Dream a Little Dream (6 page)

‘There will be no guaranteed pay cheque at the end of the month. Nobody to do your work when you’re away. Bank holidays might be a thing of the past. Whatever your business is, you have to make that product or service sell, collect the money and do all the paperwork.’

He grinned. ‘But I like a challenge. I’m sure I can make a business work – it’s just a case of finding the right business.’

Liza had agreed to meet Rochelle and Angie in Peterborough at a wine bar on Friday evening.

‘I know that pubs are in your comfort zone, but they’re too weekday,’ Rochelle had pre-empted her protests. ‘Friday counts as the weekend. It’s only Ruby’s on Thorpe Road. That’s not even properly in the city, Liza, and it does food so it’s not binge drinky. Don’t worry – we won’t make you enjoy yourself too much.’

At least Liza knew where there was parking on Thorpe Road. And it was good to wear something other than her uniform or jeans, even if she’d gone for a cover-up, but mildly sexy, option of musketeer boots with silky leggings and a floaty blue-checked overshirt with a waterfall hem that swished around her hips. She’d even had time to apply lilac smiley transfers to her nails.

And when she burst in from the cold, Rochelle and Angie were waiting on chrome-back, tall stools with an air of expectation; their hems high and their necklines low.

‘Here’s Liza. Whoop! Squee!’ Angie sometimes talked like a Twitter update. She waved at the stubbly young barman. ‘What are you having, Liza?’ All in white, except for a green tartan bow tie, the barman hovered for Liza’s reply.

‘I’ll have a sparkling mineral water, please.’

‘No, she won’t, she’ll have a little pinot,’ Angie said to the barman.

Rochelle snorted. ‘Don’t say things like “little pinot” to a man, Ange. You’ll give him a complex.’ She exaggerated the two syllables,
pee-noh
, and giggled.

Angie began to giggle, too. ‘OK, she’d like a large pinot, then.’

‘Fizzy water,’ Liza repeated to the barman, who had the hunted look of a man being teased by politically incorrect women.

By then, Rochelle had grabbed the wine list. ‘Look! A
big pink
pinot! We’ll have that.’

‘Yeah, quality
and
quantity!’

The barman’s colour heightened. Liza took pity on him. ‘They mean that they’d like a bottle of pinot grigio frizzante blush, please.’

Rochelle leaned off her stool to plant a kiss on Liza’s cheek. ‘Spoilsport,’ she said as he busied himself with selecting the bottle of pale pink wine from the chiller, polishing three flutes and standing them on the bar.

Angie snatched one up. ‘Wow, you’re only going to be able to put a really tiny pinot in there, aren’t you?’ Without answering, the barman flourished his cloth and popped the cork, splashing a taster into her glass. Angie downed it and motioned him to splash more. ‘Fantastic. It’s pretty and it matches my outfit.’ She sat up to give him a view of her pink crocheted dress and the body it took three gym sessions a week to maintain. Then, when he stood the frizzante in a wine cooler, looking more embarrassed than enticed, she sighed and turned to Liza. ‘C’mon, Lize. Just half a glass.’

‘Water, thanks.’ Liza smiled at the barman, who smiled back, probably in relief that she wasn’t intent on teasing him for entertainment.

Rochelle rolled her eyes, outlined with jade green eyeliner and gold shadow, and snatched up a menu from the bar. ‘I hope you haven’t gone all boring with food, too? Because we’re doing desserts.’

‘Excellent! What do they have that’s chocolate?’ Liza grabbed the menu to dispel the impression that a ‘wet blanket’ sign flashed above her head. Doing desserts with Angie and Rochelle was harmless. If you considered subjecting your body to an entire meal of sugar did no harm.

Rochelle and Angie emptied and replenished their glasses with automatic efficiency as they pored over their menus, never allowing more than an inch of frizzante in their glasses, so as to retain the chill. Rochelle was the first to announce her decision. ‘I’ll do tiramisu for my starter, something more substantial – yes, a crumble – for main course, and a nice chocolate mousse for dessert.’

‘I’ll start light, with champagne sorbet, then New Yorker cheesecake, finishing with …’ Angie’s eyes ran up and down the list, ‘… chocolate indulgence.’

‘Pig,’ said Rochelle, admiringly. ‘C’mon, Lize. I’m hungry; choose, so we can order.’

‘I’ll give the starter a miss—’ the others groaned at her lack of commitment

– ‘and go straight for chocolate melt-in-the-middle pud with chocolate ice cream, then pot au chocolat.’

‘OK.’ Rochelle was grudging. ‘But we’ll have after-dinner mints between courses, as
amuse bouche
.’ She beckoned the barman with a slow smile. ‘We’re ready to go through.’

‘I’ll show you to your table.’ The barman looked relieved to be getting rid of them.

The dining area was impressively done out. Polished black marble gleamed against ruby red carpet and snowy white tablecloths. Benefitting from enthusiastic promo in the local press aimed at those who loved to be first to try somewhere new, it was also impressively full. The barman passed them and the remains of their wine to a waiter, who, as Rochelle explained their liking for large pink pinot and Angie chimed in with the wine/dress co-ordination factor, seated them towards the back of the room, next to a long table of partying women under a golden foil banner saying
50 Today!

Around them, heads turned as the waiter pulled out chairs and flourished napkins. ‘I’m Darren, and it must be my lucky night because I’ll be looking after you.’ His uniform included a long white apron secured by an incongruous tartan cummerbund to go with the tartan bow tie. His gaze snagged on Liza and he paused to let her register his appreciation. ‘Good evening.’ He had the golden skin and bottomless dark eyes of a Mediterranean ancestry.

Liza felt the old Liza flicker inside her; pre-Adam Liza, hanging out with Rochelle and Angie and flirting with hot men. She smiled. ‘How good?’

His voice dropped. ‘Getting better by the moment.’ Producing menus from the oversized front pocket of his apron, he began, ‘Here are your menus, ladies—’

Angie beamed at him. ‘We’ve chosen. We’re doing desserts.’

He paused.

‘Dessert for starter, dessert for main course and dessert for dessert,’ explained Rochelle, raising her voice over a burst of laughter from the fiftieth birthday party. ‘And we’re ready to order.’

Darren produced a pad. ‘Fabulous idea! Can’t think why more people don’t do it.’ And, when Liza only ordered two desserts to the others’ three, ‘A lightweight! You really don’t need to watch your figure, you know.’

Liza let her smile tell him that, actually, she did know. But she appreciated the validation. Yes … she was beginning to get in the swing of the evening.

The first desserts arrived quickly and Liza picked and stole from the others to cries of, ‘Hey! Get your own!’, until her own ‘main’ dessert, chocolate melt in the middle, complete with chocolate sauce and chocolate ice cream, arrived on white porcelain in Darren’s lean brown hands. ‘
Mm
.’ She dug into moist sponge and set free a river of melted chocolate. ‘
Mm-mm
.’

Darren paused in whisking past to dip his head close to Liza’s and, under cover of the noisy birthday bash, murmured, ‘Very
When Harry Met Sally
.’

Liza laughed and watched him hurry away, letting herself notice the width of his shoulders and the neatness of his behind. An inch of pinot blush had somehow appeared in her glass in front of her. It was tempting. A couple of mouthfuls surely wouldn’t hurt—

But as she picked up the glass, cool between her fingers, the hubbub from the fiftieth birthday party table died. It was almost as if her ears had popped.

And Rochelle and Angie stopped eating, spoons poised, staring at a spot above Liza’s head.

‘What?’ Like a child left alone with bedroom monsters, Liza didn’t want to turn and look.

‘Hello, Liza.’

Her glass clunked down.

The voice was syrupy with meaning. ‘Looks like you’re having your usual good time – drinking. Flirting with waiters.’

Somehow, Liza forced herself to face the monster: a tall woman with corned-beef cheeks and a hair colour at least two shades too dark for her skin. ‘Ursula,’ she managed, dry mouthed under Ursula’s flinty stare. ‘How are you?’

Ursula smiled tightly. ‘Oh. You know. Managing.’

Behind, the entire fiftieth birthday party, of which Ursula was, presumably, a part, craned closer. Liza’s heart flopped like a fish as she wondered frantically whether she should ask about Adam.

At her silence, Ursula began to back away. ‘Have a lovely time. I know you know how to party.’

She returned to her own table. The conversation in the room picked up to replace the buzzing in Liza’s ears. Boiling with mortification, repelled, now, at the mere thought of the delicate pink fizz in front of her, she poured iced water from the jug in the centre of the table, the lip chattering against the glass.

Rochelle slipped a consoling arm around her. ‘Ignore the witchy old bitch,’ she hissed. ‘It wasn’t your fault.’

‘Don’t think she’d agree.’ Liza tried to laugh but the evening had been poisoned. Butterflies were aflutter in her stomach, and even they felt sick. Jerkily, she pushed away her plate, fumbled for her purse and dragged out a couple of notes to throw on the table. She couldn’t look at her friends, knew she’d read sympathy beneath the meticulous make-up, mingled with exasperation that Liza had let Ursula get to her. ‘Sorry,’ she mumbled.

‘Oh
Liza—
!’

Hurrying back to the car along damp pavements, she selected
Cleo
on her phone. When her sister answered, she made her voice as light as marshmallow. ‘Hi! Just had a brainwave – I’m not tired and you and Justin are so sleep deprived you’re like sleepwalkers. I’ll look after Gus for a couple of hours while you have an early night, because it’s my Saturday off, tomorrow.’

‘Sleep would be bliss,’ Cleo acknowledged, slowly.

‘I’ve got your spare key.’ Liza checked for traffic and crossed a side street. ‘So you could even leave a bottle of milk in the fridge and go straight to bed and get a head start. I’ll let myself in and be there when Gus wakes.’

But, half an hour later, when Liza turned the key quietly and crept into Cleo’s house in Port Road, she found Cleo curled up on the sofa in her silent house, waiting like a parent for a child who’d missed curfew. She uncurled, climbing to her feet as Liza tiptoed in. Her dark hair was messy and her eyes were weary, but she smiled. ‘I’ve sent Justin up to bed and I’ll bring Gus down here to you in his Moses basket when I go up. What’s the matter?’

Liza opened her mouth to chirp, ‘Nothing!’ But the word lodged, quivering, in her throat.

Cleo opened her arms and dragged her in. ‘What?’

‘I saw Ursula—’ She gulped.

Cleo pulled her down onto the huge sofa, nestling her cheek against Liza’s hair. It felt warm and safe. ‘It wasn’t your fault. It really, really wasn’t your fault. It was horrible, but you’ve got to let it go. We all want the old Liza back. This new Liza you’re pretending to be, who never has a drink or goes out with a man, she’s a stranger.’

Liza let herself cling, comforted by knowing she could say anything, anything, to Cleo, who would never fail in her big-sisterly duties. ‘I’m still me,’ she protested, swallowing so hard it hurt, ‘but I just can’t bear to be the pre-Adam clubbing and drinking Liza. That was then.’ She nestled her head more comfortably into the hollow of Cleo’s shoulder, being careful where she put her weight out of respect for a breastfeeding mum. ‘You wouldn’t believe what happened at the centre. Nicolas tried to get me out.’ She reeled off the whole sorry story.

Cleo’s arms tightened. ‘Is this how you distract yourself from the Adam situation? Worry about your business going down the drain, instead?’

Liza managed a laugh. ‘It’s not a planned strategy. But I’ve got to find a way of changing my life.’ She stopped. Slowly, she pulled away, until she could see into her sister’s face, struck by an idea so clear and fine and obvious that she couldn’t believe it hadn’t come to her before. ‘We could try and get Nicolas out,’ she whispered. ‘Wow, Cleo, why didn’t I think of it? I’ll talk to Fenella and Imogen. But it’s a no-brainer! If Nicolas can’t keep the centre going, we’ll take over the lease – then we can bring in whatever business we want and he won’t be draining it like a vampire.’

Cleo seemed to be having no trouble keeping her excitement under control. ‘Sounds like a workable solution. If you think you can pull it off.’

Liza tried not to feel hurt. ‘I won’t be “pulling it off”. I’ll be executing a well-thought-out business plan.’

‘Sorry!’ Cleo grinned. ‘If you say you can do it, you can do it. And it’s easier than sorting out your heart, pesky thing.’ She sighed, scooping Liza back into the safe haven of her hug. ‘Lize, you don’t even seem to meet a man you fancy any more. It’s as if you’ve given up.’

‘I haven’t! I’ve just met a man who asked me out, and I liked him.’

Cleo’s voice suddenly rang with pleasure. ‘Great! So you’re seeing him?’

‘Well, no,’ Liza owned. ‘He’s the one I said the bullshit thing to, when Nicolas overheard, the one who looked into investing in the centre but decided against it. I did meet him for a quick meal at The Three Fishes but it was just because he wanted to interrogate me about The Stables. It’s not the beginning of something.’ She refused to indulge herself in speculation about what it would be like if it was. Too dangerous. Too scary. Too tempting.

Cleo shrugged. ‘OK, forget about beginning anything. Just for the emotional exercise, tell me why you like him.’

Liza groaned. ‘You’re using your training techniques to make me think positively, aren’t you?’

‘Yes. Is he attractive?’

‘Awesome,’ Liza answered, honestly. ‘He’s a streaky dirty blond, with spooky light grey eyes and dark lashes. Heartbreaking smile. Single. He’s Miranda Sheldrake’s cousin.’

‘Oh, Miranda told me he was staying with her.’ She paused. ‘He’s got a medical condition, hasn’t he?’

Unexpectedly, Liza found herself being defensive. ‘It’s just a kind of extreme sleeping. It doesn’t affect who he is and he pretty much dares anyone to think that’s all there is to him.’

‘And you like that confidence?’

‘It’s deadly. And he looks at women as if he appreciates them.’ Probably better not to tell Cleo about the shelf-full-of-melons thing. She knew that that hadn’t been the real Dominic Christy.