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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.”
