A Seaside Affair by Fern Britton

OK, forget him. Look again. To the right and up a bit.’
    ‘The bridge.’
    ‘Ah-hmm. What’s that bridge called, honey?’
    ‘The Brooklyn Bridge.’ Brenda turned and looked at her flatmate, nonplussed. ‘Why?’
    ‘That’s your new name.’
    ‘Brooklyn Bridge?’
    Laverne laughed her deep and wonderful laugh. ‘That’d get you some attention, but not in a good way. No. Play a little. Brooke Bridge? Brooke Lynne? Oh, hey, that’s kinda Beckham ain’t it? Brooke Lynne. I like it.’
    So Brenda Foster was put away and Brooke Lynne was born.
    Not satisfied with restyling the name, Laverne had gone to work on the look too. The mouse-brown hair was cut short, highlighted and curled. Her eyebrows were marshalled into two bold works of art. Her make-up became ethereal with smoky eyes and coral lips. Her wardrobe went from jeans and T-shirts to bodycon dresses and towering heels.
    It seemed to work. Her tutors started to take notice and in the end-of-term play she was given the role of Hedda Gabler. She earned herself two or three good reviews in the smaller artsy publications, including one that described her performance as
fluid and believable. Another chip off the old English acting block. Classy. Remember the name.
    The day after graduation, Brooke had to return home. There had been tearful goodbyes at JFK airport, with Laverne hugging her one last time and telling her, ‘Now, girl, you go get the world, OK?’
    ‘OK. You’ll come and see me soon, won’t you?’
    ‘Sure. Now go.’
    They’d hugged again. Brooke turned for one last wave as she went through security, but Laverne had already gone. Brooke had little family. She’d never known her dad and her mum had ended up with a man who’d have preferred it if little Brenda Foster didn’t exist. Her mum had sent her to live with her Aunt Sheila, who was practical, loving and instilled in Brenda an appreciation for hard work.
    ‘No point dwelling on what might have been,’ she’d say. ‘Best to go out and make your own luck in this life, my girl.’ This advice had stood Brooke in good stead.
    Her mother had died when Brooke was in her teens and she had found it hard to grieve for a mother who had shown her so little love. Instead, she locked her feelings of insecurity and abandonment away for another day and focused on being a success. Her aunt had left her a small legacy when she too died a few years later and Brooke spent it on her airfare to the States, knowing it was what her aunt would have wished for her.
    Back in London she’d found a room to rent in a smart flat in Barons Court and a job as a waitress in Covent Garden.
    In her spare time she went to as many acting/dancing/fitness classes as she could afford and scoured
The Stage
for open auditions. One of the restaurant regulars was a photographer who got chatting and offered to take some head shots of her to send to agents, etc.
    As she walked to the address he’d given her, she planned what she would say and how she would escape if he even suggested that she take her top off. The building, when she got to it, looked bona fide. A renovated warehouse in the West End with a batch of bells and names beside them. She rang his bell. His assistant, a friendly skinny blonde, opened the door and introduced herself as his wife. Brooke relaxed.
    After three hours of fun and some fabulous photos, she went back into the tiny changing room to collect her make-up bag and pack her case of clothes. She heard the door bell ring and a few moments later a man’s voice. When she came out from behind the curtain, she was confronted by a tall, muscled, bronzed Adonis. She stopped in her tracks.
    ‘Ah, Brooke – this is Bob. Bob Wetherby. Bob, Brooke Lynne.’
    She shook the huge calloused hand. ‘Hi,’ she said, noticing his beguiling smile and the little scars above his right eye and his … cauliflower ears?
    ‘Hi,’ he said, gaping at her as if in awe.
    It turned out he was
the
Bob Wetherby. Captain of