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Chapter Twelve
It wasWednesday and she’d been good.
Her phone was—for the most part—secreted in a spot right up high where they kept the stationery, which meant she couldn’t keep flicking a look at it. Alice allowed herself to check it at coffee time. Nothing. Lunch time. Still nothing. And then refused to look until she was locking up the shop each day.
Nothing.
It helped considerably thinking about her imaginary dad. All those things he’d been through. It pegged up her spine and put vim and vigour into her interactions with customers.
She was the result of good strong stock. Yorkshire miners—on Mum’s side—who’d made good and, well, who’d have known it—Scottish aristocracy. So poo to Aaron and his English and Dutch origins and the smidgin of Italian on his mum’s side, three generations back. By the middle of the week, however, the imaginary dad story was getting a little threadbare and her edges were fraying. So, a frisson of illicit excitement had shot through her when she’d heard her phone ring that afternoon.
It was Andrea. Alice had always loved Andrea. She was the kind of woman who should probably have been a saint. Saint Andrea. Kind, even-tempered, unconditionally giving. If she had ups and downs they never showed, or got mixed into her cakes and savoury dishes along with weird and wonderful ingredients like five spice or cacao.
Alice had often gone around to the Blake family home when she first knew Aaron and he was still living at his dad’s, but since he’d bought his own apartment it was rarer—the odd family dinner or when Aaron and she swung by after a Sunday brunch together. She and Andrea hadn’t actually seen each other—if you didn’t count the sighting over the heads of the crowds and the soggy biscotti incident—for months.
She answered with slightly shaking fingers.
“Alice?” Andrea’s soft voice always had a breathless quality to it.
“Hi, Andrea, how are you?”
“Good, good. How are you? I spotted you at Oliver’s talk with Aaron but by the time I’d extricated myself to come and see you, you’d both left.”
Had Andrea seen Aaron’s arm around her, Alice wondered? Yes, she had. Because Oliver in his wisdom had pointed it out. But Andrea was too tactful to dig around.
“I’m calling to invite you to tea on Sunday,” Andrea said. “I want your opinion on a couple of cake recipes I’m trying out for Gran’s birthday party. The family will be there, David and Oliver and hopefully Aaron, but not Gran, because obviously I want it to be a surprise.”
“How lovely.” Alice tried to sound calm. “How old is Gran now?”
“Turning ninety. Can you believe it?”
Gran was Aaron’s mum’s mum. It was lovely that Andrea had become almost as close to her as a real daughter. Another tribute to Andrea’s sainthood and Gran being pretty much the sweetest person to walk the earth after Andrea.
“I’d love to,” Alice said enthusiastically. Who cared if Aaron was there or not? She was doing this for Andrea. And Gran. A celebration of three generations of women.
The next day Alice was going through a consignment of books, trying to work out how many to give a credit note for, when her phone trilled in her handbag. She’d forgotten her rule and had left it under the counter. She hesitated, then grabbed it. A little breath punched out of her lungs when she saw Aaron’s name on the screen.
“Hisweetie, how are you?” Aaron’s voice had the I’m-with-the-partners ring to it.
It was tempting to hang up on him. She held the phone away from her ear as he blabbed on about some drinks thing it was a pity she couldn’t make it to, which made her want to stab him in the ear with a virtual needle.
“I can’t talk now, I’ve got a customer,” she snapped. The shop was full of browsers, but that did not constitute buying, of course. Sometimes she’d have to go and stand near one of them and pretend she was sorting books to stop them reading a whole novel. The record was two hours and thirty-three minutes forHarry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone.
She should be tougher. Rowena always shooed them out or made them buy. Well, she was practising her shooing skills on Aaron now, wasn’t she?
“Wait.” His voice changed; he’d obviously moved away from the group, though she could hear droning conversation and the odd burst of laughter. “Are you going to Dad and Andrea’s on Sunday afternoon for tea?”
“I may be,” she hedged.
“Andrea wants you to taste her new cake recipes.”
“I know, she phoned me. That’s why I’m going. Obviously.” She tried to drip icicles down the line.
It seemed to work as he said awkwardly, “Okay. Well I guess I’ll see you there if I can spare the time. I’m up to my freakin’ eyeballs with work here. Huge case getting ready to go to court next week. Don’t think I’ve slept all week.”
She nearly broke her phone case squeezing it to stop herself making sympathetic noises.
“Okay, well, I’d better go. Catch you—maybe—Sunday then,” she said briskly.
