Escape to the Little French Cafe: A laugh-out-loud romantic comedy to fall in love with Read online

  Escape to the Little French Cafe

  A laugh-out-loud romantic comedy to fall in love with

  Karen Clarke

  Books by Karen Clarke

  The Little French Cafe series

  Escape to the Little French Café

  * * *

  Seashell Cove series

  The Café at Seashell Cove

  The Bakery at Seashell Cove

  The Christmas Café at Seashell Cove

  * * *

  Beachside series

  The Beachside Sweet Shop

  The Beachside Flower Stall

  The Beachside Christmas

  * * *

  Being Brooke Simmons

  My Future Husband

  Put a Spell on You

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Karen’s Email Sign-Up

  Books by Karen Clarke

  A Letter from Karen

  The Café at Seashell Cove

  The Bakery at Seashell Cove

  The Christmas Café at Seashell Cove

  The Beachside Sweet Shop

  The Beachside Flower Stall

  The Beachside Christmas

  Acknowledgements

  For my daughter Amy, with love

  One

  ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘Nothing much.’ Before I could slam my laptop shut, Charlie was at the table, looming over my shoulder.

  ‘Swimming micro pigs?’

  I reluctantly paused the YouTube clip I’d been watching. ‘They’re so cute,’ I said. ‘Look at their little trotters in the water!’

  ‘You do know those piglets grow into enormous porkers that the owners don’t want and abandon?’

  ‘You’re such a killjoy.’

  ‘I suppose it’s better than those pet adoption websites you keep looking at, even though you know you can’t have a dog.’

  I discreetly closed the page of pooches I’d been browsing earlier – why couldn’t Dad be allergic to leaves or grass instead of animal fur? – and switched back to the document I was meant to be working on. ‘I suppose I could write a feature about the abandoned pigs.’

  ‘It’s been done.’ Charlie sat opposite, his grin as bright and sunny as the weather outside. ‘How do you think I knew about their plight?’

  ‘Because you’re a know-all?’

  ‘Unfair.’ He flapped a hand in front of his eyes as if to quell tears, then rested his elbows on the table. ‘If that were true, I’d know why you’re still working for that boring paper instead of, say, Paris Match.’

  ‘Paris Match is too much like Hello! magazine,’ I argued, which wasn’t really the point. ‘It’s not the right fit for me.’

  The truth was, when I’d started writing for The Expats’ Guide to Living and Working in France, I hadn’t envisaged I’d still be doing it a year later. Admittedly, my contribution had proved quite popular, once I’d started injecting some personality into my column (From experience, driving at 130 mph on a French autoroute is going to get you in trouble. Remember, speed signs are in kilometres, not miles. And DON’T DRIVE ON THE LEFT!) but my real dream was to work for a famous magazine, where I’d have my own desk, attend meetings and interview A-list stars – specifically Magnifique, the country’s bestselling glossy, owned by editor-in-chief, Nicolas Juilliard, and published in several languages.

  ‘Hey, I’ve got a good headline.’ Charlie made popping motions with his fingers. ‘Why I while away my days in Île de Ré’s most popular café, by Natalie Bright.’

  ‘What’s with the hands?’

  ‘It’s your name in lights.’

  ‘That’s only for Broadway stars.’

  ‘You know what I mean.’ Charlie grinned. ‘Anyway, a feature like that could easily be made into a Broadway show.’

  ‘A show about me escaping my father’s mid-life crisis while pretending I’m not having a quarter-life one of my own?’ I managed a chuckle. ‘I don’t think so, Charlie. Plus, I’ve written about your café enough already.’

  ‘Not that we need the publicity,’ he said, eyeing the bustling interior, and the tables outside on the pavement. It was true that the Café Belle Vie was busy all year round, partly due to its picturesque location, but mostly because of the warm welcome and homely atmosphere, and the delicious cakes and pastries baked by Charlie’s mum, Dolly. I’d put on half a stone since arriving on the island and discovering the café, a five-minute walk away from where Dad lived.

  ‘Shouldn’t you be working?’ I grumbled, peering at the counter, where Dolly was stacking a display of buttery croissants while glancing surreptitiously at us from beneath her neat, blonde fringe. ‘She sent you over, didn’t she?’

  ‘I don’t need an excuse to come and chat to my bestie.’

  ‘Don’t say bestie, you’re not a fourteen-year-old girl.’

  ‘OK, my best friend, then.’

  Despite the buzz of chat and clatter of mismatched china, Dolly seemed to freeze, as if she’d overheard, even though we were four tables away. She couldn’t understand why Charlie and I weren’t a couple and was baffled as to why it was taking us so long to realise we were perfect for each other – like the plot of a Nicholas Sparks movie.

  It was true that Charlie and I had clicked the day I entered the café and blearily requested caffeine and something sugary to eat. Seeming to read my mood, he’d instructed me to sit exactly where I was now (‘It has the best view of the harbour’) before bringing over a bowl-sized mug of milky coffee and the lightest, tastiest pair of pains au chocolat to ever grace my taste buds.

  ‘How did you know I’d want two?’ I’d asked, making light work of them while he sat opposite – exactly where he was now – watching with smiling eyes. It should have been creepy, but felt oddly natural, which I’d put down to him being a fellow Brit, but was actually to do with him being so at ease with himself.

  ‘No one can just eat one,’ he’d said, with great authority. ‘And you looked like you hadn’t had breakfast.’

  It was true, I hadn’t, and once introductions had been made, I’d found myself telling him about how I’d lost my job in London when the magazine I’d worked for had folded, and that my long-term relationship had crumbled not long afterwards, so I’d decided to come to Chamillon on the Île de Ré to live with my dad while I worked out what to do next.

  It turned out that Charlie and I had grown up not far from each other in Buckinghamshire; that we both had birthdays in January (at thirty-three, he was two years older) and parents who were no longer together, and we’d come to France with broken hearts, looking for a change – Charlie to help his mum run the café she’d bought six years earlier, and me to… well, I was still figuring that out.

  Since that day, we’d had many conversations at this table. We’d played card games during Charlie�
��s breaks (I told myself I was entitled to a break even though I was barely working), had dinner at each other’s homes and had even travelled to England together the previous Christmas to visit family and friends. I’d seen him sleeping, purse-lipped and double-chinned; he’d seen me snotty with a cold. He knew that Matt, my boyfriend of four years, had traded me in for an ex-girlfriend he’d ‘reconnected’ with and was due to marry her, and I knew that Charlie’s long-term girlfriend Emma had cheated on him with his cousin Ben, causing a family rift – though the relationship hadn’t lasted. But whatever mysterious alchemy made two people fall in love, it hadn’t happened for us. On paper, Charlie was perfect; tall and broad-shouldered, with lively brown eyes and wavy, blond hair just the right side of messy, and I apparently fitted his preferred aesthetic: short and curvy, with naturally curly hair the colour of a pint of bitter (‘the reddish-brown type’) and blue eyes that sometimes looked grey. We enjoyed cycling along the many paths that connected all ten villages and hamlets on the Île de Ré and knew each other’s deepest, darkest fears (Charlie: swallowing his own tongue, and being swept away by a hurricane, me: being chased through a forest by a clown; falling out of an aeroplane; dying alone and being eaten by rats. ‘At least if you’re dead, you won’t know you’re being eaten by rats,’ Charlie had reasoned.)

  We’d tried a kiss once, last New Year’s Eve, at my best friend Jools’s party, which I’d dragged him to back home – to prove I actually had a friend – carried away by the countdown to midnight, too much alcohol and the snogging couples around us – but after a few open-eyed, close-lipped seconds (I was drunkenly aware it should have been the other way round) we’d sprung apart, struck by the wrongness of it.

  ‘No offence, but nothing’s happening.’ Charlie’s hand had circled the air around his groin and he’d looked so baffled, I’d burst into helpless laughter.

  ‘Me neither,’ I replied and we’d hugged, relieved to have got it out of the way, before reverting to our usual state – much to Dolly’s disappointment. I was certain she’d been expecting a ring on my finger by the time we returned to France.

  She was currently pouring an espresso for Gérard, an elderly man with a shock of white hair, who came in every day with his stripy-sweater-wearing Scottie dog, Hamish. Gérard had been married to a Scotswoman, hence the breed of dog and Scottish name, and his eyes lit up whenever Dolly stopped to chat with him.

  The locals were treated like extended family at the Café Belle Vie, and for the last three years, Dolly had opened on Christmas Day and cooked enough food for anyone who wanted to drop by, which had inspired me to write a column for Expats about the importance of community spaces for bringing people together and helping to alleviate loneliness.

  Charlie was trying to peer at my screen while I resisted the urge to pick Hamish up and run away with him. Sometimes, he came over and lay by my feet while I was pretending to work, and I pretended he was mine. ‘What are you writing?’

  ‘I was trying to think of something interesting for this week’s column for Expats but, honestly? Writing about French tax laws isn’t exactly firing my creative juices.’

  ‘Let’s have a look.’ He gave me a supportive smile, which I appreciated, considering he must be fed up of hearing me moaning. If it wasn’t my dad’s current dating disasters, it was my stalled career, or the fact that my skin wouldn’t tan. He swivelled my laptop around and narrowed his eyes at the screen. ‘If you want to know the tax laws in France, why don’t you Google it?’ He lifted his eyebrows. ‘Really?’

  ‘I agree it needs some work.’

  ‘I thought you were still pitching ideas to Magnifique.’ He said it with an exaggerated accent, though we both spoke passable French. I’d had a gift for it at school and would practise on holidays with my parents, while Charlie had picked up the language since moving to the island, nearly four years ago.

  ‘I keep trying, but it’s disheartening when Monsieur Juilliard rejects everything.’

  ‘I don’t know why, it’s not as if you’re not experienced,’ Charlie said, loyally.

  ‘Yes, but not at writing the sort of stuff he’s interested in. He doesn’t want to read about a woman who had an affair with the undertaker who buried her mother, and that they liked to do it in the morgue.’

  Chatter, the magazine I’d worked for in London, had specialised in the kind of readers’ true-life stories that were designed to mildly horrify. My job had involved interviewing said reader with a photographer in tow, then writing down and fleshing out the (often scanty) details. The story would then have to be verified and the ‘other person’ offered the chance to tell their side – which they usually declined. It hadn’t exactly been thought-provoking, but I liked to think I’d handled the stories sensitively. Jackie, my editor, had liked me and would sometimes let me write a piece about the latest talking points making (minor) news – Should toddlers be allowed a mobile phone? or Why are so many young women opting for Botox?

  The trouble was, more people were getting their gossip and news online and sales of weekly magazines had drastically dropped, so it wasn’t exactly a shock when Chatter finally went under. Subsequent attempts to find work in an overcrowded yet diminishing market had failed and I was far from ready to retire and write my memoirs – unlike my dad, who was making notes for a book about his time in the police force called It’s Not Like CSI!, which I’d rashly promised to help find a publisher for.

  ‘He didn’t like your idea of interviewing stars alongside their closest friend or a family member for a more honest portrayal?’ said Charlie, referring to my latest proposal for Magnifique.

  I shook my head. ‘Even when I explained it wouldn’t be like the writing I’ve done in the past. No my boyfriend asked me to move in with him and his wife, or my dog was possessed, so we had him exorcised.’

  Charlie smirked. ‘They took him for a walk?’

  ‘You know what I meant.’

  ‘Did you make that last one up?’

  ‘No! The owner really believed her Labradoodle was inhabited by an evil spirit. She showed us before-and-after videos and I had to admit, he did seem like a different dog.’

  Charlie shook his head in mock despair. ‘Well, I can see why Nicolas Juilliard wouldn’t want his upmarket magazine sullied by tales like that.’

  ‘I’m not offering tales like that, that’s the point, but he won’t even give me a chance.’ I peered hopefully into my empty mug, as if it might have magically refilled itself. ‘And why would he, when he has Fleur Dupont writing all the best stuff?’

  ‘Ah, the gorgeous Fleur.’ Charlie pressed a hand to his heart, as if he knew her well, though all he’d seen were the photos I’d shown him online. She was stunning though, with smouldering eyes behind thick-rimmed glasses, full lips and sleek black hair. Since writing an award-winning interview with a famous but reclusive novelist, she’d appeared on television culture shows, and even been interviewed herself in Grazia and Elle. I deeply admired that she’d worked her way up from an unpaid internship to becoming Nicolas Juilliard’s second-in-command with single-minded determination (‘Yes, I have amazing talent, but so do lots of people. Persistence is key to success.’) and was sure I could learn a lot from her, if I could only get my foot in the door.

  ‘Maybe you need to set your sights a bit lower,’ Charlie suggested, but it was an old conversation, and Magnifique was the only magazine worth writing for, in my opinion. With its mix of global news, politics, intelligent opinion pieces, star interviews and sprinkling of high-end fashion, it was bucking the trend and raking in good sales. The key factor (I’d done my research) was not making its content available online right away, as some of its competitors did, which removed the incentive to buy the magazine. ‘You could try for an internship at the magazine.’

  ‘I don’t want to work for nothing, Charlie.’

  ‘How about staying freelance? Surely there are more opportunities?’

  ‘Too much competition, not paid enough, plus, I want a re
gular job in an actual office, with colleagues and a salary,’ I said, stabbing the table with my finger to make my point.

  ‘Or you could write a novel.’

  But Charlie knew I wasn’t interested in fiction. Even as a child, I used to ‘interview’ my parents and grandparents, my friends and teachers at school, painstakingly recording their answers in little notebooks. Later, I’d write down my thoughts and opinions about anything and everything – snippets I’d read or heard on the news, or the plight of old people in care after visiting my grandma in her nursing home and being shocked by how fast her mental health had declined. That piece had been published in our local paper and I’d caught the bug after that. Real life had proved more fascinating than anything I could make up, and somehow getting my thoughts down in words had helped make sense of it all. Although, it wasn’t remotely helping with my current predicament. It wasn’t so much that I needed a big salary, thanks to money from the sale of the house I’d shared with Matt sitting in my account – which was just as well, as my column didn’t pay a lot – but I was desperate to move my writing up to the next level. The next few levels, actually. I wanted to have my own byline like Fleur Dupont. Then I’d know I’d made it. And maybe I would get my own place if I had regular money coming in. It wasn’t much fun living with Dad in his current incarnation as a would-be Romeo.