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It was almost midnight when someone suggested they brought the evening to a close, a suggestion swiftly followed by a vociferous, and unanimous, demand that the book club be repeated the following month. Miranda, whose cheeks were glowing from all the martinis she’d imbibed, was only too happy to oblige, on the strict understanding that next time tea and coffee would be served as she didn’t want Denise to come back to a bankrupt bookshop.
Miranda closed the door after a chorus of noisy farewells, and when she turned round she was clearly surprised to see that Katerina, Heidi, and Suzie were still there, collecting glasses, stacking chairs, and returning abandoned books to their rightful places until they had erased all evidence of that night’s book club-cum-cocktail party so that Miranda could safely open the store to the paying public the following day.
‘Would anyone like a coffee before they head home?’ asked Miranda.
‘Yes, please,’ said Katerina, never one to turn down an offer of her favourite caffeine fix.
‘Heidi?’
‘I think I’d better just have a glass of water.’
Despite smudges of tiredness, Heidi’s eyes sparkled with happiness at what had been a successful delivery of her newest enterprise. All evening long, the booklovers of Santorini had showered her with praise for her inventiveness and obvious talent for mixing the perfect ingredients to create their literary cocktails.
‘What can I get you, Suzie?’
‘Do you have chamomile tea?’
‘Coming right up.’
Five minutes later, Suzie was sitting at the ancient table-cum-cocktail bar, sipping her drink and marvelling at the miniature cathedral of books that surrounded her. A peaceful contentment descended as the tea began to chase away the fuzziness that had taken up residence in her brain after the unaccustomed indulgence in alcohol.
‘This is an amazing place,’ she murmured, lacing her fingers around her mug and hugging it to her chest. ‘My friend Beckie would love it here. She adores books, but she especially likes to read autobiographies written by people who’ve gone on amazing adventures, like climbing Mount Kilimanjaro, or walking the Appalachian Trail, or cycling the length of Australia, or sailing singlehandedly across the Atlantic.’
‘I’d love to do something like that,’ said Miranda, a wistful tone in her voice.
Heidi laughed. ‘What? Climb Mount Kilimanjaro?’
‘Not that specifically, but go on an adventure, yes. The most exciting thing I’ve done is a sponsored canoe race across Lake Windermere when the twins were eleven, which is not the same as rowing the Atlantic.’
Miranda fiddled distractedly with the chain around her neck and for the first time Suzie noticed the white mark around the third finger of her left hand, where there had obviously once been a wedding band.
‘You know, when I was young, I planned to do lots of exciting things, like abseiling from the Sydney Harbour Bridge, or zip-lining across Penrhyn Quarry, or hiking up Mount Fuji, but I never got to do any of them. I never got to be Miranda Kennedy, intrepid explorer of far-flung locations. Before I realised what was happening, I was Miranda Parker; loyal wife, doting mother, supportive sister, caring daughter, and friendly colleague.’
Miranda sighed, swallowing down hard on her rising emotions.
‘And now, now that Joe and Jessica are settled at university, pursuing their own dreams… well, it turns out that my husband – who I thought might want to join me on an expedition or two – has already been enjoying his ownadventurewith Bella Bertram from the golf club, and I’m left wondering where all the time has gone.’
A few seconds of silence ticked by until Miranda looked up from where she’d been twiddling her glasses, an expression of shock flitting across her face when she realised that she had spoken her last sentence out loud instead of to herself. Her cheeks coloured and she quickly forced a smile onto her lips.
‘That’s why I’m here. Denise all-but pressganged me into coming, saying that it was time I had my own adventure. But while I love working in the bookshop and I’ve had fun at the book club this evening, it’s not exactly what I thought my Big Fat Adventure of a Lifetime would look like.’
‘Whatdoesit look like?’ asked Katerina.
‘Well… don’t laugh, but I always wanted to learn how to dance. All the classics – the waltz, the foxtrot, the quickstep – but also the flamenco, the tango, the samba, the pasodoble… And then, once I got the hang of the basics, I wanted to fly off to the countries where those dances originated. So, dance the Viennese Waltz in Vienna, the flamenco in Andalusia, the tango in Argentina, the samba in Brazil, in full authentic costume and to live local music.’
‘Then why don’t you do that?’
‘Maybe I will, one day,’ said Miranda, but without any real conviction. ‘What about you, Suzie?’
Still suffused with the mellowness that Heidi’s cocktails and the calming effect of the chamomile tea had engendered, Suzie was startled when she heard Miranda say her name.
‘Sorry?’
‘Do you have a dream you want to fulfil?’
‘I…’
In her state of complete relaxation, and alcohol-induced repose, she wondered briefly if she could prize open the tightly sealed lid on her deep-seated anxieties and share some of her story with these wonderful women. Could she tell them that she was fortunate enough to have been able to pursue her dreams twice, but that each time her carefully laid plans had imploded spectacularly, first in London and then in Blossomwood Bay, and that now she was terrified to poke her nose above the parapet for fear of inviting further wrath from the director of her fate, or from the tabloid press?
