The Other Half of My Heart Read Online Free Page B

fact that she doesn’t know how to accept gifts, especially when they are surprises, although she had said something about how she didn’t like cut flowers much, by way of an excuse. She’s felt guilty about her ingratitude ever since, so she’s kept the flowers too long, as a sort of penance: every time she looks at them, she thinks of how complicated even a casual relationship seems to be. Bettina scans for anything she doesn’t want the journalist to see, but she thinks she’s safe. And the coffee, the cake, give them something to do, and give Bettina a chance to breathe deeply. Verity, after much wondering, had chosen a Tartly Lemon Slice; Bettina had stuck with her old faithful Kickin’ Coffee Kuchen, although she eats only a bite before she puts the plate down on the table.
    â€˜Well, it’s good to be popular,’ she says, before subjecting herself to small talk that makes her squirm when she is on the receiving end of the questions: what she thinks of Throckton, whether she lives on her own, her unusual name.
    â€˜May I call you Tina?’ Verity asks.
    Bettina, shocked into abruptness by the remembrance of the time when that was the name everyone called her, says, ‘No.’ She adds, ‘My name is pronounced to rhyme with “retina” – my mother was always very firm about that – and so “Tina” feels … unintuitive to me.’ This is true, although everyone outside the family had shortened her name in the same way that they shortened Samuel to Sam, and Bettina/Tina quite liked it. Alice didn’t. When Bettina’s friends or teachers used her shortened name Alice would smile and say, ‘I don’t know a Tina, I’m afraid. My daughter’s name is much more beautiful, and unusual, like my daughter herself.’ Teenaged Tina would cringe and her mother would wink and smile and say, well, if you stuck with the name you were given I wouldn’t be forced to embarrass you, sweetheart. She’d go back now, in a heartbeat, and please her mother by using her name – or at least she would wink and smile back, instead of sulking off to her room, and leaving it as late as she could before going down for tea.
    Still, Bettina embraces ‘Bettina’ now, and she has told her mother so. She’d like to think that Alice understands, and sees loyalty as well as expediency in her decision. There was a time when she’d considered changing her name altogether. She’d even picked out a shortlist of not-unusual, serviceable names that she thought suited her – Annie, Karen, Claire – but when it came to it, something stopped her. The happy parts of the past, perhaps.
    Bettina wishes she’d had the courage, or the insight, to duck out of the interview – out of the whole Throckton Business Awards. But then she has never been brave. She is happiest out of the way, in the kitchen, mixing and measuring, surrounded by yeasty earthy smells and sweet, plump tastes. Publicity makes her nervous, sitting in her guts like dough left out in the cold. She’s afraid that the article will be seen by someone she doesn’t want to see it. She tries hard enough not to brood about the past: she cannot bear the thought of it confronting her.
    She supposes she must have thought that she would manage it better than this. After all, Verity – who is now wittering merrily about her figure and how much one of her granddaughters likes baking, although eating her scones is a labour of love – is, plainly, no threat to Bettina. Yet her palms are cold and her hairline prickles, and she could, so very easily, cry.
    This interview won’t even be the end of it. If Adventures in Bread turns out to be one of the three businesses with the most votes, Bettina will have to stand on the rickety stage at the Throckton Spring Fête in May for the awards ceremony, smiling whether she wins or loses. She hates the thought