Christmas at Willoughby Close (Return to Willoughby Close #3) - Kate Hewitt Page 0,2
sign-ups that she’d had to postpone when the village hall made their unfortunate U-turn.
Now that she had a new location, only a handful of those previously booked had bothered to re-enrol, despite her determination to contact each and every person. Lindy wasn’t worried about money, but she knew the importance of having a critical mass to get the momentum of enthusiasm she’d need for the school to be a success. She hated the thought of having it limp along for a few months before she had to close up shop.
But she was getting ahead of—or really, behind—herself in thinking that way. Her first class, an evening class for beginners, was still a fortnight away.
“Well, I for one hope it will be a success,” Monica said firmly. “And I tell everyone who comes into the shop about it, as well.”
“You’ve been wonderful, Monica, thank you.”
Lindy finished her tea before taking both her and Monica’s mugs and washing them in the kitchen in the back of the shop.
“I should get going,” she told the older woman brightly. “I’ve still got quite a lot of paperwork to sort through.”
“That’s not a very exciting plan for a Friday evening,” Monica said with a wry grimace, and Lindy shrugged.
“Needs must, I’m afraid.” She still had a great deal of work to get through before she officially opened—insurance forms, health and safety checks, and putting the finishing touches on her website. “See you next week,” she told Monica, and then she headed out into the still-bright light of an August evening.
Everything looked golden, not quite twilight, the sun slowly sinking towards the horizon, spreading out like melted butter. Lindy headed down the high street, enjoying the pretty sight of the terraced shops of golden Cotswold stone, the village green a verdant square at the bottom of the street.
Wychwood-on-Lea was impossibly quaint compared to the Manchester suburb where she’d lived for the last ten years. It reminded her a little bit of her childhood, when she’d lived in a topsy-turvy cottage that had been four hundred years old, on the edge of the rugged Peak District, the only place she’d ever really called home.
She let herself feel a single, nostalgic pang for that lovely house and all the happy memories it contained before she made herself move on. In actuality, despite being rural, this village was very different from the one she grew up in. There were no peaks, for a start, and the prettiness of the village was decidedly of the gleaming Land Rover and pristine Farrow and Ball variety, every house like something out of Country Living, the wealth of the area on quietly ostentatious display.
Not that she minded…it took all sorts, and Lindy tried not to begrudge anyone anything. And, she hoped, the well-heeled residents of Wychwood-on-Lea would be willing to turn up those heels at a dancing school.
As she left the village behind for the Willoughby Manor estate where she rented number two in the Close, she wondered how she could drum up some more business. Right now she only had three people for her evening class, and three little girls and a boy for her junior one on a Saturday morning. She’d been hoping to run four or five classes a week, but that seemed like a distant dream at the moment.
Still, she was determined to be optimistic. It was just like her dad used to say, why be pessimistic when you can always hope? Lindy was most definitely in the glass-is-half-full camp. As far as she was concerned, the glass was overflowing no matter what was or wasn’t in it. It was all a matter of perspective.
Humming a little under her breath, she turned into Willoughby Close as the shadows started to lengthen. She could see Olivia and Simon in the lighted windows of number four, eating dinner and no doubt talking about their wedding plans. Emily’s cottage was dark, and Lindy suspected her neighbour was at her boyfriend Owen’s house on the other side of the village, where she spent a lot of her evenings. Number three hadn’t been rented yet, but Lindy was looking forward to another neighbour, when they came. Perhaps it would be someone single, like her.
Her mobile phone started to ring just as she unlocked the door to number two and stepped into her own cottage—laid out exactly like the other three, with an open kitchen and a living area with a wood burner and French windows leading out to a tiny terrace and garden.