Love Your Neighbour: A laugh-out-loud love from the author of One Day in December. Kat French
hairy beer belly was sliding in and out from underneath the hem of a tea-stained T-shirt that had clearly not seen an iron in the last decade.
Marla slid her glasses up her nose and cracked the window open a little, all the better to eavesdrop. Not that they needed much extra help, because the bald guy was bellowing at the top of his Irish lungs.
‘Up a bit. Not that much!’ He hopped from foot to foot and clutched his bowling ball of a head in exasperation. ‘Down a bit! Feck it, man, it’s practically vertical!’
Marla squinted to read the freshly painted signs and then turned away and pressed her hands against her flushed cheeks in panic. This had to be a joke. Had someone called that TV show where they turn your worst nightmare into reality, and then expect you to laugh when they reveal it was all a big set-up?
‘Umm … that doesn’t look much like a cupcake bakery …’ Emily ventured.
‘You don’t say.’
‘It’s … er, it’s a funeral directors, I think, isn’t it?’
Marla closed her eyes as Emily voiced her worst fears. Her heart banged around behind her ribs like a panicked bird trying to escape, and she laid a hand over it as she tried to steady her breathing.
‘Cupcakes. It was supposed to be cupcakes, Emily. Not dead bodies.’
Emily grimaced. ‘Maybe there’s some mistake?’
Marla’s head spun with the implications of going from the sublime to the ridiculous in terms of her new neighbours. None of them were good. Wedding limos fighting for space in the street outside with hearses. Brides bumping into widows. Wreaths instead of bouquets. And how many happy couples would run the risk of ending up with a party of sobbing relatives huddled in the back of their wedding photos for all eternity?
‘It better be a mistake, or we’re ruined.’
Marla had shed blood, sweat and tears over the last three years to turn Beckleberry Little White Wedding Chapel into a national smash hit, and the idea of it suddenly being under threat made her shiver with fear. And anger.
‘I’m going over there.’
‘Excuse me! Er … Hello …’
Marla marched up to Guinness Guts, who had finally allowed the workmen to hang their signs and shambled his bulk back across the road.
‘Are you in charge here?’
He screwed up his chubby nose and shrugged a non-committal shoulder before reaching for the mug of tea that he’d balanced on the narrow window ledge.
‘Some might say that, darlin’. Depends entirely upon who’s doin’ the askin’.’
‘I’m Marla Jacobs – from the wedding chapel? You know, that wedding chapel.’ She jabbed a finger towards her beloved premises. ‘The one right there.’
‘Aaah. The new neighbours.’ He glanced down at her empty hands. ‘No cup of sugar, then?’
Marla narrowed her eyes. Was he joking?
‘Where is the cupcake bakery?’ she asked, enunciating each word with care.
His bushy eyebrows twitched as he looked at her. Then he shrugged. ‘Don’t ask me for directions, darlin’. I’ve only been here five minutes.’
The man was either winding her up, or he was an idiot. Possibly both.
‘No, no, no … Mr?’
Marla glared and waited for him to supply his name. The smirk on his face told her he knew so too, yet he wasn’t complying. She clenched her teeth and ignored his rudeness with considerable difficulty.
‘Look. There must be some mistake.’ She smiled, despite the fact that she actually wanted to knock the grin right off his face. ‘These premises,’ she waved her arm towards the shop currently bearing his ruler-straight new signs. ‘These premises have been sold to a cupcake bakery. You know … for cupcakes? Cakes? For birthdays. And weddings. And all sorts of other happy events.’ She emphasised the happy in the hope that he would finally cotton on to the thumping great problem. The blank expression on his face told her otherwise. Maybe diplomacy was overrated, after all.
‘Happy events. Not sad. And certainly not events for dead people,’ she hissed, her fists clenched into tight balls on her hips.
A look of understanding dawned across Guinness Guts’ face. Or, damn the revolting toad to hell, was it amusement? His piggy eyes travelled slowly from her purple skyscraper Louboutins all the way up to her auburn waves.
‘Look, Red. I’ve no clue about any of this stuff. You’ll be wanting Gabriel when he gets here tomorrow. He’s the organ grinder. I’m just the monkey.’
He made a frankly alarming attempt at something Marla could only guess was supposed to be a monkey impression, then slurped his tea and reached for a half-eaten packet of chocolate digestives.
Marla fought down the urge to grab the biscuits, hurl them to the ground and grind them into the pavement beneath her shoe as she cast her eyes to the skies and drew in a measured breath. Guinness Guts. Monkey Man. Revolting Toad. Whoever this man was, talking to him any more today was obviously a pointless exercise.
‘Right. Fine.’ She huffed, throwing her shoulders back. ‘Well, you can tell Gabriel to expect me bright and early tomorrow morning. And FYI, we don’t need any organ grinders around here. We already have a perfectly good organist in the village, thank you very much.’
Guinness Guts nodded and tugged on an imaginary forelock. ‘Gotcha. Not required. But hey, listen …’ He jerked his head towards the shop window with a grin that revealed biscuit crumbs stuck between his teeth. ‘We make good neighbours, you know. Very quiet.’
Marla shot him a withering look and stormed back to the chapel. Emily, who had been watching from the brick porch, flattened herself against the wall to let her friend steam by. Inside, Marla sank onto the nearest spindle-backed chair and scrubbed hard at her temples.
‘This cannot be happening, Em. If they open up there, we could be ruined. No. Scratch that. We will be ruined.’
Emily sat down across the aisle from Marla. Pin tucks of anxiety folded across her forehead as she twisted her rings around on her slender wedding finger. She couldn’t think of a single useful counter argument – as new neighbours went, a funeral parlour was just about as bad as it got for a wedding chapel. She clutched at the only available straw. ‘Maybe this Gabriel guy will be a bit more approachable tomorrow.’
Marla snorted. ‘You reckon? If he’s anything like his henchman, then I seriously doubt it.’ Her heart was hurting, as if someone had grabbed hold of it and given it a Chinese burn. The chapel wasn’t just her business. It was her everything. She might not believe in marriage for herself, but she sure as heck believed in it for other people, especially those who chose her quirky American-style wedding chapel as the venue for their big day. She’d poured her heart and soul into the business from the first moment she’d laid eyes on the vacant little chapel. The ‘for sale’ sign had stopped her in her tracks, and she’d known without doubt that Beckleberry was the perfect village for her business and her big fresh start. And she’d been right, up to now at least. It had proved the perfect distraction from her own shambolic love-life, and she was far too business savvy to allow her personal feelings towards marriage to stop her from turning the empty, unloved little building into one of the most in-demand wedding venues in the UK. She glanced up at the clock. 12.30 p.m. Past the yardarm. Thank God.
‘I need a stiff drink. Does Dora still stash brandy in the kitchen drawer?’
Emily nodded, then stood up and held out her hand. ‘Come on. I’ll make us some coffee with a nip of the hard stuff and we can make ourselves a plan.’
They both jumped as the back door of the chapel banged open.
‘Did