Hottest Day in June since records began.
That was what the papers were saying in one form or another. It was only the British that could have headlines about the weather when the world was going down the toilet. Jan Tanner shook her head and turned her attention away from the newspaper on the table, and back to her eBook. Fiction was better than real life any day.
She had no idea why she was even making this journey. She didn't normally do socialising. She much preferred to live in the small world she had created in her small flat. A collection of several hundred books, nearly a thousand DVDs, and high speed internet that could provide instant streaming of just about any movie or TV series available on Netflix or Amazon Prime. It wasn't that she was anti-social, although if pushed, she would admit she was a little agoraphobic. Mainly she just preferred her own company and wasn't interested in the happenings of the outside world. Unfortunately, her publisher and best friend was holding a garden party for her clients and other contacts, and had been badgering Jan to attend for days.
"You should come." Sara had told her. "There will be lots of useful contacts in the writing world there."
Eventually, Jan had relented, not wanting to admit her failings to her friend, and knowing that she wouldn't get any peace until she agreed. It had meant her catching the express from Euston, then changing trains at Chester then getting on the slow moving, local train, which stopped at every station in north Wales. All in all, a perfect storm for Jan.
After being sat on a stifling train for an hour, listening to a child constantly nagging its parents, and the tinny music that emanated from a teenagers iPod, Jan whished that she had been more resilient in her refusal to attend. As it was she could feel the beginnings of a headache building behind her eyes and she wished she was somewhere else. Travelling had never been one of her favourite pastimes. Going to somewhere was nice, getting there was a pain, in more ways than one.
It was just as Jan was debating getting out at the next station and heading back home, when the train intercom crackled and a nearly audible voice announced that hers was the next stop.
'Finally'
she thought. Another five minutes on the train and she would have been tempted to open a door and jump for it.
She grabbed her case and exited the coach. Whenever she travelled on a train she made a point of sitting as close to the doors as possible. It made escape nearer, and therefore the journey a little more bearable.
A few minutes later she was walking down the platform and breathing in the warm fresh air that was tinged with a taste of the sea. It did feel good to be away from the hustle of the capital, but at the same time Jan was a little on edge being this far out of her comfort zone.
Sara had promised to pick her up from the station, but typically, the station carpark held nothing but empty cars, none of them Sara's.
Swearing silently, Jan dragged her phone from her jacket pocket. This was typical Sara. Brilliant at organising things. Useless at actually carrying out her own plans.
As Jan waited for the call to connect, she absently glanced when the next train back to Chester was.
"High Jan, where are you?"
Sara's voice said after what felt like an eternity.
"Well I'm at the station waiting for my ex-publisher, who said she would meet me ten minutes ago." Jan replied slightly impatiently.
"Crap. Sorry, I hadn't noticed the time. I'll be there in fifteen minutes."
Fifteen minutes. Jan glanced at the timetable again. Half an hour until the next return train. She made her mind up that she would be on which ever form of transport arrived first.
"I'll be in the bar by the station." Jan said. "For the next half an hour."
"On my way now. Sorry Jan."
Another head shake as she crossed the road, suitcase trundling along behind her and the headache slowly developing in to a migraine. She seriously needed somewhere cool and shady to sit, and a cold drink.
The stubbled face of a twenty something young man greeted her cheerily, as she entered the trendy looking bar café.
"What can I get you?" The young man asked, his voice accented with an Eastern European tone.
"Something cold and a new publisher." Jan answered, her irritation beginning to boiling over.
"Sorry?" The barkeep asked puzzled.
Jan waved her hand in apology. "Corona if you have it."
The youngster nodded and pulled a bottle out of the cooler behind the bar and opened it.
Jan placed a ten pound note on the bar top and took a long pull on the bottle. Corona was her one real vice, apart from fiction that was. She had been planning to be a teacher and was practically tea total up to her twentieth birthday. Then she had watched The Fast and The Furious at the cinema. It is funny how the smallest things can change your life. Jan hadn't really been one for films or the cinema, but whilst watching the movie, something grabbed her attention, igniting a fire in her that had been burning brightly ever since. A love of fictional, make believe stories. That was also when she began drinking Corona. She had left the cinema with Sara and gone to a bar. Once there Sara had said to her
'You can have any brew you want as long it is a Corona'
in a bad impersonation of Vin Diesel, and she had been enjoying the drink and writing fiction ever since.
Reality however, wasn't always as simple as fiction, her first book was awful, the second not much better. They would never have been published if it hadn't been for Sara, who had staked everything she had on starting a publishing house. At the half serious suggestion of Sara's boyfriend, she tried her hand at Gothic Romance. Something clicked in to place and her next book flew like an eagle. Now half a dozen years later, Sara's company was doing well, and most of Jan's books hit the best seller lists.
The empty bottle went back on the bar, and Jan indicated that she wanted another. Sara had been her best friend all the way through school, then university, and she had felt a little betrayed when Sara had moved out of London to move in with her partner James. If she was total honest with herself, she would have admitted she'd always had a crush on Sara, and never really been attracted to anyone else.
As Jan took a pull on her second bottle, she sensed she someone was watching her. Thinking it was Sara, Jan glanced round, expecting to see her friend and publisher standing behind her.
The bar was just as empty as it was when she walking in. Just her the barman, and a feint aroma that hinted of exotic flowers.
Jan shook her head. "I'm so losing the plot." She admonished as she checked the time once more. Unsurprisingly Sara was late.
The second bottle joined the empty first bottle, and Jan had just begun to make head way in to the third when Sara finally arrived. Whilst she wanted to be angry with Sara, the innocent enthusiasm the shorter woman carried with her quickly smoothed the edges off Jan's irritation.
"Sorry Jan." Sara opened with. "You wouldn't believe the time it takes to organise a garden party correctly."
"Hey half pint." Jan greeted cheekily. "Glad you got here eventually, I was just debating asking Luka for a date." She joked indicating the barman.
"Yeah, because he's your type." Sara retorted with a half-smile.
"At least he was here on time."
"Touché, I missed you too, sour faced, grumpy git." Sara told her, and the pair of women shared a laugh as they embraced warmly.
"You to." Jan replied. "Now is there any chance we can go? I want to get a shower before the queen arrives to open your gathering."
Sara's pink tongue poked out at Jan in a gesture of impudence as she led Jan out of the bar and to the waiting car.
The stark heat of the outside pummelled in to Jan after the coolness of the bar, and she immediately regretted drinking on an empty stomach.
"I have to say, I am surprised you actually made it." Sara told her when they had clambered in to Sara's BMW. "We were taking bets that you would come up with a reason not to bother."
"You have no idea how close I came to heading back." Jan said as her head throbbed once more. "Does this thing have air conditioning? I have a migraine that could floor an elephant."
Sara started the car and turned the air-con up to cool the interior of the car. "There's aspirin in the glove box." She said passing a bottle of water over. "Maybe if you drank water instead of beer you wouldn't get headaches."
Jan swallowed two tablets with a mouthful of water. "Maybe if I hadn't spent hours on a train full of screaming kids and rap music and been met as I got off the train. I wouldn't have needed to drink beer." Jan replied, wincing as spots of light danced around her vision.
"Yeah okay, point taken." Sara agreed. "It's only five minutes to the house. Soon have you feeling better."
"If it's only five minutes, why did it take you forty to get here?" Jan asked, unable to resist ribbing her friend once more.
***
After a nice cool shower, Jan felt a hundred times better. The migraine had faded away and with it her irritable mood. She still wasn't overjoyed about having to socialise with a group of Sara's clients, but at the same time she was fully aware that she was one of her friend's biggest sellers, and would be key in Sara retaining and attracting new clients. Taking in to account Sara had taken a punt and published Jan's first novel when her company was just starting out, Jan felt like she owed her closest friend a little favour now and then.
Once she was dressed in her 'normal' meet and greet attire, clothing with a slight Goth style. That was a black lace dress that if you looked closely showed her black underwear below. The dress was cinched at the waist by a black leather belt, decorated with studs, black stockings and a pair of black ankle boots with a short heel completed the outfit. Dark makeup added the icing to the pseudo image she had shed when she was younger, but as an author known for dark Gothic vampire tales, people wanted her to look the part.
Jan briefly glanced at her reflection in the mirror, and chuckled as she did so. She was sure the people that purchased her books thought she dressed like this all the time, and no doubt sat in a dark gothic mansion and wrote her stories by candle light, dipping a quill in a pot of ink to do so. Instead she normally wore baggy jeans and t shirts and wrote looking out over the Battersea Park from her light modern flat.
"Time to meet the public." She announced to herself as she opened the door to the garden and stepped outside.
The one good point about James and Sara's house, was the self-contained flat at ground level to the rear of the property. This gave Jan privacy and importantly with its door to the garden, a bolt hole in case the party got too much for her to cope with.
"Hi James." Jan greeted as she stepped out in to the early afternoon sun.
