Free A Sea Change by Veronica Henry Page B

shrug and a nod. Jenna felt hot with fury.
    ‘Gambling is a game for mugs. Surely you know that by now, Terry? If it was that easy, everyone would be doing it.’
    Terry just walked away and stood by the harbour railings. He lit a cigarette.
    Jenna couldn’t believe what Terry had done. She had been so loyal to him. She’d kept the place afloat all summer, smiling and laughing with the customers. She talked them intohaving two scoops when they only wanted one. She persuaded women who were watching their figure that just one wouldn’t hurt. And the locals came here to buy ice cream from her too. She’d become a bit of a local landmark over the summer. It was her banter rather than the ice cream that they came for. And her singing.
    She’d started off singing along to songs on the radio, using a cone as a microphone. Then she started singing whatever she felt like, her own favourites that she could belt out behind the counter. It kept her sane even if she did look mad, but people seemed to enjoy it. Her mood was catching.
    She was known as the Ice Cream Girl. She didn’t mind being called that at all. It was a happy name. People had started making requests. They were always telling her she should go on
The X Factor
, or get an agent, or join a band. But Jenna knew there was a big difference between mucking about and doing it for real. She wasn’t convinced she had any real talent. She just wanted people to have a good time.
    She wasn’t going to be the Ice Cream Girl any more, though. In the past two minutes she had been turned back into a nobody. That would teach her to have trusted Terry, and to havedone her best for him. She had genuinely thought he would look after her and see her right, but no. As soon as things got tough he had dumped her. He was just like everybody else. Out for himself and what he could get.
    She felt tears pricking the back of her eyelids, but she refused to cry. Terry Rowe wasn’t going to see the effect he’d had on her.
    She took off her apron and folded it up carefully. Then she picked up the strawberry sauce and squirted it all over every tub of ice cream in the cabinet. She followed it with the chocolate. Then she sprinkled a shaker full of hundreds and thousands over the lot.
    She felt sick with anger. She remembered the number of times Terry had rung her, begging her to do a shift because he’d had a skinful. The days she’d stayed late because he couldn’t drag himself out of the pub. He had repaid her loyalty by sacking her the minute things got tough.
    He came back when he had finished his cigarette. She could smell the tobacco on him and it turned her stomach.
    ‘What have you done?’ he asked, outraged.
    She shrugged.
    ‘You can pay me back for all of that! There’s a couple of hundred quid’s worth there.’
    ‘Take it out of my wages,’ she told him.
    It hadn’t been a dream job. No one dreamed about selling ice cream the way they did being an actress or a supermodel or a singer. She’d enjoyed it, though. Ice cream brought a few moments of pleasure. She loved watching people’s faces as they looked at what was on offer, dazzled by the choice. She loved their smiles as they took their loaded cones. There were worse jobs.
    She walked away from the kiosk without looking back or bothering to say goodbye.
    By the time Jenna got to the end of the quay, her anger had turned to fear. She felt anxious. So anxious that it felt like her insides were being eaten. It was turning out to be a bad summer. Three weeks ago, someone had broken into the house where she had a room. They’d smashed in all the doors and taken everything they could. Jenna didn’t have much in the way of valuables. But she had had three weeks’ worth of wages tucked into the back of a drawer, waiting to pay the rent.
    Her landlord hadn’t been at all understanding. He reckoned it wasn’t his fault the house had been burgled, even though everyone said the locks hadn’t been strong enough.