A Seaside Affair: A heartwarming, gripping read from the Top Ten bestseller. Fern Britton
Helen clapped her hands together as Penny sighed theatrically. ‘Tomorrow you are going to go through your address book and we’ll draw up a list of possible names and then hit the phones.’
Piran barked a laugh of admiration. ‘Well done, Hel. I like your style!’
She turned her gaze to him. ‘And you, my boy, will be in the archives as soon as the office opens.’
‘What about the vicar?’ complained Piran. ‘What’s ’e going to do – get down on his knees and pray?’
‘Yes,’ said Helen. ‘And then he can gather together a committee of sensible, clued-up people who we can rely on not to get into any more fistfights.’
Brooke Lynne was on her way to her agent’s office in Mayfair when she spotted her face on the side of a London bus. Brooke Lynne and Café Au Lait: the stuff of fantasies said the slogan. She liked the photo. The photographer had gone to town on the touching up, and her legs, hips, breasts and scarlet shiny lips, sipping suggestively from the steaming coffee cup, were nothing short of Jessica Rabbit. She pressed the button to open the blacked-out rear window of her chauffeured Lexus and, holding up her phone, took a snap of the poster. Thank God for Twitter she thought, sending the picture out to the world with the message Fabulous coffee, fabulous me xxxx #CafeAuLait.
‘Hey, Brooke, how’s it feel to be the face of coffee?’ Her agent Milo James hugged her. ‘I saw your tweet. Good work. The guys at Café Au Lait will love that. Sit down.’
Brooke sat down on a state-of-the-art ultra-modern plastic moulded chair every bit as uncomfortable (and cold on her derrière) as it appeared. Milo sat at his clear Perspex desk, which was completely empty of anything other than a slender matte black phone that looked exactly like a sex toy.
‘Now, babe …’ He stretched out his arms and interwove his manicured hands. ‘How do you fancy a trip to the seaside? Little place called Trevay – have you heard of it?’
She shook her head.
‘Neither had I, but we will. It’s the new St Tropez, only in Cornwall. Pretty harbour, quaint locals, good food, sassy restaurants and Café Au Lait are opening a big flagship café-cum-bistro there. They want you to go down there tomorrow and smile for the cameras. Tell me you’re free.’
Brooke knew that Milo was well aware she had nothing else in her diary so there was no point in dithering. ‘I’m free.’
‘Good girl.’ His phone rang. ‘Excuse me, babe.’ She nodded as he picked up the ridiculous receiver. ‘Yes?’ He listened as his secretary, Bunnie, spoke. ‘OK, hon, put him through.’ Milo looked over at Brooke and mouthed, ‘Won’t be a minute’ before taking the call.
The distraction gave Brooke the chance to study her extraordinary surroundings. Milo’s office occupied the corner penthouse of a building overlooking Hyde Park. Two walls were floor-to-ceiling glass. Both opened out onto a wrap-around balcony styled as a Japanese garden. A young oriental woman, no more than twenty and chewing gum, was slowly raking a patch of sand into a pattern resembling the ripples of the sea at the water’s edge. There were several maple trees, now clad in their gold and scarlet autumn mantles. Water trickled from the open mouth of a snarling copper tiger into a deep pool full of koi carp. The fish lingered languidly in the shadow of the wooden hump-backed bridge crossing it. The oriental woman palmed her chewing gum and chucked it into the water before collecting her rake and disappearing round the corner of the building and out of sight.
Milo was deep into his phone call and held a hand up at Brooke to let her know he wanted her to stay, before spinning his chair round to look at the view of garden and park.
Milo James. Brooke wasn’t sure whether she liked him much, or indeed trusted him, but he’d taken her on and the least she could do was play along nicely.
Brooke was an actress. What no one seemed to realise was that she was a rather good one. She had trained at the Bristol Old Vic and then gone to New York to take a course at the Actors Studio. It had opened her eyes to how much work Americans put into making it in the industry. They had to be able to sing, dance, act for stage, act for television, act for film, take fitness classes every day and constantly put themselves through the agony of ‘cattle calls’ – their name for mass auditions – to land the one big break.
She’d arrived in New York knowing only the British way: go to drama school, get an agent, sit about waiting for a job. Her new college friends had laughed at her.
‘Girl, you gotta get off your white ass and go to the world! It sure ain’t gonna come to you! And what’s this shit name? Ain’t nothin’ sexy about Brenda Foster! We gotta find you a new name, girl. Look out the window – whaddya see?’
Brenda had obediently got to her feet and gazed out of her grimy Manhattan window. ‘Errm … a yellow taxi.’
‘What else?’
‘A man with a peacock under his arm.’
‘That fool still there?’ Laverne, her flatmate, pushed Brenda out of the way. ‘What is his vibe? OK, forget him. Look again. To the right and up a bit.’
‘The bridge.’
‘Ah-hmm. What’s that bridge called, honey?’
‘The Brooklyn Bridge.’ Brenda turned and looked at her flatmate, nonplussed. ‘Why?’
‘That’s your new name.’
‘Brooklyn Bridge?’
Laverne laughed her deep and wonderful laugh. ‘That’d get you some attention, but not in a good way. No. Play a little. Brooke Bridge? Brooke Lynne? Oh, hey, that’s kinda Beckham ain’t it? Brooke Lynne. I like it.’
So Brenda Foster was put away and Brooke Lynne was born.
Not satisfied with restyling the name, Laverne had gone to work on the look too. The mouse-brown hair was cut short, highlighted and curled. Her eyebrows were marshalled into two bold works of art. Her make-up became ethereal with smoky eyes and coral lips. Her wardrobe went from jeans and T-shirts to bodycon dresses and towering heels.
It seemed to work. Her tutors started to take notice and in the end-of-term play she was given the role of Hedda Gabler. She earned herself two or three good reviews in the smaller artsy publications, including one that described her performance as fluid and believable. Another chip off the old English acting block. Classy. Remember the name.
The day after graduation, Brooke had to return home. There had been tearful goodbyes at JFK airport, with Laverne hugging her one last time and telling her, ‘Now, girl, you go get the world, OK?’
‘OK. You’ll come and see me soon, won’t you?’
‘Sure. Now go.’
They’d hugged again. Brooke turned for one last wave as she went through security, but Laverne had already gone. Brooke had little family. She’d never known her dad and her mum had ended up with a man who’d have preferred it if little Brenda Foster didn’t exist. Her mum had sent her to live with her Aunt Sheila, who was practical, loving and instilled in Brenda an appreciation for hard work.
‘No point dwelling on what might have been,’ she’d say. ‘Best to go out and make your own luck in this life, my girl.’ This advice had stood Brooke in good stead.
Her mother had died when Brooke was in her teens and she had found it hard to grieve for a mother who had shown her so little love. Instead, she locked her feelings of insecurity and abandonment away for another day and focused on being a success. Her aunt had left her a small legacy when she too died a few years later and Brooke spent it on her airfare to the States, knowing it was what her aunt would have wished for her.
Back in London she’d found a room to rent in a smart flat in Barons Court and a