The Seafront Tearoom Page 3

  She couldn’t be the one to hurt them all over again. At the same time, she couldn’t undo what had happened in the last couple of weeks, unknow that part of herself, forget how she felt.

  Her actions, however, were another matter—she could still do the right thing.

  England. Until her father brought it up, she’d forgotten how—before that first kiss had knocked the sense out of her—she’d dreamed of moving to England.

  Perhaps going away would make her stronger. Perhaps when she came back, she’d be strong enough to resist.

  She switched her iPad on and typed a word into the search bar: Scarbrah.

  Did you mean Scarborough? the search engine pinged back in response.

  “Yes, I did,” she whispered, frustrated with herself. “Thank you.”

  A photo of a white lighthouse came up on her screen, in front of it the stone statue of a woman poised to dive into the water. Other pictures appeared: one of a harbor, with boats glinting in the sun, another of a miniature railway. She swiped her finger through more images—sandy bays, a castle on top of a hill, shops and cafés. She tried to imagine herself in the seaside town. It looked like a different world. Could she even cope living in someone else’s home?

  The ping of an instant message interrupted her thoughts.

  Salut, ma belle

  She saw the name, and her heart thudded. A smile came to her lips even as she tried to fight the feeling.

  She took a deep breath and closed the chat window. Today would be her new start. Her finger hovered over the icon for a second. No. She wouldn’t.

  She leaned over to her bedside table to get the note that Anna had given her that afternoon. She unfolded it, read the e-mail address and typed it into a new message.

  Dear Adam . . .

  3

  Thursday, August 14

  Brooklyn, New York

  Charlie Harrison leaned against the metal bar at the edge of the rooftop restaurant, looking out at the view, salsa music blaring from the raised speakers around her. The balmy night had brought New Yorkers outside to dine in their droves, and the tables at La Mesita were almost all full. Charlie had been day-dreaming about her trip to see her friend Sarah for weeks, her morning commute on the Piccadilly line drifting away as she read a Time Out guide to the city. At last, she was finally here.

  Sarah appeared at her side with two ice-cold margaritas. “Here you go,” she said, handing one to Charlie before joining her friend in admiring the view. “Beautiful, isn’t it?”

  The lights of Brooklyn Bridge dotted the horizon, reflected in the still waters of the river, and skyscrapers were silhouetted beyond. But it was more than the way the place looked—the city had an energy to it that no postcard or film could ever hope to convey.

  “Yes. Incredible,” Charlie said. She took a sip of her cock-tail, relishing the sharp taste of the lime and tequila as it settled on her taste buds, layers of flavor coming through the citrus. Could have been shaken for a little longer—but it was pretty good.

  Sarah glanced down at Charlie’s hand, which was trembling on her glass. “What’s with the shakes?”

  “Is it that obvious?” she said, putting the glass down and cradling her hand. “Caffeine overdose.” She laughed. “We’re featuring Brooklyn coffee shops in the October edition of the magazine, and with only a couple of days here I had to cram in the cappuccinos today. Good job I’m in the city that never sleeps.”

  “Well, I’m up for an all-nighter if you are,” Sarah said with a smile. She was elegant in a green halter-neck dress, her red hair clipped up at the side. “The two of us have some serious catching up to do, and anyway, I’ve put our names down at a club later.”

  “Great.” Charlie brightened at the thought. “I haven’t been out dancing in ages. I knew I could rely on you.”

  “Yep. Might be past it professionally, but I’ll always be a dancer. It’d take more than a couple of failed auditions to knock that passion out of me.”

  A young Latino waiter appeared by their side. “Señoritas, allow me to see you to your table.”

  He led them to a nearby table and motioned for them to sit down, then placed two menus in front of them. “I’ll be back in a moment to take your order.”

  “Wow!” Charlie said, running her eyes down the menu, her mouth starting to water. “Fish tacos, Oaxacan cheese quesadillas . . . God, I could eat everything on this.”

  Sarah called the waiter over.

  “We’ll have a selection of your starters, a chicken burrito and spicy beef tacos to share,” she said swiftly. “With plenty of guacamole.”

  He looked from Sarah to Charlie, seeking confirmation that she had nothing to add.

  “If we wait for her to decide, we’ll be here all evening,” Sarah told him.

  “Hey, that’s not fair!” Charlie protested.

  “Tell me I haven’t got a point.”

  “OK, OK.” Charlie held her hands in the air, conceding.

  “You’re off duty tonight, remember?” Sarah passed the menus back to the waiter with a smile. “Two cosmopolitans as well. Thanks.”

  “Have you always been this bossy?” Charlie said. She took out her phone and checked it for new messages.

  “Yes, I have. Anyone interesting?” Sarah raised a quizzical eyebrow.

  “Oh, it’s nothing like that.” Charlie smiled and shook her head. “I should be so lucky. My sister’s pregnant again. Due any day.”

  “Again?”

  “Yep. This’ll make three. Another girl this time.”

  “That’s fairly prolific. Are you and Pippa getting on any better these days?”

  “Not really,” Charlie said, with a shrug. “But living in different cities helps. Anyway, let’s not talk about that. Not tonight.” She put her phone away.

  “No family chat. OK. I can do that. So, work’s going well? I hear you’re making quite a name for yourself. ‘The female Jay Rayner’—saw that on Twitter.”

  “Hardly,” Charlie said, wrinkling her nose, but flattered all the same. “But yes, it’s going all right. The canalside dining feature I did brought Indulge a lot of new readers—and the restaurants I featured have been packed out all summer.”

  “That’s fantastic.”

  “Thanks. I’ve been there eight years now. Can you believe it?”

  “That long? I can still remember when you got that editorial assistant job after your internship. You were over the moon. Who’d have thought, you’d soon be Features Editor and reviewing the best restaurants all over the world.”

  “It’s not all glamour.” Charlie smiled. “In spite of the perks, I’ve been feeling a bit stuck in a rut lately. Jess, the editor, has very strong ideas about how she wants the magazine to be, and so I always have to work to her brief.”

  “So what’s next? Are you thinking of moving on?”

  “Hopefully I’ll be able to move up. Jess is leaving in the new year and she’s hinted I’m in with a good chance of taking over as editor. I’ll be guest-editing the winter edition as a trial.”

  “That sounds like a perfect opportunity,” Sarah said. “You’re bound to get it.”

  “I hope so,” Charlie said, excited at the thought. “I’ll need to come up with a strong concept for the issue, but putting it together should be straightforward. I do a lot of the writing and commissioning these days.”

  “I can picture it,” Sarah said. “You were always destined to get to the top.”

  “I don’t know about that,” Charlie laughed. “What about you anyway, how’s the personal training going?”

  “I’m enjoying it,” Sarah said. “A few high-maintenance clients, but most of them are lovely. It pays the bills, and even keeps me in banana pancakes and lattes.”

  “It must be wonderful, living here,” Charlie said enviously. “And it certainly seems to suit
you.”

  Sarah, who’d been a complete tomboy throughout their teenage years, was sleek and glamorous now—her hair color deepened with lowlights, and her summer dress showing off perfectly toned arms. Charlie, in indigo jeans and a strapless black top, felt less polished—but she was comfortable, and the jeans were a wardrobe essential, stretching forgivingly when she put on weight. Her straight blonde hair was loose tonight, brushing her shoulders, and she’d dressed the jeans up with gold wedges.

  “Thank you,” Sarah responded. “It’s my kind of town, that’s for sure. Impossible to get bored.”

  “Do you miss anything about home?”

  “What, like the King’s Head?” Sarah said, recalling their South London local. “Nope, I don’t miss that leg-humping pub dog one little bit.”

  Charlie laughed. “OK, perhaps not that. But surely there must be something?”

  “People, obviously. Family. Living with you.”

  “That’s the answer I was looking for,” Charlie said, smiling.

  “And one other thing . . .”

  “Yes?”

  “A good cup of tea. I mean a seriously good cup of tea. And a proper scone with cream. The food here is incredible, don’t get me wrong—but a good old-fashioned tearoom? They don’t exist.”

  “Do you remember that teashop hidden away behind the train station?”

  “The Rosebud?” Sarah smiled at the memory. “Yes, of course I do. Almost made getting dumped worth it, that cake.”

  In Guerrilla Coffee, the aroma of freshly ground Arabica beans fills the air. While the service is brisk to the point of being offhand, the feisty espressos more than make up for it. A mix of early-to-rise city workers, freelance writers and morning-after clubbers congregate around oak banquettes and sip from steaming hot cups . . .

  Charlie rubbed her eyes as she wrote, her MacBook balanced on the tray table in front of her. She would have given anything to have a hot macchiato about now. She checked the corner of her computer screen, still on UK time—four hours till they touched down, and six more reviews to go. She’d finished writing up her notes on two venues—the boutique dog café and the underground iced-coffee bar—typing as the plane flew over the Atlantic.

  She and Sarah hadn’t got back till the early hours of the morning. They’d gone out in Greenwich Village with a group of Sarah’s friends, partying like old times, dancing on the bar and laughing until their sides hurt. She’d crashed for a couple of hours on the sofa bed in her friend’s loft apartment, then caught a cab directly to the airport. Saying good-bye to Sarah had been bittersweet; they both knew that it would probably be a year or more until they saw each other again. The trip away had been energizing but all too brief, and Charlie was in no hurry to get back. Home meant being reminded of her breakup with Ben.

  Hopefully next year would be better than this one. She thought of the old copy of Say I Do magazine that was on the coffee table in her flat. Planning her wedding to Ben earlier that year, she’d turned the corners of certain pages—a backless dress, a tree-house venue, an arrangement of roses and baby’s breath. She needed to throw that out. Ben was out of her life for good, and she was a different person now. She recalled the day that they’d met, two years ago.

  “You got time to show a new boy the ropes?” Ben had asked in the office canteen.

  “OK,” she answered with a smile. “Can’t have you sitting on your own on your first day, I suppose.”

  “Thank you,” he said, with a mock sigh of relief. “It’s like something out of Mean Girls round here. Look at that lot,” he said, indicating a cluster of immaculately made-up women, and men in dapper clothing, all leaning in toward each other conspiratorially.

  “Cutting Edge Style magazine,” Charlie said. “You should probably steer clear of them.”

  Ben looked down at his outfit—pressed chinos and a blue shirt—and raised an eyebrow. “What are you saying?”

  “No offense, but they’d eat you for breakfast.” She laughed. “You’d be better off sticking to the foodies.” She nodded across the room. “That’s the Savor publicity and marketing team; they’re pretty friendly . . . And Indulge are the best of the lot. The only downside is, there’s no such thing as a quick lunch break: every dish has to be dissected and discussed in minute detail.”

  “God. Pass,” he said. “I know hardly anything about food—apart from that I enjoy it.”

  “How did you end up working here, then?”

  “Shameless nepotism. My brother happens to be married to the sales manager. That and I’ve got a sales background. I’ve never worked for a food magazine before though.”

  “OK, well, seeing as you can’t hold your own yet, I’ll ease you in gently. We can sit next to the girls at Brides magazine—they’re usually too wrapped up in flower concepts to give anyone the third degree.”

  “Not bad-looking either,” he commented, glancing over.

  A stab of jealousy surprised her, and she narrowed her eyes.

  “I’m joking,” he said.

  “Hmmm. Now, be nice to Carol-Anne,” Charlie said, indicating the eldest of the women serving, “and she’ll sort you out with the biggest portions for your whole time here.”

  “Note taken. Let’s get in line, I’m starving.”

  They’d chatted easily that day, and before long they were exchanging e-mails and IMs across the crowded office floor. Ben’s warm humor made even the days leading up to a deadline pleasurable, punctuating her day with laughter and a delicious frisson.

  At the office summer party, they’d ended up kissing in the middle of the dance floor, only to be shamed the following day by an Instagrammed shot of the event circulating around the office. But soon they’d become the darlings of the Indulge office, as close as the magazine got to a power couple. When Ben proposed, Charlie said yes, as everyone expected her to.

  In the weeks that followed, Ben had looked over at the pages of Say I Do magazine as she showed them to him, but always with a noncommittal “hmm” or “yeah, nice.” She should have realized earlier that his heart wasn’t in getting married. But they were Charlie and Ben—the couple everyone wanted to invite to their dinner parties—they were meant to be together. Until one day, they weren’t. And it still stung.

  She had thought she’d be getting married next spring. Now, with the wedding off, she needed to move on in a different way. To prove to herself she was better alone. And of course it wouldn’t hurt if Ben—still working in the same office as her—realized it too.

  “Tea or coffee?” The stewardess’s voice cut into her thoughts.

  She opened her mouth to order the coffee she’d been craving, then—recalling what Sarah had said—changed her mind. “A tea, please.”

  She remembered the Sunday afternoons she and Sarah had spent at the Rosebud, catching up over cups of English breakfast and carrot cake. Everyone treasured a unique café, didn’t they? Somewhere special they could call their own.

  Getting out her notebook, she jotted down some ideas.

  Teacups . . . history . . . chat . . . afternoon tea . . . tearooms.

  An edition of the magazine that readers could cozy up with, just right for November, when the nights were drawing in. She chewed on her pen, mulling the idea over. Perhaps there was something in it.

  Sorry, miss, you’re going to have to raise your tray table. We’re coming in to land.”

  “Sure,” Charlie said, closing her laptop.

  She put her computer away and watched as the clouds thinned, allowing glimpses of land as they approached London.

  “We will shortly be arriving at London Heathrow. It’s a pretty gray day down there, a chilly fourteen degrees . . .”

  Charlie looked down at her denim skirt and flip-flops. Back to British summertime, then, she thought gloomily. At least she’d remembered to put a jacket in her hand luggage.

 
Later, in the taxi rank outside the airport, she switched on her mobile phone again. Missed call: MUM. She pressed the button to return it.

  “Charlie!”

  “Hello, Mum. Just got back. You called, has anything happened?”

  “Yes. Wonderful news: Pippa’s had a healthy baby girl.”

  “That’s great,” Charlie said, relieved. “Have they picked a name yet?”

  “Gracie.”

  A kind, friendly face came into Charlie’s mind and she smiled. “Granny’s name.”

  “Yes. It was a lovely thought. They’re all doing fine. Jacob and Flo are enjoying meeting their new sister, she says. Your dad and I are going up this weekend.”

  “That’s good. How is Dad?”

  “Oh, you know your father . . .” She lowered her voice to a whisper. “Never easy.”

  “I’m sure he’ll be cheered up by seeing the baby.”

  “Exactly.”

  Charlie, now at the front of the queue, maneuvered her luggage trolley into position as a black cab drew up.

  “Listen, I can’t chat,” Charlie said. “I’m still at the airport.”

  “OK. But, Charlie—”

  “Mmm-hmm,” she said, cradling the phone between shoulder and ear as she loaded her bags into the taxi.

  “I know you and your sister don’t always see eye to eye, but you will visit her sooner this time, won’t you?”

  Charlie thought of her work schedule—packed solid until January. Then came a flashback of how she and Pippa had argued last time she’d gone to stay in Scarborough. She chewed her lip. Somehow she’d have to find a way to fit in the visit. And this time she’d be more patient.

  “Of course, Mum. I’ll talk to my boss about taking some time off next month.”

  4

  Friday, August 15

  Jake leaned in toward Kat and kissed her gently on the cheek, in the hallway of what had once been his flat. The bristle of his stubble against her skin, the smell of his shampoo—it was the tiny things that brought memories back.