At 11 a.m., Bea climbed out of bed and showered again. Cal had asked if she would work today from four. But first, writing.
Her best intentions notwithstanding, the coffee shop was getting a little boring, and Bea needed to keep things varied, otherwise her writing became stale. She wondered if she could write at the bar. One of those little booths would be ideal. She could even steal glimpses at Cal as she wrote. It wasn’t something she’d want to do all the time as she needed space from her workplace, but once could be fun.
Bea arrived at Butler’s two hours before her shift and asked Cal if he minded her sitting there to write.
‘Um, sure.’ He scanned the room, as if wondering why she would want to write in a bar. ‘If you don’t mind the noise. It’s not the quietest time of year. Or the most romantic.’ He smiled.
Bea returned the warmth. He had remembered the genre of her writing. How sweet.
‘I’d say you could work in my office,’ Cal added. ‘But I kind of have a few things I need to be getting on with.’
‘Oh, Iwouldn’t expect to work in your office, but thank you for the thought.’
Bea settled into the booth. Writing in Cal’s office would have been wonderful. The scent of him and other reminders of him lingering in the air. Little emblems of who he was. Enveloped by the essence of the man. She could write a scene out of the intoxicating idea of that.
Less than an hour passed, and Bea was blocking out most of the surrounding customer hubbub when a conversation at the bar drew her attention. There was a petite blonde woman, dressed in tight pink jeans and a white blouse and carrying a giant Dior handbag, talking to Kitty.
‘Is he here?’ the woman was demanding to know.
Kitty, normally warm and amiable, was standing stiffly beside the bar hatch.
‘Is who here?’
‘Oh, come on, Katy…’
‘It’s Kitty.’
‘Kitty. Well, I presume he’s in the office, so I’ll go through myself then.’ The woman made to lift the bar hatch, but Kitty pushed it down.
‘You can’t come through here,’ she said, palms pressed firmly on the surface. ‘It’s employees only.’
‘Well, I think you know who I am, and you know I’ve been through there before.’ The woman tried to push up the hatch from her side.
‘Rules are rules,’ said Kitty. ‘It’s more than my job is worth to…’
‘If you’re going to be like that, I’ll phone him. The woman pulled her phone out of her bag, muttered something incomprehensible and tapped busily on the screen. Moments later, Cal emerged from the office, theenraged expression on his face making the one he wore when meeting Bea for the first time look friendly.
‘What’s going on?’ he asked.
‘Well, I came to talk,’ said the blonde, ‘but this jobsworth here wouldn’t let me through to your office.’
Kitty shrugged and moved away from the hatch. ‘I’m just doing my job.’
‘No, that’s fine, Kitty. Thanks. You did the right thing. Carry on with whatever you were doing.’ Cal sighed, then lowered his voice so it was difficult for Bea to hear from inside the booth, but from his lip movements, he seemed to be saying, ‘Why now?’ to the woman. She, not having the same concern for privacy, did not lower her voice and Bea could hear everything.
‘You‘d like to talk about this in front of the entire bar? If you want the conversation to be online by this evening then go ahead, ask me that here. Otherwise…’
‘Jeez,’ Cal growled. ‘Come through then.’ He raised the bar hatch and, face as dark as the brooding Edinburgh skyline, led the woman out of the main bar and through to, presumably, his office where Bea was no longer privy to their conversation.
Bea sidled up to the bar to talk to Kitty. ‘Are you okay?’ she asked. ‘And who on earth was that?’
‘Oh, I’m fine,’ said Kitty. ‘It’s nothing I haven’t dealt with before. But I can’t stand that woman.’
‘She’s certainly a little, um…’
‘High maintenance?’ Kitty spoke quietly so as not to sound off in front of the customers.
‘Well, I suppose you could say that, yes.’ Bea didn’t want to pry about who the woman was. If Kitty were to volunteer the information, that would be fine, butshe wouldn’t press her, although she was insanely curious as to whether this was Cal’s girlfriend.
