Page 27 of Meet Me In Central Park

‘Is it a wig?’ Madison screwed up her face as if she’d smelt something terrible. She clearly wasn’t a fan.

‘Of course not. Some of us are just prepared to go the distance.’ Dottie laughed, not seeming in the least bit offended. ‘Do you mind taking your lunch break now, Madison? There’s something I need to talk to Libby about.’

‘You’re not gonna get rid of me, are you? I think your hair looks great.’ Madison widened her eyes, like people do when they’re lying – or panicking. I was pretty sure she was doing both.

‘Of course not, there’s just some family business we need to discuss.’ Aunt Dottie was already waving her out of the shop. Whether she wanted her lunch break or not, she was going to be taking it.

‘So, what was it you wanted to talk about?’ By the time I’d got back from the deli, with Dottie’s requested cinnamon and pumpkin spiced latte, and a frosted doughnut, she was sitting behind the counter. I had a pretty good idea what she wanted to say, but you never quite knew with her. She could be about to tell me that she and Brian had decided to get matching tattoos, and to ask my advice on the best place to put them. Anything was possible with Dottie and it was one of the things I loved most about her.

‘I just want to talk some sense into you.’

‘Is this about the shop?’ I set the coffee and doughnut down on the counter next to her. ‘I am thinking about it, I promise. I’ll give you an answer by the end of the week, and Madison has already said she’ll cover extra shifts if I decide to leave. At least until you can get someone else in.’

‘It’s not about the shop, it’s about you.’

‘What have I done?’ I hated the thought that I might have done something to disappoint her and she had an uncharacteristically serious expression on her face.

‘It’s what you’re about to do that’s worrying me. If you leave New York, you’re gonna regret it for the rest of your life.’

‘It’s great here, but—’

‘I’m not talking about the place, I’m talking about giving up on making a new life for yourself.’ Dottie tore a piece off from her doughnut. ‘I should know, I did it myself when I came here. Running away is never the answer.’

‘I’m not following. You want me to stay in New York, but you think you made a mistake by coming here?’

‘I said I’d tell you how I ended up here one day and today’s that day. Put the closed sign up on the door; it’s time you had a chance to learn from my mistakes before you make a huge one of your own.’

‘But it’s a week before Christmas. If we close up now we could be throwing money away.’ My objection was wasted. It was obvious, from the look on her face, that she wasn’t going to change her mind, so I turned the sign around and slid the bolt across.

‘What do you know about why my marriage broke up?’ She fixed me with a look that wouldn’t have been out of place on an interrogator.

‘Not a lot. Just that it didn’t end well.’

‘It didn’t end well because I had an affair.’ Dottie shook her head. ‘I’m not proud of it, and it broke my husband’s heart.’

‘People make mistakes.’

‘Yes, they do.’ She gave me that same look again. ‘But some mistakes are more deliberate than others. I hurt Colin, and I’ve been paying for it ever since, even though I didn’t have to.’

‘Aren’t you happy here?’

‘I am now, but it’s taken a long time, and it’s only since Brian that I’ve stopped wanting to turn the clock back.’ I held my breath, hoping she wasn’t about to launch into another description of Brian’s healing hands. ‘You see, Colin offered to take me back after the affair, and I really wanted to. It was only when he found out about the other man that I realised how much I loved him.’

‘So, what happened?’ Despite the fact she was almost eighty, it wasn’t hard to picture two men fighting over my great aunt. She was what the phrase a force of nature had been created for. What was much harder to imagine was my aunt ever choosing to do something that made her unhappy. She’d always seemed uncompromising in her belief that life was what you made it, and this was a whole new side to her.

‘What happened is that I couldn’t forgive myself, even though Colin was more than willing to. So I left him, and I left Canterbury and came here. I missed him every day, and in some ways, I still do, even though he’s been dead for nearly six years. I punished myself for more than twenty, but meeting Brian made me realise I couldn’t do that any more. I didn’t want to do it any more. I can’t stand the idea of it taking you twenty years, Lib. You’ve wasted enough time already, and what happened wasn’t your fault.’

‘I had no idea about you and Colin.’

‘And I wouldn’t have mentioned it, except I thought it might make a difference, and I want you to stay.’ She held up her hand. ‘But before you say anything, it’s got nothing to do with wanting you to run the shop. Work here, or don’t work here. You can become a nightclub waitress, or join a Broadway chorus line for all I care, just stay and live your life, Lib.’

‘Have you been talking to Nan?’ I already knew the answer to that.

‘Of course I have, and they want you to stay too. You know they only keep that goddamn pub open for your benefit, don’t you?’

I shook my head. That couldn’t be true. ‘But Granddad loves it.’ I couldn’t bear the thought that I’d been holding them back all this time, rather than helping them out.

‘Yeah, and he loves you more. Come on Libby, you know we’re right. It’s time to move on. Don’t make the same mistakes I did.’ As Aunt Dottie stuffed the rest of the doughnut into her mouth, I just nodded. She could be blunt, but she was right. I probably was stopping my grandparents from moving on.

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