Page 32 of The Cocktail Bar
“Oh great, I’m beginning to think I preferred Dad when he’d lost his swagger.”
“Well, I think it’s great, not only is the bar making money and introducing the town to a taste of the exotic, but it’s spreading the love bug too, what could be better? I only wish some of it would rub off on me. There doesn’t seem to be a half-decent man left in this town… with the exception of River, of course.”
“While we’re on the subject of bean spilling,” Georgina briskly redirected the conversation drumming her beautifully French polished nails on the counter to create something of a build-up effect, “I have a little secret of my own.” She quit the tapping and pulled a paper from her wallet, wishing she’d secured Zara’s word before she displayed the evidence. “But I need you to take an oath.”
“Can I think about it for five minutes?”
“Um, okay then… but I was kind of hoping we were friends, as well as me being your star customer… not to mention almost your personaltravel agent.” Zara cracked up at this point, Georgina grinned too, her narcissistic self in complete and utter egotistical adoration of her wit and timing.
“Oh, what a story that was about those two from round the corner. Why did I have to leave the bar so early that night? Do you know, I might well book my next holiday the old fashioned way rather than through my regular airbnb, just to sit in front of them in their shop and drop several hundred hints that the rumours about their behaviour have done the Glasto rounds… Oh dear, what a place we live in, hey? Sorry, Georgina, that was rude of me to interrupt, you were saying?”
“Nothing much really, just that I was assuming I wouldn’t even need to ask you to volunteer to be sworn to secrecy.”
“Of course you don’t, kiddo. I was only messing with you, spill away.”
***
So that was that. Zara was officially on board. Not only a fully-fledged member of Team Georgina, but keeper of a very beneficial secret herself; a secret way sweeter than any of her organic stevia and chia seed stuffed pastries put together.
Georgina simply couldn’t hide her grin as she exited the bakery, made her way back to The Guinevere for her insipid movie night with River, wondering what takeaway decision they’d debate tonight. He always wanted a Chinese or a Thai, something stinky, garlicky and spicy to pong out the room, while she’d opt for a sweeter smelling pizza or chips. Travel to far-flung places and jumping on theWaitrose-foodie-bandwagon-express had never been her thing, no man on Earth was going to change that now. Not even River.
She paused to check her purse was zipped shut, saw that the paper translation was poking out enticingly, buried it deeper into her bag and pushed open the door to walk in on quite the scene.
“In slightly the wrong position to play whizzing down the banister now, boy,” said a monstrous looking figure as he rose from the throne next to the fireplace, slapped his broadsheet down on the table, and followed his statement up with a beastly chuckle. “We’re going to stay here until we sort this out.”
“Excuse me, love,” he muttered under his breath.
Oh, she did indeed love that commandeering effect that her presence cast on males like him: priceless.
She was quick enough to do the maths. This was some ‘acquaintance’ of River’s and now was not the time to pledge her allegiance to her beau. So she blanked him completely, acknowledging instead the stranger who un-capped his frizz of a hair-do, as if she were The Queen, walking on imaginary red carpet, and marched right past him and on up the stairs, leaving the fragments of their conversation to dissipate in a haze behind her, echoes of “Has he paid you or something?” rebounding in the reception’s hallway.
It was at this point that she realised she was not alone on the stairs. Someone else, it seemed, had been listening in on the debauchery below. A snappy burst of tumbling strawberry blonde curls, an expensive china doll face, one of those haughty-taughty posh shawls draped around her size zero frame, and then she was gone, the only clue of her presence a door closing gently overhead. Georgina wondered if she was half asleep. The day had been long after all, the scheming with Zara had clearly over-stimulated her senses. Maybe a film was just the tonic to calm her livewires? The words “press”, “paps” and “contract” pinged through the air as she hunted in her bag for her key, shutting the door on the madness. River would free himself soon enough, congratulate her for playing dumb, not giving their relationship status away.
Unless of course, the very reason Mr Hideous down below had been put on her path was to mesh with her plan? And now those cogs in her brain really started turning.
