’s talk about us.’

  ‘Charlie! There is no us.’

  ‘But there could be Rosie – and I want there to be,’ Charlie said, taking a hold of her hand across the table. ‘That night we had dinner in The Recluse I tried to tell you how I felt about you now that we’ve met again, but you refused to listen.’

  Rosie pulled her hand away. ‘Charlie, stop it. There is no point.’

  ‘We were good together in the old days. We could be again. I’ve changed, Rosie. You have to believe me.’

  ‘Charlie, you may have changed but you let me down big time at college. Remember? When I fell pregnant and really needed your support, you walked away. Which means I can never ever totally trust you again.’

  ‘I know I behaved abominably all those years ago at college but I would never behave like that now. Please put it down to the arrogance of youth, Rosie, and forgive me?’ Charlie pleaded. ‘Give me a second chance?’

  Rosie hesitated. Would she be making one of the biggest mistakes of her life by not forgiving Charlie and rekindling their youthful friendship? He was right – they had been good together back in the day. She’d even been silly enough to think Charlie could be her Mr Right and they would be spending the rest of their lives together, before it had all gone wrong.

  Charlie’s reaction to the news of her pregnancy had been one of sheer panic. But she’d consoled herself with the thought that it was just the shock. The unexpectedness of it. Once he’d got used to the idea everything would be fine. Only it wasn’t, the relief when she’d miscarried at eleven weeks evident even as he tried to console her.

  If she was honest, she had to admit he had changed – inevitably he’d matured and grown up – but there was something else different about him, too.

  ‘You were my first love and I want you back in my life,’ Charlie said now, taking her hand again and stroking it. ‘You’ve never told me what happened after we broke up and… I left to go travelling.’

  The thought, ‘No and you never even tried to find me and ask,’ swirled into Rosie’s head. You just vanished and got on with your own life and conveniently forgot all about me until fifteen years later when William bought A Sure Thing and we met up again.

  ‘Back in your life? Charlie, that is not going to happen,’ Rosie said, trying to pull her hand back and failing.

  ‘It could if only you’d accept my apology and forgive me. Rosie, please give me the chance to prove to you that I’m a different person to the boy who let you down.’

  Rosie sighed. Charlie had always been obstinate. They could be here all night unless she agreed to be friends again. ‘Okay. It’s a bit late, but apology accepted.’

  ‘So we can start again? Forgive and forget?’

  ‘Forgiving is the easy part, Charlie. Forgetting even after all this time is more difficult,’ Rosie said. ‘But yes, we can be friends again.’ Rosie held up her hand as Charlie went to protest, as she’d known he would, at the thought of being just friends.

  ‘Friendship is all that’s on offer, Charlie. Take it or leave it.’ Rosie stood up. ‘Right, now we’ve sorted that out, I’m going home.’

  Charlie insisted on walking Rosie back to her apartment. When she pleaded a headache and also pointed out that Olivia would be back soon, to Rosie’s relief he reluctantly left. She could only hope that he wasn’t going to keep badgering her for more than friendship. Because that was somewhere she had no intention of going. Surely she’d now made that plain enough.

  ***

  Rosie mooched around the flat for a few moments not sure what to do – sleeping on the put-u-up meant she couldn’t get undressed and go to bed before Olivia came home in case she brought Zander up. No way did Rosie want to be wearing pyjamas when she met the new man in her mother’s life.

  Pouring herself a glass of wine she sat and waited, pushing away thoughts of what might have been with Charlie and trying to stay awake enough to work on the restaurant menu diary. She’d decided to keep a record of her daily menus even though it made her feel a bit like one of those Victorian hostesses who’d kept a record of both food and guests at dinner parties to avoid serving the same dish to the same people twice.

  For the Café Fleur, though, keeping a daily food menu of what she’d made, and more importantly what had proved to be popular, would be invaluable in working out what gave her the best returns. She smothered a yawn. God, where was Olivia?

  Looking at the entries in the diary so far, Rosie could see that lasagne and tiramisu were by far the most popular. There was a scribbled ‘pizzas’ in the suggestion column. Rosie sighed.

  Pizza had been requested a lot this week. People seemed to expect to find them on a beach café menu but she hated making them as much as she hated eating them. She was determined to keep them off the menu for as long as she could. Besides, there were a lot of pizza places around – too much competition. She had more than enough competition to cope with right next door, in the shape of Seb, without adding to it.

  Absently she typed Sebastian Groc into the search bar on the laptop. Within seconds the screen was filled with images: Seb in his chef whites; Seb laughing sexily; Seb looking immaculate at a Monaco charity fundraising do. There was a brief bio under that one: Celebrity chef Seb Groc who has earned not one, but two, Michelin stars for The Recluse announced his resignation from the restaurant recently, saying it was time to do his own thing. We wish him well in his new venture.

  Rosie scrolled down the page to find more images of Seb – several with different glamorous blondes on his arm. Seb was clearly very popular and not just for his food. Thoughtfully, Rosie clicked the web page closed, resisting the urge to click on the Wikipedia page for his biographical details. She didn’t need to know the ins and outs of Seb’s private life. It wasn’t as if they were ever going to be more than competitors over a decent lunchtime menu.

 
; It was nearly one o’clock before Lucky-dog’s warning growl told her Olivia was coming up the stairs.

  When the door opened and Olivia appeared it was all Rosie could do to stop herself demanding, ‘And what time d’you call this?’

  Which was just as well, as standing directly behind Olivia, nuzzling her neck as she tried not to giggle, was a man. And not just any man.

  ‘Darling – we hoped you’d still be up. Rosie meet Zander. Zander, this is my daughter. Rosie, do close your mouth – you look like one of those fairground amusement contraptions that spit out prizes.’

  Rosie obediently snapped her mouth closed. Fairground amusement contraption? When had her fairground-hating mother last seen one of those? Right at that moment, anyway, she couldn’t spit anything out – she was dumbstruck.

  She knew now exactly what Charlie had meant with his remark about Olivia being Zander’s current squeeze.

  ‘Rosie, I am so pleased to meet you.’ Zander took her hand as he gazed into her eyes. ‘Your mama, she never stops talking about you.’

  Oh. Not good. A real Italian smoothie.

  ‘She’s barely mentioned you to me,’ Rosie muttered for want of anything else to say, and clenched her mouth into the form of a smile. If she wasn’t careful the sentence, ‘And I don’t believe for one moment that your intentions towards my mother are honourable,’ would spring ready-formed from her lips.

  ‘Rosie, would you mind awfully if I left tonight?’ Olivia asked.

  ‘What, right now?’

  Zander put his arm around Olivia’s shoulders. ‘Olivia, she has told you, she comes to live with me, yes? For me, next week is very busy and I cannot collect her – so I take her now.’

  ‘You could catch a train tomorrow, Mum – after we’ve talked?’

  Olivia shook her head. ‘So much easier if I go with Zander now. I’ll just get my things.’

  ‘Well, if you’ve made your mind up,’ Rosie said. ‘Want a coffee before you go?’ If she could delay them, maybe Olivia would change her mind and stay.

  But no. Coffee was declined and within five minutes Rosie was waving the two of them goodbye.

  ‘I’ll ring you tomorrow,’ Olivia said as they left. ‘We’ll have a natter then.’

  Apparently Olivia was going to be living in Zander’s penthouse overlooking Monaco harbour, so he’d clearly got a bob or two.

  ‘You’re welcome to come and see us any time,’ Zander had said.

  Even as she’d muttered a polite ‘thank you’, Rosie knew she was going to be too busy for the next few weeks to take up that particular invite.

  Closing the apartment door behind them, a stunned Rosie climbed into bed and tried to sleep. After all those years of not having a regular boyfriend, of professing not to even want one, Olivia had disappeared off to Monaco to live with a guy who looked like a young Franco Nero – right down to the mesmerising blue eyes.

  Rosie sighed. What was it with mothers? Did they get to a certain age and think, ‘Hey, how can I really embarrass my kids? I know – I’ll be a cougar!’ She could only hope that Olivia knew what she was doing and wasn’t making the biggest mistake ever.

  Snuggling into the duvet, Rosie sent a silent promise out into the universe. If Zander hurt her mother, she, Rosie, would personally kill him.

  OK, kill was too strong a word, but he’d certainly need medical attention when she’d finished with him.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Rosie wiped the tears away with the back of her hand. This was ridiculous.

  ‘Are you all right?’ Tansy asked on arriving for work the next morning.

  Rosie sniffed. ‘ I’m fine. It’s just these damn onions. You’d think by now they’d have developed a non-crying onion.’

  It had absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with the letter currently stuffed into her apron pocket. No way was she going to admit it was anything but the onions.

  Tansy looked at her but accepted the explanation. ‘James not in yet?’ she asked.

  ‘He’s upstairs, checking out the studio. He’s asked to rent it for the rest of the summer – or until he can find somewhere else. Apparently his place is being sold and he has to get out. I haven’t agreed yet, though. What d’you think?’

  ‘It could work. Especially if you let him have it in lieu of wages. You wouldn’t have to shell out so much money every week then.’

  ‘The thing is, it’s barely habitable up there so I can’t charge him much. Can’t have his friends tramping through the restaurant to visit him either.’

  ‘Hey, we’re getting so busy his social life will be as limited as ours,’ Tansy said.

  ‘True. Can I leave you to finish off the veg? I have to go across to the hotel for something. I’ll only be about ten minutes. OK?’ Rosie ignored the unspoken question from Tansy and left her to it.

  She and Seb had somehow slipped into the habit of meeting on the beach at the end of the evening and sharing a glass of wine before Seb walked Rosie and Lucky-dog home. It had started one evening when Seb had spied her walking Lucky-dog on the beach before she headed home and he’d sat on the rocks with wine, waiting for her to return.

  The evenings Seb didn’t appear, either because she’d finished too early for him or he was busy in the restaurant, Rosie missed him. Today, though, she couldn’t wait until this evening to talk to him. She needed to see him now.

  Seb was checking off a wine delivery as Rosie pushed open the kitchen door. ‘Coffee?’

  Rosie shook her head. ‘No, thanks. I want to ask your advice. But if you’re busy, I’ll come back.’

  Seb put his clipboard down. ‘I can finish this later. What’s up?’

  Rosie pulled the crumpled letter out of her pocket and handed it to him. ‘This came recorded delivery this morning. My French is pretty good these days but I just wanted you to confirm I’d understood it correctly.’

  Seb whistled as he quickly scanned the letter. ‘My clients are asking for compensation in regard to the food poisoning they contracted at your establishment. This is to include: refund of their extra hotel costs, the cost of cancelled and deferred air flights and also compensation with regard to the general distress they have suffered. In our opinion a court would impose a settlement figure of around fifty thousand euros, excluding costs. To avoid this going to court, our clients are prepared to settle for forty thousand euros.’

  ‘That’s one hell of a lot of euros,’ he said, handing the letter back to Rosie.

  ‘What do I do? I haven’t got that kind of money,’ Rosie said, feeling the tears starting to rise up again and biting her lip.

  ‘You’ve got to fight it, obviously,’ Seb said.

  ‘But that’s going to take more money that I haven’t got. And if it gets out I’ve already poisoned people, nobody’s going to come to Café Fleur anyway.’ Rosie sighed. ‘Charlie did say his new lawyer was top notch and suggested I could use him but I can’t afford legal fees. No. I’ll have to close the café down and plead poverty. Will that work in France?’

  Seb shook his head. ‘Doubt it.’

  ‘I’ll have to run away then,’ Rosie said. ‘One way or another it’s going to ruin me.’

  ‘Rosie, you have to fight it. You can’t just give up,’ Seb said. ‘I’ll help you. First you need to find out the names of these people – nationality, too, if you can. And then you need to know exactly what they ate. Write back and ask questions. That won’t cost you anything. If nothing else it will delay things for a few weeks and give you a chance to get established and earn some money.’

  ‘Not likely to earn forty thousand euros,’ Rosie said. ‘I’ll be lucky to earn enough to pay the bills this first year. I never dreamt people could demand that kind of money.’

  ‘Me, I think it’s a try-on,’ Seb said. ‘A scam. That’s why you need to find out who these people are. Nothing is going to happen quickly – this is France, remember.’

  ‘Great. A summer with this hanging ove
r me,’ Rosie sighed.

  ‘Push it to the back of your mind,’ Seb said. ‘Just concentrate on making Café Fleur work. And come to a party in Cannes with me this weekend. The film festival started yesterday so it’ll be a good one.’

  ‘Thanks for the invite, but no thanks,’ Rosie said. ‘I wouldn’t be great company.’

  ‘Sunday night. Posh frock. Pick you up at ten,’ Seb said. ‘No argument.’

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Erica smoothed the duvet cover into place and took a final look around the guest bedroom. Towels in the en-suite, flowers on the dressing table and the latest Donna Leon paperback (Amelia’s favourite author) on the bedside table.

  Now to get on with supper. Amelia was due to arrive any time soon and Cammie was already hyper with excitement. She adored Amelia’s visits and was always asking when she was coming down again. She’d always loved visiting Grandma Amelia and Granddad Jean-Pierre up in the mountains but hadn’t once asked to go since Pascal died.

  Erica bit her lip. Pascal had been close to his parents and they had spent many weekends with them, driving up on a Saturday evening, coming home Monday afternoon. When Cammie started school they’d had to shorten their visits and leave Sunday evening. They hadn’t been up to visit Amelia and Jean-Pierre once this year.

  From the way Amelia was beginning to talk on the phone about visits, Erica knew she’d soon start to apply pressure. Would probably bring the subject up this weekend. She’d just have to beg Amelia for patience. She personally wasn’t ready for what would be an emotional visit and the logistics of getting Cammie there with her phobia about cars would be difficult.

  Pulling the bedroom door to, Erica went downstairs and joined Cammie and GeeGee who were setting the table for supper. She got busy preparing the salad before the doorbell pinged.

  ‘Granny Amelia’s here,’ Cammie shouted and ran to let her in.

  After a flurry of hugs and kisses, Cammie dragged Amelia off to her room to show her the beach project.