Part One
One
Izzy
December, fourteen years ago
‘Smile for the punters,’ Izzy’s boss Terry hissed in her ear as he squeezed his way past, a little too close for comfort.
Izzy scowled. You’d have to be superhuman to still have a smile after two hours of boiling in a too-small and over-revealing Christmas elf costume, serving Full Englishes and builder’s tea to total letches, with another eight hours of your shift to go.
She was going to kill the next man who told her that he wouldn’t mind finding her in his stocking. Apparently the average frequenter of Earl’s Court’s ‘Number One Greasy Spoon’ (No Free-Range Here! No Green Veggies Either!) didn’t know that in the twenty-first century there were laws against sexual harassment. Unfortunately, Terry didn’t seem to know either, so there was no help coming from his direction and, even more unfortunately, Izzy was desperate for cash but could only work Saturdays round her speech therapy training, and this was the only Saturday job going.
‘Your baps look perfect to me, love.’ The grinning middle-aged man – seriously, he had to be older than her father – was looking straight down her top from over the counter. ‘Do you come as a side order?’
‘Hil-ar-ious,’ she told him, trying to lean backwards so that her cleavage was less visible. ‘Never heard that one before.’ She pushed her elf’s hat back onto her head – annoyingly the dress was too small and the hat was too big – and dolloped a spoonful of her earliest-cooked, and therefore coldest, baked beans (The Only Fibre We Serve!) onto his plate, hard, because she wanted to slap him. She dolloped too hard. Some of the juice splattered off the plate and onto the bodice of her dress. Excellent. Excellent. Now she’d have to have it dry cleaned, because she couldn’t risk washing it again and shrinking it even more. Marvellous. The dry-cleaning bill would probably be more than an hour’s pay. Fantastic. She took a quick glance at her watch. Nine o’clock and already she had The Rage. Most Saturdays she managed to make it to at least nine fifteen, if not nine thirty, before wanting to murder someone.
She shoved the breakfast towards the grinner and yelled, ‘Next,’ reaching for another not-that-clean-looking plate; Terry should really get the dishwasher fixed.
‘Morning. Full English, please, as it comes, and a black coffee.’ Wow. The next customer had an amazing voice. Deep. Gravelly. Rich. And it sounded as though he was smiling as he spoke. Nice accent too. Izzy loved an American accent. She was pretty sure, from extensive TV and film watching, that he was from New York. You could hear a lot from one sentence.
‘No problem.’ Izzy switched the dirty plate for a clean one and added the two eggiest slices of toast to it. Everyone loved extra-eggy toast. She always gave good portions to nice customers and rubbish ones to not-so-nice customers. Completely fair. Café karma. The only bacon left in the tray was grim – grey and flabby looking. She added some more rashers to the griddle and looked up at the man to tell him that it wouldn’t be long.
And wow again. She found her eyes actually opening wider. His face matched his voice, in a way that almost never happened. Normally the ones with the nice voices really didn’t do it for her physically. And vice versa. Last week, for example, she’d had a customer who’d been one of the most amazing-looking men she’d ever seen, until he’d spoken. And then something about the way his mouth moved, in conjunction with his very high and whiny voice, had made her skin crawl, and very much not in a good way.
But this man, again, wow. He had wavy, dirty blond hair, olive skin almost the same colour, a very square, stubbly jaw and dark-brown eyes. Smiley eyes, with little lines at the corners already, even though he only looked about mid-twenties. And he was tall with wide shoulders, wearing a faded Eagles t-shirt over a very solid chest and under a battered leather jacket. And she was staring. Well, whatever. It wasn’t like there were a lot of advantages to this job other than the fact that it was hers and it paid her (a small amount), and he wasn’t a regular, so, really, who cared if she looked a bit nuts.
And then he smiled. And everything around them slowed down and then disappeared, like it was only the two of them left in the world. The smile was making his eyes crinkle exactly as she’d thought they would and his mouth had gone slightly crooked. Izzy’s stomach actually physically lurched, as though she’d been hit by something. She had no option but to describe it as love at first sight. The kind that no-one sane believed in. The kind that she didn’t believe in. But she knew. She absolutely knew. She knew that he’d make her laugh. She knew that he’d laugh at her jokes, however bad. She knew that she’d never get bored with him. She knew that he’d treat people, including her, well. And she knew that if, when, they kissed, she’d actually melt. She knew.
‘Hi.’ She was smiling right back at him. He was looking at her like he knew things about her too. Like he was feeling what she was feeling. The same thunderbolt. Electricity. Fizzing in the air. ‘I’m Izzy.’
‘I’m Sam.’ His smile had grown. He was definitely feeling what she was feeling. She could tell. Sam was a good name. It suited him.
‘Well in, mate,’ shouted Greg-the-Groper, from behind Sam’s shoulder. ‘I’ve been asking her name every Saturday for six months and she always ignores me.’
‘That’s because you regularly try to grope me.’ Izzy dragged her gaze from Sam to Greg with extreme reluctance.
‘Izzy. Over here. Now.’ Terry had his arms just about folded over his stomach, across his truly disgustingly dirty, greyish-white t-shirt and apron. Izzy took a couple of steps towards where he was standing next to the swing door to the kitchen, really not wanting to move too far from Sam. Or too close to Terry.
‘Yes, Terry?’
‘If I hear you being rude to customers one more time, you’re out. You’re only here because the punters like you.’
‘I work really hard,’ Izzy said. If she was going down, she was standing up for justice as she went. ‘That’s why I’m here. No-one else would put up with all of this.’
‘It’s alright, mate,’ Greg hollered. ‘It’s all part of the banter. She’ll give in one day.’
‘Off you go.’ Terry unfolded an arm and moved it towards her as though he was going to pat her bum. Izzy leapt out of the way and back to her place behind the counter. Greg was leering at her. The contrast between his face and Sam’s was huge. Red veins and bloodshot eyes on a pasty middle-aged face versus dream-come-true gorgeousness.
‘Piss off,’ Izzy mouthed at Greg so that Terry wouldn’t hear. Greg guffawed.
‘On the one hand I really want to speak to these men on your behalf and on the other I’m thinking that you’re dealing with them better than I could,’ Sam said.
‘Yeah, on the one hand I’d love you to punch them and on the other, you know, feminism… I’ll sort them myself.’
‘Sounds like you love your job?’
‘Oh, yes. The aching feet, the smell of grease in your hair that lasts until at least Monday, the costume, obviously, and the delightfully chivalrous customers. Not to mention my wonderful boss. It’s actual bliss.’