Starlight on the Palace Pier: The very best kind of romance for the Christmas season in 2018. Tracy Corbett

       Chapter Two

       Friday 8th September

      Jodi washed her hands in the dingy restaurant bathroom, trying to remove the smell of burnt oil, lemongrass and fermented fish that had saturated her clothes and skin. It didn’t matter how many times she washed her tunic, there always seemed to be a hint of Thai curry invading her wardrobe. She didn’t mind working at the restaurant, she was grateful for the income, but waiting tables wasn’t her dream job.

      She dried her hands and removed her tunic, rolling it into a tight ball and stuffing it into her bag, trying to contain the potent smells. Maybe she didn’t deserve a dream. Perhaps she’d given up her right to lead a better life when she’d gone off the rails and ended up in prison. Maybe karma was wreaking its revenge.

      But if that was the case, then she wouldn’t have been offered a job at the Starlight Playhouse, would she? It might not be permanent, but it was the type of job she’d always wanted.

      When she’d attended the interview, she’d assumed it would go the same way as all the others. The interviewer would switch from being impressed by her first-class business degree and glowing references from her tutors, to discovering her criminal record, and the vibe would instantly change. Awkward glances would be exchanged, followed by concerns about her ‘lack of work experience’ or ‘suitability for the position’.

      No matter how hard she’d studied, how many nights she’d volunteered at the homeless shelter, or how much commitment she’d shown over the years waiting tables for Mr Pho at the local Thai restaurant, she couldn’t seem to escape her past.

      But Carolyn Elliot-Wentworth hadn’t been put off by Jodi’s stint in prison. And if she’d remembered Jodi from her days spent attending the youth club at the Starlight Playhouse a decade earlier, she hadn’t acknowledged it. Instead, she’d offered Jodi the position of business manager for a fixed three-month period. The salary wasn’t great, and it was only twenty hours a week, but it would give her some much-needed office experience.

      Plus, if Becca could be persuaded to apply for the dance teacher position being advertised, she might even get to work alongside her cousin. It was almost perfect.

      Jodi had one reservation. It meant working at the scene of her teenage misdemeanours. Was that a good or bad thing? She didn’t like being reminded of her past. But maybe that was the point. It was karma again, ensuring she could never escape her mistakes. A daily reminder that she needed to stay on the straight and narrow.

      She said goodnight to Mr Pho and headed into the street, unsurprised to find it full of revellers. It was Saturday night. The party had only just started.

      Like most of the locals, she usually avoided using the main road that led away from the railway station down to the seafront. The area was frequented by pale-skinned out-of-towners who’d travelled down for the weekend, eager to get pissed, hook up and start fights. The Pho-King Good restaurant was situated in the heart of the tourist area. As such, it attracted large groups of twenty-somethings, eager to line their stomachs with cheap curry before consuming barrel-loads of booze.

      One such group were hanging around outside the restaurant. They’d been in earlier, already drunk, making her job torturous. She was used to dealing with unruly behaviour, attempts to chat her up and ask whether she had a boyfriend. It was all part of the job. But she’d be lying if she said it didn’t upset her when reference was made to her ethnicity. They say alcohol makes a person tell the truth, that inebriated people become brutally honest and offer unfiltered opinions. Whereas a sober person would keep their prejudices under wraps, a pissed person might not.

      One of the guys whistled as she walked by. ‘Hey, sexy.’

      He stunk of smoke. Yet another pungent smell to add to the stench infiltrating her clothes.

      ‘Anyone ever told you, you look like Thandie Newton? I wouldn’t kick her out of bed,’ he said, showing off to his mates.

      Jodi ignored him.

      Her relationships with men had been influenced by several things, most of which revolved around her upbringing. Apart from witnessing her mum shacking up with numerous blokes, her own destructive behaviour had attracted a certain ‘type’ – one she was no longer interested in. As with job hunting, man hunting had proved disappointing. She’d had one semi-serious relationship in her early twenties, but the moment she’d plucked up the courage to tell Ned about her criminal past, he’d suddenly developed a desire to go travelling. Despite promising to contact her on his return, he never did.

      And that was the problem: if they were decent blokes, they didn’t want a girlfriend with a criminal record. And who could blame them?

      The guy stepped in front of her, blocking her route. ‘Want to join the party?’ He offered her the joint he was smoking.

      The smell acted as a trigger, a time capsule that transported her back to her teens. Of waking up with no recollection of where she’d been, or what she’d done the previous evening. Of nights spent in police stations waiting for her mum to pick her up. Aunty Ruby showing up instead and taking her back to the guest house to sober up. Crying her eyes out, as she dealt with the comedown of a drug-fuelled night.

      She’d grown up in Hove, the posh end of town – although there’d been nothing privileged about her upbringing. Her mother had lacked direction, until she’d met Ratty. To this day, his real name remained unknown. All Jodi knew was that he was a musician from Jamaica, who played steel drums in a reggae band and spent one summer in 1988 touring the UK with her mother in tow.

      By the time he left England and headed home to the Caribbean, Adele Simmons was in love, addicted to the ‘groupie’ lifestyle and six weeks pregnant. Unfortunately for Adele, it was all downhill after that. She flitted from one man to another, trying to find another Ratty, and increasingly annoyed that her youth, fun and night time partying had been curtailed by a screaming baby.

      Consequently, Jodi grew up without a father and with a mother who resented her. She’d accepted being passed from one relative to another, while her mother entertained numerous male ‘friends’. She did what the other kids did, watched films at the Duke of York cinema, hung out at the skate park and ice-skated at the now closed Ice Cube. When she reached her teens she realised her mum’s lifestyle wasn’t normal. Her reaction to discovering that her mum was the talk of the school gates, was to rebel. When Adele failed to respond to her daughter’s pleading for her to change her ways, Jodi switched to behaviour that ensured her mum had to pay attention to her. But even that hadn’t worked.

      She preferred to avoid thinking about her mother, who was currently shacked up with her latest man in Glasgow and no longer part of her life.

      Side-stepping the guy with the joint, Jodi walked off, ignoring his drunken suggestion that she ‘go back to where she came from’.

      Ignorant arse. She came from bloody Brighton.

      Her teenage years hadn’t all been rotten. Her best memory was from the summer of 2005 when one of her favourite bands, The Kooks, had moved into a property in Adelaide Crescent and used to sit outside on the lawn practising their latest songs. She and Becca had felt so cool, so grown-up hanging out with them. The memory made her smile.

      But her smile faded when she turned into East Street and saw a homeless man lying on the ground. He was wrapped in a blanket, his worldly goods stored in carrier bags next to him. She dug out her tips from the night and placed the coins into the hat lying next to him.

      ‘Would you like details of the homeless shelter?’ she asked, crouching down, but he was asleep. She tucked his hat under the blanket, out of sight, and left him alone.