‘The only agricultural graduation ceremony is today.’
‘Yes, but this is for the bachelor’s degrees, not post-grad courses. I think you’re probably safe.’
‘And if I’m not?’ I squeaked. ‘I thought the Siskin Islanders were meddlers. This is a whole new level of butting in.’
‘Okay, I’m sorry,’ Blessing started, before backtracking. ‘Actually, I’m not. What’s the point of a best friend if we can’t meddle when necessary? The whole social media ban isn’t working. Maybe it wouldn’t be the worst thing ever if you saw him face to face.’
‘How could that possibly help?’ I whined.
‘Closure,’ she said, firmly. ‘He’s only a man, Emmie. Perhaps you need to remind yourself of that.’
‘Well, I hope you’ll be okay with picking up the pieces if this all backfires.’
‘Naturally.’ She pointed through the windscreen. ‘There, that must be Joel. Let’s get to work.’
Once a giant bonfire had been lit, the graduates and their families began to arrive, frequently leaving the warmth of the blaze to wander our way in search of food. It was fair to say that it wasn’t our finest evening.
Or, more accurately, it wasn’t mine. I was a total wreck from the moment I’d turned off the engine and clambered out of the cab. Spilled drinks, dropped pasties, incorrect orders. When the first stream of guests had eased off, Blessing tried reassigning me to the non-customer side of the operation, keeping me facing away from the hatch so I couldn’t agonisingly scan every single partygoer as they emerged from SUVs, taxis and pickup trucks, but it didn’t help. I was a shaking, quaking, lovelorn bag of anxious nerves.
I didn’t know whether to wish Pip would turn up so the torture could be over and done with, or if it was better to not see him, hopefully producing a different sort of closure that might be equally helpful.
It showed how keen Blessing was to infiltrate the graduation party market that she took a load of pictures of my stricken face as I put together a carton of nachos and posted it on our social media accounts.
In the end, after three hours of serving loaded fries, pasties and cakes to increasingly rowdy guests, I began to relax.
‘He’d be here by now, if he was coming,’ I finally conceded, slumping against the counter as fireworks whizzed and wailed in a field behind us.
‘There you go, then. All that stress for nothing,’ my business partner pronounced. ‘Maybe this shows just how silly it is to let a man you never want to see again hold such sway over you.’
‘Hmm.’
Maybe. But when, a few minutes later, a minivan screeched around the side of the farmyard, kicking up gravel as it came to an abrupt stop, my heart lurched for the hundredth time that evening.
The door opened, and one of my nightmares came true when my sworn enemy sprang out.
‘It’s her!’ Rosemary yelled, holding onto a wide-brimmed, cream hat to stop it blowing off her head. ‘Violet, you were right. It’s Emmie!’
Then, before I could duck behind the counter, choose an appropriate weapon or make a run for it, the other van doors opened and the rest of the Hawkins family tumbled out.
I vaguely registered sisters, their children and grandmother along with Gabe and his brother. But, of course, my eyes could only lock on one man.
Pip was in the suit he’d worn for Iris’s wedding underneath a heavy wool coat. He took three steps towards the food truck, then stopped.
If I’d been in any doubt, made any progress in my mission to get over this man, seeing him standing there blew that illusion into oblivion like the final firecracker exploding above us.
‘Emmie?’ Pip’s voice was full of wonder.
‘Pip. Hi.’ Mine, on the other hand, sounded as if it had been generated by an early AI prototype.
‘We saw you on Instagram,’ he said, as if that explained what on earth he was doing here.
‘We were at the airport, about to get on the plane, when Auntie Violet found it,’ Flora said, breathless with excitement.
I stole a quick glance at Blessing, whose knowing grin confirmed that she’d deliberately posted the images in the hare-brained hope this would happen.
‘We’ve been looking for youeverywhere!’ Jack added, jumping up and down so that his flapping coat revealed the bare chest underneath. ‘We even had to go to the actual Sherwood Forest, because Auntie Iris saw a food van on the website and thought it was you.’
His auntie shrugged. ‘A reviewer said it was the best pasty they’d ever eaten. Who else could it be?’
