Champagne and Catastrophes Page 2

  “So, you’re really moving in here?” Julia took in Emily’s floral and pastel décor, which didn’t suit Leah’s stylish and modern appearance.

  “It needs redecorating.” Leah blew on the hot surface of her tea. “She left the house to my brother and me. We were trying to sell it when she was alive, but I don’t think people could see past the dated wallpaper and carpets. We talked about dropping the price to get rid of it, but neither of us was that desperate for the money, so we decided to hang onto it until we were sure. The tenancy at my flat ended, and after many bottles of wine and a lot of soul searching, I decided to come back. I’m not sure I’ve made the right decision, but time will tell.” Leah paused to sip her tea before smiling and changing the subject. “So, you run a café in the village? I bet people are lining up around the corner for your baking.”

  “It does okay,” Julia said with a modest smile before taking a sip of her tea. “What about you? Are you looking for a job here?”

  “I’m a wedding planner,” Leah said, her sparkling green eyes darting to the ring on Julia’s left hand. “Is that an engagement ring?”

  “Oh.” Julia felt her cheeks blush. “It is.”

  “A pearl?” Leah thumbed the milky stone. “Unusual, but gorgeous. Tell me all about him.”

  “He’s called Barker,” Julia started, her cheeks blushing hotter. “He lives with me across the road. He used to live down the lane, but a storm destroyed his cottage, and—it’s a long story.”

  “How modern.” Leah winked. “What does he do?”

  “He’s a writer. Well, he was a detective inspector, but he retired to focus on writing. His first book came out earlier this year. It was a national bestseller! He wrote it about a body we found under my café.”

  “The Girl in the Basement?” Leah coughed, and a drop of tea rolled down her chin. “I have that book! I’ve read that book! That was about you? I thought it all felt strangely familiar. I think I saw him on one of those morning chat shows. He’s rather handsome, isn’t he? You’ve bagged yourself a catch there, Julia. Have you set a date?”

  “November third. We only secured it last week. I haven’t even started planning yet.”

  Leah coughed again. After she swallowed her mouthful of tea, she reached out and grabbed Julia’s hands.

  “It’s only three months away! Oh, Julia! This is fate! I’m a wedding planner, and you have a wedding to plan. Coming back here was a good idea. Thank the wine!”

  “Oh, I didn’t really budget to have—”

  “Free of charge!” Leah shook both her hands in front of her face. “Are you kidding me? I insist. Like I said, I’m not without money. There’s serious cash in weddings. And besides, you’re an old friend, and it will give us the chance to really catch up. It will be the perfect opportunity to show the village what I can do to get the bookings coming in. I should pay you, really. Oh, please say yes! Just nod, Julia. There’s no wedding planner out there who knows your style like I do. I can already see your vision. I bet you all the tea in China that you want a simple village wedding? You don’t want glitz and glam, you want refinement and quality.”

  “Well, yes,” Julia said, silently admitting that she had been feeling nervous about how little planning she had done for the big day. She knew she wanted something simple, but even simple weddings required preparation. “Are you sure? It’s a lot to ask of someone.”

  “Call it a wedding gift!” Leah jumped up and pulled Julia into a hug. “It really is great to see you again, Julia. I didn’t realise how much I’d missed you.”

  “It’s not just me either,” Julia said when the hug broke up. “The whole gang is still around. We all boomeranged back to Peridale at some time or another. You’re the last to come back, but you’re here now.”

  “The whole gang?” Leah’s tone deepened as her brows rose. “Like who?”

  “Roxy and Johnny,” Julia said, thinking the answer should have been obvious. “We were the Fantastic Four, remember? They’re not going to believe this.”

  Julia waited for excitement to flow from Leah, but Leah’s smile emerged looking decidedly fake.

  “That’s great,” Leah said, with all the enthusiasm of someone who had just won 20p on the lottery. “We’ll all have to catch up soon. I should get on with the unpacking and cleaning first. I can already feel my allergies playing up. We’ll talk soon to get started on the wedding planning, okay? How about I swing by your café tomorrow morning?”

  Leah practically forced Julia out of the cottage. Julia tried to think why Leah would be less than enthused at the idea of seeing Roxy and Johnny again, but she drew a blank. She shook it off and chalked it up to Leah being overwhelmed with the huge life changes happening to her.

  Either way, Julia felt less anxious about the wedding planning she had been putting off, and because the wedding ball was about to start rolling, she finally had something to keep her mind occupied while Jessie hitchhiked around Australia with ‘really cool’ strangers.

  2

  The next morning, Julia and Barker peered through the beaded curtain separating the kitchen and café. Leah sat at the table nearest the counter, fixated on bridal magazines. A pen hung from the corner of her mouth as she flicked from page to page; sporadically, she reached for it to jot notes in a large leather notebook.

  “Isn’t she great?” Julia whispered to Barker. “Please tell me you like her.”

  “She’s awesome.” Barker fanned himself with a laminated menu. “When is this heatwave going to end? I feel like I’m sat in warm water.”

  “You’d be complaining if it was cold.” Julia took the menu from him and slapped him on the arm with it. “This is important. If she’s helping plan our wedding, you need to like her, or it won’t work.”

  A thoughtful expression crossed Barker’s face as a glistening bead of sweat escaped his hairline and trickled down his cheek. He attempted to wipe it away, but it rolled into his stubble.

  “If you like her, I like her,” Barker said, his unsure expression letting Julia know he was trying to say the right thing. “She’s an old friend of yours, so you know her better than I do.”

  “I suppose.” Leah reached into her bag to pull out another magazine. “This is her job. She’ll know wedding planning better than both of us combined.”

  “Even Mowgli knows wedding planning better than I do.” Barker shook his head as his eyes glazed over. “I have nightmares that you’re going to ask me to choose between two shades of beige napkins, and I’m not going to tell the difference, and then you’re going to get angry when I pick one at random because it’s not the shade of beige you had your heart set on.”

  Julia slapped him with the menu again. He winked to let her know he was joking, but she heard an element of truth in his quip. From their engagement, Barker had shown little interest in being involved in planning their wedding. He regularly said he would happily marry her at the register office with a handful of close family and friends, and she knew he meant it. It touched her to know that he didn’t care about the razzle-dazzle that came with weddings; he only cared about marrying her. Julia wanted just enough razzle-dazzle to give their memories a fuzzy glow when they were old and grey, looking back on their special day.

  “Make yourself useful and take this tray of sandwiches out to table seven.” Julia pulled away from the beaded curtain. “Katie’s not shown up yet.”

  Barker saluted and scooped up the tray, leaving Julia to continue kneading a fresh batch of scone dough. As her fists worked, beads of sweat formed at her temples. She angled her head back, directing them away from the mixture and onto her dress. The ceiling fan was set to its strongest spin, but it only appeared to be blowing the hot air around.

  “Sorry, I’m late!” Katie whined as she rushed in through the back door. “Oh, wow! It’s hotter in here than out there. How is that possible, Julia?”

  “It’s a mystery.” Julia paused her kneading to dab at her face with a paper towel. “A mystery that won’t be
solved until the crisp relief of autumn takes over the village.”

  “I had to keep wiping off my makeup,” Katie said as she dramatically fanned herself with the heavy door. “It wouldn’t stick where I put it. I used a long-lasting primer, matte foundation, three different powders, and a setting spray that claims to be waterproof, and I’m still sweating through it!”

  “I have no idea why.” Julia offered Katie a paper towel, which she refused. “Mainly because I understood virtually none of what you just said.”

  Katie closed the back door and dug through the cupboards until she found a packet of coffee filter papers. She tore one into a rectangle and began dabbing at the shiny surface of her makeup.

  “Absorbs oil,” Katie explained as the white paper turned translucent with her sweat. “I think I’ll need the whole pack.”

  “You’re a wealth of information,” Julia said with a dry grin. “I’ll file that away for future reference.”

  “I know lots of things.” Katie offered a pleased smile. “Coffee as an exfoliator, olive oil as a moisturiser, baking soda as shampoo.” Katie opened the freezer and backed into it. “Sweet relief!”

  Julia chuckled. With Jessie away, Katie had volunteered to step in to help run the café, an offer Julia had cautiously, but gratefully accepted.

  “We’re not too busy this morning. I think people are scared they’re going to melt if they step outside.”

  “I can relate,” Katie said as she assessed her reflection in the stainless-steel fridge surface. “Oh no! My hair has deflated!”

  Julia suppressed her laughter as Katie attempted to fluff up her peroxide curls. Julia couldn’t imagine putting so much effort into her appearance on a typical day, let alone during one of the hottest heatwaves the country had ever experienced.

  Despite them being the same age, Katie Wellington-South was technically Julia’s stepmother. She was married to Julia’s father, Brian, and was the mother of Julia’s nine-month-old brother, Vinnie—not that her incredibly toned stomach, currently displayed by a revealing crop top, showed any signs of the enormous belly she had possessed for most of the previous year. If not for the temperature, Julia might have told Katie that her outfit was inappropriate. As it was, Julia might have worn something similar if she looked anything like Katie.

  “How’s Jessie?” Katie resumed her blotting. “Is she enjoying Austria?”

  “Australia.”

  “Is that in Austria?”

  Julia measured Katie’s perplexed expression, hoping that it would crack. When it only grew more confused, she realised Katie was not joking.

  “Not quite.”

  “Geography was never my subject at school. None of them were, actually.”

  “Austria is in Europe,” Julia said. “Think The Sound of Music. Australia is the one with the kangaroos. And yes, she’s having a great time. We video called last night. I needed to see her face.”

  “Aw, you miss her, don’t you?” Katie abandoned the freezer and walked to the sink to wash her hands. “I can’t imagine what it would be like if Vinnie went to Australia without me.”

  “Considering he’s a baby, that would be quite impressive,” Julia teased as she joined Katie in washing her hands. “But, you’re right. I miss her a lot. It feels weird waking up knowing she’s not in the room next door.”

  “They grow up so fast.” Katie grabbed her bright pink apron, which had her name bedazzled on the front in sparkling crystals. “Vinnie is already forty-one-weeks-old. I don’t know where the time’s gone.”

  “You’re counting his age in weeks?”

  “It’s easier to keep track,” Katie said with a shrug, before pushing through the beads into the café.

  Julia chuckled as she resumed kneading the dough. She wondered if Katie knew how funny she was, or if her humour was an unintentional by-product of her girlish and childlike personality. Julia had kept Katie at arm’s length for the first five years of their relationship because of that personality, but Katie’s pregnancy had brought them closer together, and now Julia was glad to call Katie a friend.

  When the scone mix was perfect, Julia added chocolate chips and almonds and shaped the dough into circular discs on a greased baking tray. Leaving them to bake, she retrieved her phone from her handbag and called Roxy Carter.

  “Bit early, isn’t it, Julia?” Roxy grumbled on the other end. “It’s the summer holidays. This is when teachers sleep. What’s up?”

  “You’ll never guess who’s moved back to the village,” Julia hummed in a sing-song voice, parting the beads to glance at Leah as she wrote something on her notepad. “You’ll literally never guess.”

  “Then what’s the point in me trying?”

  “Because it’s fun!”

  During the long pause that followed, Julia imagined Roxy sitting up in bed, squinting at the clock and scratching her fiery red hair as she tried to think of a name.

  “Michael Jackson?”

  “When did Michael Jackson live in Peridale?”

  “He might have done.”

  “Roxy…”

  “We don’t know everything,” Roxy protested through a yawn. “Not even you, Julia.”

  “Well, he’s currently dead.”

  “That’s what they want you to think!”

  “Roxy…”

  “Sorry.” Roxy let out another deep yawn. “Violet is big into conspiracy theory documentaries at the moment. I think they’re seeping into my brain. Did you know we’re all alien lizards from another planet?”

  “I didn’t,” Julia said, unable to conceal her smile at her best friend’s dry humour. “Did you know coffee filter papers make good sweat absorbers?”

  “See, you really do learn something new every day,” Roxy said, as the distinctive sound of a toilet flushing echoed in the background. “It’s fun to share facts.”

  “Did you just use the bathroom while on the phone to me?”

  “What did I just say?” Roxy’s smirk radiated through the phone. “It’s fun to share.”

  “You’re gross.”

  “Believe it or not, you’re not the first to say that.”

  “I’m shocked.” Julia feigned a gasp. “Back to my guessing game.”

  “So, I wasn’t right?”

  “It’s still not Michael Jackson.”

  “He could be living next door to any of us.”

  “With Elvis?”

  “Exactly!” Roxy laughed. “Now you’re getting it!”

  “Oddly, you’re getting warmer.” Julia peered into the oven as she sandwiched the phone between her ear and shoulder. “Guess who just moved back into the cottage next door to mine?”

  “Emily?”

  “Not quite.” A lump rose in Julia’s throat, but she decided not to mention the former resident’s death over the phone, especially since Roxy was still in a sleepy state talking about Michael Jackson’s supposed fake death and alien lizard people. “But you’re close. Guess again.”

  Roxy sighed and groaned. Julia imagined her pacing her bedroom as she pulled on fresh clothes, resigning herself to the reality of her ruined lie-in.

  “It’s too early for this, Julia! We don’t all enjoy playing detective. I haven’t even had my morning coffee yet. Tell me, or else I’ll hang up and block your number until you can learn to call at a more civilised hour.”

  Julia wet a cloth and began wiping the counter down, leaving enough of a pause to build up the drama.

  “Leah Burns!” Julia’s voice quivered with excitement. “Remember? Leah from school? She’s just moved into her mum’s empty cottage.”

  Another long pause was followed by a click, and then the long hum of a dead phone line.

  “Roxy?”

  Julia waited for Roxy to call back in case she had accidentally ended the call with her cheek. When a minute had ticked by, Julia tapped on Roxy’s number again and put the phone to her ear; it diverted straight to voicemail.

  “Weird,” Julia said aloud, tapping her phone again
st her chin.

  Once the scones were perfectly baked, Julia transferred them to a cooling rack. Plucking one out, she put it onto a plate with some jam and cream and took it through to the café.

  “On the house,” Julia said to Leah. “You might want to wait for it to cool down, but I quite like them a little warm.”

  “You’re spoiling me,” Leah said after finishing her third cup of free tea. “You’re also turning me into a peppermint and liquorice addict. This stuff is delicious.” Putting down the cup, Leah thumbed through the magazines crowding the table until she found her notepad. “Okay, so I’ve started putting together a list of things, in order of importance, we should start brainstorming. I’ve phoned a few places, like caterers, cake makers, wedding DJs, just to get some prices so we can fit them into your budget.”

  “You can scratch off cake maker.” Julia peered at the upside-down list. “I’ll make my own cake.”

  Leah considered Julia’s remark for a moment before crossing it off.

  “If you were a normal client, I’d say you were crazy, but I don’t think anyone else could bake a wedding cake like you. That frees up a nice chunk of the budget. People charge an arm and a leg for wedding cakes. We can funnel that money into the dress—which reminds me, we should really start looking at dresses as soon as possible. Alterations can take weeks—sometimes months—if things go wrong, and that’s provided you find the dress at all. Nobody ever believes me when I tell this story, but I had a bride shopping for her dress the day before her wedding because she couldn’t decide. She ended up in an ill-fitting poufy ivory number that she swore was the dress, but I think she was trying to convince herself that she had done the right thing ignoring my daily warnings.”

  “I promise I’ll listen to all your warnings.”

  “Good!” Leah laughed before turning to her notes again. “Is that little bridal shop still open on Mulberry Lane?”

  “It was the last time I checked.”

  “Then we’ll start there.” Leah scribbled down a note. “We don’t have to buy from there, but it’s a good place to get an idea of what suits your body. I’ve already marked out some silhouettes and styles I think you’ll like, but they’re just preliminary ideas.”