Page 2 of A Wish For Jo
‘Two pounds fifty,’ Jo replied, stunned at his rudeness. She prayed he was just passing through and hadn’t moved to Cranley.
Without so much as a smile, the stranger banged down a five-pound note and got to his feet. ‘Keep the change.’ Before Jo could respond, he levered himself out of the chair with another grimace of pain.
‘Well, bye then. Lovely to meet you,’ Jo said to the door he’d just slammed again, stunned at such a blatant display of bad manners. An overly generous tip didn’t compensate for being so horrible.
Still reeling, Jo poured herself a generous mug of coffee. Inhaling the comforting aroma, she realised that the music in the back room had grown louder. With a very familiar backing singer…
‘Aaliyah!’ Jo yelled at the top of her voice, competing with the discordant noise two feet away. ‘Get your lazy, useless rear out here right now!’
CHAPTER2
‘Keep your hair on.’Aaliyah emerged, blowing on newly painted fingernails. Or, to be more accurate, lethal talons that could carve up a cake more efficiently than Edward Scissorhands. ‘What’s all the fuss about?’
Jo regarded her ‘assistant’ with a combination of frustration and disbelief. The latter still lingered, two weeks after Aaliyah’s unorthodox appearance in Jo’s life. The former… Well, suffice to say that Aaliyah would never make the grade on theGreat British Bake Off.Less Mary Berry, more Mary Shelley, with a knack of putting the monstrous into muffins.
‘You mixed up salt and sugar, resulting in completely inedible Victoria sponge and quiche,’ said Jo. ‘It’s not blinking rocket science, Aaliyah.’ Her simmering anger rose in temperature as she took in the colour of Aaliyah’s nails. ‘Is that my nail polish?’
‘Might be,’ replied Aaliyah, flapping her hands around like a demented seal. ‘I didn’t think you’d mind, seeing as you’ve got like hundreds of different ones.’
That’s a slight exaggeration.Jo liked to treat herself to the odd funky colour when she ventured into the capital. She’d been particularly taken by the ocean blue currently sported by Aaliyah. ‘Audaciously Alice’ was its name, a quirky title which sat alongside ‘Perversely Pink’ and ‘Defiantly Damson’ on her dressing table. The dressing table in Jo’s bedroom, which Aaliyah had been told not to enter.
‘And I’ve told you repeatedly that you need to cover your hair with a net when you’re baking,’ added Jo. ‘Customers don’t want to be picking strands of it out of their cakes.’
Aaliyah swung her ebony pigtail over her shoulder. ‘Alreet, pet, calm your jets. It’s bad enough I have to wearthis’ —she swept her hands dismissively down the cotton apron embroidered with the café’s logo — ‘never mind put that horrible fish-catching thing on my head.’
Jo wondered, not for the first time, how long she could keep this charade going. Why, oh why, had she bought those stupid lamps from Sam Addin? And as for Jinnie Cooper, she’d be having a word with her when she returned from her holiday.
‘Aaliyah, you’re supposed to be making chocolate-chip cookie dough and the filling for the sausage rolls. This is a café, not a beauty parlour. Come with me.’ Jo steered Aaliyah into the back room, ignoring her grumbles. ‘Here’s the sugar’ — Jo pointed at the enormous container with ‘sugar’ written in bold text — ‘and this is the salt. Donotmix them up again!’ Hearing customers, Jo left Aaliyah to it, praying she wouldn’t add a dollop of minced meat to the cookie dough.
‘Morning!’ She smiled at Ed McCroarty and his girlfriend, Angela, looking as loved-up as ever. ‘What can I tempt you with on this chilly day?’
‘Ooh, do you have any of that fabulous treacle tart?’ asked Angela, tugging off her beanie hat. ‘Or carrot cake? I need something super sweet to wake myself up.’
‘You mean me bringing you coffee and toast in bed doesn’t do the trick?’ teased Ed, smoothing down a ruffled strand of Angela’s hair.
‘Sorry, lovely, neither is on the menu today, but I have a rather lush chocolate roulade.’ Even if it hadn’t tempted the rude stranger, who needed more than a piece or two of cake to sweetenhimup.
Jo served up a slice each for Ed and Angela, with a pot of English Breakfast tea. ‘How are your folks doing?’ she inquired of Ed. His parents, Ken and Mags, had embarked on a two-month cruise, leaving Ed and Angela in charge of The Jekyll and Hyde pub.
‘All good,’ said Ed. ‘Not that Dad’s brilliant at keeping in touch. He looks at my WhatsApp messages, but only gives one-word replies. Mum hasn’t a clue how to work her phone these days, so there’s no point messaging her.’
Jo touched Ed’s arm sympathetically. Since Mags’s diagnosis of early onset Alzheimer’s, the family had struggled to cope. Jo and Ken had grown close at one point — a littletooclose — but they’d seen sense before anything happened. Ken adored Mags, and Jo hoped that one day she’d find a man who felt the same way about her. Mind you, in her mid-forties, she wasn’t holding her breath. Eligible bachelors didn’t dangle from the street lamps of Cranley, and Jo had neither the time nor the energy to dive into the Edinburgh or online dating scene.
‘How’s your friend’s daughter getting on?’ asked Angela, hopping onto one of the high stools at the counter. ‘It’s so kind of you to take her under your wing.’
Jo gave an embarrassed shrug. ‘She’s, erm, adjusting.’ She’d hated using Carole, her best friend from school, as a cover story, but she had been at a loss to explain Aaliyah’s sudden appearance in the village. She had told anyone who asked that Aaliyah had got mixed up with a bad crowd, and was staying with Jo for some work experience and a quieter way of life.
No one needed to know that Carole had no children and would have been appalled to acknowledge vain, incompetent Aaliyah as her offspring. And no one couldeverknow Aaliyah’s true origins. Jo’s brain still did a cerebral backward somersault whenever she recalled their first meeting…
‘Well, you can’t get much quieter than Cranley,’ said Ed. ‘Not that we’re complaining, eh, Angela? Who needs the hustle and bustle of a big city when you’ve got Peggy’s hair salon for all your blue-rinse requirements, and Sam’s antiques emporium for all things ancient and needing love?’
Jo shuddered at Ed’s remark. OK, she wasn’tancient,but for a moment she pictured herself perched on a shelf and being dusted occasionally by Sam’s fiancée, Jinnie.
‘Cranley’s not that bad,’ she countered, ladling home-made raspberry jam into individual pots. ‘Alison’s done a grand job with the boutique, and Janette keeps us stocked up with essentials.’
‘Aye, she does. Mind you, she’d run out of con—’ Ed received a deathly glare from Angela, whose cheeks were scarlet. ‘Conference pears. Because I fancied, erm, a pear tart the other day.’ Angela gave Ed a sharp poke in the ribs and Jo turned away to hide her amusement.
At that moment, Aaliyah strode out of the back room, minus her hair net, with all the poise and attitude of a catwalk model. ‘I’ve finished the filling for the sausage rolls, but I couldn’t find the mice droppings.’ She raised a perfectly plucked eyebrow in Ed and Angela’s direction, throwing in a seductive hair flick for good measure.
