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‘I know your bedroom is bursting with wedding dresses, you’ve definitely got enough.’ Izzy grinned at her. ‘There’s only one way to beat Aidie, and that’s by being bloody marvellous, and that’s what your vintage bridal line will be Luce. Seize the day, spread your wings, you know you can do it.’
Luce blinked. Maybe she could do it, for the team.
Dida, typing furiously on her iPad, came to the end of what she was writing, and her lips curved into a smile. ‘So you could say we’ve got a plan then.’
‘Too right.’ Izzy sounded jubilant. ‘All we need now is a name.’
Dida’s head jerked up. ‘For the three of us here, fighting to save what we love?’
‘Exactly.’ Luce smiled. ‘We’ve been a team for years, but a title would make us stronger somehow.’
Izzy pushed one paint splattered thumb against her chin. ‘At half past five this morning, when I was stirring my Farrow and Ball Cinder Rose, it hit me that three of us really are a club.’
Luce grinned. Izzy and her paint colours. But it was a fab idea.
Dida’s lips curved into her first smile of the morning. ‘It’s obvious. We’re The Vintage Cinema Club aren’t we?’
‘That’s it.’ Izzy thumped her fist on the table so hard the Susie Cooper tea set rattled.
Luce chimed in. ‘And we’re not going anywhere.’
Dida’s mug was already in the air. ‘Let’s drink to that. Here’s to us, here’s to The Vintage Cinema Club, and here’s to a battle we’re going to win…’
There was a clunk as their mugs clashed, and they all shouted.
‘To The Vintage Cinema Club!’ ‘To saving the cinema!’
Luce only hoped they could.
8 (#ulink_f481165b-4210-56e8-b8a5-57f3c92b7af3)
Subject: RED ALERT
As if we don’t have enough problems, there’s another home shop opening in the spray tan place. If anyone hears/knows/discovers any info please shout IMMEDIATELY. Forewarned is forearmed. As for “the other problem”, Izzy Luce and I, a.k.a. The Vintage Cinema Club are working on “a plan”.
Dida xx
9 (#ulink_b96752ba-7131-5949-88fd-ade7ad8a9250)
Thursday Morning, 5th June
IZZY & LUCE
Vintage at the Cinema.
Flapjacks and post mortems
‘That’s the outside displays set up, and the geraniums sorted. Oh, and there’s no change in the shop along the road.’ Izzy wandered back into the old cinema, watering can in hand, wincing slightly as she caught her bad foot on the step, and looked around to see what job to tackle next. ‘But as I was saying before, it’s just such a waste.’
Izzy knew she was repeating herself, but as Luce seemed miles away, sorting through a huge pile of buttons, the repeating part probably didn’t matter too much today. They were still in shock about the cinema, but throwing themselves into work seemed like helping the cause. Izzy had blurted out last night’s skip story to Luce when they’d first opened up, but a customer searching for the perfect vintage summer dress came in before Izzy got past the main headlines. Then two elderly ladies had come for coffee whilst they deliberated over which of two art deco lamps to buy. In the end they’d bought both, more power to Dida’s chocolate and banana cake, and high five to the free coffee idea.
Izzy moved over to dust a dresser full of plates, and tried another tack. ‘Are we going out tomorrow tonight then?’
Luce looked up at last. ‘Ruby’s going to Dida’s, so I’d say that’s a yes.’ She gave a slow smile. ‘So long as I can summon up the energy.’
Now Izzy examined Luce more carefully, she was definitely lacking something in the sparkle department, and it was more than just worry about the cinema. Luce had been flat even before the birthday party.
‘That’s not like you.’ Izzy flicked her duster. ‘Whatever happened to Lucy paint-the-town-red Morgan?’
Luce being reluctant to go out had Izzy’s alarm bells clanging. This was the girl who’d been dancing on a table as she went into labour, but she was taking pale to a whole new level this morning. Izzy admired the way Luce embraced single motherhood, yet still managed to treat herself to some no strings fun on her fortnightly Friday nights out. Izzy steadfastly refused to follow her friend’s lead, as her own disillusion with men, which had begun with her dad, was pushed off the scale by Awful Alastair. And whereas Izzy was short and curvy, edging towards dumpy on a bad day, Luce rocked the whole blonde and delicate thing, despite being five eight and rising. She had the kind of totally uncalculated appeal which had men falling over each other to try to do things for her, and that didn’t stop at buying her drinks and taking her to bed. They would literally fight to open doors, carry her shopping, put petrol in her car, and if they put sugar in her tea, they invariably stirred it for her too. Frankly Izzy had never known anything like it. Anyone else with Luce’s looks and fan hoards would have been totally insufferable, but Luce’s saving grace was her older, even more attractive sister, who had gone on to have a super duper career as a model, and who had given Luce the impression as they were growing up, that Luce wasn’t that pretty. As far as Luce was concerned she was just another ordinary girl, who barely noticed the trail of gawping guys she left in her wake.
Luce gave a shrug. ‘Too much sewing, and working Saturday morning is what happened…’
Izzy shook her head. ‘Jeez, that’s what the rota is for. We should never need to come to work after a big night out.’
‘True, and ideally I don’t work weekends, but I’ve got two brides booked in for this Saturday, so my mum’s having Ruby. Great for business, but…’ Luce gave a long sigh.
Izzy jumped in, to ensure Luce didn’t wriggle out of what they’d planned earlier. ‘I’ll help you move your dresses over tomorrow, then you can take those appointments here in the cinema. The projection room will be perfect for you, and we can move some mirrors and a sofa up there too.’
The projection room refurb had been Ollie’s last job before he went AWOL, which, to Izzy, although technically not quite correct, was a much more appropriate way to describe a guy of thirty two shoving off with no notice on a so called gap year. To Izzy’s mind, gap year implied a lot more planning and forethought, not to mention youth. Despite the fact it had given her the opportunity to expand her own business, on a personal level, the break neck speed of Ollie’s departure had left Izzy feeling distinctly huffy.
Rearranging the plates, she gave them a final flick. ‘I’m guessing coffee and some of my special flapjack might help?’ She made a point of never leaving home without a large supply, given that Dida’s cakes were supposedly for customers not staff. Oats and sticky golden syrup, gave the perfect combination of slow release and rocket fuel energy burst. People might laugh at her, but times like this proved how right she was.
Luce gave her friend her first proper grin since they’d arrived. ‘Did I ever tell you I love you, babe.’
Izzy gave a laugh and dived off into the kitchen.
* * * *
‘So what’s this about waste again?’
Izzy peered around the chandelier she was twiddling with. She wasn’t big on post mortems, possibly because she never did anything out-there enough to warrant one, but right now she really did need a debriefing with Luce.
‘It’s a complete waste for an awful guy like him to get looks like that.’ Izzy mentally crossed her fingers, hoping for five minutes without interruption from customers, while she got her thoughts straight about the guy with the skip.
‘If we’re talking about the guy on the building site I may need more flapjack.’ Luce said as she sank her teeth into another piece. ‘So, just tell me again, how come you knew about these hidden skips in the first place?’
‘I spotted some builders coming out of the Butty Box in Bakewell, so I followed them.’ Izzy clocked Luce’s eyes rolling skywards.
‘Have you been hanging round sandwich shops again?’ Luce was tutting and giving her a hard stare.
Izzy was well known for stalking anything in overalls and work boots in her mission to find skips. Saving old furniture gave her a warm feeling inside. She knew it wasn’t logical to most people, but for Izzy it was a throwback to the time her family collapsed. Back then every item Izzy had rescued represented a step towards domestic stability, and rescuing other people’s cast offs, and using them to make the family home pretty had been a way in which she grappled back control in a situation where she had very little. Even last night, when the threat of losing everything they’d worked for was hanging over her, she’d found it immensely soothing to dive into a skip. And that was where her fledgling obsession for all things vintage had begun.
Izzy heard her own voice rise in protest. ‘I just happened to notice a builder on the street so I followed him, and hey-presto, there were two skips on his site. It’s a cut-throat world out there, I make no apologies for my methods, especially now.’
‘You get worse.’ Luce shook her head, and wiped a flapjack crumb off her chin. ‘So later, when you go back for your stuff, that’s when you get stuck in the skip, and meet the fit guy…’
Izzy chimed in. ‘…the rude one whose looks are wasted on him. You got it.’
Luce’s cogs were obviously turning very slowly today.
‘So let’s get this straight.’ Luce licked her finger. ‘This spectacular man finds you stuck in his skip, on his building site. He drags you out, looks after you when you cut your foot, then offers you a lift home. So remind me, how does this make him a bad guy, because from where I’m standing he sounds like a great guy who fully deserves to be drop dead gorgeous?’
Izzy pursed her lips, and let out a long breath through her nose. ‘You’d need to have been there to understand. We just didn’t get on, simple as. And incidentally, he wasn’t a normal drop dead G, he was kind of totally exceptional.’ Izzy wasn’t going to elaborate, especially about on the stomach on fast spin thing.
Luce considered for a moment.
‘Izzy, you weren’t by any chance being difficult, were you?’
‘Me?! Difficult!’
Izzy knew Luce despaired of her tendency to tell it like it was. Cue Luce’s special customer service initiative, which everyone knew was directed straight at Izzy, full stop. As far as Izzy was concerned, if a customer was out of line, someone needed to tell them, and to hell with all that the customer always being right shit.
‘I might have been…slightly stroppy…perhaps.’ Izzy decided to come clean. ‘But in my defence, he was driving a hideous tank thing…and you know how that winds me up?’
It was all down to one bloody deserting dad, driving off in a blingy four by four, not only leaving the family destitute, but whipping all the assets off to where the divorce courts couldn’t touch them. Who wouldn’t hate four by fours?
‘Does this mean you might be about to get back in the saddle again, Iz?’
Luce had heard enough ranting about Izzy’s dad, especially in those sixth form years, when every day brought some new parental horror story, so it was only to be expected that Luce would head onto Luce’s favourite soapbox topic – fixing Izzy up with a guy. Somehow, according to Luce, the answer to every problem Izzy had was man-shaped.
‘Definitely not.’ Years of practice, and Izzy had the excuses ready to roll out. ‘After home and work, I have no time for dating. You know this already’
Since her ex, Alastair, Izzy had made her life so full that dates were out of the question, and that was how she liked it. It wasn’t because he’d smashed her heart into teensy pieces either. Actually, he hadn’t. It was just that in the end, like the guys who drifted through her life before him, he’d been ultimately disappointing in every respect. Given today’s reminder that she never wanted to have a guy controlling her life, staying well away from them was doubly important. With her brother Ollie away, and the extra urgency to maximise income, she had to be entirely work focused. Now more than ever.
‘I’m constantly pointing out hot guys, who you resolutely ignore.’ Luce’s tone of complaint lightened. ‘It’s the first time you’ve mentioned a man since forever. You can’t blame me for encouraging you.’
‘Thanks, but no thanks.’ Izzy tried to breeze past it. ‘Well-spoken really isn’t my type, and he’d never measure up anyway.’ Both those things were true enough, especially the last one. It was damned difficult when any guy you locked mouths with ended up being a disappointment, compared to what had gone before. That it was once, only, a long, long, long time ago, didn’t make it less valid a comparison.
‘Well spoken? You can’t dismiss a whole section of the population like that Izzy, and you definitely can’t let one snog in a cupboard, in the dark, when you were sixteen ruin you for all other guys.’
Izzy stared wistfully, and ended up looking at the bunting loops draped around the walls. ‘The thing is, no one’s ever come close to that snog in a cupboard.’ Alastair hadn’t got within a mile.
Luce’s face was stern. ‘And no guy ever will if you don’t get out there and try a few.’
Then her face cracked into one of her grins. ‘I sense a chink in your man repelling armour. Just be sure from now on I’ll make it my business to bring any hot guy around to your immediate attention – not that I don’t already.’ Luce’s grin widened. ‘So did you find anything good in the skips then?’
Hopefully that was Luce’s man hunt lecture over for today. ‘It was a brilliant haul. I was up at five working on it. There are some lovely frames, and lots of cupboards and little bits which don’t need much doing to them at all before they can go on sale. It’s a real boost, especially now.’
It wasn’t only the panic over Aidie’s threat – since Izzy had taken over Ollie’s section as well as her own, she was under pressure. If your brother went off, it was a no brainer that you’d cover for him, but lately she’d felt like she’d been running to stand still.
‘If it’s quiet today, I can cover here for you this afternoon, so you can get to work at home on all your new finds.’ Luce raised her eyebrows. ‘Your new stuff will keep things looking fresh here. You’ll be doing it for The Vintage Cinema Club.’
Izzy considered. Luce was right, so long as she didn’t mind.
‘Thanks, I’ll do that.’ Izzy looked up to see Thom and Declan, two other twenty-something Vintage Crew members, wandering in from the street. ‘Here comes the muscle. I’m guessing they’ll be here to help you out too if there’s anything you need.’
Meanwhile Izzy had to make sure that mind reading Luce didn’t twig exactly how much the awful guy from the building site was distracting her. ‘If that’s all out here, I’ll go and sort out the kitchen.’
Izzy had no idea what was going on with the skip man. Even now could still feel shivers on her skin, where he’d touched her foot. If Luce had the slightest inkling there was still a trace of his smell on Izzy’s jacket, and worse, that Izzy kept breathing it in, Izzy would never hear the end of it.
10 (#ulink_c4cb46ef-1eb6-541e-89f6-305956a3c7c4)
RE: RED ALERT!!!
To Dida and the cinema crew,
Quick tan central has been taken over by someone local called Joe Kerr, according to my mate who works in traffic at the council. Watch this space. Will send more info as I get it, the spies are out,
Ollie, sent from Goa, India
11 (#ulink_3cc1565d-bde1-5521-a9e9-b86a630f7b73)
Friday Afternoon, 6th June
IZZY
At home
Nirvana
Back home, Izzy dived into her painting dungarees, and pushed her jacket firmly out of reach to stop herself from breathing in the scent of that insufferable man. Under her pillow, in her bedroom, two floors up from the sunny terrace outside the kitchen where she was going to be painting, seemed like the best place. That way she definitely wouldn’t be tempted to bury her face in it – two days on and the scent of the hot guy was still vaguely there, and she still wasn’t even sure what it was. Paco Rabane? Soap? And a hefty smudge of testosterone, no doubt.
Izzy had spent the morning helping Luce transfer her wedding dresses across to the cinema. Given Luce’s reticence, she had decided that direct action was the only way forward to ensure the Bridal Studio idea became a reality. A few well-chosen accessories transformed the projection room, and another part of their Vintage Cinema Club Plan was in place. Luce’s pale anxiety had been replaced with flushed excitement by the time Izzy left her.
As far as Izzy was concerned, the fastest way to reach Nirvana, apart from burying your head in fabrics that smelled of someone delectable, was to paint. The moment she had the brush in her hand, the real world around the edges melted out of focus, and all she concentrated on was her brush strokes. It soothed her, it calmed her, it took her to another level. Better still, the giant endorphin boost of satisfaction for whatever transformation she’d just pulled off, made her feel like she was flying. Talk about afterglow. And better still she got paid for the end result. Who wouldn’t have been obsessed with it?
Three years ago, when Vintage at the Cinema began, Izzy majored in white and cream and pale grey, but the huge public demand for all things white was turning. Fifties brights were very popular now, and rich aubergines were also going down a storm. As for sludgy pink chairs, they were flying out so fast, she could barely keep up with demand.
Izzy had hauled lots of bits and pieces from her storage shed lower down the garden, onto the terrace, which she had swathed in dust sheets. Sitting in a splash of sunlight, by the open kitchen French windows, she began to paint. Today, despite the air being filled with the scent of early-summer lilac, her mind refused to wander any further than yesterday’s grubby building site, and guess who…? It was as if her brain had the whole action replay on repeat. It was like when her younger twin brothers played on their FIFA game on X box, and the snippets of commentary kept coming round again and again. Except each time she heard her own voice in her memory, she cringed, and kicked herself, wishing she’d said something different. Talk about torture.
By four o’clock she was exhausted and bemused, but at least she had a satisfying array of transformed tables, cupboards, chairs and frames, drying in the sun. Just looking at them made her insides go all warm with a glow of well-being. Every time she made something perfect again, it reinforced that she was in control of her life. She was just about to head inside to wash her brushes when her phone rang.
She grabbed her handset. ‘Luce, shouldn’t you be picking up Ruby?’
‘No, I’m at work, Ruby and Lolly are at Dida’s.’ Luce gave a husky laugh. ‘And I’m ringing to tell you about a hot guy, at six o’clock.’
Automatically Izzy scanned the horizon, as she did whenever Luce tipped her off about talent in the vicinity. ‘Thanks for the heads up, but I’m definitely too far away to appreciate him from here.’
‘I’m not talking six o clock positions.’ Luce sounded as if she couldn’t believe Izzy hadn’t understood. ‘Six o’ clock is the time for the delivery I’ve organised for you to do. Remember the new initiative? And this delivery is to the yummiest guy ever, who’s just walked out of here. I’m setting you up, okay?’
Or how about not okay. Izzy was kicking herself now, but she’d brought this on herself, when she should have known better. The merest mention of a man this morning, and Luce had launched into a full blown “grab a man for Izzy” offensive.
‘Why didn’t you grab him first?’ Izzy queried. It was a fact of life that the male shoppers honed in on Luce, and she was exceptionally up for fun times, so long as it wasn’t any more than that. What’s more, sometimes flirting sold furniture, simple as.
‘I’ve got someone else in mind for now…’ Luce didn’t elaborate. ‘And to be honest this particular guy didn’t seem that interested in me.’
Not interested? Izzy couldn’t see that being true. As for whoever Luce was thinking about, Izzy didn’t always keep track of the string of guys who Luce saw. Sometimes she hooked up with Josh, who was a dead ringer for Henry Cavill, guaranteed any girl a great time in bed, but shied away from anything more permanent since his mum died. Or Cal, who was similarly gifted, and up for no ties, whilst working past a break up. The others came and went. End of.
