“I can imagine.” Joey sat back in her chair, enjoying the older man’s enthusiasm.
Cisco stood for a moment and took a few steps. He looked carefully at one of the lower branches, picked out an orange, then squeezed it. He nodded, just once, and pulled it gently from the tree. Once sat down he produced a sharp knife. “Look, I will show you.”
This was the kind of business meeting Joey could get on board with. She spent a happy hour sampling all the varieties Cisco grew. She needed to consult with Carmen, but she was convinced there were some improvements they could make to their order. They might even increase it.
Joey left the meeting, her bag bulging with samples, and headed back into the city to find somewhere to eat lunch. The mouth-watering fruit had awakened her hunger.
She knew she couldn’t avoid her phone and that text message forever. It was lurking, both in her handset and in her mind. Once she’d eaten she swiped up on the screen and looked again at the words that had turned her heart upside down the day before:“So lovely to hear from you after all this time, Jojo. I’m living in a new place now, somewhere better. I’m turning my life around after the drink. Ijust need a little bit of cash to tide me over so I can make my rent. I know I shouldn’t ask you, but I have nowhere else to turn. Love, Dad x”
Joey put her head in her hands. It was textbook. He had promised over and over again that he would stop drinking. And he had asked over and over again for money. Money she remembered him stealing from her piggy bank when she was small, when he thought she was asleep. It felt like yesterday, the moment when, at the age of seven, she’d realised her father was lying to her. The disappointment that crushed her tiny soul when she asked where the money had gone, and he said she must have spent it and forgotten. Life had never been the same.
The inevitable tears quietly flowed through her fingers. She had been a fool to reach out to him. She’d been lost in an optimistic dreamworld where he might actually change. A dreamworld in which she might get the girl, too. But she knew in her heart of hearts that she and Vanessa were doomed. She’d taken a huge risk going home with Vanessa, but the lesson Joey had learned from her parents, especially her father, was that no one was to be trusted. People let you down. People broke your heart. And Vanessa would go back to the UK and forget all about Joey.
Joey cursed herself for allowing hope into her world for the first time in years. It had been naïve. Her life had been fine before Vanessa. Just her, the bakery and the city she loved.
Someone had once said that it was the hope that killed you. They were right. Joey wiped her face with her hands and sipped her coffee. She blocked her father. She couldn’t tell him ‘no’ again. She’d done it so many times before, and she was always assuaged by guilt, even when she knew she was doing the right thing. She wondered if really, she wasjust a terrible daughter. She was certainly a terrible choice as a girlfriend, or even a lover, for Vanessa.
Vanessa could have anyone. She was beautiful and kind and lived a thousand miles away. She would be fine. Joey knew that she would be the one left to nurse a battered heart.
She could sense Carmen frowning at her from Barcelona. “What about me,mija?” she’d say. And perhaps she was right. Carmen had stuck by Joey for more than a decade, there for her when no one else was. She gave a limp smile at the idea of her boss, her friend.
And of course there was Dani. But she had her own problems to deal with.
Joey’s phone vibrated. Vanessa’s name appeared. A text:“I’m worried about you. Are you ok? X”
Vanessa’s kind face smiled at Joey through her profile picture, and for a moment Joey felt warm. It was the warmth of knowing that someone cared, that someone had noticed she had run. That was new.
Joey sighed and toyed with her phone. There were no easy answers anymore. She wasn’t sure whether there ever had been. Abstaining from contact with her father, and from her love life, had kept everything in check. But she couldn’t deny the joy Vanessa had injected into her life in the last few weeks.
Was there a part of her that could trust another person? She picked out one of the oranges from her bag and inhaled its scent. She imagined sharing the flesh with Vanessa, and smiled. There was no easy answer, but perhaps she could say something. Silence wasn’t going to get her anywhere.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
VANESSA
“Ihave to confess that I really just know Barcelona in detail from its bakeries,” said Vanessa to her brother as they left the apartment block and headed into town.
“You make that sound like a bad thing.” Carl smiled. He definitely had a bit more colour in his cheeks. “When I was studying in Leeds all my references were pubs, so, you know.”
Vanessa laughed. It was good to be with someone who knew her so well. She was glad he’d sought her out when things had gone wrong at home. She was fed up with being thought of as the flaky one of the family, and it started right here, with Carl.
“So I’m on a bit of a mission to see if I can find the best coca in Barcelona.” Vanessa waved a small notebook at her brother. “It’s a kind of bread made from an enriched dough. Usually it’s sweet, but not always.”
“I see.” Carl furrowed his brow. “But why coca specifically?”
“Well, gran left me a family heirloom.” Vanessa slowedher pace so she could talk comfortably to Carl. “That recipe book I told you about the other day? Well, it’s clearly been through several generations of women in our family. There’s a missing page, though, for a specific coca recipe. I want to know what it was and if the recipe is special in some way.”
“I see.” Carl looked around him, taking in the sounds and the colour of the gothic buildings. “Wow, it’s beautiful here. So different to Birmingham.”
“You can say that again,” said Vanessa. “It’s been the perfect antidote to everything. Gran challenged me to a bit of a reset, and I’m genuinely giving it a go.”
“But?” Carl could hear the underlying doubt in Vanessa’s voice.
“Here – this is La Ramblas. It’s the iconic wide street right in the heart of Barcelona.” She gestured to the huge central pavement section, with a carriageway for traffic on each side. They crossed over into the middle and walked through, stopping every now and again when they reached an assortment of stalls selling wares.
“Ooh, is that a bakery stall?” Carl pointed.
“Yes,” exclaimed Vanessa. “I’m not avoiding your question, by the way. Let’s get some coca and take a seat somewhere. I’ll explain where I am with things.”
