An Autumn Crush (41 page)

‘What are you doing with your time off then, Gina?’ Guy asked, when the waiter had cleared the plates. He hadn’t bargained for conversation to be this laboured between them.
Gina had turned into a love-struck teenager. Her eyes were almost pumping out cartoon hearts in his direction and it all felt very intense and uncomfortable.

‘Ooh, not much,’ she replied, smiling and sighing again.

He wouldn’t have been surprised if she had spent the time off just practising writing the name ‘Gina Miller’. He couldn’t have imagined she was so enamoured. He felt
dreadfully guilty now that there would be no second date.

‘It’s nice in here, isn’t it?’ asked Guy, looking around because the heat of Gina’s gaze was burning him.

‘We’ll have to come again. My treat next time.’ Gina’s smile was so wide the ends were almost touching at the back of her head.

Guy was stuck how to answer. He couldn’t say yes because that would have been setting her up for more disappointment; he couldn’t say no because that would crush her. He plumped for
needing the loo and excused himself. The mains were on the table when he came back. Guy waited for the inevitable forking-of-food ritual to begin: he didn’t have to wait long.

‘Are you looking forward to your sister’s baby arriving then?’ Gina popped the last of her pâté-stuffed steak into her mouth.

‘Yes, I am, very much,’ replied Guy. ‘I love children.’

‘So do I,’ nodded Gina with great enthusiasm, pleased to have found yet another way in which she and Guy were compatible. She wouldn’t be able to stop herself choosing four
suitable names that went with ‘Miller’ when she got home. Four male and four female just in case they had all boys or all girls.

‘I bet the wedding will be lovely in Alberto’s Inn,’ said Gina, sure that any moment Guy was going to ask her to partner him.

‘I think he’ll do a grand job,’ said Guy, knowing exactly why the wedding subject had been brought up. ‘We’ll all be crammed though. It’s a very tiny
room.’

‘They always seem to be able to squeeze one more in though, don’t they?’ Gina said with a tinkly laugh. ‘I bet it will be lovely and cosy with everyone squashing
up.’

The waiter cleared away the plates and brought dessert menus. Guy stared at his, hoping for a change in subject.

‘Ooh, look at these for two to share!’ Gina shrieked with delight, draining her glass of wine.

‘Not for me.’ Guy patted his stomach. ‘You feel free – I think I’ll just have a coffee. I’m not really a dessert person.’ It was a huge lie. He knew
that if Floz was sitting opposite to him, he would have been the first to suggest a pudding to share.

It was as if a cloud had fallen over Gina’s face. Having so much power over her emotions was a heavy responsibility, one that Guy really didn’t want to shoulder.

Gina ordered a panna cotta whilst the waiter filled up her wine glass. She was full but didn’t want the meal to end.

‘How do you get on with that Floz?’ she asked. The ‘that’ before the name was telling, Guy thought.

‘She’s – she’s a nice person. I don’t really know her that well,’ he said.

‘You’re not setting her on in the restaurant, are you?’

‘Floz?’ he laughed, and Gina saw the genuine warmth in his eyes when he said her name; it pained her. She gulped back her wine. ‘No, she’s a writer.’

‘I’ve never heard of her.’ Gina couldn’t keep the snipe out of her words.

‘Not books – she’s a copywriter for greetings cards,’ he replied, thanking the waiter then for delivering his coffee and Gina’s dessert.

‘She doesn’t like you very much, does she?’ Gina stabbed her spoon into the panna cotta.

‘I don’t know,’ replied Guy, feeling a real moment of
ouch
.

‘All those arty types are strange,’ Gina went on, her tongue loosened by the wine. ‘I went out with a journo once. Writers should only ever go out with other writers,
they’re so strange. Teachers should only go out with teachers, doctors with people in the medical profession and chefs with other chefs. We should stick to our own. Don’t you
think?’

Guy sipped his coffee and shrugged his shoulders by way of an answer. He felt so guilty for thinking it but he couldn’t wait for this date to end. He had been wrong to think that affection
could be forced; chemistry had no master.

Gina had no intention of letting Guy go early though. She ordered a Napoleon coffee and persuaded him to have another espresso to keep her company whilst she was drinking.

‘I can’t wait to get back to work,’ said Gina. ‘I’ve missed being in the kitchen with you so much.’

‘I’ve missed working too,’ said Guy.

‘With me?’

‘Sorry?’ Guy coughed.

‘Have you missed working with
me
?’ Her eyes were bright with tears or booze, he couldn’t tell which.

‘Yes, yes of course,’ Guy said, not returning the love-heart eye stare he knew would be waiting for him if he lifted up his head. He collared a passing waiter and asked for the bill.
He hoped he’d be quick and fished out his credit card in readiness.

‘It’s been lovely, thank you, Guy,’ said Gina softly, moulding herself into another personality, hoping that this one would beat down the walls of his defences. She felt his
distance, knew that this date would not lead to another. This had been a thank-you dinner that she hadn’t managed to convert to a romantic one. She drained the coffee in one, felt the hit of
brandy in her stomach.

‘Thank you for your company, Gina.’

‘I really like you, Guy.’ Gina’s eyes were brimming with water. There was only a direct proposition left to try. She didn’t mind if he used her for a night. Maybe then,
in between her legs, he would find that there was a connection between them.

‘I . . .’ The blessed waiter arrived with the credit-card machine and Guy and the waiter tried to complete the transaction whilst not making mention that Gina was dabbing at her eyes
with the cloth serviette.

Gina’s tears flowed faster, knowing she would not be coming back to this restaurant with Guy or becoming engaged to him. He would not be saying to her, ‘Do you remember our first
date here?’ and on the anniversary of this first date, dropping to his knees and proposing to her. Her future and dreams were pulling away from her, out of her grasp, disappearing into the
distance. She
had
to make him interested. She had loved him for so long. She didn’t know what she would do if he turned her down. They had crossed a barrier that couldn’t be
uncrossed.

She threaded her arm through Guy’s as they walked across the car park, enjoying the fantasy that this was her man. Guy opened the door for her and she climbed into the car as seductively
as she could, flashing a long leg clad in a finely woven stocking, but he didn’t even dip his eyes for a micro-second.

The air in the car on that drive to Gina’s house was so heavy, it needed extra lung-strength to breathe in. Gina sat defeated, fighting back tipsy-tears, half-hating Guy for being so
impervious to her but knowing she was still going to try and seduce him on her doorstep. One ex-boyfriend had told her that her perfume was half Poison, half-desperation.

Guy pulled up outside her house, got out of the car and opened the door for her.

‘Well, thank you for a lovely dinner, Gina.’

She turned big watery eyes up to him. ‘What’s wrong with me, Guy?’

‘Nothing’s wrong with you, Gina. Nothing at all.’

‘Will you stay the night?’

Gulp.

Guy sighed. ‘No, Gina. Thank you, but no.’

She stayed resolutely in the car, sobbing now. ‘Oh no, I’ve ruined everything. I shouldn’t have said that. I like you so much, Guy. Can we go out again, can we start
again?’ Tears were streaming down her face.

Guy knew that being soft now would be cruel, giving her false hope.

‘No, Gina,’ he said, trying to keep all emotion out of his voice. ‘I think that would be the wrong thing to do.’

Gina’s features hardened. ‘Fine!’ Guy tried not to let her hear the sigh of relief as she suddenly propelled herself up and out of the car. ‘Maybe if I was
Floz
with her love-sick eyes, things might be different!’

‘Love-sick? What do you mean?’ said Guy.

‘ “Oh, Guy, I’m trying not to look at you whilst I’m cutting up my carrots all wrong!” ’ scoffed Gina in a puerile baby voice. ‘And you trying not to look at
her in the same way! I won’t be back to work in the restaurant, Guy.’ She walked two wobbly steps forward and dropped her keys on the ground. Guy picked them up for her because she
almost toppled, bending down to retrieve them.

‘Gina, don’t be daft . . .’

She snatched them out of his hands, anger coating her like a suit of armour. Love dictated the rules to people, not the other way round. It would not be swayed by long legs in black stockings
and blue eyes full of devotion. It had laughed at her efforts and chosen a short red-head who couldn’t cut up carrots to be Guy’s object of desire.

‘Thanks, but no thanks,’ she snarled.

And her house door opened and slammed shut so hard it was a wonder the glass panels didn’t shatter.

Two days before her wedding, Juliet lay on the sonographer’s bed shaking with excitement.

The sonographer pulled down Juliet’s trousers a few inches and smeared her tummy with gel.

‘Jesus, that’s cold!’ yelped Juliet.

‘Sorry,’ smiled the woman, taking a seat and lifting up the probe. ‘So, your doctor has sent you up for an early scan. You’re not having any problems, are you?’

‘No, touch wood,’ replied Juliet, ‘but I’m a fifth-generation twin. He said you can tell quite early on if I’m carrying more than one baby.’

‘That’s right,’ said the sonographer, falling silent for a while, moving the probe around Juliet’s fast-growing stomach, studying the screen in front of her, Steve behind
her trying to work out what the moving blobs were.

‘Yep,’ she said eventually and pointed something out to Steve. ‘There you go – twins.’

She twisted the screen around to Juliet, who promptly burst into tears a second behind Steve.

‘You’re expecting sixth-generation twins. Congratulations to you both!’

Floz arrived at the White Wedding boutique a little before Juliet.

‘Good morning,’ said the lovely Freya. ‘Final fittings today. Where’s the bride?’

‘She’s on her way,’ replied Floz. ‘She’s just having a scan today. To see if she is carrying twins.’

‘How lovely,’ said Freya, taking Floz’s beautiful chocolate bridesmaid’s dress out of the plastic case and helping Floz slip into it. It still fitted perfectly.

‘It’s so beautiful,’ said Floz. ‘I would never have thought of having this colour for a bridesmaid.’

‘It suits the season and your colouring so well,’ said Freya. ‘I think one day you’ll be an autumn bride yourself. Autumn is your lucky season, I would have
said.’

‘I wish,’ said Floz quietly. ‘I was a spring bride last time.’

‘I have been a spring bride and an autumn bride,’ said Freya, looking over Floz’s shoulder at her reflection. ‘Autumn was much luckier for me.’

She fitted the pretty headdress of leaves onto Floz’s head.

‘I think I’m only destined to be a bride once,’ sighed Floz. ‘I don’t really have a lot of luck in that area.’

‘My dresses all have a little magic in them for the wearer.’ Freya pulled strands of Floz’s fiery hair, arranging it around the headdress. ‘Maybe you’ll be
surprised. It’s not for you to say that you won’t find love. Love decides whether to make itself available to you or not.’

‘It would be nice if it did,’ said Floz, but not believing for a second that it would hunt her out again.

‘Thanks for coming with me,’ said Steve, pulling up in the car park. Tomorrow he would be coming here for a much happier reason, but today he had a duty he wanted
to perform.

‘Don’t be daft,’ said Guy. ‘Of course I want to be here for you.’

They had just picked up their wedding suits and a large bouquet of pink flowers from the florist next door to the tailor.

‘I wish I could have bought her flowers for her birthday when she was alive,’ said Steve. ‘She didn’t want anything she couldn’t drink.’ He coughed down some
tears that threatened to show themselves, and Guy patted him on the back.

They got out of the car and walked down the church path.

‘You’ll be here tomorrow, wondering what the frig you’ve let yourself in for,’ laughed Guy.

‘I don’t think so,’ smiled Steve. ‘I can’t wait.’

The Reverend ‘Gossip’ was standing at the church door and waved. ‘Hello, Steven, ready for your big day tomorrow?’ he asked.

‘Hello, Rev Glossop,’ said Steve. ‘Just come to put these on my mam’s grave. She’d have been fifty-five today.’ He felt sad at the waste of those years and
all that she should have had to come.

The vicar gave him a comforting pat on the arm. ‘Seems there are a few birthday remembrances today,’ he said. ‘Lady over there, in the children’s graveyard – can
you see?’

Steve saw a blur of a woman in a blue coat in the distance and nodded.

‘She lost three babies at this time of year. All of them stillborn.’

Steve couldn’t imagine how he would feel if a tragedy like that happened to him and Juliet.

‘And the poor lady had an unfortunate series of miscarriages too. Such a tragic story,’ the vicar went on.

‘She didn’t go on to adopt then?’ asked Guy.

‘Her husband . . . well,’ the vicar, gossipy as he was, wondered if he had told too much of the story already and abridged the version, ‘didn’t cope very well with it all
and his business collapsed. They lost everything. So very sad. Such a lovely woman.’ He nodded towards the lady as if sending her his best vibes, then he turned back to Steve. ‘Anyway,
must get on. We shall see you and Juliet tomorrow, Steven.’

‘Aye, see you tomorrow, Rev.’

He and Guy walked on towards Mrs Feast’s grave. Steve had ordered a stone for her, but the ground needed to settle for a few months before it was erected. For now there was just a simple
cross there which he had made from driftword and whittled into it the words
Love you, Mum
. He and Guy bent and ripped out a couple of weeds which had started to poke out of the soil.