“I was so jealous. Of her. Not you. She was so confident. And she had that great leather jacket. And that car! I liked her.” An image popped into her head of the three of them in Vanessa’s Austin Mini Metro zipping around London in the eighties. Vanessa could smoke and drive a stick shift at the same time. Those were the days.

“Well, I was doing the music writing in London and sure I was going to break through any minute. And she was a journalist in world affairs. I was crazy about her. We weren’t together that long, but there was something there. Then she got this big opportunity at the Times desk in Hong Kong and we split. We both wanted to establish our careers before we committed, so she went to Hong Kong and I stayed in London. And that was it. But the day she left, she came to say goodbye to me. My mates were at my place watching football. It was awkward. I blew it. And instead of walking her downstairs to say a proper goodbye and tell her how I felt, I just waved from the couch and watched her leave. Like a wanker.”

“And she was the one that got away?”

He nodded.

“Oh, what a relief. I thought I was the one that got away.”

“No, you were the one that stuck around because we hadn’t made it messy. Well, not too messy.”

“Do you think she feels the same way? That you were the one that got away?”

Simon thought for a minute. “That’s the imaginary conversation I have with myself when I’m out walking the orchards. That we see each other at a coffee shop or in a dimly lit hotel bar and revisit that day. I’ve convinced myself that Vanessa knows what I know . . . that we could have had something.”

Poor Hazel, Alexa thought. Does she know her husband is still dreaming about a woman he slept with forty years ago? Probably. Hazel was a very practical sort, more concerned about drainage in the orchards than spicing up the bedroom. Alexa always had the sense that Simon and Hazel’s marriage was more of a real estate deal than a love match. Her family owned the property next door and had proper money; he had a title and most of his hair left. They were companionable together, but they never sizzled, not even in the early days. Everybody made accommodations, Alexa knew, and she suspected that Simon and Hazel had agreed to their own arrangement. She would never ask him directly because they still had boundaries and because he respected Hazel even if he no longer desired her. So back to the topic at hand. “What does this have to do with Chase and Penny?”