Excerpt
Slow Burn Summer
1“Sorry about this, can you just hold him for a second while I wipe this off me? It’s like he has this wild sixth sense that I’m wearing clean clothes, must throw up all over him straight away.”
Kate glanced at the familiar green door behind the harassed young guy thrusting the baby out toward her, knowing the fastest way to get round him was to refuse, but old parenting instincts die hard. She recognized the exhausted look in the guy’s eyes, and the I’m-holding-on-by-a-thread-here tone in his new-dad voice. Sighing inwardly, she held her hands out for the red-faced, squirming baby.
“I’d keep him at arm’s length, he’s just filled his nappy. He’s like a grenade, goes off at either end without notice.”
“Yeah, they do that,” she said, trying to surreptitiously check her watch without tipping the baby to one side. “Hello, you,” she whispered, thrown straight back to Alice’s baby days by the unexpected weight of a baby in her arms. He was surprised enough to stop crying and stare up at her, silent when she stroked the pronounced curve of his cheek with the back of her finger.
“I think he likes you, you should keep him. I’ll come back for him in about eighteen years,” the guy said, finally finding a pack of baby wipes in the bottom of his overstuffed changing bag and scrubbing ineffectually at the baby sick down the front of his hoodie.
“Trust me, you’ll look back when he’s eighteen and wish he was this small again. He’ll still be throwing up, just beer-induced rather than milk,” Kate said.
“God, I’d kill for a beer right now,” the guy sighed, giving up on his scrubbing and shoving the wipes back into the bag. Kate caught his eye and he shook his head and laughed. “I don’t mean it.”
“I know,” she said. “It gets easier.”
Lifting the baby onto her shoulder, she waited while he reclipped his baby carrier in place and gave himself a shake.
“Thanks for being cool,” he said, wrinkling his nose as he took his son back. “We better go and find somewhere to change you, hadn’t we, bud?”
Kate glanced sideways as he moved away into the lunchtime crowds and found the shoulder of her black jacket covered in baby sick.
“Shit balls,” she muttered, dragging it off to examine the damage. She’d spent the last two days deciding what to wear for the job interview, and none of her plans had involved baby sick.
Sighing, she did the only thing possible: shoved her jacket in the nearest litter bin, reassured herself she wasn’t underdressed, then threw her shoulders back and turned toward the painted green door again. It was open, an older guy heading out just as she headed in. She stepped aside with a tight smile, giving him a wide berth.
“Don’t worry, I won’t vomit on you too,” he said, having clearly witnessed the whole incident.
She shrugged lightly, an it-happens gesture designed to move things along.
“I think you have some in your hair,” he said, peering at her.
Kate touched her curls and groaned when she found them damp. “Oh, for the love of God.” She’d stashed a hair band in her pocket earlier and reached for it on autopilot, patting herself down and belatedly realizing she wasn’t wearing her jacket anymore.
“In the bin,” the guy said, ruefully. He looked like someone never likely to find themselves in such a ridiculous situation, well put together from his suntan to his tweed jacket to his polished shoes.
“Well, that’s that, then, isn’t it? Message received,” she said, glancing up at the skies in surrender. “I can’t go into a job interview with no jacket and sick in my hair, can I?”
He looked at her for a moment, then silently unknotted his tie and handed it to her.
“For your hair,” he said.
Kate looked at it, surprised, and then at him.
“You’ve come this far,” he said, by way of explanation.
She swallowed hard and nodded. He was right. She could salvage this. Tying her hair back, she took a deep, grateful breath.
“Thanks,” she said.
He nodded and held her gaze for a second, then stalked away into the London street scene.
Unaware of the drama playing itself out on the street below, Charlie Francisco sat at his late father’s desk with Kate Elliott’s letter smoothed flat in front of him. It was addressed to Jojo Francisco, as much of the mail still was, despite his father’s untimely death a few months previously. Known around town as the “starmaker,” Jojo had been a charismatic talent agent who’d operated solely on his famous gut instinct, his killer negotiating skills disguised by his lovable, eccentric demeanor. His sudden passing had come as a shock to everyone, clients, associates, and rivals alike, but most of all to Charlie, his only child and the slightly unwilling heir to his agenting throne.
Kate’s handwritten letter had arrived the week previously, a thick white envelope addressed in black ink—fountain pen by the loops and slopes of the letters. He’d turned it over a couple times before opening it, with a strange sixth sense that it wasn’t going to be something run-of-the-mill. An echo of that gut instinct his father was so famous for, maybe.
Dear Jojo,
I’m one hundred percent certain you won’t remember me, I was one of your clients twenty years ago. God, I feel old writing that, it’s a lifetime, I know! A literal lifetime, actually—my daughter, Alice, has just turned nineteen and gone to university, not that that’s the reason I’m writing to you (by hand, you’ll note, because I remember how much you always hated technology. I draw the line at purple ink though!).
Or maybe Alice leaving sort of is the reason I’m writing to you, at least in part—she’s left home for a new adventure, and I’m about to turn forty and recently left my husband, so there you go.
If you do remember me at all, it’ll be for chucking my career in to get married and move abroad—“a monumental mistake” you called it, as I remember. I was offended at the time but it turns out you were right. He had that clichéd affair with his secretary—it’s fine if you’re rolling your eyes. It’s taken twenty years, but I guess the joy of “I told you so” never gets old, right? Permission to revel in it granted.
I feel embarrassed to be writing to you after all this time. A bit of me hopes this letter is returned to sender because you’re drinking rum punch on a beach in the Bahamas, but obviously more of me hopes you’re still the best agent in town and willing to let me buy you lunch and apologize in person. We’re talking a sandwich in the park rather than shepherd’s pie in the Ivy, though, just to set your expectations at a realistic level! That’s kind of the point, to be honest. I’ve left my husband and he’s kept all the money—damn me and my lovestruck pre-nup! You did try to warn me, I wish I’d listened.
Is it unrealistic to hope there might still be a place for me in the acting world, Jojo? I know I’d have to start at the bottom again and most likely stay there, but I’m okay with that.
I’ve found myself living in a studio flat and for all I know I might not even remember how to act, so I’m sealing this now and shoving it in the post box before my nerve fails me. And yes—I’m trying to shamelessly curry favor by writing instead of emailing! If by any chance you’ve given up on purple ink and joined the digital revolution, you can find me at kateandclive@blinkmail.com.
Hope to be in touch soon,
Kate
