‘Niiiinaaa, helloooo!’ she called, waving her bejewelled hands at me, kissing me on both cheeks like they did on the continent. ‘And who do we have here, Luke O’Hara? Such a pleasure to meet you!’
‘Hi,’ he said, shaking her hand.
I cleared my throat. ‘Vanessa is—’
‘Our children are best friends at school,’ she cut in, and I almost snorted.
If Chloe and her Imogen were even remotely friends, then I was Queen Elizabeth the First. I couldn’t remember how many times I’d asked Vanessa to tell her daughter to stop bullying mine.
‘I’m the chairwoman of the PTA at Northwood Academy,’ she said, as if Luke was supposed to know all about the school.
He turned to me for help.
‘It’s just the school our kids go to,’ I floundered.
‘Not just a school,’ Vanessa corrected me. ‘It’s one of the best, if not the best, school in Cornwall, if not the entire West Country.’
‘West Country?’ Luke asked.
‘It’s just the western part of England,’ I explained.
‘By the way, Nina,’ Vanessa continued. ‘I know you’re busy with Luke doing your scriptwriting, so I’ll come to your place and pick up your arancini for the festival.’
Ah. That was a first. ‘That’s all right, Vanessa. I can bring them to the school just like I do every year.’
‘Ah, I insist! We can’t keep our celebrities from their work! I’ll call you next week then. Goodbye, Luke, it was delightful meeting you!’
And just like that, she was on a first-name basis with him. It had taken me years of slogging away at my laptop to even get close to a celebrity, and she had done it in a nanosecond.
‘Likewise,’ he answered politely as she lifted herself onto her tiptoes to kiss him on both cheeks, taking him by surprise, but he was very smooth. He wasn’t Hollywood for nothing.
As we ambled along, the kids ahead of us, a couple of my fellow villagers stopped to say hi and to welcome Luke to Penworth Ford, assuring him he was in good hands with me.
‘Sorry about that,’ I apologised as we resumed our way towards the Post Of ice.
‘Don’t be. I managed to get somewhere with only three people recognising me. And they were so polite! No cameras in my face, no pens shoved up my nose. Just pleasant exchanges between normal people. This is such a beautiful little village, like the kind you see in fairy tales.’
‘It is,’ I agreed happily. ‘Only salt-of-the-earth people here. Well, except for maybe a couple.’
Luke laughed. ‘Meaning that woman with the red claws?’
‘Vanessa?’ I said. ‘She’s harmless.’
‘She’s jealous of you,’ he said.
‘Jealous? Absolutely not. If anything, she feels above us all because she comes from money.’
‘So will you, very soon, dear Nina. You’ll be so rich you won’t know what to do with your money. And you might even buy yourself a mansion facing the Pacific. We could even be neighbours one day.’
‘Who? Me?’ I said with a laugh. ‘Ah, Luke, you are truly entertaining.’
He shrugged. ‘If you keep writing movies I want to produce, you will shoot to the top, Nina.’
I stopped. ‘You want to produce more movies from my—?’
‘Your books? Yeah. I told you, I love them.’
My heart began to pound. ‘But you never mentioned…’
He took my arm. ‘Let’s get through this script first, okay? I just wanted to throw that at you in case you ever doubted my respect for you during one of our heated arguments.’
‘We’re going to have heated arguments?’
‘Lots of ’em, Nina. But that’s the way it works in Hollywood.’
‘Oh. Okay, then.’ I paused just outside the Post Of ice. ‘And here is one of my oldest haunts. As you can see, one of the Fs is missing, but Alf is such an original, he decided to leave it that way, and the ladies from the ice cream parlour opposite decided to call their place The Post Of ice Cream, just for laughs. They’re a great bunch. Come on in, I’d like to introduce you. Bev and Carol and Deirdre take care of Alf since he was widowed, just out of the goodness of their hearts, and when he was ill they took turns in running the shop for him. They have been with me from the very start here in Cornwall.’
‘They sound like a great bunch,’ Luke said.
‘Oh, they are,’ I said as I pushed the door open, and a jingle filled the shop.
‘Morning, Alf,’ I called, but he just sat behind his paper, as deaf as a post.
‘Hi, Alf!’ I repeated, and the paper came crashing down to reveal a sullen face.
‘Hello, Nina,’ he said, and my blood froze at the frostiness in his voice. Had I offended him in some way? Had his Anchor Beer turned out bad?
‘Hello, pet,’ Deirdre said, sliding in behind the counter, patting my hand.
‘Folks, this is Luke O’Hara. We’re working together on my script.’
‘Of course,’ Deirdre cooed. ‘Lovely to meet you, Mr O’Hara.’
‘Mr O’Hara’s my dad, ma’am,’ Luke said, turning on the charm. ‘Please call me Luke.’
‘Oh, my, to be on first-name terms with a Hollywood superstar!’ she returned with an equal amount of panache.
‘Alf,’ I said. ‘I was just telling Luke the story about you. Are you ever going to get the F up?’
He glared at me from under those bushy eyebrows that looked like rats’ nests. ‘When did you start swearin’, Nina?’
I laughed. A forced, croaked laugh. ‘No, I mean the F on your sign. It’s been like that for years now.’
‘Well, Nina, maybe I don’t like change. And maybe neither should you.’
My mouth fell open as my eyes swung to Luke’s who didn’t miss a beat. ‘I’ll be at the dairy section,’ he whispered and slipped away.
‘Oh, Alf,’ Bev said, elbowing him in the ribs as she joined us. ‘Go on, pet, don’t mind
