by Paula Wynne
He leaned down to make himself smaller so he wouldn’t be seen. As he studied the different bottles and tubs on the baking shelf, he glanced through the shelf as he saw someone walk down the next aisle.
This someone wasn’t the lumbering troll form of Ben. In fact if Madonna hadn’t been blonde it could have been her standing in front of him. She turned, and he could catch a glimpse of her face. He blinked at the large, blue smiling eyes under perfectly-arched eyebrows. Milky smooth skin tanned to perfection like the colour of a creamy latte. Pursed lips, pink like a pop star’s, and a white smile showing perfect teeth.
And boobs...he quickly lifted his eyes away from the enticing bulges peeping out over the top of her tight-fitting tee-shirt. It seemed everything about her was perfect, maybe even more so than Madonna herself.
He had been spying so intently on her through the shelves, that when she suddenly appeared at the end of the aisle in front of him, he thought he was done in.
He tried not to stare as she reached up to the top shelf, but then suddenly she was staggering sideways, her leg seemingly too weak or slow to catch her, and before he knew it she had crashed into him and he was hanging onto the shelf to keep them both upright.
Before he could extricate himself she was apologising, her hand up to her mouth in horror. ‘Oh, I’m so sorry. It’s my bad leg.’
His mouth was dry and various organs in his body seemed to have dumped all their most potent hormones into his bloodstream.
She shook her head. ‘Skiing accident.’
He exhaled. If anything her leg looked less mobile than his useless foot, and yet she seemed so calm about it. How did she manage it?
Now she was peering at him, an exquisite little frown knitting her eyebrows. ‘Excuse me, this is so rude, but…Matt, is that you?’
Matt gave a brusque nod, not trusting his voice
‘It’s me, Cami! I used to live down the road from you.’
She didn’t pout like most of the local girls did, so self-consciously. Or give that narrow-eyed glint that told a guy to “come and get me,” something that also ticked him off. Best of all, she didn't carry a useless little handbag in the crook of her arm just to be fashionable. That really peeved him. Especially when they dived in and started rummaging around as if searching for hidden treasure in the tiny usable space.
Cami took a clumsy step backwards, to restore a respectable distance between them, and thrust out her hand. As he just gaped, she said, ‘Don’t you remember me?’
Of course he remembered her! Who wouldn’t?
Matt took her hand awkwardly. Her soft warmth sent an electric bolt of excitement through him.
Without intending to be so abrupt, although he was sure it must have seemed that way, he pulled his hand away.
She said in a soft voice, ‘We went to Aldermaston school when we were little.’ Now she gave a shy smile, ‘I’m back in the area.’
His legs suddenly seemed to be restless and he could feel a twitch starting up the side of his knee.
‘I’m hoping to catch up with everyone again.’
Even as he spoke, he couldn’t believe the sullen, cynical tone of his voice as he waved his hand in the direction of the window to gesture to the teenagers hanging around outside. ‘They’re all over there if you want to catch up.’
‘Oh, no! Not them,’ she pulled a face.
A sudden surge of triumph raced through Matt. Score one for him, none for Ben.
‘I’d prefer to hang out with other people, not that crowd,’ she whispered and dropped her gaze shyly. ‘Will they all be at the show on the weekend?’
He shrugged. ‘Dunno.’
Matt dropped his head. He had always hated torn jeans, but now, looking at them on Cami, they didn't seem so fake after all.
The door jingled again, and from the corner of his eye Matt saw someone coming in. The man didn’t bother taking off his expensive Ray-Ban sunglasses. Probably thought he was cool with the bright orange tint covering his eyes. As Matt thought to himself what a poser this guy was, he realised that he recognised him: the dog kicker from the woods near the airfield he’d seen yesterday. Poser headed down the aisle towards the cashier and bought a pack of cigars. As he took a note out of his wallet, he turned and stared at Cami.
The Poser lifted his hand and tilted the glasses down. His eyes roved over Cami. Slowly, he gave her the once over. And then did it again.
Beside Matt, Cami squirmed and turned away from the stare.
‘Slime ball,’ she muttered under her breath, so that only Matt could hear. ‘I hate it when someone stares like that.’
‘Why?’ Matt couldn’t see why she’d be upset. Having people eyeing you because you were beautiful was way better than them ogling at your deformity. But he didn’t say that to her.
‘Because I get it all the time,’ she twisted a lock of red hair around her finger and let it go. It sprung back into place. She pointed at her head. ‘It’s the hair. Redheads are freaks.’
He pulled back and looked more closely. She wasn’t like a typical redhead. Her hair was more of a golden blondish red. A beautiful shade, in fact the most beautiful colour hair he had ever seen, but he didn’t tell her that, either.
The Poser threw the change on the counter and said in a loud voice to old Mr. Sykes, the shopkeeper, ‘Keep the change. You need it more than me.’
He swaggered past them, his eyes making a full sweep of Cami’s body and ending with a long stare at her butt.
Her face out of Poser’s line of sight, she looked at Matt, rolled her eyes and wrinkled her nose. The look gave him a sense of camaraderie. He had never had that from a girl before.
It felt good. Damn good.
Her fragrance swarmed up into his nose, intoxicating him with hints of strawberries, vanilla, and lemons. It was so light, and fresh, and it seemed to hang in the air all around him.
At that moment, a piercing voice stabbed through his euphoria.
18
Matt grimaced as Mum stormed into the shop, shouting again, ‘Matt!’
He spun around and handed her the baking powder, as if that proved why he had taken so long.
‘My scones, they need to get into the oven!’ She gave him that wide-eyed, scolding frown she did when people were around, and she didn’t want to be “seen” to be telling him off.
Mum was pretty tame most of the time, but boy when her temper flared she could really go a few rounds. Her big eyes and hair the colour of beach sand gave her that sweet, homely-mum look, but when the chips were down she wasn’t anything like that.
Having had to fend for two growing lads all this time on her own, she had developed a rhino-like exterior. Yet when it came to giving love, she was all soppy like a ragdoll. Go figure!
‘Sorry, Mum,’ he mumbled, feeling his ears burning. They were probably glowing bright pink and alerting Cami to his embarrassment. Trying to distract her, he quickly said, ‘Do you remember Cami?’
Mum turned to Cami.
For a moment, a brief flash of…something showed in Mum’s eyes, and then promptly disappeared. Owning a coffee shop, she had trained herself to always be polite and to hide her reactions so that even Matt couldn’t read her sometimes. Clearly, though, she didn’t like Cami for some reason.
‘Hello, Mrs Buttrick.’
‘Good heavens, of course I remember you. But I would’ve passed you in the street without recognising you. You’ve grown up to be even more beautiful than you were as a little girl.’
Matt also noted the pasted-on smile when Mum said, ‘But it’s so nice to see you again. How are your parents?’
Cami’s eyes lost a little of their sparkle and her gaze moved down to the floor. ‘Mum is in New York. She used to go there for shopping trips, and then she met someone over there and stayed.’
Mum shuffled from one foot to the other, and Matt suspected she was thinking about her scones that needed to get into the oven but was trapped by the need to be polite.
‘And Papi moved back to his
hometown in Germany.’
Now Mum’s face showed some genuine sympathy. ‘Oh, Camryn, I’m so sorry to hear your parents have separated. That must be so hard for you.’
There was an awkward silence.
‘So what brings you back to town?’
Before Cami could answer, Matt butted in, ‘Mum, who’s watching the shop?’
She slapped her forehead and yelped, ‘Oh, heck! Sorry Camryn, I’ve got to go. Lovely to see you again.’ She grabbed the baking powder out of Matt’s hand and charged out of the shop, calling over her shoulder, ‘Matt, please pay for this. I’ll see you back at the shop.’ And with a jingle of the little bell over the door she was gone.
Matt looked at Cami, desperate to try to recapture the moment that Mum had ruined. ‘I’m sorry. We’ve got a café and I was supposed to hurry and buy her something for making scones.’
‘No worries, I understand.’
Matt didn’t know what to say next, so he paid for the baking powder. His mind was a complete blank for conversation starters, so he was just about to announce that he should really be getting back, Cami put a hand on his arm. ‘Hey, I thought I saw Luke at the airfield. Is he working there?’
‘Yea,’ Matt glanced over her shoulder towards the where the coffee shop was, ‘but don’t say anything to Mum.’
The extremely cute frown was there again. ‘Why not?’
‘Long story.’
‘It’s a small village, surely word will get around?’
He shrugged. ‘Yeah, I know.’
‘I remember it from when I was young: those little planes parked everywhere and all that old mess everywhere too.’
‘Yeah, that’s about right.’
‘I wouldn’t mind coming down to the airfield to see what’s it like now.’
‘It’s just a hangar and old plane parts. Imagine a huge garage with a high ceiling. That’s it.’
‘Oh.’ Her face deflated. ‘I was hoping you might show me, you know, if Luke could get us in.’
‘Well, actually, I’m going to be working there, too…but Bomber’s pretty tight-arse about people being around there.’
‘He’s the pilot who runs the airfield, right?’ When Matt nodded her tiny frown reappeared. ‘But why’s he so secretive about the place?’
‘I didn’t mean he’s secretive, he just doesn’t like people hanging around where they’ve no reason to be.’
‘But he’s having an air-show this weekend?’
‘Yeah.’
‘So how is he going to cope with that if he doesn’t like people hanging around?’
‘Not sure.’ Matt looked at his feet. Could she see how tongue-tied he was?
She gave him a sudden, beaming smile. ‘You’re a man of few words, you know!’
“A man.” She had called him a man. Warmth radiated through his body.
Before he could respond, she said, ‘So I’ll see you around then? Maybe at the show?’
‘I’m going up to Oxfordshire for the summer, so I won’t be here.’
‘Oh, no. I’m sorry to hear that. I was hoping to see you again.’ She added quickly, ‘And your brother of course.’
She wanted to see him again, and he wanted that too, very much. But even as that thought ran through his mind it was followed by a nagging doubt: she hadn’t really seen him walk yet. If she did, if she saw Ben and the others ragging him about being a cripple, about being rejected by the RAF, then surely she would lose interest pretty damned fast. Chatting with a girl he really liked had never gone this far before. He didn’t know what to do.
Really uncomfortable now, he turned to leave once again, and grabbed the door handle too hard, yanking it open and making the chime jingle loudly around the shop.
Cami followed him out, ‘Hey, how about I buy you that ice cream?’
‘What ice cream?’ He twisted to look back at her.
‘Remember when we were kids…I accidentally bumped into you at the school fair and knocked your ice cream out of your hand?’
He frowned, not recalling that incident, but didn’t want her to know she had remembered and he hadn’t, so he waved it off as insignificant.
Cami came close and again her hand came out to rest on his arm. Now she was the one looking uncomfortable. ‘Please Matt. I was a spoilt brat back then, I want to make up for it. Sometime soon.’
Something about her already had a hold on him, compelling him to stay and talk, to be near her. He tried not to fidget, jamming his hands in his pockets.
Her fresh scent of strawberries drifted around him as she asked, ‘Why not at least try? What do you have to lose?’
Adrenaline surged through him again, and before he knew it, he found himself saying, ‘Well, sure, how about right now?’
19
Cami agreed to meet him, saying she just needed to rush off to get something first. As she walked away, Matt found himself staring at her, not so much at her behind, as the poser had done, but at the way she walked. The limp wasn’t all that noticeable unless you knew what you were looking for, but if you did then you could see that she protected her left leg, kept the weight off it, couldn’t really trust it. Matt gave a wry smile: so they had two good legs between them.
Five minutes later, in the café, Matt ignored the look Mum gave him as he seated Cami at the back of the shop in the lovers’ alcove. The Cinnamon Stick was already buzzing with people. Mum’s two waitresses had arrived and were taking orders over the murmur of voices and soft laughter.
From the kitchen came the sounds of the frothing machine whirring and cutlery clinking as Mum prepared cream teas for the bunch of old girls that frequented the shop.
‘Hang on a minute, I’ll get our order,’ Matt said to Cami and walked off to the kitchen. He didn’t know if she watched him or not, but he knew from a lot of time spent looking at his reflection in mirrors and shop windows that his walk looked almost normal. Even walking that way for a short distance hurt like hell, though.
Despite the busyness, Mum immediately pulled him over to the back door and whispered, ‘What are you doing bringing her back here?’
‘She’s a friend. Didn’t you tell me only last night to make more friends?’ He grinned as Mum was called away with an order from the waitress before she got the chance to reply.
While Mum was occupied, he quickly made two smoothies. He piled them with strawberries on top. Maybe Cami would realise he had noted her scent.
As he lifted the frosty glasses onto a tray, Mum came back and this time her whisper was accusatory. ‘Her family were trouble, some scandal.’
Suddenly a deep longing overwhelmed Matt. He was so tired of this solitary existence that circumstance had forced him into, and now here was something that might be hope. ‘Mum, she seems to like me, limp and all. Can you just drop it? Please?’
Mum opened her mouth to say something and then clamped it shut again. Her eyes went watery for a moment, and then for some reason she suddenly busied herself frothing milk for a hot chocolate. Matt shrugged and picked up the drinks he’d made.
As he passed by, balancing the tray of smoothies, she reached up on the tip of her toes and kissed his neck.
Matt hoped like hell that Cami hadn’t seen that. Mum had always insisted on kissing him and Luke when she dropped them at school. When they were kids they’d just darted off, hardly noticing, but in their teens it had become embarrassing and so they ditched the car as soon as the wheels stopped, not giving her the chance to get near them.
Now Matt concentrated on walking as steadily as he could, without a limp. It was damned near impossible with the stupid, numb foot, but he paced slowly and did what he had practised so often. Each step without dragging the foot sent tingles of pain up his ankle, but he gritted his teeth and carried on.
Just before he reached the alcove, an old lady bent over in front of him to shove her handbag under her seat. For him, coming to a sudden halt and keeping his balance, let alone a tray of smoothies from spilling, was no easy task and o
ften went wrong. This was the very reason he didn’t work as a waiter for Mum.
The handbag handle, flopping out between the chairs, caught his foot and almost tripped him. He stumbled, steadied the tray and grimaced to hide the lancing pain that stabbed through his whole leg and back from the stance he’d had to take to stay upright.
The old lady fluttered and cooed her apologies. He grunted and then carried on over to the alcove, keen to sit down, but hoping more than anything that Cami hadn’t seen.
‘Sorry,’ he spluttered, almost spilling the smoothies as he bent forward to place the tray on the table. He tried to make light of his stumble. ‘I got caught up.’
‘Matt, it’s okay.’
He eyed her. She’d seen it, of that there was no doubt. Girls at school always laughed at the limp, but Cami actually seemed to be concerned.
Before he could work everything out, Mum walked up with a saucer of biscuits.
Matt grabbed it from her, placed it between them, and handed Cami her smoothie.
As Matt’s finger accidentally touched hers, he flushed, feeling the same heat rush through him. He picked up a biscuit and handed it to her.
‘Matt!’ Mum gasped.
He spun around. ‘What?’
‘Pass the saucer. Not a biscuit!’
Cami laughed and grabbed the biscuit out of Matt’s hand, and their fingers touched again. ‘It’s fine, really. I think the personal touch is nice!’
Their eyes connected. Matt breathed deeply. She had stood up for him, overlooking his stupid gaff. That could only mean one thing, surely.
‘What brings you back to our village?’ Mum asked Cami. Matt noted how she emphasised “our” and wondered if Mum was still holding onto whatever grudge she had against Cami’s family.
As Matt went to sit opposite Cami, she chatted easily to Mum, explaining that she was staying with relatives and hoped to see as many of her old school friends as she could over the next couple of weeks. Yet her eyes kept straying to him.
He swallowed his biscuit almost whole and started choking. Gulping down a few mouthfuls sorted that out, but his ears stayed warm. He imagined them to be bright pink, like radar beacons alerting the world to his clumsiness.
