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Joan leaned back. “Ha! Bloody Nora.” She tossed her napkin down on the empty table. “Lucy, you’re a girl after my own heart. Never apologize for cursing, love. If you can’t hold your drink or swear like a sailor, I don’t want to know you.”
Freddie and Lucy laughed while Alex hid behind her hands.
“Now, I have a job for you two.” Joan put her left hand on Freddie’s knee and extended her right hand across the table to Lucy. “You need to help our kid stay on the right path.” She nodded in Alex’s direction. “I don’t want to hear another mention of bloody Florida or leaving writing behind.”
Alex half-frowned. “Joan…”
“You’re a clever girl, and you come from strong Manchester stock,” said Joan.
“She’s right. Theatre’s in your blood,” said Lucy.
Alex bit her cheek just as Helen and Michael brought in a chocolate cake decorated with swirls of fudge icing, and a carton of vanilla ice cream.
“Sure your birthday was in July, but we couldn’t let you head back home to London without cake and candles.” Helen’s eyes beckoned. “Make a wish.”
Joan winked across the table at Alex.
• • •
The end credits rolled on Alex’s third episode of Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norell. Three hours down, only two more to go until the bus arrived in London at five past nine. Her stomach snarled. She paused her iPad and lifted her laptop bag off the floor. Rustling around for her two packets of chocolate buttons lost inside, a folded piece of paper sliced her finger. She winced at the cut and pulled the prime suspect out of her bag—the folded cheque from her dad.
Studying the handwritten amount, Alex wasn’t sure the cheque would stretch as far as her dad had hoped. At best, it would cover a deposit and maybe three months’ rent. If she was searching in Manchester, she’d be okay—but London’s rents were comparatively sky-high.
She traced his firmly crossed Ts and tilted consonants, each letter pressed further into the paper, each more determined than the previous one. His writing, his words—urging her to stick with it…
‘Once you get out of that flat, away from that horrible girl, I think you’ll see things more clearly’…
Maybe he was right. She had allowed Olivia’s taunts and threats to grind her down, to poison her self-confidence. A bully. That’s all she was. Olivia didn’t hold the key to Alex’s future.
A few months ago, quitting wasn’t an option. Why should it be now? She owed it to her dad and Joan to try again. More than that, she owed it to herself.
Lucy and Freddie had tried all along to keep her on course—protective, supportive, always in her corner. Eyes closed beside her, Lucy’s head bumped lightly against the window, her headphones emitting Sam Smith. Freddie’s loud snores punctuated the air from two seats away, his long legs bobbing up and down in the aisle whenever a wheel hit a bump on the motorway. Alex’s heart warmed at the sight of her two dear friends. Even if her dream career seemed out of reach, she had already won the lottery with these two.
A vibration buzzed Lucy’s jacket pocket, interrupting her musical interlude. Her lids crept open. She yanked the headphone cord, spilling her phone onto her lap, the screen’s glow illuminating her face.
“What?!” she screeched.
She thrust her phone in Alex’s face.
“Look!”
‘Lucy. Good news—We rocked the Cornwall cheese festival. An A and R guy from Norway signed us to his label. Bad news—we’re moving to Oslo in two weeks. Sorry to leave you in the lurch with the rent. Love and rainbows, Clem and Jasper’
Lucy beamed. “Cider with Rosie is leaving London!” She smothered Alex in a hug. “Hear that sound? That’s your cell door opening. You’re free!”
Twenty-Four
Harry shrugged. “Who knew Scandinavians loved British folk music so much?”
Alex stifled the cheek-pinching grin that was threatening to overtake her face. A new sense of control electrified her. No more sitting back, allowing Olivia to derail her future—moving out, escaping her venom—just the start.
She wheeled her two overstuffed suitcases out of Harry’s flat and into the hall where they joined her bulging backpack. Her laptop bag waited for her inside the lounge, basking in a mid-September sunbeam.
Harry scratched at his temple. “But living in a camper van in the middle of a Norwegian winter…”
Olivia, still wrapped in her silk dressing gown, hovered behind her boyfriend, a steaming coffee and the Saturday paper in her grasp. She glared at Alex over Harry’s shoulder.
Alex bounced back into the flat and adjusted her Batman baseball cap with a snap of her wrist. “I know, right? They told Lucy living simply would feed their creative juices; make their music more grounded or earthy or…something. When the spring festival circuit starts, they’ll be ready to roll. Literally.”
