‘Yes, hi?’
She beamed.
‘Hot chocolates are on the house!’ she said.
‘Oh well, that’s fantastic,’ said a man who’d just spent four figures on a new outfit. Then, sotto voce to Carmen: ‘We should have ordered extra marshmallows.’ He turned his beam on the waitress. ‘Would you like a photo?’
Blair was being super-charming and Carmen was trying to be snooty about it. Although, if she was strictly honest with herself, it was actually quite exciting being next to a famous person when everyone was incredibly nice to you all the time and brought you free hot chocolate and they chatted idly to you about where exactly you should sit when travelling business class to Los Angeles, as if that were something she could feasibly have an interest in.
Also, there was something rather sweet about him, dressed in his new Edinburgh clobber, proud as a peacock. She was more used to her boyfriends turning up in trackie bottoms with stains on them of unmentionable provenance. She wished Sofia could see her now. Not that she could ask for a selfie – that would be so annoying, and make her exactly the same as the waitress. Whereas anyone seeing them … together … sitting together … might think they were boyfriend and girlfriend. Although that would be absurd: he was awful.
But people didn’t think that, she thought to herself. Everyone else reckoned he was amazing, people who didn’t know him. Look how lovely he’d been to the woman in the street, and the waitress. They would think she was lucky.
She refused to let herself pursue that thought as the door opened with a howling jet of wind and a tall figure, not at all well-dressed against the weather, bundled in, blowing on their hands, standing politely behind where Carmen and Blair were sitting, waiting to be called forward.
‘I mean, if you’re going to go to LA, you kind of have to go in style?’ Blair was saying, still looking at the airline’s website.
‘Oh, I totally agree,’ Carmen said. ‘Definitely. Goodness, who doesn’t think that?’
‘Hi, Oke!’ said the waitress to the person who’d just come in.
Carmen stiffened, then glanced behind her.
‘Oh hi,’ she said. She was annoyed with herself for being caught out in a boast she didn’t really mean, which was absurd as it wasn’t like she knew Oke; he was just a customer who came in her shop.
Oke smiled. ‘Isn’t it amazing?!’ he said, gesturing outside. ‘So beautiful.’
‘You don’t look dressed for it,’ said Blair, and Oke’s face fell.
‘Well. No. No. I suppose not.’
And Carmen felt even more embarrassed; he was wearing a T-shirt, a long-sleeved shirt, a jumper and a jacket over the top of that and he still looked absolutely freezing. It must be warm in Brazil, she thought.
‘There’s a shop up the road will sort you out.’
Oke blinked.
‘Thanks, man.’
‘Your tea,’ said the waitress, and passed a small cup over to Oke, who looked pleased to put his hands round it to warm them, and paid with a five-pound note. He received very little change back.
Carmen watched it happen in disbelief. He’d been short-changed.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said, unable to help herself. Her voice went wobbly and unreliable. ‘I don’t think you’ve given this man all his change?’
It felt like the shop had gone silent. Everyone was looking at her.
The waitress blushed bright pink at being addressed by the person she had indeed assumed to be Blair Pfenning’s girlfriend, and had been wondering what exactly this totally normal-looking person had that she didn’t have, and actually it had been making her think even better of lovely Blair for stooping to go out with someone that just looked like anybody, that wasn’t in expensive clothes or super-thin or anything. It just showed what an amazing, super guy he was deep down inside, like Pierce Brosnan, and made her love him more than ever.