Free Lovestruck by Julia Llewellyn Page B

don’t worry, you’re going to
love
living in the Village. I’ve lived here all my life. It’s
so
lovely. We’re in Conifer Gardens, just round the corner, so I know everything. If you need any tips, just ask.’
    ‘Thank you,’ Rosie said humbly.
    ‘No problem.’ Dizzy winked. Was she really nineteen or was she fifty-two? ‘Looks like you need me, so I’ll get to work. Do you think you’ll replace Sam’s Aga? Mummy has a Falcon range. Honestly, they’re so much better; I’d really recommend one. By the way, you know tonight is my night?’
    ‘Sorry?’
    ‘I always doggy-sat for Samantha and Louis on Tuesdays when they went to bridge. So called. I was sure they were swinging.’ Dizzy snorted at her wit. ‘So, for you, I’ll babysit. You can go somewhere lovely with your husband.’
    ‘Oh!’
    ‘Try Gepetto’s in the Village. My friend Miranda is a
waitress there. They do fabulous pizzas – yum. Try a four seasons, you’ll
adore
.’
    The thought was extraordinary. She and Jake go out for dinner, just for the hell of it – on a week night, with no birthday or anniversary to celebrate? There’d never been any room in their old lives for ‘date nights’, it had all been such a hamster wheel. Rosie had returned from work, utterly frazzled, and before she’d even removed her coat had had to start preparing meals and laying out bags of clean nappies and clothes for the following day’s nursery. There’d been no time for conversations about anything, except had Jake remembered to send Becki a birthday card? Even if she hadn’t been so shattered, how could they have afforded it? Forty-odd pounds to the babysitter, plus her taxi home, just to spend another eighty-odd pounds in a restaurant where all they’d talk about was the children and how broke they were. But now money was not an object. Someone was being insane enough to volunteer babysitting.
    ‘I
love
kids,’ Dizzy said, as if reading her mind.
    ‘Why not?’ Rosie exclaimed.
    ‘Great,’ said Jake, when she called him. ‘Why not? But not some tacky pizza place in the Village. Let’s go a little swankier.’
    ‘I don’t think the pizzeria’s tacky. It looks cute.’
    ‘We can do better. Try the one-star Michelin place I pointed out the day we moved in. Listen, got to go, Simon’s calling us back into rehearsals.’
    Rosie hung up, annoyed. She wasn’t a fan of fancy
restaurants. She liked discovering cosy neighbourhood haunts – and Gepetto’s, from what she’d glimpsed of it when running errands in the high street, seemed exactly her kind of place. But whatever.
    She called the one-star Michelin. At first, the woman at the end of the phone hummed and hawed, then she said she could squeeze them in at seven. ‘But we’ll need the table back at eight thirty,’ she added severely.
    ‘Fine,’ said Rosie.
    ‘I’ll need a credit-card number for the reservation.’
    Annoyed, Rosie fumbled in her purse and pulled out their joint card – a new thing since she’d given up work, which she still felt guilty about spending. She gave the details.
    ‘And the name is Prest?’ asked the receptionist.
    ‘Well, yes, Ms R. Prest and Mr J. Perry, my husband.’
    ‘J. Perry?’ The voice altered. ‘
Jake Perry
? We’d heard he’d just moved into the area.’
    Rosie was even more annoyed now. ‘Um, yes, that’s my husband.’
    ‘You should have said. No need to give the table back. We look forward to seeing you at seven, Mrs Perry. Or later if need be. No worries.’
    She hung up crossly, but before there was time to muse on how she felt about this new level of treatment, the phone rang again. Withheld number. Heart in mouth – she still associated withheld numbers with scary phone calls from the bank, even though those days were long gone – she answered. ‘Hello?’
    ‘No need to sound so scared. It’s me, Patty!’
    ‘Patty! How are you? How’s everyone?’
    Patty was the office manager at Tapper-Green, where Rosie had