The Sunshine and Biscotti Club

She walked over to the window when Libby didn’t reply and looked out to see the lemon grove, the familiar image of the waxy leaves winking in the sunlight. She wondered how it was that people could be so close at one point in their lives and then become so distant. Eve was as wide open as they came, but Libby, she took some chipping away to get beneath the polish. Especially now that she too had a great stamp across her saying, ‘Jake’.

Sometimes, when Eve had put the kids to bed, she would sit down with a glass of wine and read Libby’s blog. There was always some gorgeous looking lemon and basil drizzle cake to salivate over or a plate of something delicious that Libby said she’d thrown together because she was feeling peckish but would take any normal person hours.

Eve knew it was all gloss. All shine. But slowly she would feel herself prickle with jealousy, like pins and needles starting in her neck. She found herself jealous of the life made quirky and cool through the many filters of Instagram. Of the parties Libby catered, of the selfies with famous guests, of the Rainbows and Roast Beef Supper Clubs that she held at her flat with Jake there sipping red wine from a glass as big as a bowl.

Eve had lived in the flat below Jake for three years. She knew he was an arrogant pain in the arse half the time; she had eaten batches of Libby’s mistakes, she had been to the pillar-box tiled kitchen and seen the beautiful hand-thrown bowls the colour of oatmeal and the lovely little white enamelled saucepans and thought they were lovely, if a bit impractical, but, in the pictures, in the lifestyle, she coveted them like no other. Because they seemed to symbolise this other life—where everything went right.

And over the years it had made Eve start to stay away. Because somewhere along the line, her friend Libby had become lifestyle blogger Libby Price, while Eve was a scruffy, haphazard mother of two who struggled to run a business and fit into her countryside lifestyle and be an interested wife and not believe that everyone else was doing marvellously while she was just keeping her head above the surface.

So in the end there was no point seeing Libby because, while it was all aesthetically lovely when she did, they never had the time to get beneath the facade to make it worthwhile. It was all just too nice and polite to bother.

But what was so frustrating was that she knew the truth of Libby. Eve knew what was under there, had seen her drunkenly dancing in her bedroom at three in the morning, had seen her laughing so hard that she snorted lemonade out her nose, had seen her stuffing her mouth so full of chocolate that she couldn’t breathe, had seen her sobbing on the doorstep because she couldn’t take the pressure of all her brothers and sisters and her mum out of a job, but over time the walls had gone up and now it was just that bit too high to reach.

Peter had done this whole lesson at school on entropy. He used pictures of the crumbling disused ballrooms of Detroit to show that everything falls into disorder in the end. The walls always came down. It was just a case of how long it took. And how much one was willing to try.

‘OK well …’

Eve turned to see Libby backing out of the door.

‘Anything you need just let me know. I’m thinking drinks on the terrace at seven and we can work out a plan,’ Libby said, starting to pull the door closed behind her. ‘I’ll leave you to settle in.’

Eve turned so her back was against the view and watched Libby leave, nodding at the instructions.

JESSICA

Jessica arrived back at her room slightly sunburnt and annoyingly still replaying the meeting with the cocksure Italian at the bar. She had planned on having a shower and doing some work to rebalance, but when she opened the door she found Dex sitting at her dressing table working on his laptop.

‘What are you doing in here?’

‘Work,’ he said without turning round. ‘I thought we were working.’

‘We are, but why do we have to do it in my room?’

‘Because I’ve got no WiFi in mine. Yours is bad enough—it only works here,’ Dex said, pointing to the dressing table. ‘Come on,’ he said, ‘let’s get it done then we can be on holiday.’

Jessica frowned. She wasn’t used to sharing her personal space. She remembered the early days when Dex had shown her the plans for the new office—all inclusive and open plan—and she’d said, ‘No, this just won’t work. I need to be able to shut a door.’

He had prattled on about the merits of sitting together as a team, exchanging ideas, laughing together and building bonds.

‘My brain doesn’t work well as a collective force, Dex,’ she’d said. ‘It works well on its own. I am antisocial. I like to be on my own.’

Dex had stalked away with a shake of his head, rolling his eyes at the architect as they fudged a small office into the sleek design plans.

Now she wished she could portion off a section of her hotel room.

‘Come on, chop chop,’ said Dex, pulling over a spare chair so she could sit down next to him. ‘Get your laptop.’

‘OK, OK, hang on.’ Jessica took a minute, standing in the centre of the room, to get herself in the right mode. She went into the bathroom and splashed some water on her face—saw the extent to which her hair had frizzed and curled in the humidity and the pink tinge to her cheeks, and tried to channel First Day Holiday Jessica back into At Work Jessica.

She poured herself a glass of water then walked out of the bathroom, went over to her bag, pulled out her laptop, then set it up next to Dex.

‘You look very relaxed, by the way,’ said Dex as she booted up. ‘Very earthy.’

She glanced across at him with a raised brow.

‘What? That’s a good thing. It’s a good thing. I promise. Very …’ He looked her up and down.

‘Don’t go on.’

He laughed. ‘Very pretty.’

She shook her head. ‘No I don’t.’

‘You do, it’s a compliment. Take it as a compliment. You’re terrible at compliments.’

Jessica scoffed. ‘Because most of the time people say them to mask something else.’

Dex looked perplexed. ‘Like what?’

‘I don’t know.’ Jessica shook her head. ‘Like you think my hair looks bonkers but you can’t say that so you say something nice instead.’

Dex snorted a laugh. ‘You really are an idiot sometimes. Anyway, right, enough of this nonsense, there’s a sun out there just waiting for me.’

Jessica took a sip of her water and then started to work. Her laptop was taking longer than Dex’s to open the files.

Dex glanced over. ‘It’s so slow! Seriously, I’ve told you to get a new one.’

‘I don’t need a new one. This is fine.’

‘It can’t cope with the software update. It’s too old.’

‘It’s fine.’

He peered over. ‘Do you still have that bit of plastic film over the screen, Jessica?’ He turned to look at her, aghast. ‘You’re meant to take that off when you buy it.’

‘It keeps it protected.’

‘Oh my god.’ Dex smacked his forehead. ‘We need to get you out of that office. You are getting away with some ridiculous behaviour.’

She allowed herself a little laugh when she looked at the plastic film. ‘I just like to look after my things.’

‘Your laptop is ancient, Jessica. If you’re not going to buy a new one, I’ll buy you a new one, for the sake of the company.’

‘You aren’t buying me a new laptop.’

‘Well, you buy it then.’ He got his wallet out and handed her a platinum card. ‘Charge it to my dad.’

‘I didn’t think you used this any more?’ she said, taking the card and holding it tentatively between finger and thumb as though it might burn her.

‘I don’t. But you can.’

‘You should cut it up,’ she said.

He shook his head. ‘Then I’d want it.’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘Like ex-smokers. Better to have a pack to hand just in case.’ Dex shrugged. ‘Makes me want it less knowing it’s there.’

Jessica narrowed her eyes. ‘I think you should have more faith in yourself, Dex. You can’t carry it around forever. I can’t actually believe you still have it. You’ve kept that really quiet.’

‘Well, you shouldn’t spend so much time in your office, should you?’

She sighed. ‘You don’t need his money, you know that. You’ve totally made it on your own now. Cut the card up.’

Dex shook his head.

‘Dex! Cut it up.’

‘No.’ Dex stared at the card with a longing fondness. ‘I don’t think I can.’

Jessica widened her eyes at him. ‘Cut it up.’

Dex shook his head.

‘You cut it up and you can peel the protective film off my laptop.’

He raised a brow. ‘That sounds like some kind of kinky computer geek fetish.’

‘OK, you can’t do it any more.’

Dex laughed. ‘Oh please.’

‘No. You’ve made it too sexual.’ He snorted.

Jessica turned to her screen and started to do some work. Dex did the same, leaning over every now and then to see what she was doing.

The sun was streaming in the window. Dex kept yawning. Every time the WiFi dropped out he sat back on his stool and peered round the room.

‘What are you looking at?’ Jessica said in the end, unable to hold it in any longer.

‘Nothing. It’s just funny, that’s all.’

‘What’s funny.’

‘That we’ve been here mere hours and you’ve managed to make your room exactly the same as your office. Like, exactly the same. The books, the scarf, the make-up bag, that hand cream, the way the glass is on the coaster.’

Jessica looked around and realised he was right. It was pretty much the same as her bedroom at home as well. She hadn’t realised she needed such familiarity and structure around her to feel comfortable. It was as if she had become so self-sufficient it was to the point of robotic. Carrying her life around like a snail. She frowned. ‘Well, that can’t be good, can it?’

Dex shrugged. ‘I think it’s sweet. A bit anal, but sweet. But that’s what you’re like, isn’t it?’

Jessica made a face. ‘Don’t say it like it’s a given.’

Dex looked confused. ‘Well it is, isn’t it?’

‘No it’s not. Anal but sweet? That’s not how someone wants to be described.’

‘Why not? It’s what you are.’

‘It’s not a fact.’

Dex shrugged. ‘It kind of is.’

‘Well, I don’t want it to be.’

He half grinned. ‘Well do something about it then.’

Jessica shook her head and, ignoring the challenge in his eyes, went back to her computer.

They worked again in silence.

After a couple of minutes she said, ‘Oh, and what’s this about Miles coming? Is Miles coming? Have you invited Miles?’

Dex smirked, keeping his eyes on the screen. ‘Maybe.’

She saw the delight on his face reflected in his laptop screen and kicked herself for asking. She looked back at her own without saying anything more, refusing to give him the satisfaction of asking again.

After a couple more minutes Dex said, ‘It’s fun working next to you. I like it. We should do it more often.’

‘No we shouldn’t.’ She shook her head. ‘You breathe too loudly.’

He snorted a laugh. ‘I do not breathe loudly. I breathe. I have to stay alive.’

‘It’s distracting.’

‘Remember that whole anal but sweet thing?’ he said.

Jessica turned to look at him, one brow raised.

‘Perfect example.’

She scoffed.

‘I’m just telling it like it is,’ Dex said with a grin, then he leant forward and peeled the film straight off her laptop screen before she could stop him.

Jessica gasped. Dex laughed, waving the sheet of plastic triumphantly. So she reached over and, grabbing his dad’s credit card from the table next to him, she chopped it up with the scissors from her makeshift pen pot and chucked the four little bits into her waste bin.

Dex jumped up from his seat and stared down at the bin, his hand on his chest. ‘I can’t believe you just did that.’

‘You’re much better without it, Dex.’

He looked forlornly at the quarters of credit card.

Jessica patted him on the shoulder. ‘You’re much less vacuous without the money.’

He glanced up at her, then laughed. ‘It’s all coming out today, isn’t it?’

‘Let’s finish this work,’ she said.

When they’d wrapped it all up and sent it off, Jessica turned to Dex and said, ‘I don’t really think you’re vacuous. You used to be, but you’re not any more. You’re probably the most solid person I know. Like, inside,’ she said, ‘you’re good.’

He looked at her, surprised.

She shrugged. ‘I just, you know, thought I should say that.’

Dex nodded. ‘Thank you, Jessica.’

‘You’re welcome,’ she said, closing her laptop. ‘You’re now welcome to say that I’m not anal and sweet. If you wanted.’

Dex thought about it for a bit, studying her with narrowed eyes. ‘No,’ he said. ‘No, I don’t need to say that.’

‘Oh for god’s sake,’ she huffed, bashing him on the arm. ‘Take it back.’

He laughed. ‘But then I’d be lying.’

‘That’s fine.’

‘OK, Jessica, you are not anal and sweet.’

‘Thank you.’

‘You’re welcome,’ he said, picking up his laptop and standing up. ‘Although really you absolutely are,’ he added, before jogging out of the door with a grin.

EVE

Alone in her old lemon scented room Eve checked her phone. A text from Peter saying ‘That’s good’ in response to her previous ‘Landed safely x’. He hadn’t put an x. But then Peter never put an x. He had whole dinner party discussions about the fact it was an x not a kiss and that it was completely unnecessary and ridiculous to include on a text message let alone an email. She often wondered if the script he was writing was full of rants about the misuse of letters in instant messaging. He’d asked her to read it once a couple of years ago and she’d been so sleep deprived and so stressed with the twins that it had taken her two weeks to get round to it by which time he’d changed his mind and gone into her email and deleted it from her inbox and then her deleted items.

She wanted to write something back; her fingers hovered over the keys of her phone, but she didn’t know what.

In the end she thought it best to leave her phone where it was, get changed into more weather appropriate attire, and get outside to stop herself from dwelling on it all.

Wearing a pair of skinny blue jeans cut off at the knee, a yellow vest top that was showing its age, and an equally dilapidated pair of espadrilles that her daughter Maisey said made her feet look like lumps of cheese, Eve made her way out of the hotel, across the terrace, and down through the lemon grove in the direction of the lake.

The scent of citrus intensified the closer she got, the huge waxy great lemons hanging heavy from the branches, all knobbly and pitted. She wanted to reach up and take a bite straight through the skin; feel her eyes water as she squeezed the juice into her mouth.

It made her think of the first perfume she’d ever made—from a bag of Limoncello lemons Silvia had sent as congratulations on having the twins. There was a note that said, ‘The beautiful thing about women is they can change as many times as they like. You’re already a wonderful mother. Who will you be next?’

Eve had stood staring at the lemons. These wonderful fat things that weren’t to do with feeding babies or trying to work out why they were crying, or why she was crying as she sat alone in the draughty, crumbling cottage they had bought after she’d got pregnant. After she had been seduced by a photo in a Homes and Gardens magazine in the doctor’s waiting room of a picturesque village where everyone had chickens and rose gardens and muddy wellington boots at the front door.

The lemons connected her back to the world. Not the pre-pregnancy one where she worked in marketing for a massive beauty company in the city. Where so many people wanted to talk to her every day she would sometimes put her Out of Office on and go and sit on the fire escape with her laptop just to get some work done. But the one before even her marriage, where she smelt the rain in the middle of the night and the bark of trees.

So she had sliced the lemons and she had squeezed them and she had gone outside and chopped all the heads off the roses in the rose garden, and then she had found the unused wedding-present pestle and mortar in the back of the cupboard and started to see if she could capture it all in a fragrance. She had got to work on who she would be next.

Now, as she popped out from the lemon groves and onto the lakeside shore, she was suddenly stopped short by a voice saying, ‘All right, Eve.’

She had to take a second to get her breath back from the shock.

He knew her name.

The guy got up from where he was sitting cross-legged on the pebbles. ‘Didn’t mean to scare you.’

Eve turned. The sun was in her eyes.

The voice made her expect dreadlocks, an arm almost covered in ink, and eyes that could spear a person from a hundred paces.

A wisp of cloud passed in front of the sun.

Holy shit. The dreads were gone. The eyes were still the same.

‘Hello, Jimmy,’ she said, her mind almost short-circuiting at the sight of him.

LIBBY

From her seat on the terrace, Libby watched Jimmy and Eve approach, the air between them like firecrackers popping in the sky.

Next to her, Dex and Jessica glanced up, saw Eve laugh at something Jimmy said, and then exchanged a look. Libby knew they were all thinking about the same thing. The casual flirting, the lazy hand-holding. How they’d roll in from some club together, Jimmy, with his arm slung casually round Eve’s shoulders, drunkenly rambling about getting free of the rat race, concocting starry-eyed visions of the two of them backpacking the globe, while Eve nodded along, fanning the flames of his dreams.

They were dangerous together; made more than the sum of their parts. Already Eve seemed to be burning brighter as she pulled up a chair, her hair glinting in the sun.

‘OK, so here’s the deal,’ said Libby when they were all seated. ‘I’m fully booked for the summer. I have just over a fortnight before the first customers arrive.’

Dex glanced around him and did a low whistle, his eyes taking in the lichen covered terrace, the rusted wrought iron tables, the chipped paintwork, the overgrown garden.

‘I know, it doesn’t look great,’ Libby went on. ‘And we certainly weren’t expecting it all to be perfect, but cash flow meant we had to open before we were ready. The main thing is that the outhouse is built. That’s where the courses are going to be.’

‘What courses?’ Jimmy asked, lounging back in his chair.

‘Cooking courses, for the moment,’ Libby said.

‘You should do yoga courses,’ he said.

Libby made a face to say that was the last thing she needed. ‘For the moment, Jimmy, I need to stick with what I know best and that’s baking. It’ll work as an extension of the blog and the supper clubs—you know, so you can come out here and have a slice of the life you read about. Soak up a bit of sun, learn to cook your favourite Italian foods, and go home relaxed and rejuvenated. It’s called the Sunshine and Biscotti Club.’

‘Very nice,’ said Jimmy, almost taken aback by the fact he was impressed.

Jessica nodded. ‘I came up with that. We’re in charge of design and marketing.’

‘Didn’t I come up with it?’ Dex said with a frown.

‘No.’ Jessica shook her head.

‘I really think I did,’ Dex said, leaning forward, elbows on the table.

‘You so didn’t.’ Jessica was aghast.

‘OK, OK, look, maybe you both came up with it. The important thing is that it’s going to happen in a couple of weeks,’ Libby said.

But Jessica wasn’t happy about letting the matter lie and was about to say more when an angry looking waitress appeared, arms crossed over her chest, and said, ‘Drinks?’

Jessica swung round in surprise.

‘Oh yes, that’d be lovely,’ said Libby, half standing in her chair. ‘Giulia, these are my friends, they’ll all be helping to get the place up and running over the next couple of days. Everyone, this is Giulia.’

Giulia stared at them all, her expression unchanged.

‘Giulia’s been here for years, worked for my aunt,’ Libby carried on brightly. ‘She’s a rock, I couldn’t do it without her.’

Giulia made a noise that could have been interpreted as a scoff of disdain. Libby could see the others glancing down at their laps or across to the lemon grove, as though the awkwardness in the air was something visible to look away from.

Libby kept smiling.

It had come as quite a shock when Libby and Jake had realised that, to all intents and purposes, Giulia had been inherited along with the hotel. There was no getting rid of her. She turned up every day at the crack of dawn to clean and polish, then at midday she opened up the bar. The idea that they might close the restaurant for any length of time had been actively laughed at by the residents of the village—all anyone wanted from the Limoncello was the food. Jake and Libby could mess about with their renovations all they liked as long as Thursday to Saturday the restaurant opened. Dino the chef trotted up in the afternoons to start prepping with or without Libby’s say so. Jake had been happy to let them get on with it as long as the money came in and he got a bowl of spicy tortellini soup or thick tomatoey fish stew at the end of the day.

To Giulia, the Sunshine and Biscotti Club was some ridiculous whim of Libby’s that she had absolutely no interest or belief in. Left to her, not an inch of the place would change.

‘Maybe a bottle of Prosecco, Giulia? So we can toast everyone’s arrival?’ Libby said, glancing round the eyes-averted table and then back up to Giulia who shrugged and stomped back inside.

‘She’s a keeper,’ said Dex with a raise of a brow.

‘Well, to be honest, I don’t actually know what I would do without her,’ Libby said. ‘I mean I don’t know how to run a bar or a restaurant.’

‘But you can learn though,’ said Jessica.

‘Yeah.’ Libby nodded emphatically, half in an attempt to convince herself.

‘And what about money?’ Dex asked, leaning forward, his elbows resting on the table as he looked at her. ‘Are you OK for money?’

‘I think so,’ Libby said.

Dex frowned. ‘Think so doesn’t sound that certain.’

Libby glanced away from any direct eye contact. ‘Shamefully, Jake’s looked after all the money. I just need to get a clear handle on things, that’s all.’

‘Do you need to borrow any money, Libby?’ Dex asked, looking concerned. ‘I can lend you money if you need it, just ask.’

‘No, no, no.’ Libby waved a hand, ‘Absolutely not, I can’t take your money. And I don’t think I need it, I just need to sit down and sort it all out.’ She paused and blew out a breath.

Dex sat back again, his expression unconvinced as he kept close watch on her. Libby caught Jessica’s eye who made a face of pity and next to her Eve looked down at the floor.

Don’t cry, she told herself.

‘So anyway …’ she said, with a little shake and a huge smile. ‘What I need from you guys is just help with the cosmetics. The house, some of the rooms, the garden, that sort of thing. Just to make it presentable.’

They all nodded.

Libby nodded too. Then she smiled again. ‘Fab. Great. I think it might be fun. And also, it would really help me if just once a day we did some baking.’

‘Baking?’ Dex frowned. ‘I’m not really into baking, Lib.’

‘Don’t worry, it won’t be hard. That’s the whole point. It’s for everyone.’

‘I reckon you could bake, Dex, if you put your mind to it,’ Jimmy said with a grin, his big muscly arms locked behind his head.

‘I’d like to see you bake,’ Dex scoffed.

‘I could bake,’ said Jimmy. ‘What is it? Just flour and sugar, that sort of stuff.’

Eve rolled her eyes, half obscured by messy blonde hair. ‘You are unbelievably arrogant.’