What My Best Friend Did by Lucy Dawson Page B

pumps that had proven far from ideal footwear for the flash of rain I’d got caught in my side of the underground. I’d been aiming for a whole “Springtime in Paris” look, but was actually freezing in my silly thin jacket. All in all, it was a relief to arrive at the café, although I had to have a brief tussle with the stiff door, which seemed to have swollen in the damp air. I burst in with more energy than I’d intended to.
    The intoxicating smell of roasted coffee wrapped warmly around me. Caffeine-fueled customers were busily peering at papers over piled plates of food, as hot, harassed waitresses tried to seat newcomers while balancing full trays of tipping and slipping cappuccinos. I scanned the room and saw Gretchen waving frantically at the back.
    She was wearing worn, artfully faded, stompy leather boots on bare, smooth brown legs and a sort of cotton, cream, ethnic-looking tunic thing under an oversized chunky knit cardigan that looked like it was about to slip off her slim shoulders. A long string of brightly colored beads dangled around her neck and tangled with her loose hair. She had her hands wrapped tightly around a steaming mug of coffee and looked delighted to see me. As ever, both men and women were trying not to stare at her, but if she was aware, she didn’t let on.
    She set her coffee down unsteadily as she jumped up and wrapped me in an impulsive, enthusiastic hug. “Hello!” she said. “Perfect timing, I was just about to succumb and order one of those incredible-looking almond croissants. Have you even seen the cakes over there?” She pointed and I looked over, curious. She was right, they looked amazing. Big, sugary wheels of glossed, flaky pastries, fatly snug blobs of cream bursting out of choux buns, delicate cupcakes adorned with cherries and angelica.
    I sat down opposite her, facing the door, and commented, “You’re very bouncy today. Have you had good news about that American ice-dance thing?”
    “Nooooo.” She pulled a face. “Still nothing. I got asked to do a guest spot on
Good Haunting
yesterday though.”
    “Oh. Did you say yes?”
    “What, so I can stand in some dark, tumbledown shack in the back end of beyond with a crew filming in infrared while their “expert” deliberately throws himself over a table and then claims a ghost attacked him?” She raised an eyebrow. “It’s not come to that yet—although no one told me the switch between kids to adults would be this hard. Anyway, what do you want to drink and eat?”
    “Shouldn’t we wait for your brother?” I said.
    She waved a hand dismissively. “He’s already here, he’s in the bog. Oh hang on—talk of the devil.” She looked over my shoulder and grinned. “Bay, this is my friend Alice, the one I’ve nagged you about. Alice, this is my brother Bailey.”
    I turned and saw a tall man standing to my right, smiling a friendly smile. He had scruffy, sandy-colored hair that was drifting into sleepy, green eyes. In fact he looked as if he’d just woken up and tumbled out of bed. He was wearing a white T-shirt with a very faded image of a wave on it and, when he extended his hand, I saw a pale scar running the length of his tanned forearm, which I imagined he’d got from rock climbing, white-water rafting or something equally as adrenaline junkie-fied—he looked the type. He saw me looking at his scar. “Gretchen pushed me off a Space Hopper because I wouldn’t let her have a go,” he confided. “I cut it open when I fell.” Which wasn’t quite what I was expecting. Then he yawned and stretched like a cat.
    “Ouch,” I said, embarrassed to have been caught staring. “It must have been really deep—how old were you?”
    “Twenty-six,” he grinned disconcertingly. “Nice to meet you, Alice, excuse my impolite yawn.” He leaned over the table and kissed me briefly, stubble grazing my cheek as I caught a brief tang of expensive-smelling aftershave. “I’m a bit jet lagged.”
    “Just