‘No, love. I was just giving that manifesting stuff a try.’
‘What are you wishing for?’
Kiki sighed, the pressure of holding all this inside her chest making her heart ache. ‘I don’t want to jinx it. But you’ll be first to know if it works.’
8
GINNY
‘This place smells delicious,’ Ginny announced as she came into the café from the staffroom at the back of the floor, towel-drying her hair as she walked. On the way, she had to pass the section of the room that operated as a hairdressing salon. It was an odd combination – a small salon with only three workstations and two basins, behind beautifully crafted workspace dividers that separated it from the large café at the front of the building. They’d only been operating out of the same space since Alyssa had lost the lease on her building across the road the previous year. The lovely Jessie McLean, who owned the salon and the building, had decided to downsize, and offered Alyssa the extra space for the café. It had worked so brilliantly that Alyssa often said she wished she’d thought of it before. The salon was busier because of the footfall from the café and vice versa, so they both won out of the arrangement. Jessie’s kind offer had probably been influenced by the fact that she also happened to be married to Alyssa’s biological dad, Stan. It was complicated, but somehow it just all felt like one big, extended, admittedly unorthodox family.
‘It’s the caramel shortcakes I’m baking for delivery this morning,’ Alyssa replied, coming in behind her. ‘Two hundred of them for a charity coffee morning in the community centre on Saturday. I took them out of the oven right before I came to pick you up.’
Ginny inhaled the intoxicating aroma into her very soul. ‘I’ll give you a credit note for one of my internal organs if you send one of them my way. Two organs if you throw in a cappuccino.’
Alyssa rolled her eyes in mock disdain as she went behind the counter. ‘I think you’ve already promised them all to me, but I’m feeling generous, so I’ll feed you for free. It’s just another thing to add to your Oscars “Thank You” speech.’
‘Noted,’ Ginny agreed, plonking herself down at the table nearest the counter. ‘I’d offer to help, but I’m on the cusp of stardom and trying to get used to my new pampered life.’
That one made Alyssa laugh out loud. ‘And you’re also the worst waitress who ever worked here and a total liability behind this counter.’
The banter was calming the waves of nervousness that were ebbing and flowing in Ginny’s stomach, especially as Alyssa was spot on with her performance review. Ginny had truly been a hopeless waitress. Her coffee was awful. She was regularly late. Only the fact that customers loved her and she was related to Alyssa had kept her in a job.
‘Okay, that too. In fact, just that. Although, if this audition goes all wrong today, and I don’t land any extra paying gigs soon, I might be hitting you up for some extra hours over the summer.’ It wasn’t a lie. Ginny’s job as a coach at the Academy paid a decent wage, but that only covered her mortgage and bills, with a bit left over, so she relied on picking up acting or singing stints for extra cash. Over the years, she’d performed at birthdays, weddings, pantomimes, cabarets and, a few years ago, she’d done a six-month school tour teaching six-to-twelve-year-olds about climate change through the powers of puppetry and interpretive dance. She still had traumatic flashbacks about that one. So if she didn’t land this job today, she’d be back on the audition circuit, and, if all else failed, Alyssa could always give her some extra hours behind the counter. Even though, as previously stated, her sister rightly claimed that she was the worst waitress who’d ever worked there.
She chided herself for introducing doubt into her mind again and flipped her brain to positive thoughts.I’m going to get this job today. It will be my breakthrough and it will lead to amazing roles in my future. They’re going to love me. I am Mary Magdalene. Even if a Lipsy lounge set and Uggs weren’t all the rage in the days of the Resurrection.
The door from the back kitchen opened, interrupting her thoughts, and she glanced over to see her very favourite person coming towards her. He looked just as delighted to see her.
‘Well, well, well if it isn’t Beryl Streep.’
‘It’s Meryl, Grandad,’ she shot back, both of them fully aware that he knew that already.
‘Aye, but you’re the Glasgow version,’ he said, as he always did, with a loud chuckle and a twinkle in his eye that just made Ginny love him even more.
Their grandad, Hugo Canavan, and their gran, Effie, had pretty much brought her and Alyssa up, because their mum Dorinda… well, she was a party girl who had never quite accepted that her fate would be a life of motherhood in a small village on the outskirts of Glasgow. As a result, she would frequently take off, chasing the next dream, or the next boyfriend, and their gran and grandad had been the ones who were always there, giving them stability, love and lots of terrible grandad jokes to make them laugh. Back then, no one, including Jessie’s husband, Stan, had been aware that he was Alyssa’s dad, and the girls had assumed that they were both the result of the same relationship between their mum and a boyfriend who had bolted when they were kids. When the truth came out, their mother had taken off again and was last seen working in a bar in Marbella.
After a lifetime of love, bringing up Alyssa and Ginny, their gran had passed away a few years ago, and after Grandad had hung up his carpentry tools and retired, he’d decided to work in the café with Alyssa, to keep his mind and his social life busy. It wasn’t a job to him, more of an excuse to chat to the customers, some of whom he’d grown up with and known forever. Weirbridge was that kind of village. In fact, one of the reasons that she’d landed the job at the Academy was that her boss there, Moira Chiles, lived in the village and popped in almost daily for a ginger slice. When Ginny had shown up for the interview, the recognition and the affection had been instant. Ginny liked to think that it was her talent that had landed her the job, but it may well have been her sister’s baking skills. Regardless of the reasons, she was thrilled to take the win.
She got up and hugged her grandad, holding on tight for an extra second, because today was a day for a little extra reassurance. He’d just let her go, when a text pinged on her phone with even more reassurance. She clicked on the message from Stevie Dixon, Ollie’s girlfriend, who’d become one of Ginny’s favourite friends since they’d met last year on Ginny’s first day at the Academy.
Dollface! Good luck in the audition today. Remember MM is a woman of questionable morals from biblical times who is having an ambiguous relationship with a long-haired bloke, so just be you. Love ya!
That made Ginny laugh out loud. If ever there was a woman who was funny, grounded, and unimpressed by fame and stardom, it was Stevie, and Ginny loved her for it. She fired off a quick reply.
Cheers pal. Will buzz you when it’s done. Have a great day staring at bones.
Stevie was one Ginny’s few friends outside the acting community, but aside from working as a radiographer, she could also blast out a tune, so they’d bonded over their love of late-night singing sessions that inevitably started at the present day and worked back through the decades until they hit their mutual retro devotion to Fleetwood Mac. Stevie was the perfect Stevie Nicks to Ginny’s Christine McVie.
The doorbell dinged, and in came two other women that Ginny adored. Jessie McLean and, to Ginny’s delight, Jessie’s daughter, Georgie, Alyssa’s half-sister, barrelled into the room, both sporting bright sundresses and wide grins. Ginny saw Jessie regularly, when she was here getting her hair done or visiting Alyssa and her grandad, so it was Georgie that made her throw out her arms in greeting.
‘Georgie! It’s great to see you!’ she exclaimed.
Georgie had worked beside Jessie in the salon for years before going to work for Ollie as his personal hairdresser on the set ofThe Clansman.
‘And is it politically incorrect to mention a lady’s baby bump now or am I okay to say that you already look like you’re about to birth a small space hopper?’
‘No and yes, you’re right,’ Georgie giggled, hugging Ginny but definitely hindered by a four-month baby bump that prevented her from getting any closer.
