The Peacock Emporium(36)



“What?”

“I didn’t know whether you were one of those—you know, ‘Hubby works in the City. She needs a little hobby.’”

“I’m not one of those.”

“Once your customers knew they were welcome, you could put a notice up saying, ‘Don’t talk to me.’ If you get the right sort of regulars they’ll understand . . . I mean, if talking to people is really that painful . . .”

Their eyes locked and they grinned. Two grown women, recognizing something in each other, yet too old to acknowledge that they were making friends.

“Jessie.”

“Suzanna. I’m not sure I can do that chatty stuff.”

“Are you getting enough customers not to?”

Suzanna thought of Neil’s knitted brow when he went over the figures. “Not really.”

“You pay me in coffee, I’ll come and help for a couple of hours tomorrow. Mum’s picking up my Emma for a couple of hours before night school, and I’d rather do this than the Hoovering. It’s nice to do something different.”

Suzanna stiffened, unbalanced by the idea that she was being maneuvered. “I don’t think there’s enough work for two.”

“Oh, there will be. I know everyone, you see. Look, I’ve got to go. Think about it, and I’ll turn up tomorrow. If you don’t want me, I’ll have a coffee and go. Yeah?”

Suzanna shrugged. “If you’re sure.”

“Oh, hell. I’m late. His nibs’ll be doing his conkers. See you.” Jessie tossed some money onto the counter—the right amount, it turned out—threw her coat over her shoulder, and flew out into the lane. She was tiny. Watching her go, Suzanna thought she looked like a child. How can someone like that have a child herself, she thought, while I still feel unready?



* * *





She was unwilling to admit it, even to herself, but Suzanna was cultivating a new crush. She knew this because every day, in the few minutes before she closed the shop to buy her daily sandwich from the deli, she found herself checking her appearance, and reapplying her lipstick. It was not her first: during her marriage to Neil she thought she’d probably averaged one a year. They ranged from her tennis coach, who had the most compellingly muscular forearms she’d ever seen, to her friend Dinah’s brother.

Nothing ever happened, as such. She either adored them from afar, building up a kind of parallel life and personality for them in her imagination—that was often far more desirable than theirs actually was, or allowed herself a swiftly intimate friendship, in which questions hung in the air unspoken, and tended to evaporate when the man surmised that she was prepared to take it no further. She was not being unfaithful, she would tell herself, just enjoying a little window-shopping, nurturing the kind of frisson that tended to disappear with security and domesticity.

Except that in this case she wasn’t sure who her crush was focused on. Arturro’s delicatessen employed three of the most handsome young men Suzanna had ever seen. They were lithe, dark, and filled with the cheerful exuberance of those who not only know they are beautiful but are made more so in a town without competition. They shouted cheerful insults to each other, hurling cheeses and jars of olives with what Suzanna saw as a sublime grace, while Arturro hovered benignly behind the counter.

For a town that appeared to view anything more foreign than the tired offerings of the local Chinese takeout as too challenging, and still had reservations about the tandoori restaurant, Arturro’s deli was always well populated. The townswomen, in to purchase their weekly cheese platter or posh coffee-morning biscuits, would stand in their orderly queue, breathing in the dense aromas of peppered salami, Stilton, and coffee, eyeing the young men with polite amusement (while occasionally reaching up to smooth the odd stray hair). The younger girls would stand in the queue and giggle, whispering to each other, then remembering only when they got to the counter that they didn’t have any money.

The men’s eyes held the knowing glint that spoke of summer evenings full of laughter, squealing rides on stylish scooters, nights of guilty promise. I’m too old for any of them, Suzanna told herself, in a determinedly maternal manner, while wondering if increased levels of poise and sophistication outweighed the definite lines on her face and the increasingly square outline of her behind.

“Can I have a mortadella, tomato, and olive sandwich on brown? No butter, please.”

Arturro blushed as he acknowledged her order.

“Busy today,” Suzanna said, as one of the young men leaped up a stepladder to reach a brightly wrapped panettone.

“And you?” He spoke quietly and Suzanna had to lean forward to hear him.

“Not very. But it’s early days.” She painted on a bright smile.

Arturro handed her a paper bag. “I am coming in tomorrow to see. Little Jessie came in this morning and invited us. Is this okay?”

“What? Oh, yes. Yes, of course,” she said. “Jessie’s helping me out.”

He nodded approvingly. “Nice girl. I know her a long time.”

As Suzanna wondered which of the three young men might constitute Arturro’s “us,” he walked heavily to the end of the counter, and pulled an ornate tin of amaretti biscuits from a high shelf. He walked back and handed it to her. “For your coffee,” he said.

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