Chapter Eleven
“Who did you insult today?” Ross asked, smiling in anticipation.
This was his favorite game, Petra had learned, getting her to amuse him with examples of her disastrously big mouth and inability
to filter anything that popped into her brain. “How do you know I insulted anyone today?” she asked peevishly.
He didn’t reply, just raised an eyebrow in query.
“Okay, fine,” she conceded. “There might have been a slight misunderstanding when I rolled my eyes at a lady because we were both watching
a little boy pulling all the books out of the shelf onto the floor. The little monkey.”
“Parent?”
“Grandmother,” admitted Petra.
“And you managed to insult her without even saying anything,” Ross marveled. “Truly, this is your superpower.”
“Actually, I did speak,” Petra admitted. “I followed up the eye roll with something about kids not knowing how to behave because the parents don’t have a clue either. He was being a little monster; she should have been intervening.”
“Way to keep digging,” Ross said, amazed. “And you can’t make the grandparents take the rap, to be fair.”
“Yes, I can!” insisted Petra. “This is generational misbehavior. It was probably her bad parenting that’s made bad parents. She’s totally responsible.”
Ross cocked his head disbelievingly.
“Just speaking the truth as I find it,” Petra insisted sulkily.
“Like I said,” Ross replied, placating now, “it’s your superpower. Never change.”
Petra grunted. The superpower thing was a matter of opinion. She herself had discovered there was little enthusiasm for straight-talking.
“What are you doing tomorrow night?” he asked, as they both contentedly gazed into the flames.
“Friday? Hanging out with you here in front of the fire?” Petra hazarded, passing him the chocolate hobnobs. “Unless you’ve
got other, exciting plans?”
“I do, actually.”
“Gosh, good for you,” said Petra, trying not to feel miffed. It was Friday night, after all. People were allowed to have other
plans, and kicking back with your friends—okay, your one solitary friend—eating chocolate biscuits and chatting about stupid
things she had said wasn’t the most thrilling prospect in the world. Although she personally couldn’t think of anything better.
“But you’re not doing anything?” Ross persisted. “Even on Valentine’s Day?”
Of course, Petra thought. It wasn’t that she totally didn’t know what the date was—she had just done the Valentine’s Day window display—but the whole concept of romance felt very distant from her own life. Irrelevant, in fact.
“Sadly, no one is—what’s the expression?—‘laying siege’ to me currently,” she told him. “Thank you for asking—and for making
me feel like a loser, by the way.”
“You’re welcome. ‘Laying siege’? Seriously?”
“Yeah, whatever . . . it’s been a while,” she admitted.
“I’m not up with the terminology. So anyhow, what have you got lined up?
I want to know everything about your hot date.
” Petra was frankly astonished. Ross never mentioned seeing anyone else around Portneath, let alone a girlfriend.
Or boyfriend, obviously, although she had never had those vibes from him.
“I thought it was about time I cooked you supper,” he told her, grinning as if he was reading her mind.
Petra tried to wipe her face of all expression. “What? You mean I’m your ‘hot date’?” The second the words blurted their way out of her mouth, without the slightest liaison with her brain,
she felt like curling into a tiny ball right there on the carpet.
“God, no,” Ross exclaimed, apparently equally discomfited.
Well, this was excruciating.
“I mean, I didn’t even know you could cook,” Petra burbled on, eager to put words—any words—between her and her faux pas.
“Maybe I can’t,” Ross said, seemingly equally keen to move the conversation on. “You can be the judge of that tomorrow. You’re
not a vegetarian or anything? Although it’s fine if you are . . .”
“You’ve seen me eat a bacon sandwich,” she reminded him.
“Oh yeah, so I have,” he admitted. “Although some vegetarians make the exception for bacon.”
“Because that’s a thing,” said Petra scathingly. “But—yes—I eat everything, thank you for asking. What can I bring?”
“Just yourself. Seven o’clock?” he said, getting up to leave, seemingly delighted to shrug his way into his coat and keen
to escape before anything else happened.
“Oh no, I’ve just realized, I can’t!” burst out Petra.
His face fell for a moment. “Yeah, no, of course . . .” he said automatically. And then, tilting his head in confusion “Why?”
“Because I don’t know where you live, dumbo.”
The shop was busy the following day, mainly with men rushing in out of the freezing rain, grabbing last-minute Valentine’s
presents.
Petra dealt with them smilingly, touched on behalf of the lucky recipients, whoever they were. She applauded these men on
the whole. It might all be a bit “” but they got points from her for picking poetry books rather than gas station
flowers, where red roses, in particular, were an outrageous price for just that week. Petra had had an earnest, very boring
boyfriend in her teens who insisted on buying her roses like that, with their bare, ramrod-straight stems and tightly furled
scarlet flower heads that didn’t so much bloom as unfurl slightly, so as to look ragged and untidy before crisping at the
edges and withering in defeat. They never had any scent either.
Petra had always promised herself that one day she would have her own garden.
It didn’t have to be big or grand, but she was going to fill it with big earthenware pots overflowing with scent and color.
She would plant stock flowers, and sweet peas in a riot of shades, and roses!
Not just any roses, but the old-fashioned ones with the fat, heavy flowers that burst open on a sunny day, a riot of pinks, creams, velvety reds, and peaches, scenting the air with cinnamon and marshmallow.
Petra would cut these flowers for the house, of course, going out at dawn with her scissors to cut just one perfect dew-soaked rose destined for a glass by her bedside.
Or perhaps she would cut a fat fistful of sweet peas to cram into a little vase on her desk, their honey scent filling the room.
Ah, this life she would have.
One day.
“I wish I could get someone to look at me like that,” came a deep voice.
Petra jumped, startled out of her reverie. It was lovely Mungo, Diana’s other half. “You were miles away,” he went on, “so
radiant and full of joy, as if you were gazing at the person you loved more than anyone else in the world.”
“I was miles away,” Petra admitted, taking the book he had selected and scanning it. “I would imagine Diana looks at you like that
all the time.”
“I’d be horrified,” he retorted. “We do live together, true, but Diana and I are definitely just friends. She’s . . . not
my type, if you take my meaning?”
“Ah, I see, sorry!” said Petra, catching his drift. “So are you out on a hot date tonight?”
“I’m not,” admitted Mungo. “Sadly, my most recent boyfriend has just gone back to Brazil. No, no,” he added, seeing Petra’s sympathetic look, “it was nothing serious. But I am sure Diana has multiple grand plans. She’s generally beating them off with a stick.”
Petra giggled. “I’m not surprised. She’s very glamorous.”
“And you, my dear?”
“Yeah, I’m not exactly beating them off with a stick,” Petra admitted.
“Then, I don’t suppose you would allow me . . . ?” Mungo said diffidently. “Freya’s is probably fully booked, but I’m sure
there’s somewhere . . .”
He really was the sweetest man Petra had ever met.
“That’s so kind,” she said, “but you don’t have to take me out, I’m fine. As a matter of fact, I am having supper with a friend—another friend,” she said in deference to Mungo, “and we are going to spend the evening being completely unromantic together.”
Mungo smiled. “That sounds perfectly delightful, my dear, but if it doesn’t pan out, you know where I am.” He gave her a little
bow, tipped his splendid homburg hat, and left with his book under his arm, Petra smiling after him.
Yikes, she thought. About that supper with Ross: He had said not to bring anything but obviously she was going to ignore that.
What did you bring to an un-Valentine supper?
She had very handily learned that Freya did a takeout service, selling her divine patisserie in slices to go.
She could bring two slices of the raspberry gateau, with its swirly crème patisserie and layers of raspberry in jewel-pink jelly, but it was altogether too pink and white.
Too Valentiney. So, what about the lemon tart?
Or the chocolate ganache? But then, if he had made a dessert, they would be unneeded, she thought.
Plus, they were so exquisite, whatever he had made himself would compare unfavorably so—no .
. . Okay, flowers then? That was a hard no. Far too romantic.
The other difficulty was that she couldn’t close the shop until five o’clock, so when was she going to get anything anyhow?
It was looking like her only option was the little supermarket over the bridge, which didn’t offer a lot of classy choices.
A packet of wine gums? A box of Maltesers?
Ha! Chocolate . . . Now that was a good idea.
Chocolate didn’t have to be lovey-dovey did it? Everyone liked chocolate. And there was that amazing-looking chocolatier, with its tiny shopfront squeezed between two tea and cake places just up the
main street. Petra grabbed her phone and googled “chocolate Portneath.” There it was—Maison Chocolat—and, thank goodness,
it didn’t close until six o’clock today. Of course, late closing on Valentine’s Day, for all those last-minute lovers.
“I want something manly,” Petra told the exquisite French lady behind the counter, who was managing to look chic and Parisienne,
even in a food-hygiene hairnet.
“Du chocolat masculin?” the lady queried, clearly nonplussed.
“Yes, you know, not . . . ‘girlie,’” Petra explained, scanning the glass shelves for inspiration. There were serried rows of the most
exquisite handmade chocolates; violet creams, with crystallized violets on chocolate so dark it was almost black, rose-centered
ones with tiny rose petals, some with gold leaf, pyramids of cocoa-dusted truffles . . . all far too exquisite, far too—well—“love-tokeny,”
Petra attempted to explain.
And then, with an emphatic nod, the lady turned around and brought out a slab of dark chocolate, swirled with thick splodges of milk- and white chocolate and studded with whole nuts, Brazil nuts, hazelnuts, and heaven knows what else, chucked randomly onto its surface before it set.
“So,” said the lady, producing a small hammer, “with zees, we bouf, bouf, bouf,” she mimed shattering the slab into shards.
“Oui?” she raised her exquisitely plucked eyebrows, seeking approval.
“C’est très viril, n’est-ce pas?” she queried, flexing her tiny biceps and giving a little French-accented growl, for emphasis.
Petra giggled. “Oui. C’est bien. Merci,” she agreed.
The lady made a surprisingly violent job of breaking up a considerable quantity of the chocolate and then—with a silver trowel—sliding
the pieces into a black, corrugated cardboard box. It was the shape of a cube, lined with black tissue paper. Deftly folding
the origami-style lid so it was closed, she then walked her fingers over the rolls of pastel-colored ribbon questioningly
before selecting a dark brown grosgrain, tying it around the box and finishing it, not with a bow, but a sleek knot, more
like one you would see on a necktie, all the while chattering to herself under her breath.
After being invited to wave her phone at a reader displaying a disconcertingly large sum, Petra was back out in the street
with her precious parcel. It was raining now, and cars swished through the puddles, the lights of the shops spilling out and
reflecting back in the wet pavements. Petra shivered. Ross’s cottage, she now knew, was just beyond the outskirts of the town.
That was a brisk twenty-minute walk away, which would have been a pleasure at any other time, on any other day.
Nope. Uber had not extended its tendrils as far as Portneath, her app confirmed.
There was a taxi firm at the station, but she didn’t know its name.
Petra was just pondering, swinging the entirely “ungirly” box of chocolates, as she chewed her lips in an agony of indecision.
If she didn’t make some sort of plan she would be late, and that would be unforgivably rude—
“Going my way?” came a voice as a dark blue car drew alongside her and the car window slid noiselessly down.
Petra was about to give one of the withering replies she always kept handy for unwanted approaches in London—more common than
she would like—when she realized who it was.
“I nearly punched you in the face,” she told Ross, sagging with relief. “I thought you were stalking me.”
“I kind of am,” admitted Ross. “Hop in. I just saw the rain and didn’t want you walking.”
“Shouldn’t you be slaving over a hot stove?” Petra asked, as she slipped into the passenger seat, shivering gratefully as
the heat blasted her chilly legs.
“Probably. My soufflé will be ruined.”
“We can always send out for food.”
“In Portneath? You’re kidding. No delivery apps here.”
“No Uber either,” Petra observed. “It’s basically medieval.”
“Picturesque though,” said Ross, steering the car confidently back into the line of traffic snaking up the main street. “If
you like that sort of thing.”