Page 114 of Let’s Make a Scene

Cynthie looks at me for a long moment. Whatever is in my face has her own expression softening.

“What if… I could come with… if you like?” She sounds nervous.

“Come to London with me?” I say blankly. “Have lunch with my parents?”

She twists her fingers together. “Only if you wanted me to. If it’s not intruding. I thought maybe I could be your moral support for once.”

Something warms in my chest. “Really?”

Seeing me smile, her expression lightens. “Of course.”

“I’d love that,” I say, and I remember thirteen years ago when she assumed I didn’t want them to meet her because I was embarrassed by her. I hate that she could ever have thought that. “I’m not even going to do the right thing and tell you that you absolutely shouldn’t come because it’s going to be a nightmare.” I hesitate. “Are you happy to stay at my place afterward? That’s where I was going, and I have a spare room.”

“You’ve stayed at mine,” she says lightly. “It’s only fair.”

“You’ve got a deal.” I grin. “I’ll pick you up at eight.”

THE NEXT MORNING WE SET out on the four-hour drive to my parents’ house. Cynthie claims control of the playlist, which is my first mistake of the day.

“Please,” I beg. “No more Julie Andrews. It’s giving me traumatic flashbacks.”

“Since Petra started playing her, I’ve really got into her back catalog,” Cynthie muses. “The specials she did with Carol Burnett are brilliant. You just have to detach the music from the overwhelming sense of dread and crippling muscular pain.”

When she sings along to “I Could Have Danced All Night,” I forgive Petra everything. That sweet, husky voice fills the car and I sit back and enjoy it.

“I’d almost forgotten,” I say when the song finishes, “how it is when you sing.”

“How is it?”

“Put it this way, I can’t listen to ‘Black Velvet’ without getting painfully aroused.”

She chuckles, bats her eyelids. “I’m afraid you’re not the only person with that problem after seeing me do karaoke.”

“Yeah, I remember Hannah said you started a riot once. I can believe it.”

“I haven’t sung it for a long time,” she says. “She made me swear not to anymore. Maybe I could give you a private performance…”

My eyes shift over to her and she’s grinning, full of mischief. “Only if you want me to crash the car,” I say, flatly.

“Some other time,” she murmurs, looking out the window, but I can see the edge of her mouth curving up.

I take a few deep, settling breaths as she joins in with Julie on “The Lusty Month of May.” She’s wearing a soft, yellow dress the color of primroses, and the skirt flares out, stopping just below her knees. I try very hard not to be distracted by her bare legs, as she stretches them out in the seat well.

“So is it just your parents who’ll be there today?” she asks as we’re battling our way around the M25.

“And Lee,” I reply.

“Tell me a bit about them.” Cynthie leans back in her seat, stretches her arms over her head.

“You probably know most of the broad-strokes stuff about my parents. They live for the drama, on and off the stage. My dad is almost twenty years older than my mum, and they met when they were filming a production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream.”

“They’re both very talented,” Cynthie says. “I never saw either of them live, but I had a DVD of the two of them in a production of Macbeth that gave me actual nightmares.”

“Oh, they’re incredible actors,” I snort. “Not that those particular roles were such a stretch for them…”

“So keep an eye out for your mum’s obsessive hand washing then?”

“I wouldn’t put it past her to murder a rival for a part she wanted and call it show business, let’s put it that way.”