In walked Connor Bally and Lottie seeing who it was, looked up and smiled.
Chapter 18
‘Oh, hello again. You like the best bread in the area too, do you?’ Connor said to Lottie as he nearly bumped straight into her as he stepped into the bakery.
Lottie broke into a smile. ‘I do, yes,’ she replied giggling and gazing up at Connor as he stepped into the shop.
‘No driftwood gathering for you today, then?’ Connor continued winking and smiling at Lottie.
‘Ha! That was a one-off. I don’t usually walk around with a basket of driftwood as a rule,’ Lottie said laughing back and gazing up at him. What on earth was that strange, high-pitched, girly voice I just did? Lottie thought to herself and cringed.
Holly and Dimitri stood back observing Lottie who was fluttering her eyelids dramatically and had started to play with her hair. They both stood there watching the fireworks going off between the tall, dark man with the unbelievably blue eyes, and the tiny woman dressed all in white. Holly finished off putting the flyer in the window and fussed with the tape on the back.
‘I didn’t know you two knew each other?’ Holly said as the little bell on the door tinkled and Connor held it open for another customer to leave and let it close behind him.
‘Ahh, fancy that! It seems you don’t know everything in Pretty Beach then does it, Holly?’ Connor said, laughing.
‘Ha. I’ll let you think that if you like Connor, but we all know it’s not true in any shape or form,’ Holly replied with a cackle.
‘What are you up to anyway? You’re out the front of the shop? Looks a bit sus to me. Is there something going on that I should know about?’
‘There is definitely something going on, Connor. And you absolutely need to know about it,’ Holly said and held out one of the Secret Evenings posters to Connor. ‘This is going to be the latest success story in Pretty Beach. It’s a brilliant idea and can only be good for us all.’
‘Ahh, yes, the Secret Evenings events.’
‘Oh! How do you know about it?’ Holly asked, surprised.
‘See! I actually did know something before you Holly! And not only that I’ve seen it in the flesh too,’ Connor said, chuckling and looking at Lottie.
‘What! Preposterous,’ Holly replied.
Lottie joined in with the laughter. ‘Connor was on the jetty the day we were doing a trial set-up and taking the photos for the website. I asked him if he wanted to come in and have a look and he did.’
Holly looked at Dimitri and attempted to raise her eyebrows and although they stayed exactly where they were being nicely frozen by local injectable expert Dr Leza, Dimitri nodded back to her with wide eyes.
‘I bet he did,’ Holly said laughing.
‘So, you’re all ready to go then?’ Connor asked as Dimitri followed Holly back to the counter and Xian shuffled out from the back, took a quick nip of her Special Drink and started to take a picture of the flyer on the noticeboard.
‘Yep. It’s launch day today. There’s no turning back now,’ Lottie said gazing up into Connor’s eyes.
‘Good for you. I’m sure it will take off. It’s a great idea.’
‘Thanks. I do hope so.’
‘I’ll pop a flyer on the noticeboard at the yard if you like. Have you got any left?’ Connor enquired.
‘We certainly do. We’ve got enough for the whole of Pretty Beach. Where do you work then?’ Lottie asked, her voice seeming to get higher every time she spoke.
‘Tucked down at the boatyard. Not far from Ben Chalmers Seaplanes. I work in an old boatshed down there.’
‘Nice spot. That's why you were down on the jetty on the driftwood day with a cup of tea then. Now it makes sense.’
‘Correct,’ Connor said smiling.
‘So what do you do then?’ Lottie asked fiddling with her hair.
Connor adjusted the sizable diving watch on his right wrist. ‘Little bits and bobs here and there. Nothing very interesting really. I used to be an engineer, but now I dabble around with diving. I’m a diving instructor at Pretty Beach Diving School.’
‘That sounds pretty interesting to me,’ Lottie said blinking up at Connor and getting lost in his piercing blue eyes.
‘Keeps me busy, as they say,’ Connor replied. ‘You’ll have to pop by when you’re next at the Boat House. It’s a short stroll from there.’
Lottie looked up at the gorgeous tall, dark-haired specimen in front of her and nodded.
Oh yes, Connor Bally, I’d love to pop by and I absolutely will.
Chapter 19
After an exhausting afternoon of talking about Secret Evenings, putting up the posters, and ending up in the Smugglers, Lottie and Dimitri had arrived home, she’d gone up for a shower, and Dimitri had retired to his little flat in the basement to watch Greek television online.
Later on that night Lottie took her phone out of her bag and checked the reservations page on the website. Not a single booking. Every part of her flooded with disappointment. She couldn’t quite believe it. She had expected at least one booking. The flyers looked amazing. The social media posts had gained some traction. And notice of her Secret Evenings had prime position on the only noticeboard in Pretty Beach that really mattered - the one in Holly’s bakery.
She sighed heavily, got up from the kitchen table, lifted up the cover on the Aga, and took a pan down from the rack. She stood there staring at the saucepan and with her mind a jumble of what was appearing to be the complete dismal failure of her new business, she put the cover back down, walked over to the back door, grabbed her gardening coat from the rack in the boot room, and slipped her feet into her gardening clogs.
Lottie strolled through the garden, bent down to remove a lone weed near the hebes, and made her way down to the greenhouses. As soon as she opened the door of the first greenhouse she felt better. The scent alone was like her therapy. It seemed to wrap her up, envelop her in goodness, and make everything about her and her life rosy.
The old greenhouses had been falling down when she and Charlie had first moved in all those years ago. They’d slowly renovated them, and the steeply pitched roofs and beautiful front porches had been repaired and painted and had taken on a new life.
It wasn’t just the old greenhouses that had taken on a new lease of life once their renovation had been completed. The same had happened to Lottie too and she had loved them. What had started as a bit of an escape from three little boys while they’d been napping had quickly moved on to an obsession with sourcing and growing things from seed, tending plants lovingly, and learning as much as she could, as quickly as she could, about all things botanical.
Lottie had revelled in it all. From sunflowers to courgettes, to unusual plants from the other side of the world, Lottie Cloudberry had dabbled in all sorts late into the evenings in one of the three old white Victorian greenhouses at the back of the substantial property on Strawberry Hill. She’d got lost in a world of her own, the sound of the sea in her ears and the scent of the plants she loved in her nose.
As twilight began to fall, Lottie flicked on the light switch and the beautiful, iron candelabra lights she’d had installed all the way down through the centre of each of the greenhouses lit the whole place with a soft golden glow. If only she could hibernate in one of the greenhouses forever and not have to worry about pesky things such as money and whether or not she would be able to keep the place she loved so much.
Lottie stood in between the timber potting benches laden down with hundreds of terracotta pots of all shapes and sizes. A gorgeous old bougainvillea ran all the way overhead, together with her vast collection of vintage watering cans displayed on long hanging hooks, and a narrow shingle pathway led down to more seedlings and pots at the end.
Crunching slowly across the shingle, Lottie knelt down and picked up a stack of pots that had toppled over from underneath a table, and checked on a whole load of cuttings she’d taken from Libby at Pretty Lavender Farm.
Once she’d got
to the end and methodically started to fill pots with potting compost, checked on the various stages of assorted plants and seedlings, her mind started to shut off and she began to forget about the success, or not, of Secret Evenings and how it was going to go.
An hour later, and nowhere near as stressed and disappointed as she had been when she had walked out into the garden from the kitchen. Lottie watered everything, switched off the lights, clicked the old door shut behind her, and began to walk back towards the house.
It wasn’t the end of the world, she thought to herself as she strolled back up through the beautiful garden. At least they hadn’t invested any money in it. Even the website had just been an update of the one she had already been using for her dinners, and it would be quick and easy to remove the photos, the branding, and the logos if Secret Evenings didn’t take off.
Lottie opened the back door to the boot room, put her coat on the hooks, and walked into the kitchen. The heat from the Aga filled the place with warmth and Lottie decided on a Parmesan soufflé omelette.
She lifted the lid on the Aga, broke eggs into a jug, whisked them vigorously, grated some cheese, and shortly after sat, alone, in the vast kitchen with Pretty Beach radio on over on the worktop and a tiny glass of wine by her side.
Her text pinged from her friend Juliette.
Hey! Sorry I missed you today. It was manic in the surgery.
No worries. All good. I’ve only just got in from the garden.
How’d it go then? You’re the talk of the town. The girls on the desk were buzzing with it!
Really????
Yep. They’re all wondering where the first location is going to be. Literally everyone was discussing the underground dining concept. You are onto a winner.
Ha! We’ve not had a single booking. I’m trying to remain positive but it’s looking like it might be a flop.
No way. It’s just early days. Give it a chance. I can tell you the marketing worked for sure. In the staff room at morning tea everyone was looking at the pics on their phones.
You think so?
I know so. Sharon on the desk said she was hoping to book but she just had to wait and see what her husband’s shifts were.
Lottie sighed out through her nose and took another large gulp of her wine.
That’s encouraging then.
Yup. And then one of my pregnant women from the new estate asked if I knew if it was in the Old Town, near the wharf, or in Mermaids.
At least people are talking about it, I guess.
It will come. Mark my words. You’ve got Pretty Beach buzzing and we all know what happens when Holly gets involved in stuff.
Yes, I hope so. Thanks.
OK. I’ll touch base with you tomorrow. See how it goes.
Lottie closed her phone and allowed a tiny smile to touch the sides of her mouth. Maybe it would be better in the morning. Maybe she was a bit hasty in writing the whole thing off quite as quickly. Maybe she needed to give Pretty Beach a little time to work its magic.
Chapter 20
The next morning, Lottie, in charcoal, satin-tie pyjamas, picked up her cup of tea from the kitchen table, opened the door, walked through the vast hallway and pushed open the door to the front sitting room. The house was quiet with Dimitri not yet appearing from his night at the Marina Club and the boys at school.
She sat down on one of the cosy creamy-white sofas, tucked her legs up under her, pulled a plush white throw over her legs and bare feet, and balanced her cup of tea on the arm of the sofa.
Gazing at the three piles of perfectly arranged coffee table books in front of her, she’d been waiting until she was settled to check her emails for notifications from the Secret Evenings website for whether or not they had bookings.
She opened her phone, pressed the email app, scrolled through various notifications for sales and one from Pretty Beach Council, and saw that there were a few for Secret Evenings and her heart leapt.
After going through each one sequentially, she put her phone down and took another sip of her tea. She didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Five bookings and five full payments. And six emails with questions. Nowhere near the twenty bookings they needed. Maybe they should have started with a smaller, cosier number?
Lottie sat there perusing it all. Five people had trusted her enough and liked the look of it sufficiently to book and part with their money. She was going to have to be happy with that and hope that, as had happened in her dinners endeavour, the word would spread.
Five people would only be two tables, though. One of two and one of three. That would be very cosy or sparse, more like. Lottie tapped her fingers on the side of her mug. Maybe this first one would have to be all about marketing. She sat there pondering it all and thinking about business promotions. If she did another couple of tables for friends it would drum up a bit more interest. Juliette and Luke were a possibility, and Juliette’s friend Daisy who was also a foodie might be interested.
Lottie sat staring out the window at the magnolia tree outside. Yep, after all the work, brainpower and effort her and Dimitri had put in she wasn’t going to let it go quite so easily. She’d find a way to make it work.
Her phone pinged with an email notification. She scrolled to the subject line and saw she had another booking. She opened up the notification and ran her eyes down to the name. Holly and Xian had booked a spot. Unbelievable! That was some support.
Lottie picked up her cup of tea from the arm of the sofa and quietly walked back into the kitchen to top it up. Just as she was getting the milk from the fridge, Dimitri came in fresh from the shower. Lottie took his favourite mug from the dresser, poured in some milk and tea, and passed it over.
‘Have you seen the bookings?’ Dimitri asked with a smile.
‘Yep. Did you see that one that just came in now?’
‘I did.’
‘Holly and Xian. That’s so kind of them! I can’t believe it. Though she shouldn’t have paid...’ Lottie said.
‘Secret Evenings was the talk of the Marina Club last night.’
‘Really? I thought there would have been a few more bookings then. According to Juliette, it was the same in the surgery too.’
‘Give it a bit of time, Lottie. It’s not even been a day yet. People need to mull it over a bit. A secret evening with an unknown cook is quite the marketing feat to pull off. It’s not cheap either. I’d be thinking twice about it if it was me.’
‘I suppose so. I would too. Good point,’ Lottie replied, trailing off and taking another sip of her tea.
‘I know so. Our main problem now is the next few suppers and the next locations. We need those locked in and ready to go. I’ll put the dates up on the booking section. We’ll worry about the location later. This party has started.’
Chapter 21
Lottie opened her wardrobe, with a towel around her and wet hair, and stood there looking at the rails of clothes. It wasn’t as if she didn’t have much choice. The wardrobe was packed but everything had seen better days. Not that she ever went out much to wear any of them.
What did you wear to a little gathering a few doors along at your new, very lovely neighbours? She rifled through the various sections of the highly organised colour-coordinated shelves. Plain black shift dress, nice black jeans and silk blouse, or wide-leg culottes with a long-sleeved top and blazer? Lottie shuffled the hangers along, pulled out her favourite double-breasted blazer with the beautiful cut to the back and expensive gold buttons. She’d had it for years, a classic that had outdone itself on many occasions. Which was just as well in her current situation.
It had been so long since she’d been out for the evening she’d forgotten what it felt like to even think about clothes. Her uniform was quite simple most days - ripped boyfriend jeans, white vest as a layer underneath, a black or white t-shirt or if she was delivering meals or going anywhere she needed to be presentable, a blouse instead, and a pair of statement earrings from her vast collection.
Lottie decided
on the black culottes with a tie to the side, a black long-sleeved slim-fitting top, and a dramatic pair of gold earrings. She dried off her hair, pulled it up into a loose chignon, put a little bit of makeup on, and was ready to go.
She looked in the mirror. Not quite as she used to be before having the boys, and Charlie passing away, and the stresses of being on her own. Signs of life were showing on her face with little lines here and there, but as she checked her appearance she thought she wasn’t too bad. It felt good to be dressed up in nice clothes and ready to go out, not that she intended to be there long. Say hello to the neighbours, have a little drink, and then be home and tucked up in her dressing gown looking at her seed catalogues with a hot chocolate and slice of toast.
Lottie walked all the way down through the house and strolled through the kitchen and into the boot room at the back. In one of the two old Butler sinks tucked into the alcove on the right she had a colossal load of flowers she’d gathered from the garden earlier. She’d stripped them of their leaves, arranged them into a large eclectic posy which had ended up nearly as big as she was and tied it with florists tape, white paper and an enormous silky white bow.
She gathered the flowers from the sink as Dimitri strolled into the kitchen in a nice smart shirt and extremely strong aftershave.
‘Good to go?’ Dimitri asked her in Greek.
‘I am. I’m ready for a lovely drink and a nice sit down. I’m exhausted after this week. You must be too?’
‘Same here,’ Dimitri replied. ‘Do you know who’s going?’
‘Not really. I know that Juliette is going,’ Lottie replied as she closed the kitchen window over the sink.
‘Holly told me she was going with Xian and Rory if he is home from the hospital in time.’
Secret Evenings in Pretty Beach Page 7
