Page 60 of Love Letters on Hazel Lane

Then he held her gaze for a little too long until she said, ‘I wonder which box is missing a letter rack?’

*

Monday lunchtime. With most of her colleagues out of the office and only five days to go until the festival, Jo sat at her desk, eating her sandwiches and double-checking the plans in her Filofax for the umpteenth time. She ran her finger down the to-do list. Refreshments? Tick. Rota for who was monitoring the door? Tick. Posters? Tick. Programmes? Being printed this week. Tickets for speed-dating? Only two more to sell. Blank Scrabble tiles for the craft workshop? Arriving tomorrow courtesy of eBay.

‘Jo,’ said David, emerging from his office.

She looked up, exchanged glances with Mona and swivelled her chair to face him.

‘How can I help?’

‘The Plymouth shoot…’

‘Yes, everything’s ready for that. Scripts and schedules all printed.’ She tapped the coloured cardboard folders beside her on the desk. ‘All the transport arrangements checked and double-checked. All sorted.’

‘Thorough as usual, Jo,’ he said. ‘I can always rely on you. I need you to book another hotel room. You’re going with them.’

‘But I never go filming.’

‘I know. And that seems so unfair. I thought this time you would like to.’

‘I would like to. Only not this time.’

‘I need you to go.’

Jo sighed. She didn’t want to be difficult but she couldn’t possibly go. ‘I’ve booked a day off on Friday and I have plans over the weekend.’

‘You have plans?’

‘Yes, I have plans.’

Was that so inconceivable?

‘You knew when you accepted this job that there might be some weekend working.’

‘I did, but so far there hasn’t been. And you can’t expect me to cancel my plans at the last minute like this. I won’t do it, David.’

Was this really her voice? Standing up to her boss? Saying no?

‘I see,’ he said. ‘So that’s how it is.’

She glanced at Mona again; she could almost feel the mysterious, Italian noblewoman egging her on. ‘That’s how it is.’

He turned away from her and barked across the office. ‘Caroline, she won’t do it. You’ll have to go.’

*

A little later, she was making a coffee in the kitchen when Caroline came in.

‘Jo,’ she said in the tone of voice you’d use to soothe a crying child. ‘This shoot over the weekend… you don’t really have plans, do you?’

‘Yes, I do. Is that so hard to believe?’

‘Well, I have noticed that you often hang around in the evenings, as if you don’t want to go home.’

Jo was a bit stung. Caroline had noticed? Yet never once asked her to go for a coffee or a drink? Never once asked if she was okay?

‘When my best friend moved away,’ she said, ‘I may have hung around a little. I was a bit, you know, lonely. But I’ve made new friends now. And I have plans.’