Christmas at the Little Clock House on the Green: An enchanting and warm-hearted romance full of Christmas cheer
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Or at an audition.
Or knocking on her agent, Penny’s, door, calling out ‘Penny’ three times in rapid succession.
Poor Penny. She must be so over everyone going Sheldon on her.
Thinking of Penny, she stared hard at her lucky bag crocheted in raspberry, denim and sunshiny yellows that she’d casually tossed at the foot of her yoga mat.
Just imagining the phone inside ringing with the news had her heart bouncing down to her stomach and getting caught up in the excitement swirling there. It was as if she’d swallowed a giant ball of tangled-up Christmas lights and someone had plugged them in to test out the techno, techno, techno light setting.
But she’d deal with the reduced-to-jelly nerves all day long because she hadn’t got this wrong.
Today was the diem and she was going to carpe every last drop out of it.
She’d nailed the audition and the call-back. The screen-test couldn’t have gone better and all the great feedback she’d received surely meant that finally the hard work, the sacrifice, the rejection, ahem, rejections, were going to be worth it.
Planets had aligned.
Unicorns had gathered.
And after years in La La Land, Emma Danes was finally getting the lead part in the rom-com of her dreams.
Filming on location in England, here she came.
She bent her head to hide the proudly joyous grin spreading across her face and decided to attempt the yoga pose after all.
Halfway through rearranging her body she heard the buzz from her bag and looked up to see it gently vibrating. With a soft yelp, she leaped upon it and uncaring of where she was, fished the phone from out of her bag, and whispered, ‘Penny?’ into it.
‘Sugar Bean? Are you sitting down?’ There was a short silence and then, ‘I’ve just heard back and I don’t know what to tell you. I’m so sorry.’
The earth’s gravitational pull came to a clattering halt.
That was surely the only reason Emma could possibly be sinking to her yoga mat in a tangle of disbelief. It couldn’t possibly have been Penny’s greeting, her tone, her actual words or Emma’s amazing powers of deduction that was very definitely suggesting…
Emma squeezed her eyes shut.
No, no, no.
She hadn’t got the part?
Really and truly?
‘I know this wasn’t what either of us was expecting to hear,’ Penny said, her usual nasal tone enhanced now that it was laced with sympathy.
‘It’s fine,’ Emma whispered, too shocked to process how very much not fine it was as Failure danced onto the stage of her heart and took a flourishing bow.
‘I’m just as pissed as you, Pinto Bean. You were perfect for that part.’
She’d really thought so too.
Damn it.
Slowly she looked around her at the rows of exceedingly bendy people all having contorted their bodies into crouching poses with minimum effort.
She didn’t do minimum effort. She did maximum effort.
And still came up short, it seemed.
Bitter disappointment and a strange sense of embarrassment became besties, holding hands as they rushed through her veins, stealing her energy. Stealing her joy.
She held her bag out in front of her like it was poor Yorick’s skull and stared accusingly down at it. So much for being lucky.
With her phone still pinned to her ear, she pulled herself upright, shoved her feet into her shoes and then fled the yoga studio with its mirrors shamelessly reflecting her dazed expression for everyone to see.
Outside, as she made her way back to the sanctuary of her apartment, the bright sunshine, gentle breeze and ridiculously cheerful Christmas music from one of the Prius’ in the endless parade of traffic combined to mock her for daring to assume it had finally been her turn to get the big-break.
‘Did they say why?’ Emma asked, picking up her pace, eager to escape the feeling that she was being followed by one of those giant arrows with stupidly over-sized light-bulbs illuminating the words ‘Not Good Enough’.
‘Only that someone unexpected expressed interest and after reviewing her tapes, they decided to go with her.’
‘Tell me it’s a name, at least.’
‘Oh, A-lister, for sure,’ Penny stated in solidarity.
Emma let herself into the apartment she shared with two other actresses, her smile perilously close to wobbling.
‘Take a couple of days then come see me,’ Penny instructed. ‘Keep the faith, okay? There’s always traditional pilot season coming up.’
Emma supposed it was. If you discounted that it was October and that the month that signalled the start of the season was at the beginning of a whole different year to this one. Tossing her keys onto the sofa, she wandered over to stare at the fridge, aka the shrine where she and her flatmates stuck scribbled notes to each other.
Em, I got that audition and Jacinta’s on set all day otherwise we’d be here to celebrate with you. Moo Shu Pork and a bottle of cheap bubbles inside. Congrats! Lily xx
Emma sniffed.
‘Lima Bean? Are you crying? There’s no crying in baseball,’ Penny said, channelling her best Tom Hanks.
Emma opened the fridge and stared at the celebratory feast wondering how many other beans Penny could call her and with her appetite no longer amounting to a hill of them she shut the door and turned around to head into her room.
‘I don’t think I can do another pilot season, Pen.’ People probably thought it was easy to play a corpse. It wasn’t like you could get a note that you were too wooden. But do you know how hard it was to lay on concrete, caked in fake blood, staring into the distance unmoving/not breathing while the actress that actually had lines kept pausing to ask what her motivation was?
It was hard.
Especially when the actress asking about her motivation was playing a zombie!
Needless to say that pilot hadn’t been picked up.
‘Of course you can do another pilot season, Jelly Bean. This is how we do. You’re an actress. Says so on your ID, right?’
Ha!
Nope.
Actually, it didn’t.
Under the heading of occupation she tended to go with what paid her regular wages.
Bartender.
That’s what she wrote on any form that needed her to state her occupation.
Said it all, Emma thought, unable to even summon the energy to cry.
With her spirit whimpering: my moxie, my moxie, my kingdom for my moxie, she shucked her bag off her shoulder, pushed open her bedroom door, pulled back her duvet, and tired beyond all reason, climbed in to bed.
Muttering a quiet, ‘Bye Penny,’ she hung up and closed her eyes on the day that sucked harder than a sucker fish in charge of sucking clean all the Sea Life aquariums in all the world.
Chapter 3
Pity and Pitiful
Emma
Emma had no idea how long she slept for, but she awoke to a dark room and the remnants of a weird dream about fifty-seven varieties of bean auditioning for the lead part at Bar Brand – the bar she’d been working at for three years.
Pushing herself upright she reached for her phone.
Five missed calls.
None of the numbers belonged to Penny, so she guessed she knew what she could do with the absurd hope the actress the studio had decided to go with had caught a sudden case of really bad numb-tongue.
She texted her flatmates to tell them she hadn’t got the part, but that she was okay (greatest piece of text-acting ever, right there) and that neither needed to rush back because celebrating had been replaced with one of the greatest comforts known to woman: a long soak in the tub and a re-run of Pride and Prejudice.
If she dragged her armchair over to the bathroom door, piled up all her books and set up her laptop at the right angle, she could watch Darcy-Colin emerging from the lake, while she submerged her aching heart in the bath.
The next message turned out to be from her mother. With a curious detachment that belied the usual trepidation she felt when listening to messages her mother left, she got up and padded out to the kitchen to open the fridge. Her mother was on a cruise with – actually Emma didn’t want to think about what number boyfriend this was. She knew she quite liked this one though. For a start, he was age-appropriate. Fingers crossed he’d last the distance, or at least the length of the cruise, because no way could she deal with her mother having nothing else to focus on but her and how she Had Not Got The Part she might have bragged was in the bag.
Reaching into the fridge she grabbed the Moo Shu pork, a carton of noodles and the cheap champagne.
‘Hi,’ she said, turning around to greet several imaginary people, ‘so glad you could make it. Welcome to my pity party, help yourself to drink and canapés …’
Pretty convincing, she thought, as she opened a kitchen drawer to grab a pack of chopsticks. Who wouldn’t want mad-skillz like hers on the set of a rom-com?
She uncorked the bubbly, debated drinking straight from the bottle, and then put her voicemail onto speakerphone while she hunted up a glass.
‘Hi Emma, enquiring friend from across the pond is dying to know if you got the part? Can’t wait to post pics all over social media of when I knew you, back in the day.’
Emma shoved a mouthful of cold noodles into her mouth. ‘Back in the day’ had been three years ago when Kate Somersby had walked into Bar Brand to write a review of the place. It had been Emma’s first day on the job and she’d been busy acting her way through her shift, doing the whole fake-it-’til-she-made-it routine until she got familiar with everything. Emma had immediately recognised the actress in Kate. Not the showy, this-is-who-I-be kind of acting, but more the, this-is-how-I-get-through-the-days face that she showed the world.
She’d wondered what had happened to make Kate so eager to try on any other face that wasn’t her own. Plus, Kate’s British accent and it’s reminder of a home she hadn’t visited for years, had got her good. They’d become good friends, keeping each other up-to-date with their lives ever since.
Taking a gulp of fizzy wine straight from the bottle she listened to the second message from Kate:
‘Me again. Did I get the day wrong? Hope I haven’t jinxed anything. Oh, are you busy rehearsing a) a love scene b) a love scene or c) a love scene. Tick all that apply. And call me or text me or email me or send smoke signals or something because clearly our telepathic link is down.’
It was going to have to be a non-verbal communication, Emma decided, swapping phone for laptop so that she could compose better. If she had to actually use her voice, Kate was going to know right away just how devastated she was that she hadn’t got the part.
As she munched on more food she emailed:
To: Kate Somersby
From: WritingHerOscarAcceptanceSpeech
Subject: Won’t be giving up my day job after all.
I didn’t get the part
Emma xx
There, she thought, pleased with her honest, to-the-point and most importantly, no-sobbing-to-be-heard composition.
Minutes later she got a reply.
To: WritingHerOscarAcceptanceSpeech
From: Kate Somersby
Re: Won’t be giving up the day job after all.
Oh, EM, G! No coming to the UK to practise your British accent a la Renee Zelwegger??? Waaah—I’m so sorry, hun. I know how much you wanted that part. You would have been bloody brilliant. You ARE bloody brilliant.
Kate xx
Emma searched for the crying emoji and sent a whole line of them back and then immediately felt pitiful so followed it up with: Feeling sorry for myself will only last one millennia and then I’ll be all good.
Minutes later she got back:
You’ll be back to lighting up the sky-line with flames in no time, I know it! (((Hugs))) Kate xx
Tears pricked as Emma replied: Well, back to bartending at Bar Brand, at least. Rent’s due in a couple of weeks. No rest for the wicked-ly untalented. Emma xx
She was more than halfway through her food when she received her reply:
Hey, if they ever do a remake of Cocktail, Tom Cruise doesn’t stand a chance. Seriously, a better part will come along. You just have to believe (and work your arse off) but the part in brackets I know you already do, Kate xx
That produced a half-smile but then Emma flexed fingers eager to type something else. Picking up the laptop and the bottle of champagne, she headed back to her room to hop back onto the bed. After taking a thoughtful couple of gulps, she wrote: You sound like my agent, Penny. Emma’s hands paused on the keyboard and then she typed: Maybe it’s time I let the dream go! Emma, xx
She pressed ‘send’ and raised her gaze to the dressing table under the tiny window. Sitting prettily on top were various photo frames containing affirmations she’d printed out. Why didn’t looking at them spur her on the way they used to?
Over the last year, when her faith in her ability to land a good role had started slinking off to play hide and seek, Emma had seriously considered moving to New York or back to London to try the stage. She’d thought that perhaps the change of scene would herald a change of luck.
If it wasn’t for the sly fear she’d end up doing the same thing – going to audition after audition without actually getting a part – except if she moved she’d be doing it in the freezing-cold, maybe she’d even have got on that bus or plane.
She’d been in LA since age nine when her parents had divorced and her mother had taken Emma’s ‘One day I’m going to be a famous actress’ and run all the way to Hollywood with it. LA felt like home now but eighteen years was a long time to try and make it.
She’d had some successes when she was younger.
Trouble was as you got older, straddling that line between wanting more and getting desperate, was becoming increasingly harder to stay on the right side of.
At least bartending was simple, honest work. People came in to get a drink. She provided them with the drink.
Simples.
Adding a smile and lending an ear if they wanted to talk seemed like fair exchange and came easy.
The thought of finding herself in ten years time, with no good acting projects under her belt, no man in her life, no children … Her only true achievements a killer-flexible yoga body and a face that didn’t move, shook her.
If she didn’t get her big break soon she really did have to call time on this dream and go find another. One that didn’t eat away at her psyche until she ended up like her mum – hard-wired for what was over the next horizon – never enjoying what she had.
She glanced down as an email dropped into her inbox.
To:WritingHerAcceptanceSpeech
From: Kate Somersby
Subject: NOT LETTING DREAMS GO
Eat a gallon of ice-cream, down some cheap cocktails, watch a ton of tat TV in between pulling shifts at Bar Brand but then go to an Improv class, okay? Kate xx
Emma stared at the screen. Letting dreams go was something Kate actually knew about. So was not letting them go, which was why her friend had audaciously risked returning to her home village of Whispers Wood to set about making one come true. Now, not only was Kate’s dream coming true, she’d also fallen in love.
Emma reminded herself she was in love too.
With acting.
But as she reached for the bottle she wondered what would happen if she really did let the dream go?
It shocked her when she wasn’t brought to her knees by the thought.
Instead, it felt strangely as if someone was standing outside the front door to her heart and like The Walking Dead guy in Love Actually showing her large hand-written notices that said things like: ‘I’ll tell you what you want, what you really, really want …’ ‘You want Peace’, ‘Serenity’, ‘And … zigazig ha’.
With a deep breath she hit ‘reply’ and typed: Confession: I think I’ve been awful tired of this acting-gig for an awful long time now…
There!
She’d said it.
Out loud.
Well, not out loud, but you know what she means.
She waited for a reply.
Waited some more.
Maybe she shouldn’t have put that out there into the universe.
Because honestly? If she gave up acting, who was she?
Chapter 4
Think Positivi-tea
Kate
Kate stared at the screen in front of her, feeling bad for her friend, Emma. She knew what it was like to feel as if the path you’d chosen was leading nowhere. All those years she’d been footloose and fancy-free, going where the next work assignment took her and never having to really unpack – either her belongings or her feelings. Never being in one place for long had started off being something she’d needed to do but how quickly had she led herself to believe that it was something she wanted to do.
It had taken Old Man Isaac selling this place to get her to change direction and she was so thankful he had because despite feeling a tired she hadn’t known existed, it was very definitely a happy tired.
Stifling a yawn she reached over and crossed-through number twenty-seven on her To Do List.
As large hands came around her mid-riff to hug her from behind, she gasped, ‘Hey, mister. I know the owner of this establishment.’
‘So do I,’ Daniel’s voice trickled into her ear. ‘In fact I’m pretty sure I have a meeting with her in about—’
‘Thirty minutes,’ Kate smiled, spinning in her chair to face him. ‘I have this office booked until then and I’m determined to get through at least fifteen more emails.’
‘Just wanted to check how the interview went?’
Kate grimaced. ‘Complete dud.’
‘Really?’
‘Trust me.’
‘Are you sure you’re not being too …’
Kate raised an eyebrow in challenge.
‘Fussy?’ he stated bravely. ‘Only we’re running out of time to find someone to manage the place.’
Kate was very aware they needed to find someone to manage Cocktails & Chai @ The Clock House ASAP.
One of the conditions of buying the building had been to provide space the whole community could continue to use, but with the toddler group moving into the newly-built huts at the local school, that only left Trudie McTravers and her am-dram group using the communal space. Kate had promised Trudie the space would always be available for rehearsal and productions but she’d wanted to add something more.
She’d wanted everyone in the village and anyone booking a spa treatment with her, or having their hair done by Juliet, or booking office space with Daniel, to be able to grab a cuppa or a glass of fizz too and when she’d talked over her plans to add a tearoom/bar in the reception room opposite Juliet’s salon she’d been overwhelmed by how much everyone loved the idea. Of course that probably had a little something to do with socking-it-to the neighbouring village of Whispers Ford because there were still a few residents who hadn’t got over the hotel opening and the village stealing ‘Best in Bloom’ out from under them. But she’d got the go-ahead and now with the last licence coming through, it was all systems go to organise staff before they opened.
‘So what was wrong with this candidate?’ Daniel asked.
‘Besides looking twelve?’
‘I’ll admit he did look a little young, but his C.V. said he was qualified.’
‘He asked me if I’d be fact-checking his previous employment.’
Daniel mouthed the word, ‘Wow,’ and shook his head.
‘And, you know, his name was Harry Stiles,’ Kate added as if that explained everything and when Daniel looked at her as if that meant nothing, she rolled her eyes. ‘I can’t handle the disappointment when people realise the real Harry Styles hasn’t, in fact, given up his incredibly successful world tour to run a bar and tearoom in a quaint little village called Whispers Wood.’
‘You can’t not employ someone on the grounds they have a similar name to someone famous.’
‘So fortunate that he kept right on hammering in more nails, then,’ Kate replied. ‘When I asked him what he thought made him most qualified for the position, he responded with “Um, I like to drink?”.’
‘He didn’t?’
‘Oh yeah and not even “I like to drink, ha-ha, only joking, sorry that was wildly inappropriate, I’m just really nervous, here’s my actual answer,” oh no,’ Kate went on, ‘He said, “Um, I like to drink” … with a question mark at the end of it. Like he wasn’t even sure.’
Daniel rolled his eyes in sympathy. ‘Yeah. Okay. Good call.’
‘How difficult can it be to find someone who knows how to make a martini as well as they make a matcha latte or a good old-fashioned cup of tea, not to mention someone who actually likes talking with people?’
‘We have to think positive. Quick, do your thing.’
‘Thing?’
‘Your positivity rain dance, thing.’
‘Ugh. I’m too tired.’
‘Nonsense. This is important. You want the next candidate to be the one, don’t you?’
Kate gave a tired smile. ‘You do realise how dangerous it is to pander to my quirk?’
‘What can I say, I live for danger.’
Biggest fib, right there, Kate thought because while she knew Daniel thought nothing of taking calculated risks, she also knew the chaos he’d grown up with. Living for danger was not what he was about at all but she loved making him laugh and so she rose to her feet and did some over-the-top stretching motions.
‘Remember you asked for this,’ she warned and wafting her hands up and down like she was trying to take-off, she turned around in circles clockwise and then counter-clockwise chanting nonsense about positivity under her breath in a poor imitation of the dance she’d made up after one too many honey martinis had made her feel invincible. At the end of it she plonked herself back down in her chair, knackered. ‘That’s the next candidate for the job sorted, then,’ she said, trying not to worry that she didn’t actually have anyone lined up. ‘By the way, thank you for letting me book an office. Mine’s got a massage table in it that I’m certain wasn’t in there last night.’
‘So what’s the verdict on the tech?’ Daniel asked, with a nod to the set-up she was sat in front of.
Kate swung her chair back to the computer in front of her and sighed appreciatively. ‘I’m appropriately jealous. Everything up here seems higher-spec than we put in downstairs.’
‘You don’t need clients geeking-out over the I.T. downstairs. You want them sighing with pleasure over treatments. You were right to keep the set-up on the lower floors unobtrusive. Doesn’t mean I don’t appreciate the compliment though.’
Kate grinned with pride for him.
He’d done a fantastic job of matching the aesthete of the spa and hair salon without making Hive @ The Clock House feel too girly. The attic rooms had been beautifully converted so that they now housed an open-plan area for hot-desking, a kitchen area with a long table in, and five meeting rooms with full conference facilities. The original oak flooring had been sanded and re-varnished, so that it set off the white furniture to its best. The clock mechanism had been encased in thick glass walls and formed the centre-point of the cleverly-thought-out space. Throughout, Daniel had added potted trees to soften the look. He’d married the country-chic feel of downstairs with the industrial-loft look perfectly.