A Pretty Beach Wish by Polly Babbington (scary books to read TXT) 📗

I can’t turn up in evening wear. I want to look like I know what I’m doing. However, I do not have anything that seems to sit right for all this - I don’t want a boho top nor a tea dress.’ Juliette threw up her hands and did a massive sigh.

‘Don't all those media types just wear all black all the time trying to look like they don't care?’

‘Do they? I don’t know. I’ve no idea to be quite honest.’

‘Yeah, I think so. Louie’s wife’s sister works for one of the big advertising agencies in the West End. All I’ve ever seen her in is black trousers and a black top, and she constantly talks about being politically correct and her latest food fad.’

‘Hmm, black - one problem with that.’

‘What’s that?’

‘The only thing I have that is all black apart from the Christmas Dance dress is the shift dress I wore to the funeral, which is wool and there is no way I can wear that. I’ll roast.’

‘Won’t it be air-conditioned in there, though?’

‘Even so. I’ll be hot and sweaty just getting there and then I’ll be paranoid that I might stink if I wear that.’

‘What about that dark blue blouse then and trousers?’

‘What dark blue blouse?’

‘Remember when we were in Seafolly and you went into the charity shop down by the canal. You came out with that top that you said was some fancy store, Luscious or something and would have cost hundreds.’

‘Luke, you are a genius! The navy-blue silk top with the ruffles, yes. That might actually work. I haven’t even worn that yet. I hand-washed it, ironed it, hung it in the utility room and then the accident happened. I’d totally forgotten about it.’

Juliette had opened the other side of the wardrobe, taken out the navy-blue ruffled silk top, tried it on with navy-blue trousers and looked in the mirror. It was perfect, still floaty, and soft and her, but just a bit more business-like to make her feel as if she looked like she knew what she was doing. When, in actual fact, she felt like she hadn’t a clue.

***

Juliette walked along the packed pavement with all the commuters hurrying to work. As she crossed over a pedestrian crossing, a cyclist with a food delivery bag attached to the back of his bike nearly knocked her over, and a woman in sky-high heels and an extremely tight pencil skirt tutted as Juliette bumped into her bag as Juliette tried to steady herself. So much for Londoners being pleasant. She was clearly too used to Pretty Beach. It was packed, and the air around her seemed to be one of look after number one and don’t get in anyone’s way.

Juliette took her phone out of her pocket and looked at the time. She was purposely very early. She had researched online for a local cafe near to the offices so that she could get there, go and grab something to eat, and relax. She’d forgone breakfast to have it in a cafe in a tiny little backstreet behind the offices of Lellery.

Juliette re-checked the map app, looked up at the street sign attached to an old Victorian wall and walked down an extremely narrow, tight street. An illegally parked car took over one side of the pavement and a moped with a bright yellow helmet on the back blocked the doorway to an office block rear door. She peered down the road. It looked the most unlikely place for the hole-in-the-wall cafe, which according to the review site online, did one of the best English breakfasts in the city.

As she walked along, suddenly the cafe came into her vision. The Little Picadilly Cafe was precisely as it had appeared in the pictures online, and exactly as it had been described in the copious amounts of reviews on the app. It was the sort of place you would walk straight past unless you were looking for it. Big, grey, old-fashioned letters spelled out the name across the top, plastic tables from the sixties sat outside, a sandwich board announced, ‘sandwich bar, restaurant, greasy spoon’ and an old-fashioned green and white striped awning topped the whole scene.

Juliette observed the fact that all the tables outside were taken, and as she walked through the bottle green door a queue of people lined up beside huge display fridges full of all sorts of sandwich fillings snaked its way towards a side door. All the way along the back of the cafe a blackboard listed the many different permutations of breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Tight little Formica tables with two chairs each were topped with tomato sauce, HP, and tiny red pots of salt and pepper. An old man in an extremely shiny, tight black waistcoat shouted at the staff in Italian and flapped his arms around impatiently.

Standing in the queue, Juliette looked across at the packed tables to examine the breakfasts on the plates of other customers. A pair of builders sat next to a table of extremely neatly dressed men in suits and all of them had the same. Large white plates piled with bacon, a spoonful of baked beans, two fried eggs, a sausage, and a smattering of fried mushrooms on the side. A pile of fried bread sat in the middle of each table together with white mugs of strong tea.

Juliette smiled to herself. She’d done well with her research. This place was exactly what she needed before she went to present A Christmas Sparkle to the Lellery executives. The cafe was screaming every single thing that Juliette loved about a fry-up and was about a million miles away from all the fancy cafes and coffee shops she’d passed up on the main road.

Juliette stood waiting for the queue to move forward and gazed up at the menu. She kept flitting between all the delicious things written overhead and all the regular stuff, but in the end plumped for the same simple breakfast that most people seemed