“Al, don’t be such an ass,” Gretchen said dismissively. “Running sucks. Come and have a coffee and some cake instead. I’m meeting my brother in a bit and I want you to come too so you can talk to him about his contacts. It’s only taken four months for me to set it up, but your patience, my darling, has paid off.”
“Finally,” I said, “because it’s been a real hardship having to be friends with you in the meantime …”
She laughed. “I know, I’m crap. Sorry. Still, better late than never.”
“Gretch,” I yawned, “I’ll happily come and have coffee with you because it’ll be fun to finally meet your brother, not for any other reason. D’you want to come into town with me afterwards? I’ve got something to pick up.”
“A fun something or a boring camera something?” she asked suspiciously.
I laughed. “A camera something, but we can have a poke around some nice shops too if you like?”
“OK,” she said happily. “Sounds fun. I’m hooking up with Bailey at about half twelve, does that give you enough time?”
Actually, if it hadn’t been for my mother ringing and making me late because she was ranting on about how Frances had taken a family-run dry cleaner to the small claims court over a rip on the hem of her wedding dress, which was very embarrassing because the dry-cleaner lady was in her slimming group on a Tuesday night and would I ring Fran to try and talk sense into her?, I’d have been slightly early.
As it was, I emerged bang on time from the tube to make my way to the address Gretchen had given me. Pale sunshine was trying to break through indecisive clouds as the shop fronts I passed started to become smaller but more enticingly expensive. They all had glossy, confidently painted names and weren’t selling things you’d need, but things you’d want: handmade chocolates, hats, silky-rich bottles of wine, contemporary jewelry … It was one of those pockets of London that inhabitants claim feels cozy and village-like, but everyone reads about in the society pages of newspaper supplement magazines.
I wasn’t feeling very cozy in the soggy, cold ballet pumps that had proven far from ideal footwear for the flash of rain I’d got caught in my side of the underground. I’d been aiming for a whole “Springtime in Paris” look, but was actually freezing in my silly thin jacket. All in all, it was a relief to arrive at the café, although I had to have a brief tussle with the stiff door, which seemed to have swollen in the damp air. I burst in with more energy than I’d intended to.
The intoxicating smell of roasted coffee wrapped warmly around me. Caffeine-fueled customers were busily peering at papers over piled plates of food, as hot, harassed waitresses tried to seat newcomers while balancing full trays of tipping and slipping cappuccinos. I scanned the room and saw Gretchen waving frantically at the back.
She was wearing worn, artfully faded, stompy leather boots on bare, smooth brown legs and a sort of cotton, cream, ethnic-looking tunic thing under an oversized chunky knit cardigan that looked like it was about to slip off her slim shoulders. A long string of brightly colored beads dangled around her neck and tangled with her loose hair. She had her hands wrapped tightly around a steaming mug of coffee and looked delighted to see me. As ever, both men and women were trying not to stare at her, but if she was aware, she didn’t let on.
She set her coffee down unsteadily as she jumped up and wrapped me in an impulsive, enthusiastic hug. “Hello!” she said. “Perfect timing, I was just about to succumb and order one of those incredible-looking almond croissants. Have you even seen the cakes over there?” She pointed and I looked over, curious. She was right, they looked amazing. Big, sugary wheels of glossed, flaky pastries, fatly snug blobs of cream bursting out of choux buns, delicate cupcakes adorned with cherries and angelica.
I sat down opposite her, facing the door, and commented, “You’re very bouncy today. Have you had good news about that American ice-dance thing?”
“Nooooo.” She pulled a face. “Still nothing. I got asked to do a guest spot on
Good Haunting
yesterday though.”
“Oh. Did you say yes?”
“What, so I can stand in some dark, tumbledown shack in the back end of beyond with a crew filming in infrared while their “expert” deliberately throws himself over a table and then claims a ghost attacked him?” She raised an eyebrow. “It’s not come to that yet—although no one told me the switch between kids to adults would be this hard. Anyway, what do you want to drink and eat?”
“Shouldn’t we wait for your brother?” I said.
She waved a hand dismissively. “He’s already here, he’s in the bog. Oh hang on—talk of the devil.” She looked over my shoulder and grinned. “Bay, this is my friend Alice, the one I’ve nagged you about. Alice, this is my brother Bailey.”
I turned and saw a tall man standing to my right, smiling a friendly smile. He had scruffy, sandy-colored hair that was drifting into sleepy, green eyes. In fact he looked as if he’d just woken up and tumbled out of bed. He was wearing a white T-shirt with a very faded image of a wave on it and, when he extended his hand, I saw a pale scar running the length of his tanned forearm, which I imagined he’d got from rock climbing, white-water rafting or something equally as adrenaline junkie-fied—he looked the type. He saw me looking at his scar. “Gretchen pushed me off a Space Hopper because I wouldn’t let her have a go,” he confided. “I cut it open when I fell.” Which wasn’t quite what I was expecting. Then he yawned and stretched like a cat.
“Ouch,” I said, embarrassed to have been caught staring. “It must have been really deep—how old were you?”
“Twenty-six,” he grinned disconcertingly. “Nice to meet you, Alice, excuse my impolite yawn.” He leaned over the table and kissed me briefly, stubble grazing my cheek as I caught a brief tang of expensive-smelling aftershave. “I’m a bit jet lagged.”
“Just ignore him, Al,” said Gretchen. “Sit down and stop showing off, Bay.”
Bailey threw his arms open in easy protest as he scooched his chair around and asked, “So Grot tells me you’re a photographer?” He reached across Gretchen and grabbed her coffee. “Nice of you to wait for me and Alice,” he said pointedly. “Rude.” He set the cup back down again, his eyes flickering interestedly back on to me for a moment and then moving away just as quickly. “Ah, is that our waiter?” He looked over my shoulder.
“Can you not call me that?” Gretchen sighed. “What with me not being six anymore? You were in the loo for ages, I thought you’d fallen in. I’ll get someone to come over now. Hang on.”
She stood up abruptly and walked to the front of the café. A waiter looked up appreciatively as she approached, along with the entire table he was serving. I watched as one of the girls at the table covered her mouth and whispered something to her friend. The friend then stared unabashed at Gretchen, her eyes widening as she recognized her, and whispered delightedly back. I was beginning to get more used to people openly talking about Gretch as if she wasn’t there, but hadn’t got to the stage where I could completely ignore it—like Gretchen herself.
“Shit, isn’t it?” Bailey said, following my gaze. “Thank God she’s not Tom Cruise famous. I don’t know how it doesn’t bother her, but she claims it doesn’t. The first time I read some of the online comments people had made about her, people who have never even met her, I just wanted to track them all down and beat them to a fucking pulp, the bastards. You know it’s the women that write the most vitriolic things? Whatever happened to sisterhood?”
I shrugged and smiled in what I hoped was an enigmatic way, because I couldn’t think of anything clever or insightful in response to that.
“I think you chose the right side of the camera,” he said lightly. “So what sort of stuff do you do?”
“At the moment?” I cleared my throat. “Pretty much everything: products, people, locations. I used to work for a large studio but I’ve recently gone out on my own.”
“Hats off to you,” he said. “Is it going well?”
“Pretty well, thank you. Except I keep finding myself saying yes to work I’m not wild about because I’m worried about keeping the cash flow up, but then I don’t have as much time to chase the jobs I really want to do.”
“The travel stuff? Yeah, Gretchen said. Well, I’ll gladly give you some names of editors I write for. How much use they’ll be I couldn’t say, but it’s a toe in the door, isn’t it?”
“Absolutely,” I said gratefully. “That’s very kind of you.”
He shrugged. “Not at all—I’m happy to help out.”
Gretchen reappeared. “He’s coming over in a sec. I really need a wee. I’ll be right back.”
Bailey glanced at her disappearing back. “So how long have you known my sis?”
“Um, about four months-ish?” I watched his long, slender fingers pick up a paper napkin absently and begin to play with the edges. He had surprisingly elegant hands. “We met on a shoot in LA … towards the end of November.”
“Ahh.” He sat back and draped his arm across the top of Gretchen’s empty chair, which made his T-shirt ride up a bit,exposing a strip of flat, brown stomach which he made no effort to hide, and saw me glance at. “Did you go up into the hills? There’s some good hiking up there.”
“It was quite a tight time frame actually,” I said quickly, thinking of us lounging around in the hotel hot tub drinking champagne. “I’ll have to do that next time. I suppose that’s one of the great things about being a travel writer, you must know all the best places to go and things to see?”
“Kind of. It’s just given me an brilliant excuse to explore really.” He smiled and looked directly at me. “It’s such a big, beautiful world out there. If I lived to be a hundred I’d never see everything I want to. I just came back from Tanzania. Have you been to Africa before?”
I nodded. “Not Tanzania though. What’s it like?”
“Incredible. I was up in the mountains for a couple of nights where it was just crystal clear and cold, sat around this camp-fire under the stars, and then the day after we were down in the Ngorongoro crater which is about 10k by 10k, it’s vast, just stuffed full with the most incredible animals—elephants, hippos, lions, you name it … totally wild, just going about their business.”
“Wow,” I said. “You lucky thing.”
“I know!” He shook his head in disbelief. “I was in the back of this safari jeep at five in the morning clutching a pair of binoculars as we bombed around, thinking, “And I’m getting paid for this?” Life is good. I’m a lucky man.” He smiled again and then glanced away from me at an approaching waiter.
I snuck another quick look. I could just see the edges of a tattoo on a very honed arm peeking out from the sleeve of his T-shirt. I wondered if, like Gretchen, he thought his was a mistake—I couldn’t really see what the design was. His arms were really strong. I lifted my gaze and realized he was watching me looking at him.
“You’ve got a very nice bicep—I mean tattoo!” I said, horrified.
Bailey laughed, but before he could say anything in response, the waiter arrived at our table. “Helllllllloooooo!” he said in a very heavy accent I couldn’t place, pen poised. “And what are we eating today?”
I could feel myself getting hot under Bailey’s amused gaze. “I’ll have a coffee and a shovel, please,” I said. “I’d like to dig myself a hole and this isn’t quite up to the job.” I picked up Gretchen’s teaspoon and held it up to the puzzled waiter. Bailey smiled.
“OK.” The waiter was clearly confused. “You want haf a bigger spoon?” He spoke so fast I could barely understand him.
“No, no. I was saying I needed a different … spoon.”
“This spoon is dirty?” the waiter exclaimed, mortified. He grabbed the offending item from my hand suspiciously, holding it up to the light. “Madam! I am so sorry!”
“She meant she needed another spoon,” Bailey explained and pointed to the one the waiter was still holding. “That one was not enough.”
“Ahh!” The waiter said, brightening. “I understand. I will do it now. Coffee for you as well, sir?” Bailey gave a thumbs-up and the waiter scribbled on his pad. “And for food, madam?”
“Just a muffin, thanks.”
He nodded. “Chuckle a sheep or plan?”
I stared at him blankly. “I’m sorry?”
“Chuckle a sheep or plan?” he repeated.
Bailey leaned in toward me. “Chocolate chip or plain?” he whispered helpfully.
“Ah!” I grinned as the penny dropped. “Sorry! Plain, please!”
Once the waiter had left, we sat there in silence for a moment. “It’s unfortunate really,” I said eventually, “that my initial joke wasn’t even that funny in the first place—it certainly didn’t stand up to that much scrutiny.”
Bailey nodded. “I know, I felt bad for you. Even the poor spoon was embarrassed.”
“Oh come on!” I laughed. “It wasn’t that bad.”
He stared at me again. “You have a really lovely smile,” he said. “Ah ha! Here’s the coffee already! Wow, that was quick! Thank you!” He moved Gretchen’s cup so the waiter could proudly set down our order as I sat there wondering if I’d just heard him right.
My coffee was accompanied by two teaspoons balanced on the saucer and a completely random blueberry muffin. Gretchen returned a second later to find us laughing.
“What’s so funny?” she asked.
“Oh, nothing,” Bailey waved a hand dismissively. “It was some complex cutlery comedy. Too highbrow for the likes of you.”
“Tell me!” she insisted. “I hate being left out.”
“Honestly Gretch, it really was a crap joke,” I said apologetically.
“Please don’t make her repeat it,” Bailey shook his head. “It stank.”
“Oh come on!” I said, pretending to be outraged. “It was no worse than your ‘I was twenty-six ah ha ha’ remark.”
“You laughed at that!”
“I was being polite!”
Gretchen looked from one to the other of us, rubbed her nose rather loftily and said, “Sounds hilarious. I guess you had to be there.”
Bailey chuckled. “Oh don’t go getting all huffy, just because it doesn’t concern you. If you really want to know, it was about a spoon and—”
“I’m not bothered really,” she interrupted dismissively. “In fact, you can fork off.”
I groaned and Bailey laughed.
“Now we’re done with the cutlery jokes,” she finished smugly and took a satisfied sip of her coffee.