Little Beach Street Bakery
Page 58

‘Why did you come here?’ she asked lazily. ‘I mean, you know ALL about me… I’m assuming you know all about me?’ she said.
‘Er, yeah,’ said Huckle apologetically. ‘Things get around. Sorry. Bad guy. Bad bad guy. Bad guy.’
‘You know I had absolutely no idea…’
‘Oh yeah. Bad guy.’
‘I would never, ever do that, you know? How could you do that to someone? Then go home to their bed at night?’
‘Did you really like him?’ asked Huckle gently.
Polly heaved a great sigh and tilted her head all the way back till she was staring at the stars.
‘Well, I wasn’t in love with him or anything like that. But it had just been so long, you know? And things had been so tough. So I thought, well, hey, this will be a bit of fun. I’m such an idiot. I was with my ex for most of my adult life one way or another, and I… I don’t know the rules. I really don’t. They may have totally changed, I have no idea. I’m like one of those rubes who comes to the city for the first time and loses all their money to someone playing three-card monte on a street corner.’
Huckle laughed. ‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘You are the first and only person ever to make a mistake with that kind of stuff.’
Polly smiled wryly. ‘Yes, but in front of the entire town and everyone I’d only just met.’
‘Whose sympathies, if it helps, lie entirely with you. Jayden is incensed about it. I think he has a Mrs Robinson crush on you.’
‘Oi!’ said Polly, putting her head down. ‘Just “crush” would have been fine, okay?’
‘Okay,’ said Huckle. ‘And Tarnie is miserable.’
‘Good,’ said Polly. ‘Oh Lord, that sounds horrible. I just… It was just really embarrassing, that’s all. REALLY embarrassing. I feel like… some daft girlie.’
‘I don’t think you’re like that,’ said Huckle.
‘Oh no?’ said Polly, hopefully.
‘No. I think you’re a daft grown woman.’
Polly hurled a cushion at him and he caught it and laughed.
‘Go on then,’ she said. ‘You know all my grubby little secrets now.’
‘All of them?’
She gave him a look.
‘Your turn. Men don’t just choose to up sticks and move somewhere with no reason. So tell me.’
‘Or what? You’ll do something bad to a firefly?’
‘No. I’ll… I’ll be very cross with you.’
‘I am shaking in fear.’
‘And I will tell everyone you pee in your mead.’
‘You would not do that.’
‘Try me.’
Huckle squinted at her oddly for a minute. Then he looked into the fire and let out a big sigh, stretching out his long legs in front of him.
‘Oh what the hell,’ he said. ‘Maybe it would make it easier to tell someone.’
Polly smiled encouragingly at him.
‘If it helps, I’m completely pissed,’ she said. ‘I’m not going to remember any of it in the morning.’
Huckle laughed. ‘Ha, yeah, well there is that. But you can’t breathe a word of it to anyone.’
Polly leaned over laboriously and held out her littlest finger.
‘Pinkie promise,’ she said.
Huckle put out his big warm pinkie and they joined them solemnly. ‘Pinkie promise.’
He refilled their glasses.
‘Well,’ he said. ‘Once upon a time… I was a management exec in Savannah, which is in Georgia, the state where I grew up. And I liked it. It was full on, no holidays, crazy hours, but I was young and I was good at it and I loved my job, so that was all fine, you know?’
Polly nodded. ‘I remember,’ she said, then she went quiet so he could talk.
‘And I met a girl who worked there – a woman, I should say. Candice. She was… is beautiful, really sharp, really switched on.’
So far this was sounding familiar to Polly. She sipped thoughtfully.
‘And, well, I fell for her. Hook, line and sinker.’
So that’s the kind of woman he likes, Polly found herself thinking, a bit ruefully.
‘And she felt the same way, totally, and we made all these plans about how we’d work hard and build up our cash, then maybe get married one day, downsize – I was already so into the honey – and all that.’
Polly nodded. ‘Sounds like a great idea.’
‘That’s what I thought.’
There was a long pause.
‘And?’
‘Oh. And. Apparently that lifestyle is harder to give up than I realised. Every year it was “next year, next year”, and she’d get promoted again, then I’d get promoted again, then she’d want a cool new Lexus, then a cool penthouse apartment, then we both started travelling a lot for work, then we never saw each other, then it was all expensive restaurants and bars…’
‘This is sounding very familiar,’ said Polly.
‘And it was fun, you know. Doing that yuppie thing. All the cool spots, lots of people around.’
Polly nodded. It was fun.
‘So?’
Huckle shrugged. He looked oddly embarrassed.
‘Well, after all that, and after all we’d said… she met someone who made more money than me. And so it turned out that downsizing to the country wasn’t exactly what she was after at all.’
‘Oh no,’ said Polly.
‘It’s all right,’ said Huckle. ‘It was my fault, I was completely nuts about her. I must have stifled her really. I was so sure I knew which way our lives would go. I had it all planned out.’
He smiled, a little painfully. Polly thought how she had had it all worked out in her mind too, with Chris.
‘So why… how did you end up here?’ she said.
‘Hah. I kind of stormed off in a fit of pique… said I’d do it anyway. Bought the first ticket I could find.’
‘You came here by MISTAKE?’
He shrugged. ‘My dad was English, I have a passport. I knew Reuben was around here somewhere.’ He rubbed his eyes. ‘But, yes. Kind of. A bit.’
‘But you like it?’
Huckle shrugged. ‘Yes, some of it.’
His face looked pained.
‘I am a little lonely. God, I can’t believe I just said that out loud.’