Emma
Both Kate’s and Juliet’s heads turned towards the TV. ‘Oh my God,’ Juliet whispered, her eyes round when she turned back to Emma, ‘You’re totally thinking about how much Jake Knightley looks like Ross Poldark.’
Emma feigned indifference, while her eyes remained glued to the field in which much scything was now occurring. ‘There’s really no more than a passing resemblance.’
‘You’ve been thinking about what Jake Knightley looks like without his clothes on,’ Kate accused.
‘Again,’ Juliet exclaimed.
‘Again?’ Emma asked, reaching for the safety of alcohol.
‘Yes again,’ Juliet nodded. ‘Earlier. Beard – absence of. You – talking nakedness with him.’
‘I—’
‘It’s probably because he works with his hands, isn’t it,’ Juliet commented matter-of-factly. ‘That’s one of the things I love about Oscar. It’s very primitive.’
‘Daniel, too,’ Kate sighed happily.
‘Daniel doesn’t work with his hands,’ Emma commented confused.
‘Right. He works with his head. It’s very … cerebral. Adds a whole other element.’
‘I can’t believe the three of us, talented and intelligent women, are reduced to fantasising about what men we know would or would not look like scything,’ Emma said, taking another huge gulp of honey martini.
‘While using their brains,’ Kate snuck in.
‘Brains and brawn,’ Juliet sighed, reaching for her drink.
‘Exactly,’ Kate smiled chinking her glass against the side of Juliet’s. ‘Evolution complete.’
‘Surely it’ll only be complete when they remember to put the toilet seat down,’ Emma sighed.
Rising from the sofa, Kate downed the rest of her drink and made ‘drink-up’ gestures to Emma and Juliet. ‘Another round.’
‘Last one or I’ll start colouring outside the lines,’ Emma said, gesturing to the basket of nail varnishes.
‘We’ll sober you up with Christmas Pudding flavoured ice-cream, which isn’t as disgusting as it sounds, because Juliet made it.’
Emma held out her glass and Kate collected Juliet’s too. ‘So you’ve been thinking about Jake Knightley?’ she asked, turning around to waggle her eyebrows, before walking over to the breakfast bar.
‘Maybe we shouldn’t encourage her,’ Juliet spoke up, with a small frown.
‘None needed – what I mean is,’ Emma said, ‘I am absolutely, unequivocally, not in the market for anything complicated.’ And Jake Knightley with his impossibly brooding looks had complicated written all over him.
‘But it doesn’t have to be complicated,’ Kate said from the kitchen area. ‘It could just be recreational.’
‘I don’t have time for that either,’ Emma insisted, pushing down the rush of adrenaline.
‘Shame,’ Juliet murmured. ‘You can’t deny all the sparks between you two.’
‘Sparks?’ Emma said, with a quick sip of the fresh drink Kate handed her.
‘Impossible to deny,’ Kate replied with a grin.
Emma found her resolve wavering, because if it wasn’t just her imagination about the sparks, then … No. What was she thinking? She was supposed to be the match-maker, not them. Of course it would be easier if they weren’t already with their perfect partners. ‘Just because you two are all loved up,’ she muttered, taking another sip of her drink.
‘Exactly,’ Kate laughed. ‘That’s how we’re able to recognise someone falling…’
‘I am not falling,’ Emma insisted. ‘I couldn’t be more stationary. Besides,’ she added pushing her shoulders back into the sofa. ‘I’m not sure Jake is really the recreational sex kind of guy.’
Kate wrinkled her nose in thought. ‘Yeah. You’re right. He wears “noble” like his winter Barbour. Plus, he has that intense thing going for him.’
Emma tried not to think about how Hollywood was really the easiest place for a casual hookup but that in reality she’d only taken advantage occasionally. Something about Jake acting nobly was way more seductive, knocking ‘casual’ into a cocked hat.
‘And also, ever since—’ Kate stopped abruptly and gave a sad smile.
Emma’s heart skipped a beat. ‘Ever since … what?’
‘Maybe we should tell her,’ Juliet said, looking pointedly at Kate.
‘Yes,’ Emma insisted. ‘Maybe you should.’
Kate gave a large sigh and then announced dramatically, ‘It’s all the Grinch Who Stole Christmas’s fault!’
Emma blinked.
‘To be fair her name is actually Alice,’ Juliet explained.
‘Well, who the eff is Alice?’ Emma demanded.
Kate snorted into her drink. ‘Good one, but now I’m going to be singing that for ages. Alice Grinchfield is Jake’s “ever since”, isn’t she, Juliet?’
Juliet nodded. ‘Last Christmas he gave his heart to her.’
‘And in an awful turn of events, guess what happened the following day…’ Kate continued.
‘She only went and gave it away,’ Juliet confided.
‘So, this year, of course,’ Kate explained, ‘to save him from, you know what…’
‘He’s giving it to someone else?’ Emma half-sang, half asked.
But Kate was shaking her head sadly and saying, ‘He’s … going away.’
‘This is the reason he’s not going to be around for the grand opening?’ Emma asked.
‘Yep,’ Kate confirmed. ‘And why he’s all about stuff Christmas and the sleigh it rode in on.’
‘Wow,’ Emma’s mind jumped from one dramatic thought to the next, but while doing that her silly big heart was thinking of him getting dumped. This Alice must have really hurt him for him to need to get away from the memories.
‘She definitely ruined Christmas for him,’ Juliet said, turning off the TV. ‘But then, breaking their engagement right in front of his whole family, and most of Whispers Wood, would tend to do that, I would think.’
‘In front of everyone? But that’s just cruel,’ Emma said, her mind whirring. ‘She must have had a good reason, though, right? Why did she break it off?’
‘That’s just it,’ Juliet added. ‘No one knows why and Jake’s remained completely schtum about it.’
‘Did she,’ Emma licked her lips, ‘did she break his heart, then?’
‘I think she must have,’ Juliet said, ‘because she’d already postponed the wedding once before due to work commitments. I mean, I feel bad saying it but she wasn’t the easiest person to get to know. They weren’t around much. They lived in London for most of their relationship.’
Emma felt appalled on his behalf.
Getting engaged was a serious thing. Hardly anyone in Hollywood ever transitioned from Tinder to actual relationship followed by engagement.
‘Oh no,’ Emma looked down into her now empty glass, ‘Please don’t tell me the fourteenth of December was going to be his wedding day?’
‘Okay,’ Kate agreed gently.
‘We’re opening The Clock House on what would have been his wedding day? I feel a little sick,’ she confessed. And sober.
No wonder he didn’t want to be around Whispers Wood this Christmas.
Not only the memories, but being on your own at Christmas only ever highlighted the fact that everyone else wasn’t.
How was she going to be able to look at him and not let him know that she knew? Because she kind of thought that it would hurt him to know that she knew. Like, not just his pride but deeper. Now she thought she understood why he was so cautious with her. So suspicious. He’d been waiting for the gossip to reach her. Waiting for her to look at him differently.
Here she’d been thinking he’d been looking at her for entirely different reasons.
Embarrassment washed over her.
She should definitely leave thoughts of her and Jake well alone.
She had a job to do here.
And anyway he was going to take himself off to distant shores soon.
Not that she could blame him when she’d run away from her own embarrassing failure. No matter how raw, how stripped down, and how broken she’d felt not getting that part, it was hardly the same as a broken heart.
Into the silence, Juliet’s phone went off.
‘It’s probably Oscar telling me he’s won loads of money and asking me what we should do with it, to gloat in front of Jake and Daniel.’
Kate laughed as Juliet got up to answer it. ‘Den of Iniquity might have been overstating a bit,’ she said to Emma, ‘They don’t even play for real money. Mostly they do like a co-op system.’
‘It’s okay,’ Juliet said, padding back over to the couch. ‘It was Melody asking if I can charge her back-up Kindle.’
‘Melody likes to read,’ Kate explained and Emma grinned thinking she was a girl after her own heart.
‘So what’s the betting by the end of the evening Jake will have won back his stake and tomorrow a hung-over Daniel and Oscar will be helping him mend the roof?’ Juliet mused as she pulled the basket of nail varnish towards her and pulled out two bottles. One in a pretty pale pink called ‘The Nice List’ and the other, a dark red, which she passed to Kate, called ‘The Naughty List’.
Emma grabbed a bottle of dark glittery green called ‘The Holly and the Ivy’ because it looked nice, she told herself. Not because she secretly wanted a certain impossible whistler on her hands. ‘So is Gloria Pavey Persephone’s mother?’ she asked, hoping to steer the conversation away from Jake.
Kate paused with the nail varnish brush in her hands. ‘Now why did you have to go and mention her when we were having such a lovely evening?’
‘She is her mother, yes,’ Juliet said, resting her hand on her knee and swiping pale pink varnish over her nails.
Emma carefully painted her left thumb nail. ‘I’ve seen her around a few times and she came into The Clock House with Crispin the other day.’
‘Dreadful woman,’ Kate muttered.
‘Dreadful, nosy woman,’ Juliet said. ‘She’s why I’ve put up paper behind the glass doors in the salon. We’ve got to leave some surprises for when we open.’
‘I thought she seemed a little sad,’ Emma mentioned.
‘No, no, no,’ Kate whined. ‘Don’t get me all conflicted about her again. What she did to Juliet was awful.’
‘Except, her name-calling last year kind of did get me out of a rut and force me to make some changes,’ Juliet commented.
Kate frowned. ‘Well, that aside, what she did to Daniel in the summer was unforgiveable. We’ve all been trying to be extra nice to her, but it’s like she couldn’t find her way out of being a bitch if someone implanted her with a satnav. Someone should tell her she can’t use the ending of her marriage to be a bitch forever.’
‘They should,’ Juliet said with a nod as she started painting her right hand. ‘And I’ll be right behind you when you do.’
‘She was really nice to me,’ Emma said.
Kate and Juliet shared a shocked look. ‘Bizarre,’ said Kate.
‘I guess you can’t blame her for struggling to get out from under everyone knowing what happened. I mean if someone like Jake feels he has to get away from everyone thinking about his non-wedding, I can’t even imagine what it must have been like for Gloria having to stay around for her daughter. Maybe because I’m new she feels she can start from fresh with me,’ Emma commented and then sighed a little. ‘Can you imagine navigating the fallout of the lie her marriage was? Her husband probably never set out to hurt her like that, but, I swear, sometimes it feels as if no one enters into a relationship with honest intent these days.’
‘At the start it’s probably easier to think everything is perfect,’ Kate mused.
Is that how things had started out with Jake and The Grinch, Emma wondered. It was certainly how her mother started every relationship. Hanging back and patiently waiting for a relationship to develop, wasn’t something Lydia Danes had managed to do since the breakup of her own marriage. Nope, she went in heart first so that everything was happy and rushed and exciting, but then…
Sometimes Emma wished her mother could be transported back to times where a little restraint helped you figure out whether you really wanted the person or the ‘in love’ feeling you thought they represented.
‘Everything’s always perfect at the start because at the start you both spend all your time together,’ Juliet said quietly.
Emma looked at Kate who was looking worriedly at Juliet again.
‘It’ll get easier when we open,’ Kate said.
‘Promise?’ Juliet asked with a wobbly smile before confessing in a rush, ‘Won’t we be spending even less time together? If I can’t manage a relationship and this job, how on earth would I manage—’ hurriedly she lifted her glass to her mouth and drained the whole lot.
‘How on earth would you manage what?’ Kate asked, obviously not in the mood to let it go.
‘Nothing,’ Juliet said, and Emma got the distinct impression Juliet was mortified she’d said anything.
‘A baby?’ Kate pushed.
Juliet stared down into her empty glass.
‘Wow, have you both been talking about having kids?’ Emma asked gently.
Juliet shook her head. ‘We hardly manage enough time together to watch a second episode of whichever series everyone’s currently talking about on Netflix, where would we find the time to talk about babies? Besides,’ she licked her lips and looked up at them both, shock clearly etched across her fine features. ‘It’s way, way too soon to be even thinking about babies.’
‘But you’re feeling broody?’ Kate asked.
Juliet looked both baffled and a little embarrassed. ‘It’s probably only because of Melody. She makes it so easy to love her and share in the parenting of her.’
‘Yes, that’s probably all it is,’ Kate mumbled but she didn’t sound convinced and Juliet, being sensitive, picked up on it right away.
‘Don’t either of you ever feel broody?’ Juliet asked, looking like she really needed them both to answer with an immediate affirmative.
But Emma shook her head honestly and said, ‘I don’t – I mean, I haven’t. Yet,’ she added when Juliet looked crestfallen. ‘But then, I’m not in a relationship—’
‘You don’t have to be in a relationship to want a baby,’ Juliet quickly said.
‘Well, no. But, I think for me, I’ve been so caught up in wanting the acting to come off it was only when I didn’t get this latest part that I came up for air and started thinking about anything else at all. Then, sure, I thought about babies.’
‘Thank God,’ Juliet immediately said. ‘Phew. I don’t know what I’ve been worrying about, then. It’s completely normal for women our age.’
‘But I should be honest,’ Emma said, feeling bad for how panicked Juliet looked. ‘I thought about them years down the track, and coming with a man, too.’
‘And you?’
Kate looked at Juliet like she’d heard the unspoken ‘comrade’ at the end of the question and she looked really guilty when she admitted, ‘Jules, I haven’t. But as we’re being so honest, I have been thinking about asking Daniel to move in with me and even thinking about it freaks me out, so I can only imagine what you’re feeling.’
‘You know what?’ Juliet said determinedly. ‘I think it’s probably as well Oscar and I barely have time to talk because I don’t want to begin a conversation until I’ve worked out where I’m going with these feelings.’
‘Maybe if you tried less crafting and more talking?’
‘The craft doesn’t have anything to do with avoiding talking babies with Oscar,’ Juliet replied. ‘I don’t think,’ she added with a frown.
‘Has Mum been having a go at you?’ Kate probed. ‘Because if she has and you’re not comfortable, you really have to tell her, she’d expect you to.’
‘No, she hasn’t said anything. I think I’m just being really bloody stupid! It’s like I have everything I could possibly want. More than I actually thought I could have, even. So, what, now I want even more?’
‘Why not? And why not now?’ Emma said, feeling instinctively that Juliet wasn’t someone who normally rushed in without thinking. ‘You could handle it.’
Juliet looked at her as if she was mad. ‘Because it’s precisely when you have everything you want that it all gets ripped away from you.’
‘Oh, Jules. No, you can’t think like that,’ Kate said, reaching out to put her arm around her. ‘It’s okay to want even more than you have. You work hard enough for it.’
‘But I shouldn’t want everything all at the same time. I mean, that’s insane, right? Isn’t that what’s freaking you out about moving in with Daniel – which I totally think you should do, by the way.’
‘It does feel really fast and I am worried it would put too much pressure on our relationship,’ Kate murmured.
‘Exactly,’ Juliet said holding up her hands.
‘Or maybe it would enhance it?’ Emma said.
‘Noooo,’ Kate moaned. ‘You’re supposed to be on our side, not playing devil’s advocate.’
‘I am on your side,’ Emma insisted. ‘I’m just removed enough to help you with perspective. It’s hard when society tells you everything is attainable but then frowns on you for chasing it.’
‘Oh my God,’ Kate said. ‘Do you think that’s what we’re experiencing? Millenial Guilt – like Catholic Guilt, but without the lightning bolts?’
‘Or maybe it’s simply the silly season,’ Emma continued, ‘aka, Christmas, and you’re all doing what everyone else is doing and looking about and bumping into the two biggest watchwords of the season: love and family.’ That was definitely why she kept thinking about Jake, she decided. She didn’t like him looking sad and overcome with unhappy memories at a time of the year when everyone was supposed to be feeling jovial and full of Christmas spirit.
‘Okay, the panic I’ve been carrying around is practically limping off the field in defeat,’ Juliet said. ‘You’re really good at this.’
Emma smiled, pleased to see the deer-in-headlights look had vanished from Juliet’s eyes. ‘Acting is all about observing motivation and then portraying that through actions, so you learn to question and sooner or later some answers pop up.’
‘Oh, is that all?’ Kate said. ‘It couldn’t also be because you’re genius at people?’
If Emma was so genius at people she’d be able to work out what had gone wrong with her parents’ marriage and be able to put it to bed but she smiled. ‘I don’t know about that, but I guess listening is the number-one skill for a bar-tender. That and the ability to serve drinks! Seriously though, you and Oscar and you and Daniel,’ she said, looking at Kate, ‘need to spend some time together talking … and not about work. Oh,’ Emma leant forward suddenly excited as an idea came to her, ‘you know what? I actually have the perfect solution.’
She was going to arrange a soft-opening of Cocktails & Chai, she thought.
Just a small gathering.
With no talk about work allowed.
It would give Kate and Juliet some breathing space to enjoy their men without the weight of the world on their shoulders.
And it might just stop her thinking about a certain man with a pre-owned heart.