The New Beginnings Coffee Club: The feel-good, heartwarming read from bestselling author Samantha Tonge. Samantha Tonge
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park. I was trying to make swimming a regular thing. Cheap activities would be the order of the day from now on, seeing as Elite Eleganz was at risk of going bust. It was going to take a bit of getting used to – thinking twice before I took out my credit card or went to the cash machine.
I bobbed up and down in the water and stared vacantly at the big wall tiles. I’d texted Chanelle last week. Said I knew. Insisted we meet up. She’d refused. I should have known – a traitor and coward to boot. Zak told me not to contact her again. Tears welled in my eyes at the protective tone in his words.
Of course, it all made sense now. My mind computed. Christmas. The vouchers he’d bought me instead of the usual expensive present. February … he’d forgotten Valentine’s Day for the first time ever. Or had he? Chanelle hadn’t been able to hold back her excitement at receiving red roses from a so-called secret admirer. Easter. A lump formed in my throat. We’d simply argued over whether to buy April a rabbit. I’d said no, she had enough responsibility looking after her guinea pigs.
In fact, April had surprised me. Chanelle said that if my daughter was anything like Skye and the other girls, she would lose interest after a couple of weeks. But she hadn’t. Always fed them. Cleaned their hutch out regularly.
I squeezed my eyes shut and swam a width of the pool. Six months he and Chanelle had been together. For six months he hadn’t seen me as the sexy woman in his life. I’d simply been the mother of his child. The entertainer of his guests. The company’s charity organiser. And worse revelations had followed. I recalled a conversation we’d had on the Monday afterwards.
‘I still don’t get it,’ I’d said. ‘Wasn’t this what you wanted? The whole domestic set-up – marriage and children? All that’s missing is a white picket fence.’
‘All I ever wanted was you, Jen. Of course I adore April, but kids, nappies, parents’ evenings … At that time it had never been part of my plan.’
‘But you seemed so happy.’ I gulped, heart squeezing so tight. ‘Proposed straightaway …’
‘Yes. Because I was in love with you. It was all about you, baby.’ His eyes had gone all shiny. ‘Your crazy dress sense. The excitement when you’d designed an outfit you thought might one day sell. And …’ His shoulders jigged up and down. ‘I’ve been brought up to do the right thing. So marriage was inevitable.’
‘You married me out of some sense of duty?’
Silence.
I swore my heart actually broke in two. All these years I’d been trying to mould myself into a new Jenny that fitted in when he’d actually wanted the original version of me …
Without warning, tears streamed down my cheeks and I bobbed under the water to rinse away the proof of my hurt. On resurfacing I focused and passed a football to a child who had misaimed.
April still didn’t know. I’d persuaded Zak to hold off telling her – and to convince Chanelle not to break the news to Skye. Nor did I tell anyone else. That would make it feel real. For the first few days I’d managed to get through in a bubble of hope that Zak would change his mind, if only for April’s sake. But by Wednesday that bubble burst as he made it clear his future wasn’t with me. Yet he seemed to nurture this desperate, fantastical idea that somehow April and I could stay on at The Willows. Perhaps that eased a guilty conscience.
‘Are you crazy? I may not be a financial whiz, but even I can see we need to sell this place and fast. Not that I could ever live here again,’ I’d snapped. ‘It represents everything you hold in disdain: a happy, stable family life.’
I shook myself and wished I could stop dissecting every conversation of the last week.
With a brighter than bright smile I waved to April. We left the pool. Headed home. No, wait, not home. I couldn’t use that word any more.
I dropped April off for the traditional roast and because Zak had agreed to help her with maths homework. Then I drove into Laventon. It was April’s health-mad teacher’s birthday tomorrow and apparently The Coffee Club’s pecan brownies were her one and only vice, so April wanted to take some in. Buying gifts had been a given in my luxurious past. Perhaps now I’d have to turn into one of those mums who … I don’t know … thriftily handcrafted gifts out of food packaging or old clothes. My stomach twisted. Would I be up to the challenge?
I parked up my Mini in the village’s council car park and checked my reflection in the rear-view mirror. My hair hung in wild chlorine curls and the sunlight caught my foundation-free freckles. Would anyone else notice my swollen eyelids? After a deep breath, I got out of the car and grabbed my mock snakeskin handbag that looked out of place with my faded jeans. Not faded through wear, of course. It was a designer fashion thing. I’d never so much as darned a sock or resewn a button, in the last ten years. Nor struggled to get stains out of clothes. Anything less than perfect had just gone straight in the bin.
Wishing I’d worn a cool skirt instead, I headed down the cobbled street and veered to the right to avoid an over-friendly terrier that belonged to the tailor who altered Zak’s Italian suits. I pushed open the glass door of The Coffee Club and saw Noah behind the counter, in front of a wall filled with jars and jars of beans of all different varieties. The pale turquoise walls emanated a sense of calm, punctuated with minimalist paintings of cups with saucers. Modern white tables complemented a big silver coffee machine behind the shiny glass counter. Yet a homely feel came from random shelves filled with novels for customers to borrow, plus cheerful vases of flowers.
I fiddled with my watchstrap as I headed over. It had been challenging chatting with people all week and pretending everything was fine. Noah looked up. He gave one of his cheerful smiles and yawned. My eyes scanned his torso and the bare forearms made visible by rolled up shirtsleeves. He wasn’t as tall as Zak, but he was more muscly.
I approached and focused on the smooth skin and smattering of blonde hairs. Arms strong enough to build an ark? I had seen him go into the local church last Monday evening, when I’d been out for a mind-clearing walk. Perhaps his biblical name wasn’t random but chosen especially by religious parents.
I breathed in the aroma of caffeine. It felt comforting. I forced a cheery hello, despite thinking I didn’t belong on any ark as I was no longer part of a pair. Again Noah yawned.
‘Busy morning?’ I said and cleared my throat.
Noah ran a hand through his fudge-coloured, choppy hair. ‘You can say that again. The weekend morning crowd have ordered countless toasted teacakes and big lattes. We really need to get in some help. I’m catching up with some cleaning now it’s the post-lunch lull.’ He jerked his head towards the window. ‘Lovely again today. Looks like early summer is here.’ He paused. ‘They suit you.’
‘Huh?’ I said distractedly and turned back around.
‘Those curls. Very Madame Bovary.’
I eyed him curiously. A literary reference? Zak always said my curls were very ‘Carrie’ out of Sex and the City – a programme he’d been force-fed by a previous girlfriend.
‘Hmm,’ I replied. ‘Now that’s quite a tale about marriage.’
‘Noah’s right. They look great,’ cut in a female voice, somewhat deeper than mine. Elle appeared. She was a tall woman with a handsome face and strong features. She had a thin, black ponytail and wore a denim skirt with a baggy white blouse. I’d always thought that her feminine, fashionable name didn’t quite match her unfussy appearance. I’d asked her once if her family came from France but Noah had interrupted by teasing Elle about the idea that she came from swanky Paris.
In fact, I knew practically zero about either Elle or Noah. Nothing unusual in that, but this was Laventon, where every villager knew that Postie was currently seeking a divorce and dipping his toe into online dating, and that Mrs Carlton from the corner shop was about to adopt a rescue cat and had finally been given effective medicine for her arthritis.
‘I’d kill for a few waves but my hair is naturally straighter