CHAPTER TWELVE
‘Found him yet?’
It was the first thing Loli said when I saw her, and my heart squeezed at her hopeful look.
‘Not yet.’ I explained about the meeting I’d had at the café a few days earlier and how I’d just glimpsed Maddy’s Pudding Club poster in the village store window. ‘The poster has a picture of me on it, so you never know. Jensen might see my photo and be intrigued enough to come along.’
‘When’s the first meeting?’
‘It’s just a week away now.’ I felt my insides stir nervously just at the mention of my Pudding Club debut. ‘The first Thursday in September.’
‘Good.’ She nodded, looking encouraged. ‘Although hopefully you won’t have to wait that long to see that lovely man again.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Well, he might be looking for you . Have you thought about that?’
‘Well, possibly. I suppose. But just because I liked him, it doesn’t mean he felt the same about me.’ I shrugged, to show I really didn’t care either way. ‘He’s probably forgotten me already.’
‘Rubbish.’ Loli dismissed this with a wave of her hand. ‘You just keep missing each other, that’s all. But one day, you’ll find each other again. If it’s meant to be, it’ll happen.’
I smiled at her. ‘I’ve never known you be so soppy and sentimental before. What on earth’s come over you?’
She gave a sad little smile. ‘It’s a strange feeling when you come face to face with your own mortality. A health crisis really puts things into perspective. I want you to be happy, Lisa, after I’ve gone.’ She shrugged. ‘Well, before I’ve gone, preferably. Because I want to be there when you have your babies... and when you walk down the aisle... not necessarily in that order, of course. And Jensen – well, he seems like just the sort of man I’ve always dreamed of you finding. That’s all.’
Tears pricked my own eyes and I scrabbled in my bag for paper hankies. I handed one to Loli and she blew her nose furiously.
Then she straightened up and patted the sheet. ‘But look, there’s a practical reason as well... why I want you to find Jensen.’
‘Oh, yes?’ I dabbed carefully at my mascara. I was getting the bus over to the Brambleberry Manor estate after this, to put up posters in the café and artisan shops there. It wouldn’t be very professional to arrive sporting two giant panda eyes.
‘Yes,’ said Loli. ‘If you manage to track Jensen down, I might finally get my kidney transplant.’ Her eyes sparkled with mischief, and I knew she was only saying it to banish the air of sentimental gloominess that was threatening to completely overwhelm us.
I eyed her soberly. ‘You could have it anyway. The kidney transplant. Even if I don’t find Jensen.’
‘Yes, well, I know that!’ she snapped. ‘But that wasn’t the deal, was it?’
Grinning, I shook my head. She was so infuriating at times. But I never wanted to be without her.
I’d trawl the internet again later, when I got home. I’d already spent futile hours trying to find Jensen online and searching for him on social media. But so far, without knowing his surname, I’d drawn a complete blank.
I wasn’t giving up, though. I couldn’t afford to.
There was far too much at stake . . .
‘Now, before I forget,’ Loli said as I was leaving. ‘Would you mind bringing in a pudding for Tina, when you come in next? She’s been wonderful looking out books that she thinks I’ll like from the library trolley, so I’d like to give her one of our puddings as a thank you?’
‘Of course, that’s fine,’ I replied. ‘What about a golden syrup sponge pudding?’
‘Perfect.’
I smiled. ‘Consider it done.’ Nothing was too much trouble for someone like Tina, who was going out of her way to help my lovely grandmother.
*****
On the bus later, I scanned the pavements on either side as we passed along Sunnybrook High Street. But there was no sign at all of a tall man with nicely broad shoulders and tawny hair. (As I’d known deep down there wouldn’t be.)
I sat back in my seat with a sheepish smile. Of course I wouldn’t spot Jensen if I deliberately searched for him. It was like that watched pot that never boiled. It only boiled over the instant you turned your back. So maybe that was the key to this challenge: Deliberately don’t look for Jensen, and then like magic, he’d appear, when I was least expecting it!
But thoughts like these only made my head spin.
The whole thing was exhausting.
There was definitely something in the ‘watched pot’ theory, though, so maybe I needed to just calm down and let events take their course. Like Loli said, if we were meant to meet again, we would. With or without my intervention...
I liked sitting upstairs on a bus; you had a bird’s eye view over everything from up here. My stop was the one after next – Brambleberry Manor – and the bus was now slowing down for the stop before mine. So I got up, taking advantage of the bus being stationery. It meant I could get down the stairs without the worry that the driver was going to brake suddenly and send me flying down at twice the speed I would have liked, which had happened on a fair few occasions.
At the top of the stairs, I happened to glance over to my left, through the window. This was where I’d disembarked after I missed my stop on the high street that time and found Barley. I could see the river from up here... and the bench where I’d met Jensen.
I felt a jolt of shock.
There was someone sitting on the bench.
A man.
My heart beating faster, I threw myself into a seat on that side of the bus to get a better view.
It could be him. It looked like him, although I was obviously a fair distance away. But then he turned slightly and suddenly, I was sure.
It was him.
I needed to get off the bus!
Panicking, I jumped up. But to my dismay, I was only halfway down the stairs before I felt the bus lurch into motion again.
Nooooo!
I approached the driver and asked nicely if he could let me off because I’d missed my stop. But he’d obviously had an argument with his wife or something because he gave me a disgusted look and said I wasn’t allowed to get off between stops. So I had to stand there in frustration, watching the riverbank and the bench and Jensen get further and further away, until he was just a tiny little speck in the distance.
Finally, I disembarked at the Brambleberry Manor stop.
I looked back along the road. It was more than a mile back to the river. My ankle had recovered from twisting it the day I met Jensen, but even if I ran, it was going to take me a while to get back there. Could I make it... before Jensen left the bench? It was surely worth a try.
So I started running, handbag over one arm and the bag with the posters in it looped over the other arm. After just a few minutes of this, I was panting and out of breath, but the thought of Jensen sitting on that bench kept me pounding along the grass verge.
I could breathe again when I got there.
And then I heard the noise of an engine behind me.
A bus engine.
Turning, I was just in time to see a bus heading back in the direction of Sunnybrook pulling into a stop on the other side of the road. I spent an agonising few seconds waiting for an approaching car to drive past, then I raced across the road, waving my arms at the driver to please wait for me. Luckily, he did and I dropped into a seat at the front.
When it reached the next stop, I jumped off the bus and raced over the road, which was thankfully clear this time, and I found the little path that led down to the riverbank. My heart was in my mouth at the thought of seeing Jensen again, and I almost tumbled down the slope in my eagerness, just like last time when I was chasing after Barley. Hurrying along the path by the river, looking for the bench, my heart was beating so fast, I thought it might jump out of my chest.
And then there it was. The bench. I slowed right down and came to a stop.
It was empty. Jensen had gone.
After all that, I’d missed him . . .