The Vintage Cinema Club

‘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.’