Page 2 of Slow Burn Summer

Dear Jojo,

I’m one hundred percent certain you won’t remember me, I was one of your clients twenty years ago. God, I feel old writing that, it’s a lifetime, I know! A literal lifetime, actually—my daughter, Alice, has just turned nineteen and gone to university, not that that’s the reason I’m writing to you (by hand, you’ll note, because I remember how much you always hated technology. I draw the line at purple ink though!).

Or maybe Alice leaving sort of is the reason I’m writing to you, at least in part—she’s left home for a new adventure, and I’m about to turn forty and recently left my husband, so there you go.

If you do remember me at all, it’ll be for chucking my career in to get married and move abroad—“a monumental mistake” you called it, as I remember. I was offended at thetime but it turns out you were right. He had that clichéd affair with his secretary—it’s fine if you’re rolling your eyes. It’s taken twenty years, but I guess the joy of “I told you so” never gets old, right? Permission to revel in it granted.

I feel embarrassed to be writing to you after all this time. A bit of me hopes this letter is returned to sender because you’re drinking rum punch on a beach in the Bahamas, but obviously more of me hopes you’re still the best agent in town and willing to let me buy you lunch and apologize in person. We’re talking a sandwich in the park rather than shepherd’s pie in the Ivy, though, just to set your expectations at a realistic level! That’s kind of the point, to be honest. I’ve left my husband and he’s kept all the money—damn me and my lovestruck pre-nup! You did try to warn me, I wish I’d listened.

Is it unrealistic to hope there might still be a place for me in the acting world, Jojo? I know I’d have to start at the bottom again and most likely stay there, but I’m okay with that.

I’ve found myself living in a studio flat and for all I know I might not even remember how to act, so I’m sealing this now and shoving it in the post box before my nerve fails me. And yes—I’m trying to shamelessly curry favor by writing instead of emailing! If by any chance you’ve given up on purple ink andjoined the digital revolution, you can find me at [email protected].

Hope to be in touch soon,

Kate

(BTW, Clive is the tortoise my sister and I have co-owned for the last thirty-three years. I set the email up just after my breakup, and I admit there was wine involved. Clive appeared just as I was choosing an email address and it seemed funny at the time because he’s the only guy who I’ve always been able to count on, but now I have to explain who Clive is all the time and it’s not very funny at all really, is it? Will change it to something more professional, obvs.)

Whoever Kate Elliott was, she clearly hadn’t heard about his father’s demise. Her frank letter had been intriguing enough for him to ask his secretary to pull Kate’s paperwork from Jojo’s meticulously maintained archive. It landed on his desk within minutes, a slim manila file with a headshot clipped to the outside.

“Thanks, Felicity,” he’d murmured to her retreating back. She’d worked for the agency for at least twenty-five years, her time split between Jojo on talent and Fiona Fox across the hall on literary. They’d been a formidable double act for decades, Felicity the human bridge between them, manning reception and running the ship.

A note had been pushed beneath the photo clipped to the file, his father’s unmistakable purple handwriting.

Foolish child! All that talent down the drain, plug pulled just as she was getting started. Rising star, falling star. Crying waste of talent. And for what? Some misplaced notion of love being willing to give up your dreams for someone else’s? She’ll be back, no doubt.

Charlie sighed. His father had always been an astute judge of character, and nothing had upset him more than wasted talent.

Jojo’s portrait had watched him from the wall opposite; Charlie had practically heard his father telling him to connect the dots. In one hand, a letter from an unknown actor. In the other, a job specifically requiring an unknown actor, someone to pose as a romance author for PR purposes. He studied Kate’s headshot. Clear green eyes, auburn hair falling around her shoulders. It was twenty years out of date, but maybe, just maybe, she had the look of a romance writer. Her letter had pulled no punches—she was freshly divorced and desperate for work, and to be frank he’d have an uphill battle selling the job to anyone more established. Clicking into his email, he’d copied Kate’s address with a resigned sigh. He might be Jojo Francisco’s son, but he drew the line at purple ink.

Glancing at the clock now, he sighed and folded Kate’s letter back into its envelope. It didn’t matter whether she was right for the job or not. She hadn’t even bothered turning up.

2

Same “Francisco & Fox” etchedon the half-glass door at the top of the narrow, winding wooden staircase, same sickly mix of fear and excitement in the pit of her stomach when she was buzzed inside. Kate could almost feel the echo of her younger self taking a seat on what was quite possibly the same battered leather sofa in reception, and she was pretty certain she’d been greeted by the same secretary as all those years ago too. The time-capsule effect did little to settle her nerves. Would Charlie Francisco be a carbon copy of his father, as familiar as all of the other fixtures and fittings, likely to barrel out of his office and bark her name even though she was barely five feet away?

She glanced up when the phone on the secretary’s desk buzzed, and a sharp female voice echoed around the room demanding coffee, stirring decades-old apprehension in Kate’s gut. Her eyes flickered to the closed door bearing Fiona Fox’s name in shouty capitals. Jojo’s long-term business partner was still in situ then, and by the sound of it, every bit as sharklike as she’d been twenty years ago. Kate had been eighty percent terrified, twenty percent in awe. Jojo and Fiona had been like the world’s most fear-inducing parents back when she was a teen, and whenever she’d been faced with difficult occasions over the intervening years, she’d asked herself what Fiona Fox would do. What shereally hoped Fiona Foxwouldn’tdo in that exact moment was step out into reception and spot her sitting there, because she was already hanging on to the last shreds of her dignity by her fingernails.

She was in luck. Charlie didn’t keep her waiting, which she was grateful for. She’d googled him, of course, and seen his corporate headshot, but his complete dissimilarity to his father came as a jolt all the same. Jojo had been a terrier of a man, a huge personality packed into a compact package, although he’d strained his shirt buttons thanks to too many swanky lunches. Same office, same secretary, but this was a very different Francisco. Taller, certainly. No barreling, either. He strolled out and extended his hand, radiating a self-assured confidence that felt more California beach bar than London office.

“Kate?”

No barking either, then, and the only thing straining his close-fitting white shirt was his biceps. More wolf than terrier, throwing her off her stride even more than the sicky baby and the ruined jacket.

She shot out of her seat with her hand outstretched, wishing she’d wiped it on her trousers first in case it was clammy. If it was, his business-like half nod didn’t show it. His inquisitive eyes swept over her mildly disheveled appearance and seemed to make a snap judgment on her non-suitability for whatever role he’d had her in mind for, the briefest flicker of disappointment, perhaps.

“Sorry I’m a few minutes late,” she said. She resisted the urge to elaborate, because baby vomit was hardly the ideal conversational opener at a job interview, was it? Besides, his quickness to jump to the wrong conclusion had pulled on her already-frayed nerves.

“Come through,” he said, ushering her into his office and closing the door.

Same green-leather-top desk, same captain’s swivel chair behind it. A different smell, perhaps. Back in the day there had been a linger of cigar smoke and industrial end-of-the-day sweat, in contrast to Charlie’s subtly expensive cologne and fresh coffee, as if he’d just wandered in from his post-run morning shower.

“Your father always said to trust him to steer the ship from that chair,” she said, her mind rolodexing back through the decades at the sight of it.

“Did he also tell you he’d steer you clear of icebergs?” Charlie gestured for her to take the seat opposite.

She laid a hand over her throat for dramatic effect. “You mean I wasn’t the only one he used that line on?”

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