Love Among the Treetops: A feel good holiday read for summer 2018

Finally, after lots of wriggling and twisting and panting and straightening of fabric, I’m standing there, catwalk-ready, staring at myself in the full-length mirror.

This is Lucy’s version of ‘fabulous’?

The dress might have looked okay with some armour-plated underwear and a pair of skyscraper heels. But with my legs in yolk-yellow tights disappearing into over-sized tomato-red trainers, and three fabric bacon rashers appliquéd onto the front of the dress, along with two enormous, strategically placed fried eggs, I’m clearly the comic turn of the evening.

Paloma takes one look and guffaws so loudly, I worry for her vocal cords.

No one could blame her. I look like a mobile hangover cure.

I nod urgently at the kitchen door, through which Lucy just vanished, looking for Olivia. ‘She designed this specially for me,’ I hiss. ‘I know she did.’

Paloma grins, shaking her head. ‘You’re just being paranoid.’

‘I am not! She wants to make me a laughing stock.’

‘Honestly, you’re imagining it.’

‘Oh, so you really think it’s a coincidence that you get the gorgeous diva outfit and I get the greasy fry-up?’

Paloma snorts with laughter, tears in her eyes. But she nods. ‘I do. You were the last to be kitted out, so you got the ‘witty’ costume. It was just bad luck, that’s all. Nothing personal.’

‘Hm.’ I actually feel quite shaky and, to my horror, on the verge of tears.

‘It’s true. Honestly,’ insists Paloma gently, seeing my face. ‘If I’d been last, I’d have been lumbered with the “transport caff extravaganza”. Honestly, I wouldn’t worry. You can really camp it up on the catwalk in a get-up like that!’

I attempt a smile. She’s right. Of course, she’s right. It’s all just a bit of fun. I’m daft for taking it so personally.

Lucy bursts back into the room. ‘Don’t forget the hat!’ she calls gaily.

And marching over, she slaps a giant baguette on my head.

*****

‘It was really nice of Lucy to let you borrow those recipes of her grandma’s.’

‘Hm?’ I murmur distractedly. We’re walking back from the pub and I’m only vaguely aware Paloma just said something.

‘What are you doing, Twi?’

I glance up sheepishly from Lucy’s grandma’s recipe book. ‘I’m – er – examining the ingredients for anything suspicious.’

Paloma grins. ‘What, like: Victoria sponge cake. Butter, sugar, eggs, large pinch of arsenic (optional)?’

‘You never know with Lucy,’ I mutter darkly. But I put the little notebook away, in my bag.

I didn’t know what to think when Lucy produced it earlier in the evening, saying she thought my café idea was fabulous and that she’d be so thrilled if her lovely late grandma’s recipe book could help inspire me to even greater things.

‘Gosh, well, thanks!’ I said, taking the small blue notebook and leafing respectfully through the pages of spidery writing. The gesture had taken me completely unawares and I wasn’t sure what to say. Now, I was starting to wonder if trusting me with her grandma’s book of recipes was Lucy’s way of saying sorry for all the horrible things she’d done to me in the past.

Her fashion show certainly rounded off the evening in style. A very peculiar sort of style, admittedly, but at least it got everyone nice and relaxed and chatting away as if we only left school the week before.

I did what Paloma said and camped it up in the Big Breakfast outfit and everyone roared with laughter, which made me feel tons better. I almost felt I’d got one over on Lucy in deciding to just go with it and not show I was embarrassed or uncomfortable wearing something so preposterous. When everyone was laughing and applauding me, my eye landed on Lucy at one point, and she was standing there, straight-faced, arms folded, just staring at me, a cold, intense look on her face. A bit like creepy Mrs Danvers in Rebecca. It freaked me out for a second, but then I remembered what Paloma said about being paranoid and I told myself not to be so silly.

It was Lucy’s show. She was frowning because she wanted it to be a success. Of course she wouldn’t be able to kick back and have fun like everyone else.

‘I might try this clean eating plan of Olivia’s,’ says Paloma, snapping me back to the present. ‘If I’m going to be training for a 10k, I might as well go the whole hog and start eating healthily as well.’

‘Really? But you won’t be able to eat carbs.’

‘Won’t I?’

‘No. That’s the point of it. Nothing processed. No gluten. No sugar. No dairy. And the thing is, I really need your input this weekend, testing all the cakes and tray bakes I’m thinking of putting on the café menu.’

Paloma’s face lights up at the thought. ‘Yeah? Oh well, bugger clean eating.’

‘So you’re seriously going to train for this 10k?’

She shrugs. ‘Why not? It’s all in a good cause. Sending little Harry to America. And I sort of feel if Lucy and Olivia are spurring on the whole village to get involved and get fit in the process, I’d quite like to be part of it?’

She has a point. It’s just the last time I took any serious exercise, I was running around a tea room garden in Devon, on holiday with Mum and Dad, trying to escape from a wasp that had taken a fancy to my strawberry jam scone with lashings of clotted cream.

Mind you, I have got stamina.

‘We all agreed we’d sign up,’ Paloma reminds me, nodding back at the pub. ‘And to be honest, I’m quite looking forward to Lucy’s boot camp training sessions.’

‘You are?’ I stare at her, aghast. I can’t think of anything worse than Sergeant Major Lucy Slater breathing down my neck, yelling threats and making me run faster. (Actually, that just about sums up my schooldays in a nutshell.)

‘Yeah, I thought I might go dressed as a chipolata,’ says Paloma, straight-faced. ‘You know, continue the Big Breakfast motif. With perhaps a side order of fried onions on my head?’

We look at each other and snort with laughter.

A car draws up alongside us just as I’m doing an impression of Lucy introducing one of her fashion designs. ‘Ladies, this is my take on practical footwear with a twist. Mops for the feet! Get the housework done in no time and look super-uber-stylish while you do it. Note the fabulous grey fringing—’

I frown at Paloma, who’s stopped laughing and is now digging me urgently in the ribs. ‘What?’

I turn towards the car and my heart nearly gallops out of my chest when I see who it is.

My ‘childhood sweetheart’ as Mum quaintly describes him.

The only man I’ve ever really loved …

Chapter 6 (#u3a0aea97-22d2-55bd-b3c8-fd5390bd5788)

Jason Findlay is smiling up at me through the open car window with that thoroughly kissable mouth and those lovely, warm brown eyes. Eyes that used to gaze at me so lovingly from behind his glasses, my heart would turn somersaults of joy.

He must wear contact lenses these days …

And then my face turns into a scorching radiator on max when I realise he’s just witnessed me making a total arse of myself, ridiculing his girlfriend, Lucy.