‘So I smell.’ She made her way over to the breakfast bar and hauled herself up onto a stool.
‘D’you want some coffee?’ Dean offered, taking a step back from the cooker.
She looked him up and down, from his immaculately polished,brown brogues, his snug-fit suit trousers, to his pale-blue shirt and accompanying waistcoat. Suddenly, in the pyjamas she was wearing, with her terrible hair, she felt like a poster girl forThe Big Issue.
‘Can I be really English and have tea?’
‘I’ve got orange juice with bits in,’ Angel said, holding aloft a glass.
‘Sure,’ Dean answered, going back to tending the pancakes. ‘Breakfast, Darjeeling, Earl Grey or Rooibos?’
‘The first one,’ Hayley answered. ‘I can do it if you tell me where the tea cupboard is.’
‘You sit there. You’re my guests.’ Dean, spatula in one hand, reached his other towards a bright-red cupboard to his right, opening the door.
‘We’re not really guests, Uncle Dean; we’re family,’ Angel reminded him.
‘I know you are but you’re on holiday. You’re here to relax, take it easy and enjoy. Besides, I have to go in to work this morning so you’ll be doing the tea-making for yourselves until this afternoon.’
‘Ohhhhhh,’ Angel said, sounding disappointed.
‘Angel, not everyone gets to have school holidays,’ Hayley said, picking up a fruit she didn’t recognise from the sequinned bowl on the breakfast bar.
‘I wish I did.’ Dean served some pancakes up onto a plate. ‘But I’ll be back about three and we can go and see Vern and Randy like I promised.’
‘Yay!’ Angel exclaimed.
Dean put the plate of pancakes on the breakfast bar then lifted Angel up onto a stool, pressing a fork into her hand. She used the other hand to steer her New York guide book towards her.
‘So what d’you think you’ll do today?’ Dean asked, pouring hot water into a floral teapot.
‘We could go to the Empire State Building and then we could visit the Statue of Liberty and the Guggenheim museum and—’ Angel started, eyes like marbles.
‘Whoa! Hold that enthusiasm. Mum is going to need a New York minute to get over the jet lag,’ Hayley interrupted. ‘And New York isn’t just tourist attractions, you know. When I came here last time, I tried to take in the local culture. The sounds, the scents… the galleries.’
The very first place she wanted to go was the gallery at the top of her hit list. New York Life. She just wasn’t sure how to pitch it to Angel. Telling her about the search was going to get her hopes up. She wanted to have some sort of sniff of hope before she told her daughter what she was doing.
‘But we’re only here for a few weeks and I want to ride on the ferry too and visit the New York Public Library and—’ Angel carried on, flicking over a page in her book.
‘Angel, I promise, we will do all those things but—’ Hayley began. Her head was starting to throb.
‘Did I mention I have an Xbox?’ Dean said, diverting Angel’s attention as he poured the tea.
‘Do you?’ Angel’s eyes were wide again. ‘Dylan at school has an Xbox and I played it when I went to his birthday party. Do you have Lego Batman?’
‘You can download any game you like.’
‘Cool.’
Dean put a fine bone china cup full of tea in front of Hayley. ‘So what d’you say? Mum gets a long shower while you fight off the Joker and Penguin and then you can head out and suck up the big city.’
Hayley mouthed a thank you and put a finger through the delicate drinking vessel, bringing it to her mouth like it contained a life-preserving potion. ‘So, have you got a busy day ahead?’
Dean nodded, a mouth full of pancakes. ‘Oh yeah. Thanks to a panicky text from Peter at 7a.m.’
‘What’s happened?’ Angel asked.
‘Oliver Drummond has called a meeting for the whole design and development team at ten.’ Dean shook his head. ‘I can’t tell you how many meetings like this we’ve had. He will have been over the specifications of the Globe again and decided to tweak something that doesn’t need tweaking and me and my team will have to go back to the drawing board just to satisfy his ego.’
