by Emma Baird
The popularity of the event soared when reality star Caitlin Cartier dropped in for the UK launch of her Blissful Beauty company. Attendee numbers rocketed so high the village experienced its first ever rush hour when all the cars tried to leave, driving along the multi-potholed B-roads all at the same time.
The event gave the villagers dining out stories for months afterwards:
“Aye, weil, you’d never believe the money the make-up folks gave me for an end of aisle slot in the shop for a totty wee jar of skin cream and a bit of mascara!”
Or,
“D’ye ken, those lassies that stayed with us who booked through the Airbnb website came all the way fae Texas just tae see that girl!”
Or, the most often talked-about bit:
“The Caitlin lassie—when she rode up the High Street on the wee pony just in her birthday suit to prove her skincare stuff was so good you didnae need tae cover up... I thought I’d died and gone tae heaven.”
Not strictly true, the last story, seeing as Caitlin had worn a bodysuit, though it was one that made it clear what kind of bikini waxing she favoured. But it was a story Katya foretold—without Psychic Josie powers—every single Lochalshie resident would bore their grandchildren and great grandchildren in years to come.
Sadly for some of the village residents, near-naked A-listers wouldn’t be part of the Hogmanay Ceilidh. January in a Highland village guaranteed hypothermia to anyone foolish enough to leave their house in anything less than five layers. But Lochalshie needed something to attract the people who’d now heard of it and wondered what might happen next.
While the village hall supplied the venue and the Lochside Welcome the catering for the ceilidh these days, at heart it was still the barn dance of old. And more than a few of the villagers wanted to create the same money-making possibilities.
“This year’s Hogmanay Ceilidh,” Dr McLatchie announced, making sure she looked at everyone one by one, “will be special. Does anyone have any ideas? Cheap ones, but very exciting ones because Katya here will also do us a press release.”
She would? So much for asking. Still, the glow of money from the Caitlin offer meant Katya could afford a bit of pro-bono work even if the thought of writing the book made her insides shrivel. The final chapter, ‘Caitlin Falls in Love’ too dreadful to contemplate.
Jolene pulled a bit of paper out of her bag.
“Um, Stewart gave me some ideas. They might work.”
New Zealanders often made what they said sound like questions.
“A porridge-making competition,” Jolene said, ignoring the chorus of groans. “Hey, listen up. There are people all over the north of Scotland who would travel far and wide to show off their porridge-making skills.”
Katya’s mind had already written up the press release intro, which included puns a plenty. Zac took her pen from her and jotted down, “Want to sow your wild oats?”, thoughts chiming with hers.
And persistence, you had to give him that.
“Not a bad idea, actually,” she told Jolene. “And bound to be a great hit on social media.”
Beside her, Gaby muttered “Good grief!”, but Zac leapt to Jolene’s defence.
“She’s right. Food’s such a thing online these days. And porridge is healthy, local and vegan too, or it can be. It ticks a lot of boxes for trends.”
Jolene blew him a kiss. Doubtless, she’d expected defending Stewart’s idea to be more of a struggle.
“Okay, then,” the doctor said, motioning at Katya to write everything down. “A porridge-making competition in the afternoon. If everyone has a wee dram with their porridge, folks will hae to stay the night and they might as well come to the ceilidh too. Did Stewart have any other ideas, Jolene?”
“He mentioned a presentation in the Lochside Welcome about coding... I’m kidding. No talks on coding, okay?”
The committee let out a collective sigh of relief, though Katya noticed Jolene strike a line through something on her piece of paper. That coding talk might not have been a joke.
“What about a Pilates class in the school hall?” Katya offered. “A freebie. If it’s New Year people usually make a resolution about getting fitter.”
And more of you could come along to make it worth my while, the unspoken bit.
Jolene nodded. “Great idea, mate. You can limber them up for the dancing later on.”
“Psychic Josie will attend too. Folks will want to know what their future holds at this time of year. The lovelorn want answers.” The doctor shuffled her papers. As far as Katya knew, her dual identity was a secret, and the doctor pretended to be the psychic’s agent.
“How much will she be charging, Mum?” Jack threw out. As her son, he knew about her side hustle. It was his job to keep it in line. From personal experience, Katya knew the woman charged vast amounts for her phony services.
“A standard consultation is £50, which includes a detailed horoscope for the following year.”
“As it’s New Year and people will have spent too much over Christmas, tell Psychic Josie to charge £10. She could put fewer details into the horoscopes.”
Fewer lies, more like. The doctor muttered about her client not being amenable to people who tried to cheapen her skills. Jack held firm while Gaby hid her head in her hands, trying and not entirely succeeding to hide her laughter.
The details grudgingly agreed, the doctor moved onto the music—a well-known ceilidh band from the next town who’d offered cheaper rates if the village paid their travel expenses and put them up for the night. The Lochside Welcome would provide a temporary bar for the night, which left the catering. Pizzas from the Lochside Welcome. Did anyone have any other ideas?
“Me!” Zac piped up, leaning forward and settling his elbows on the table. “I’d like to set up a stall showcasing the producers I’m working with. It would offer people the chance to try the venison burgers and oysters.”
“Oysters gie me the dry boak,” Laney Haggerty, owner of the nearby pony-riding school and a cousin of Ashley, piped up, echoing Mhari’s words the other week.
“Mainly venison burgers, then,” Zac said. “Or normal burgers, if that’s your preference. There’s a big farm twenty miles from here which makes its own steak burgers and they are incredible. If you cook them rare, serve them in a freshly baked brioche—”
“As they as good as McDonald’s?” Laney butted in.
Zac swallowed hard. “Almost,” he said, “but what about if I gave away a hamper? Worth £250? It could be a prize—everyone who buys a ticket for the dance is entered into a draw to win it.”
Neat again. Free food almost always trumped everything else.
The doctor frowned. “Seafood poisoning,” she said. “If ye’re gonnae offer oysters and shellfish and the like,” she made it sound as if Zac had suggested flavouring his food with arsenic, “then what about the folks allergic to seafood? We might end up with a projectile vomiting incident.”
She shook her head sorrowfully. Gaby elbowed Katya hard. If you looked closely enough at the doctor, it was easy to spot the possibility of mass projectile vomiting didn’t seem to bother her too much. Almost like someone who spent her life longing for a big medical emergency where she got to play the starring role.
“I agree,” Katya said, deciding it might be prudent to ally herself on the other side from Zac. “Offering shellfish at a community event is too dangerous.” And after the Glasgow-Dexter-Lobster incident, if she never set eyes on shellfish again, it would be too soon.
Zac’s thigh worked its way closer to hers. He promised Dr McLatchie and the committee he vetted every supplier he worked to an inch of their lives when it came to health and safety.
“You’re right, Doctor,” he said, his tone respectful. “I’ll make sure I put up signs everywhere warning people about shellfish and cross-contamination so that those who have shellfish allergies can avoid my stall.”
“I wouldnae bet on that, Zac,” Dr McLatchie said, “sometimes the folks wi’ the all
ergies dinnae realise it lurks within them, waiting to erupt at any moment. Like Mount Vesuvius, puking their guts up left, right and centre, and—”
“Laney! Did you want to bring your ponies so people can meet them?” Gaby jumped in. She must have taken pity on Zac, whose jaw had dropped open. The conversation moved on, everyone else keen not to have the image of mass spewing in their heads. Especially those who’d brought sandwiches and cakes to the meeting.
Katya added a line to her notes. ‘Zac to do stall.’ Beside her, he leant in to read the screen.
“And you.”
“In your dreams,” she snapped, smiling nonetheless when he feigned heartbreak.
“What are you going to do after the ceilidh?” Laney asked Zac. “Are you going to stay here and can the local farmers trust you not to rip them off?”
Several pairs of eyes swivelled to where Zac sat.
He took a deep breath. “I’d like to stay here for a year. I plan to buy a mobile food van and park it on the loch shore in the summer to attract visitors. Pop-ups are all the rage these days.”
Oh. Was this the restaurant possibility thing then? And something he hadn’t talked about when she’d interviewed him. Around Katya, a collective intake of breath sounded, and the dissent started. What about Ashley and the Lochside Welcome? The pub relied on tourist income to a large extent.
“I want to work closely with everyone to make the venture a success,” Zac continued, battling on in the face of hostility. “And put the village on the map as a foodie destination, ensuring all local businesses benefit, the Lochside Welcome too.”
“Lochalshie’s already on the map,” Laney Haggerty piped up. “The Guardian Lifestyle said the Lochside Welcome did the best vegan pizzas in Scotland. And when I was in there last week, two women telt me they’d come up fae Carlisle just to eat Ashley’s chocolate decadence dessert and sit on the same bog Caitlin did.”
Murmurs of agreement chorused around the table.
“Of course,” he said, blue eyes wide and open. “All I’m doing is building on the fantastic reputation the village already has. The food I’m offering isn’t the same as Ashley’s. I won’t be his competition. And the van won’t have a licence for alcohol.”
“You’ve just lost my boyfriend as a customer, then,” Jolene said, her comment drawing titters. True, somewhere that didn’t offer inebriation plus food would lose a fair few customers. The atmosphere in the room lightened.
“Right,” the doctor said. “Well, if you’ve remembered my warning about shellfish poisoning—it can kill, ye ken—consider yourself appointed as one of the official stalls. Katya, include that in your press release about our afternoon fair and ceilidh. Michelin-starred food on offer.”
“Er,” Katya began but Zac jumped in and said he had worked for one once. The doctor decided that would do, given that restaurants and not chefs were awarded Michelin stars.
She declared the meeting over and the bulk of the committee grabbed handfuls of sandwiches and shortbread, stuffed them into their mouths and left, muttering about the Lochside Welcome’s pub quiz. The quiz was a fiercely contested evening where reputations went to die. Katya had tried it when she’d visited Gaby for her house-warming and was still to recover from the humiliation of temporarily forgetting the name of a Jane Austen book.
Gaby hung back, wittering nineteen to the dozen about all the work Dexter had heaped on her ahead of Blissful Beauty’s South Korean campaign.
“God, sorry. I shouldn’t mention the ‘D’ word, should I?” She kept darting glances at Zac, who mooched around the library shelves, picking up books and reading the blurbs at the back. Katya was almost sorry enough to take pity on her. “Yes, he seems to fancy me, and yes it seems easy and convenient but he’s not for me.” As she couldn’t yet work out what she felt for him, she kept her thoughts to herself.
Zac wandered over to join them, two books in hand. “Eclectic selection of reading they have here,” he said, no wit, no mockery, no flirting. “Can I borrow them, even though I’ve not joined the library yet?”
Such a statement demanded Katya inspect what he held. She tried her best do it discreetly. Not discreetly enough. He turned the books over, cover up.
The world’s most famous self-help book, How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie, and Persuasion by Jane Austen. If Katya been asked to pick out two books for Zac, these wouldn’t have turned up. Bits of him kept pricking her expectations.
“Course you can!” Gaby said, and Brigitte, the village’s librarian, materialised at the counter. She handed Zac a form to fill out, gave him the books once he’d done so, and disappeared into the back room.
Gaby’s phone beeped, and she shrieked in alarm. “Yikes! I promised Jack I’d join his pub-quiz team tonight! They need me for the celebrity gossip round!”
She grabbed her coat, mouthed kisses and bolted.
“You didn’t mention a pop-up van when I interviewed you,” Katya said.
“Sorry—but I did say restaurant possibilities, didn’t I? A pop-up is something I’ve been mulling over, wondering if it would work.” He took out his phone and showed her a picture of a van on eBay—a rusty old heap that barely looked road-worthy. “I could convert this. Minimal overheads and all that. And I know I’ll need to charm Ashley’s socks off, but he has nothing to worry about.”
He shifted the books. She watched his expression. Another sincere plea? Who to, Ashley or her? The lights in the place dimmed. A writer couldn’t hope for a better setting for romance. Books surrounded them. Brigitte had set up stands all over, themed romance, crime, thrillers and Scotland, and added in corresponding props. The romance table was draped with lace, the silhouette of a couple pictured at the back and plastic roses scattered over the books.
Zac picked one up and handed it to Katya. “Believe me, I want to make a difference here,” he said.
She moved to the front door. Brigitte was nowhere to be seen. That didn’t mean she wasn’t a member of the notorious Lochalshie WhatsApp group, her thumbs moving in double-quick time over the screen as she added updates. “STOP PRESS—Katya still in library with new guy! They’re chatting! Heads too close together!”
Katya took it back. Librarians did not use exclamation marks lightly. Or for three sentences in a row.
Outside the November chill was all too present. The wind rustled on the surface of the loch, raising white-frothed waves and causing gulls to dip and surge in its lulls and roars. Zac moved closer and threw his arms around her.
“You don’t mind, do you? It’s Baltic. I need to borrow your body heat.”
Katya didn’t move. Men who felt the cold. She seemed to attract them. She didn’t reciprocate but the warm solidity of him was comforting. When he tilted his face closer, lips seeking hers, she did nothing either. They landed, soft pressure and the heavenly tingle of nerves awakening. Please, please don’t let Mhari see us, she begged silently, not bothered enough to break apart from him. Finally, as his tongue tried to part her lips open, she pulled her head back.
“I’ve just broken up with someone. I’m not ready for a relationship. Despite what you might have heard at Gaby and Jack’s, I don’t jump from one guy to the next.”
Katya wasn’t someone who said something but meant the opposite. So she told herself. Zac hadn’t let her go. He’d moved his hand to the top of her head, pushing it into his shoulder. The other arm was around her waist, the hand hovering above her bottom ready to slide down any second.
Go on, go on, go on... she willed it, subconscious and conscious locked in an epic battle.
“Anyway,” she wriggled away from him, taking hold of the hand that had been around her waist. There it was, the faint trace of a white ring around his third finger. A wedding ring had been there once, if not now. “I’m shattered. And off home to bed. Alone.”
Said firmly before any eyebrows could raise and unasked-for invites be offered.
“Goodnight Zac.”
She felt his eye
s boring into her back all the way to the end of the street.
CHAPTER 17
Katya’s Pilates class the following week was busier than the last one—the participants having quadrupled in numbers. All thanks to Mhari. No sooner had the conversation with Caitlin ended, Mhari updated the Lochalshie WhatsApp group. “Katya’s gonnae write a book for Caitlin Cartier. About her love life and the billion boyfriends she’s had. Find out more if ye come along to her Pilates class on Wednesday.”
“Um, a) you promised discretion,” Katya told her when Mhari relayed the good news over a cup of tea in their kitchen. “And b) it’s not just about her love life.” As Caitlin had said nothing about secrecy,
twenty people in Lochalshie knowing the real identify of the book writer shouldn’t be an issue, but still.
“Is it no’?” Mhari asked, all fake innocence. “And your ex is Boyfriend Billion and One, eh? Stupid sod.”
Katya’s one-time project writing for a life coach two years ago came in useful in many situations. Ones where you wanted to burst into tears and wail about men who forgot you oh too easily. This wasn’t the place to do so. The world’s nosiest woman, while not at heart malicious, found other people’s misfortune too fascinating to keep to herself. Best to pretend she wasn’t bothered. Fake it till you make it, the life coach said.
Katya plastered a smile on her face. “Could be!” she said, congratulating herself on how breezy she sounded. “Wise of Caitlin to choose someone who isn’t in the fame business himself.”
As she dragged her mats into the already overcrowded hall that evening, Katya counted heads. Enough people to make a profit this time.
The class took a long time to quieten down, hushed and not so hushed conversations drowning her out as she tried to get them to start. No one wanted to take deep breaths and pull in their cores when they could ask questions.
“So, you’ll be writing her life story eh? Willnae take very long, seein’ as she’s only twenty-one!”
