Page 19 of The Custard Tart Cafe by the Sea
“Oh, me and my business are here to stay,” I yell at him because he obviously needs to hear it loud and clear. “I wonder what Lauren Masters will have to say, when she hears about the lengths you are taking to undermine not only her stellar marketing campaign, but her little sister’s business?” I shouldn’t have said that. Tiago’s face turns a ghostly white. “I wonder if you’ll still have a job left?”
I really shouldn’t have said that. The last thing I wanted to do was bring my family into this in any shape or form– even if Lauren does work with the guy. Or give him any inkling that I’d been doing my background research and snooping on his movements. We had a plan, Reggie and I. A simple, real life version of that disgusting Hasbro game, Pie Face, on the football pitch. We’d have had Tiago where we wanted him in seconds. Now I’ve been and aggravated the situation tenfold. “It’s you who needs to get used to it, you… you…” suddenly one of Reggie’s words pops into my head and I can only hope it’s appropriate to finish off my sentence, “ultracrepidarian!”
Make that twentyfold.
Oh, well. What’s done is done. Never mind custard tarts, that’ll give him something to chew on. Honestly, though. The nerve of the guy! I have never ever met, or known, anybody quite like him. And thank God for that. Tiago looks at me blankly, as if waiting for me to explain the nineteenth century word for someone who is a know-it-all despite knowing nothing at all. Passengers are nudging one another now; muttering under their breath at what has probably come across as a ‘domestic’. Staff are twitching too, especially my sales wizz MUA, whose name I never did catch. An airport shop is no place for war, no matter how much I’ve spent in the place, no matter how much I loathe the button-pusher standing before me, and no matter how far in the wrong he is.
I spin on my heel and leave him with a stupefied expression and poor Paddington Bear, who’d doubtless rather remain on the shelf than spend a two and a half hour flight with that idiot.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
“What the heck?”
Radhika is awestruck. Judging by the inflection of the word heck, I’d say not in a positive way.
Well, at least Kelly is impressed “Oh, wow!” she says. “Whoisthis vision of loveliness? Willow, you look like you’re headlining on the Outside Circus Stage at Glastonbury.”
Radhika explodes into laughter and I know I will never live the episode down.
“Just ignore Rad, Willow. Ilovethis new you!” Kelly’s eyes are on stalks. “It’s seriously inspired! Why didn’t you tell us this is what you were going to be up to though? We’ve been worried sick that the security woman had arrested you after taking another look at the X-rays of your bag. And I’m afraid Radhika necked your iced coffee.”
“I really think an airport arrest would be preferable tothat,” Radhika grits her teeth. “No offence, Willow, but this image overhaul,” she says the words slowly and carefully, as if they are encrusted with thorns. “Well, it really isn’t doing it for me. Yes, on the dance floor, but less is more in an artificially lit airport at four in the afternoon. I’m getting a migraine just looking at you, love.”
I throw my blunt friend a sarcastic smile. That’s it. I’m going to Boots for a pack of wet wipes so I can sneak to the loo and remove every trace of the Smurf I seem to have become.
“Uh, where are you heading, young lady?”
Kelly grabs me firmly by the wrist and I’m immediately transported back to the early nineties. My nan used to do the same thing when I sometimes escorted her into town. She might have been spindly on her legs but if I even thought of straying into a remotely trendy shop such as New Look, she’d yank me back into our sacrosanct bubble. And woe betide me if I had a hoody on that day.
“Our boarding gate’s just been announced.” Kelly points to the screen. “No time for shilly-shallying.”
And no time for me to wonder if TOG is behind or in front of us now, as Kelly press-gangs me down the walkway for our gate, Radhika several steps ahead of us. All of which makes me sound a little bit ungrateful for this opportunity of seven days in a quaint quinta, when I haven’t yet refunded Kelly for the experience, but in fairness, I didn’t expect the jerk that is Tiago Willis to be on my flight, did I?Great start to the holidays!I guess I could just drown my sorrows in the drinks trolley once we’re airborne, but I swear if I touch a drop of alcohol at this point, it will mix with the high altitude and make me cry like a baby.
“Here we go. Row seven. My lucky number.” Kelly declares, as we make our way down the aisle of the aircraft to find our seats. “And I appear to be right in the middle of my girls in seat B. Unless one of you fancies swapping?”
I try not to think about that bizarre travelling phenomenon, when someone you’ve had a random eye-meet with in an airport ends up sitting in front, behind, or next to you on the plane. Because, on this occasion, there is only one face stuck like an earworm in my head. So I concentrate hard and frantically rewind to anyone else I may have seen in the airport. If I quickly insert a handful of possibles into my short term memory now, they just have to take the seats surrounding us. That’s how it works.
“No way,” says Radhika, penetrating my frustratingly blank mind. “I’m planning to pass out with my travel pillow glued to the window. And yay to seven being lucky but seriously, Kelly, this numerology malarkey is so flipping predictable. Everyone knows that seven’s a lucky number, it’s not rocket science.”
“In the general sense, you’re right. But there’s far more to numerology than meets the eye and in this case I was alluding to the fact that both my birthday and Willow’s are on the seventh and sixteenth of our birth months, respectively. Said numbers are ruled by seven in numerology, as well as the planet Ketu. So that makes these seats even luckier for us. Whereas your birthdate is the first of August.”
“Oh, cheers. Why not let the entire flight know the rest of my personal details while you’re at it?”
“Well,Icould do with all the good luck available, so I’ll cling on to that ray of light,” I say, as I let the girls into their seats before me and dither at the end of the row to pack the overhead locker with all our paraphernalia.
I settle into my own seat at last and immediately grab the laminated menu, determined to try to forget about the perils of takeoff– and a certain somebody. All passengers are boarding the flight from the front steps today and I’ve still no idea if TOG is in front of me or behind me.
“This is so exciting, isn’t it?” Kelly taps both Radhika’s and my thighs. “I can’t believe we’ve never been on a trip abroad together before. This was long overdue.”
“And I can’t believe I’ve signed myself up for another trip away with you, full stop, after that damned glamping fiasco in Devon,” Radhika quips.
“Oh, for the hundredth time, that mix up was not my fault!” Kelly snaps. “How could I know the campsite was falsely marketing itself? At least the tent was up and ready when we got there and the loos were within one hundred metres. It could have been worse.”
A sledgehammer of dread hits my stomach. I know I’m wallowing in negativity in general this afternoon, but maybe I should have done my own double-checking on this ‘quinta’, digging beneath the shiny veneer of the photos Kelly showed me. The glamping trip was a disaster, thanks to Kelly’s misjudgement. Only later when I referred back to the campsite’s website did I spot there was just one luxury cotton bell tent in the entire field. Luckily we only spent a weekend in Devon.Please history, don’t repeat yourself and make me and Radhika suffer for a week.
With all my will, I focus on the menu’s snack recommendations, but words and pictures begin to blur, my senses hijacked by a fragrance wafting like a warning on the air: CK One Shock. The same smell TOG squirted himself with from the tester bottle just before he picked his refill up. The notes of lavender, patchouli and musk tickle my airways.
Painfully slowly, I spot him in my peripheral vision as he shuffles down the gangway until he is standing right next to my seat. I feel sick. My heart races. I don’t dare look up. I can feel his eyes on me, though. They’re burning into the back of my neck, and the flash of his bright green watch taunts me from the corner of my eye. This is torture. I guess by the sound of his tutting that he’s waiting for somebody further down the aircraft to put their bits and pieces in the overhead locker and sit the heck down in their seat. I’m going to have to hold my breath until he inches away.
