The Love Square by Laura Jane Williams

Author:Laura Jane Williams
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Published: 2020-05-20T17:00:00+00:00

14

After not speaking for six months, getting a daily phone call from Francesco Cipolla was like being able to breathe again. She really had missed him. She didn’t care about the other woman, about the kissing – she’d left him by moving, and she didn’t need him to be in love with her. She just needed her friend back. What was it he’d said, really early on in their relationship? Something about falling in friendship together. Well. It had happened, and quickly, and since that first text the other night their phone calls had resumed daily, both as they prepped for lunch service, just like they’d begun doing after they’d met.

‘What’s on the menu today?’ he asked, and she could hear his knife hitting the chopping board with speed on the other end of the line. She loved that. It was like they were cooking together.

‘Nice bit of chicken liver,’ Penny said. ‘Burgers that I’m going to dare serve medium rare, for all my sins. What are you making?’

‘Pistachio tart,’ Francesco said. ‘With fresh mango sorbet.’

‘Oh god,’ Penny said. ‘I’d kill for that. Send some up here will you? We’re in sticky toffee pudding purgatory.’

‘Nothing wrong with a bit of S-T-P,’ Francesco said. ‘It’s a British staple!’

‘Oh I know,’ sighed Penny. ‘I just wish we could push the boundaries a bit. Put some twists on the classics, maybe, or run a series of specials to see what people respond to before deciding what to add to the menu properly. Paul is great, but … not exactly passionate, you know? He does what he does well enough, but it’s what he’s always done.’

Penny looked up to make sure Paul wasn’t in yet. He wasn’t. Of course he wasn’t. Paul never came before he had to – that was part of his personal brand, exerting the minimum amount of effort for the closest to passable result as possible. If it wasn’t her kitchen he was in, Penny would be impressed. Why work harder than you had to? And yet, she wished Paul could even muster a 50 per cent. Half. Half effort wasn’t too much to ask, was it?

‘Hey, did you read that article I sent you?’ Penny asked.

‘About the miniature support horse on the flight from Chicago? Yes ma’am I did. He was cute. Nice outfit.’

‘I wonder how big his poop is though. Can’t feel very thrilling to be the one picking up after him, can it?’

‘No,’ reflected Francesco. ‘I suppose not. Do support animals come with support staff for that kind of stuff?’

‘We should investigate that before we get you your support gorilla.’

‘I don’t think you have to pick up after gorillas though.’

Penny laughed. ‘Mate, if your support gorilla relieves itself on the flight from Heathrow to my imaginary holiday home on the isle of Mustique, I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you to deal with that.’

Francesco conceded. ‘Okay. On the occasion of us flying to your imaginary holiday home on Mustique I hereby declare I will pick up after my imaginary support gorilla.

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