Vivi Misti - Book 5, The Porth Kerensa Series

Vivi Misti

Vivi Misti

Sadie stood in front of Tabitha’s ostentatious mirror and checked her reflection one last time. Behind her Faith was twirling her basket of flowers and impatiently hopping from one foot to the other, waiting for her mother to tell them when they could go down to the garden. Sadie turned away from the mirror and held a hand out to her daughter.

“I think it’s time, Faith,” she said, smiling.

“Yay, I thought we were never going to go,” Faith replied, happily.

Downstairs, Sadie’s apartment had been commandeered to store the food in and the men had got ready in Harry Sparkes’ flat. Outside, on the lawn, underneath the waning summer sun stood a white marquee with fifty happy guests inside and a groom waiting for his bride. Down in the lobby Harry Sparkes was waiting to walk her and Faith into the marquee.

“You look stunning,” Harry told her.

She smoothed down her elegant cream dress and smiled, serenely. “Come on, Harry, I promised Adam I wouldn’t keep him waiting. He’s very impatient, sometimes.”

There were no place for nerves on Sadie and Adam’s wedding day. It had been a day they’d looked forward to all summer. Together, they stood in front of their family and friends, and exchanged marriage vows and wedding rings. After the official vows Adam turned and made promises to Faith to look after her and always play football, make cookies and take her to the park.

The guests laughed, applauded and Sadie asked who was going to get the party started.

Bryan sat at the table for the residents of Vivi Misti. Tabitha had excused herself and Bryan was nursing a glass of wine and listening to the conversations around him. Ethan Miller and Michelle Barry’s plus-one, Clive Payne, were talking about cars. Across the table, Michelle was discussing the merits of a cruise compared to a trekking holiday with Francesca Armstrong. Evidently Francesca and Ethan couldn’t decide what kind of honeymoon to have.

Philippa Duffy nudged Bryan’s arm and whispered, “I presume you’ll be moving in soon?”

Bryan smiled and nodded. “I’m practically living here already; I just need to give the keys to my place at the pub back to Jace.”

“Well I wish you much love and happiness,” she told him. She smiled, brightly. “I think someone must have spiked the water with love potions this summer.”

“What about you, Philippa?” Francesca interrupted, jovially, drawn away from her own conversation. “You and Harry are always together, laughing and holding hands, like love’s young dream.”

Philippa chuckled and waved her hand. “I’m leaving all that to you lot. Harry and I are far too old for that malarkey.”

“What am I too old for?” Harry slipped into his seat next to her and looked around the table with a curious smile.

“Too old for falling in love,” Philippa replied, good-naturedly. She poured him some wine and passed it over to him.

“I did that a long time ago, Phil; the day you moved in upstairs and became the best friend I’ve ever had,” he said, cheekily.

“Oh, Harry, you old romantic,” Francesca teased.

Tabitha arrived back at the table, cradling her week old baby boy. Bryan smiled tenderly at her and she placed Laurie in his arms. He kissed the baby’s head and put one arm around Tabitha. The baby boy nestled securely in his embrace, snuffled contentedly and fell asleep.

Faith appeared next to them, pushing her way between Philippa and Bryan, and she stood gazing lovingly at the sleeping baby. Laurie absolutely captivated her whenever she saw him. She beamed her wonderful smile whenever Tabitha placed him in her arms for a Faith-hug. She was gentle with him, as if he were the most precious thing in the whole world. It made Tabitha’s heart ache that Faith would never experience motherhood herself.

She smiled at Faith and whispered to Bryan, “Where is Aunt Cam?”

He nodded to a table on the other side of the marquee. “She’s over there, nattering to one of Adam’s guests. He's a swarthy looking fellow, if you ask me.”

Cam was sitting opposite a Mediterranean man her own age, talking enthusiastically. He seemed enraptured by her, his dark eyes never left her face as she chattered on. Her conversation was littered with touches on his arm and little laughs at his murmured replies.

“Do you think she fancies him?” Bryan’s eyes shone, merrily.

Tabitha shrugged and giggled. “If she does she won’t say a word about it to us. Cam keeps her own counsel very well. A trait we’d do well to emulate in my family, darling.”

The reception went on late into the night, long past the time Adam and Sadie slipped away to a hotel in St.Ives for the night. The music played and the guests danced a few feet from where Faith slept in Philippa’s flat, dreaming a dream of her life to come. Francesca and Ethan drank wine and sang along to ‘Footloose’ while Tabitha and Bryan fed their baby boy and soothed him back to sleep on the top floor of Vivi Misti.

And under the moonlight sky Cam Fields kissed Angelo Trapani and imagined a new path that her future might take.

They walked hand-in-hand around the front of the hotel and he looked curiously up at the sign above the door.

“Who named this place?”

“The original owners, back in the 1920s, I think. I always wondered what it meant.”

“It means nothing,” he replied. “Misti in that context would mean mixed, but Vivi means nothing. It’s a made up word. The only thing that would make sense is someone misheard the word Vita.” He smiled at her and kissed her hand. “In Italian, Vita Misti would translate as ‘Mixed Lives’. Someone needs to rename this place, Cam.”

She grinned up at the sign and shrugged. “It’s been Vivi Misti too long for it to be known as anything else now. Thank you, though, for sharing that with me.” Impulsively she leant forward and kissed him.

Cam stood outside the old hotel, waving goodbye to Angelo as he drove slowly out of the car park. They had made plans to meet the following day, after she had shown the prospective new tenants around Adam’s old flat. She glanced up at the sign on the wall and giggled. Such a silly mistake, she thought, to muddle up the word Vita with Vivi, but she was right; it was too late to change it now.

As she climbed the stairs to her flat in the eaves of the old hotel she wondered what kind of people the new tenants would be.

What would they bring to the mixed lives already at Vivi Misti?

She was looking forward to finding out.

The End

By Mary Atkins, 09/04/2013