The Loveliest Chocolate Shop in Paris by Jenny Colgan Read Free Book Online Page B

be able to help out in the summer.”
    â€œShe says it’s in your line of work.”
    â€œYes—in another country. Sweeping up floors probably.”
    Dad shrugged. “What’s wrong with working in another country?”
    â€œWhat, you want me out of the house now?”
    â€œNo,” he said carefully. “All I mean is, you’re thirty, you’ve got no ties, you’re still young…don’t you want to travel a bit? See the world?”
    I shrugged. I hadn’t really thought of it like that. In fact, I’d only really thought about what a gigantic pain in the arse this was for me and how people should be feeling more sorry for me, not what I was going to do next. I’d lost two bits of myself. That was enough for one year, surely.
    When Dad was saying it, though, I did think, for a second, that it would be quite nice to go somewhere where nobody knew what had happened to me and didn’t eye me up with looks of concern and slightly prurient interest. The kids on the estate definitely talked about me when I went by. The one time I’d gone out with Cath so far, Mark Farmer had cornered me, drunk, at about 1:00 a.m. and begged to take a look at it. I hadn’t much fancied going out again after that. I didn’t want to be the local freak show. And I knew what it was like here in Kidinsborough. Sandy Verden had pooed her pants once in year four, and no one had let her forget it yet.
    Dad looked at me kindly.
    â€œLove, you know, I don’t like to give advice.”
    â€œI know,” I said. “And I appreciate it. Mum gives me LOTS.”
    He smiled, a little sadly.
    â€œHonestly, love. At your age. The chance to go see somewhere new, live somewhere different, even if it’s just for a little while…I’d jump at it. I think you’d be mad not to.”
    I’d never seen my dad so passionate about anything, not even when the Kidinsborough Wanderers won the league in 1994 and everyone went demented for about a month and a half. (The next season they got demoted, so it was a short run good thing.)
    â€œPlease,” he said, then he sighed. “The boys, you know, good for nothing, half of them…they’d have been down a pit in the old days or doing something useful, but now there’s nothing for them but to hang around, wait on building work…it’s a damn shame is what it is. But you…”
    He looked at me, his tired, kind face full of something so emotional I found it quite difficult to look at. “You were so good at school, Anna, we couldn’t believe it when you left so early. Mrs. Shawcourt rang us then too, you know?”
    I did know. She had told my parents I should stay on, go to college, but I really didn’t see the point of it. I already knew I wanted to work in food and I wanted a wage. I didn’t really understand that I could have gone to college to specialize, to spend a couple of years really learning stuff rather than picking it up here and there in industrial kitchens…well. After that, my pride wouldn’t let me go. My dad kept saying it wasn’t too late, but I was used to a wage by then and didn’t want to go back to being a student. Students were supposed to be spotty losers anyway; that’s what people said around the factory. I always thought it looked like fun, watching them heading up to the big agricultural college we had nearby, laughing and looking carefree with their folders and laptop bags, while we slouched into work every morning. Anyway.
    Mrs. Shawcourt had said I had a real gift for languages and I should stay and do more exams. I’d snorted and wondered what the point of doing that was. Wasted on teenagers, education. Well, teenagers like I had been.
    Dad was still talking.
    â€œYou know,” he said mildly, “I really believe you could. I totally believe you could do it.”
    I half-smiled at him. “But you also told me that I