My face flames, and behind me someone stifles a snort of laughter. Great. I’ve been waiting a whole year to see Ryan and this is how I greet him. With freaky hair.
But before I can even draw breath to explain, Ryan lifts both hands to cup my face. He looks at me for a few silent seconds, then kisses me, hard. As though he doesn’t care about the hair; as though he isn’t interested in anyone else. Through a kind of humming in my ears, I hear Nicole exclaim, “Oh!” and Tim saying, “Bloody hell!”
At last we draw apart. I’m aware that the whole room is watching us, and I muster every fiber in my body to address him nonchalantly.
“Welcome back, Ryan. So how long is it for this time? A day?”
Ryan surveys me silently for a moment, his mouth twitching as though with some little joke. Then he says, “Actually, I’m back.”
“I can see that.” I match his light, bantering tone.
“No, I’m back.” His eyes flick around the room again, aware of our audience. “I’m done with L.A. Finished with it. Back for good.”
He’s—what?
I stare at him, blood thundering through my head. My brain can’t quite process his words. Or believe them. For good? He’s back here for good? Desperately I try to find a cool, witty reply, but my mouth won’t work properly.
“I’d better get you a drink, then,” I manage at last, and Ryan’s eyes crinkle as though he knows exactly how stunned I am.
“Yeah,” he says, and kisses my hand. “You better had.”
I head to the drinks table, trying to gather myself. I never dreamed he’d come back to the UK for good. I never even contemplated it.
And as I grab a beer out of the ice bucket, a giddy joy starts to infuse me. Miracles don’t come true; I know they don’t. But just this once—this magical one-off time—one did.
Six
The party goes on, as it does every year. I know I should be helping Mum with the profiteroles. I know I should be clearing plates. But for once in my life I’m thinking: Let Nicole do it. Let Jake do it. Let anyone else do it. Because Ryan wants to talk to me, and that sweeps everything else away.
We’re alone in the tiny back room overlooking the garden. It’s stuffed with furniture that we moved out of the sitting room for the party—we’re sitting on the floor awkwardly between two sofas—but I don’t think either of us cares. We’re transfixed, in our own private bubble. Ryan has been talking for about an hour and I’ve been listening in a state of shock, because he’s not saying anything I expected.
Every other time Ryan has come home, all we’ve heard about L.A. is the glamour. The excitement. The celebrities. But now he’s telling me real stuff. Painful stuff. He doesn’t look like old Ryan; he looks battered. World-weary. Kind of like he’s had it.
And the more he talks, the more I realize what he’s telling me is: He has had it. He’s done with L.A. I have no idea how he can have sunk so quickly from “My best friend is Tom Cruise” to this place, but the way he’s talking now, he never wants to see L.A. again.
“Everyone there is two-faced,” he keeps saying. “Every single bastard.”
I haven’t quite followed his tale of woe—there are two people in it called Aaron, which doesn’t help—but what I’ve picked up is that he went into business with a couple of guys, but nobody did what they’d promised to, and now he’s out of money.
“You burn through the stuff,” he says bleakly. “Everyone wants to discuss work over Japanese food or on a boat. The one-upmanship. It’s insane.”
“But when you say, ‘out of money,’ ” I venture, tentatively, “you don’t mean …”
“I’m out, Fixie.” He spreads his hands. “Broke. Nowhere to live, even.”
“Shit,” I breathe out.
There’s a nasty feeling in my stomach. How can Ryan Chalker be broke? I’m remembering him and Jake, aged seventeen, riding around in that convertible. He had money. He had it. How can you just lose it all?
“So, what will you … where …”
“I’m staying with Jake right now. Your brother’s great. But then …” He shakes his head and his blond waves glimmer in the evening sun. “It’s hard. When you had a dream and you tried your utmost best and it didn’t work out.”
“I know,” I say fervently. “I know exactly what you mean.”
Hearing all this is bringing back painful stabbings in my heart. I’m remembering my pile of dark-green aprons under the bed. I’m remembering the drenching mortification of failure.
“I’ve had exactly the same experience,” I say, staring at the carpet. “You know I started that catering business? I did a load of work for this married couple called the Smithsons. They had a PR agency and they threw all these dinners for their clients, but they never paid me, and suddenly I was in debt and it was …” I try to compose myself. “I’d bought top-class organic filet steak, and I’d paid my staff, and they’d eaten it all, but I never got any money out of them.…”
Despite my best efforts, my voice is wobbling. I don’t often talk about the Smithsons, because it makes me feel like such a fool. Even worse, it makes me feel ashamed, because I didn’t listen to Mum. She knows about small businesses, she knows the risks, and she tried to warn me. She tried to ask me practical questions about invoicing and cash flow. But I so desperately wanted everything to be great that I glossed over the answers.
I’ll never make that mistake again. I’ll never gloss; I’ll never cross my fingers and hope; I’ll never do business based on sweet talk and promises and handshakes. If anything good came out of the whole thing, it’s that I learned. I became more savvy.
“There were other issues too.” I exhale. “It was a bad financial climate. I pitched too high-end. It was harder to crack the market than I realized. But the Smithsons didn’t help.”
“Didn’t you sue?” says Ryan, looking interested. “Could you get some money out of them now?”
I shake my head. “They went bankrupt.”
It was like the last toxic ace up their sleeve. After they’d ignored all my invoices, all my emails, even my visits in person to their office, they filed for bankruptcy. I’m in a list of creditors on a computer somewhere. And I couldn’t afford to carry on. I couldn’t get any more credit and I definitely wasn’t turning to Mum again. Farr’s Food was over.
That’s when I made the decision to channel all my energies into the shop instead. Because I do love it and it’s our family legacy and it plays to my strengths. I even sometimes use my chef training when I advise customers on cooking products. And if I ever think wistfully about my catering dreams, then I remind myself: I had my chance.
“No one understands except people who have been through it,” I say. “No one.”
“Exactly.” Ryan’s eyes burn intently into mine. “They don’t get it. Fixie, you’re like the only person who understands properly.”
My heart swoops inside—I’m the only person who understands Ryan?–but somehow I manage not to melt.
“I broke up with my girlfriend,” he adds abruptly. “You find out about people.” He rubs his face, as though trying to rid himself of memories. “I tried so hard. I wanted to talk it through.… But girls like that, they’re shallow. It’s not about who you are as a person; it’s about what can you do for them? How much can you spend on them? How can you help their career? As soon as she realized I was in trouble”—he clicks his fingers—“it was over.”
“She sounds awful!” I say hotly, and he shoots me a grateful half smile.