by Liz Tipping
“Oh Christ, why is he going? I’m definitely giving it a wide berth now.”
“I dunno either now. Don’t know if I can be bothered and I haven’t got anything to wear anyhow.”
“Little black dress? Can’t go wrong with a little black dress. You’ve got one of those haven’t you?”
“Yeah.” I sighed and ran my fingers across the width of the wardrobe. “I want to go shopping,” I announced. “For new clothes.” The line went quiet and I imagined after this revelation that Verity was having to either sit down or stand up, depending on where she started.
“Verity? Did you hear what I said?”
There was a short pause before she answered. “Sorry, Cara, I thought you said for a minute there that you wanted to go shopping.” She laughed.
“I did,” I said. “Will you come with me? Will you?”
I felt sick at the thought of shopping but I knew Verity would look after me. I hated shopping. It seemed so much easier to buy stuff online, but I needed a dress for the reunion that would make me stand out.
I opened my laptop, just to search for inspiration, and typed in “Dress Molly Ringwald”. I searched through hundreds of images, looking for the original Pretty in Pink polka dot one, when a tiny thumbnail of a blue cardigan caught my eye. One mouse click led me through to eBay where I gasped at the listing.
Cute! Molly Ringwald’s Cardigan Sweater!!!
Genuine blue cardigan sweater as worn by ‘Andie’ (Molly Ringwald) in “Pretty in Pink”
Price:
£17.44
PLACE BID NOW!!!
My breath caught in my throat and it took me a second or two to remind myself to breathe. If I could wear Molly Ringwald’s actual cardigan to the ball, imagine how cool I would look. It would be like having a direct line to Molly Ringwald herself.
I hovered over the buy button, took a deep breath, made an eBay wish and clicked Bid Now.
Now all I needed was for Stubbs to teach me about music and art and how to be interesting and Molly Ringwald-esque and I could teach Stubbs everything he would need to know to ask April Webster out. And maybe Daniel Rose wouldn’t think I was invisible any more and I could leave town with a new story to start my life elsewhere with a fab job making magical moments for other people and making sure I created a few of my own.
Chapter Eight
I couldn’t take my eyes off my phone. I had been watching it since I got up waiting to see if anyone was outbidding me on my cardigan. Someone had tried, but hadn’t managed to match my highest offer, which to be honest, I couldn’t really afford myself now with my potential unemployment on the cards, but it was so beautiful, I had to have it.
I didn’t fancy going to the ball telling everyone I was unemployed and had achieved nothing so I continued to apply for jobs. I’d been updating my CV again and trying to make the last events management job I’d had sound a lot less like the disaster it was while making my current role sound a lot more professional. Maybe Liv would help me make up something elaborate, I thought. Or I could say I did one of those jobs that no one really knew what you did, but they pretended they knew what you were talking about. Something to do with IT should do it, if I was going to lie.
I was giving my phone dirty looks in an attempt to put off the other buyer while simultaneously pushing the door of the shop open, so I didn’t notice Liv. When I finally turned around and looked up from my phone I could see what she had done.
“What have you…?”
“Cakes!” she shouted and giggled, throwing her arms up in excitement. She’d moved the table from the kitchen and put a lovely checked tablecloth on it. In the centre was a huge cake stand full of her creations. There were hundreds of them. And in front of that was a blue and white teapot with vintage teacups.
“Tea with your DVD rental, madam?” She ushered me over and took my coat off. I gave her my most appreciative nod as she poured out the tea.
“Don’t mind if I do,” I said, taking a strawberry-topped cupcake from the stand.
“Good,” she said. “That will be £2.50 then.”
I coughed trying not to choke on my cupcake.
“Two pound fifty? But you don’t normally charge me for cake. You always make me cakes.”
“I know,” she said. “When we do actually have customers, they all love my cakes, and this is the thing – what if we sell them? It could help us get to the thousand pound a week we need couldn’t it?”
I thought Liv was a bit ambitious thinking she could make a grand.
“And look.” She’d made a sign for the window that had café written on it and she’d thrown some twinkly fairy lights around The Breakfast Club and John Hughes.
“Maybe…” I was thinking about it. I didn’t see why we couldn’t try.
“Okay! Let’s give it a go, then!”
“Brilliant,” she said hugging me too tight. “The café is open!”
A few hours later, Liv and I had managed to polish off at least fifty per cent of the cakes and I’d told her all about Daniel Rose and the cardigan.
And we had had absolutely zero customers whatsoever. “It just takes time, is all,” said Liv trying to be positive. “Maybe we could do some leaflets or something? Post them around the shops?”
“Yeah, maybe,” I said. I searched recruitment sites for events management jobs, while Liv made a list of things we could do to save the shop.
That’s when weird Free Willy Roger came in. He opened the door, mouth opened ready to bawl, when he stopped and looked around at the surroundings.
“Is this a café then, now?”
“Yes, Roger, come and try our wares. Tea?” said Liv jumping up as enthusiastically as you can when you are full of cake.
Roger’s lips curled down as he weighed up what to and then he nodded approvingly and sat down, making himself at home.
Liv poured his tea and offered him a cake and he took a slice of lemon drizzle cake. “That will be £2.50,” she said.
“Eh?” shouted Roger. “Two pounds bloody fifty. You must be bloody joking. I only came in to see if you’ve got Free—”
“Out! Out you go, be off with you,” Liv said slapping him with her tea towel as he bumbled towards the door.
She closed the door behind him and then leant against it and breathed out slowly.
“This isn’t gonna work, Cara. What the bloody hell are we going to do?”
“I don’t know, Liv,” I said. “I don’t know.” I wanted to help Liv do something with the shop, I just couldn’t think what and I wasn’t sure how much energy to spend on it when I knew I would have to find a job of my own and somewhere else to live.
I popped round to Mum and Dad’s after work to put out the feelers about staying there for a few weeks just while I found a new job, but when I got there, it didn’t look like they’d have the room.
“Are boot-cut trousers back in would you say?” Mum shouted out the top window. When broadband arrived in town, Mum became something of an internet junkie and was now a broadband evangelist. A whole new career had taken off for her. She seemed to have a knack for it. She started off helping the ladies she cleaned for with setting up their computers and then she started running classes for OAPs in the social club on Sundays. Soon she had given up her cleaning work altogether and was given a regular slot on local radio answering questions about technology from callers. She had become something of an expert on consumer affairs. She even had her own website.
“I wouldn’t know,” I shouted back up to her.
“It’s just you wear them a lot.” She tapped a finger thoughtfully on the side of her face. “And the block heels, they’re very nineties. Are they in too?”
“I don’t know,” I said becoming more and more exasperated. I looked down at my clothes. I couldn’t quite remember where the trousers were from and how long I’d had them but I knew the block heels I’d had for longer than I cared to remember. I was reluctant to admit to myself they were from the last century. Mum was always so glamorous these d
ays. She looked like a dark-haired version of Honor Blackman and now she’d found this new lease of life with technology and blogging, she was unquestionably more suited to this century than I was.
“Quickly, quickly, Cara, get in. I’m about to Periscope.”
I squeezed through the door, which would only open a little bit because a gigantic cardboard box was preventing it opening any further. My guess was washing machine, but it could have been anything. Since Mum had become a bit of a celebrity, these companies had been sending her all sorts of stuff. Last week she’d been sent a fridge that scanned barcodes as you placed things in it and added up the calories and displayed the total on a screen. It linked to her Fitbit, which in turn linked to an exercise bike another PR company had sent her.
I climbed over some more plastic-wrapped boxes of gadgets and dumped my bag down in the corner.
“Move that,” she said, after running down the stairs. “I don’t want it in shot.”
Her YouTube videos were getting so popular, she’d created a little studio area with a white blind she used as a backdrop and she even had fancy studio lights. She would sit on her best chair and speak calmly about how technology would enhance our lives.
With my bag back on my shoulder, I made my way to the kitchen while I heard her begin her broadcast about smart TVs and how you can stream your favourite films.
I was looking for the kettle when I heard her say, “So there’s no need to bother with videos or DVDs at all.” I poked my head round the corner to see her throw some DVDs into the bin for effect.
She was right though – there was no future in the shop. As much as I had liked sharing a love of film with people, it was time for me to move on. I shook my head, still looking for the kettle, when Dad poked his head through the kitchen window.
“It’s that thing over there, love.” He pointed at a black box in the corner. “You don’t need to boil it. It comes out boiled. Makes the tea taste like dishwater but your mother likes it.” He raised his eyebrows up and down.
“Right. Thanks, Dad, got it.” I took a teabag out of the cupboard while trying to work out where the water came out.
Dad passed a battered old tin teapot through window. “Tastes the best out of this one. Stick two bags in there will you, love?”
The teapot didn’t fit into the fancy gadget so I had to use the mug to get the water out and then I poured it into the pot. I took the two mugs and the pot out of the back door and followed dad back down the garden to his shed.
Dad took a seat in his battered old armchair beneath a framed, signed shirt from his beloved Broad Hampton United and turned the radio off.
“You can’t beat a proper cup of tea,” he said. “So what’s your mother up to?”
“Telling people there’s no need to borrow videos any more,” I told him. “As if I didn’t have enough problems holding on to customers already.”
“Bit slow is it?”
“So slow, it’s stopped,” I said. “It’s going to be sold. But I think that’s okay. Probably time for me to move on anyway, get a proper job.”
“That’s a shame, love. You’ve got a nice little thing going there. Got some nice friends. All you could want really.”
His comment stunned me – “all you could want”. I wasn’t sure how he could think I had all that I wanted. I had wanted so much more: to move away, to be something, someone, to prove to everyone I could make something of myself, but I was always afraid to lift my head above the parapet, in case people could see I wasn’t good enough.
“You think so, Dad?”
“Yeah, not to worry, love. It will all work out all right,” he said. “We’ve all got our paths to follow; you’ll find yours.”
He always said stuff like this. He was quite happy spending his retirement in his shed, pottering in his garden, tending the little piece of grass he’d cultivated from when the Broad Hampton stadium was moved and he cut himself a sod of turf. But I wasn’t sure if he was right. I had believed him before that maybe your path was set out for you in life but what if you wanted something else?
Dad complained about the new manager of United while we drank our tea but I wasn’t really listening. Was Dad right and I did have everything I needed here? I couldn’t see how I could get what I wanted and still stay here. There were no jobs here doing what I wanted to do. I found myself asking, “What would Molly Ringwald do?” Andie wanted to go places; she wanted to move away and go to art college. While it was all very well trying to channel my inner Molly Ringwald, I needed to take another leaf out of her book. I needed to find out what my passion was and pursue it. I didn’t really know what I was good at. It’s true that films and sharing my love of them was my passion, but that was more of a by-product of a lack of social life. I’d spent my teens staying in, escaping in films, living my life vicariously and with the shop closing, I couldn’t see how I could make it into a career. I finished the rest of my tea off before I got up to leave.
“You off already, love?” he said.
“Yeah, I’m off out actually.”
“You popping up the social? Quiz night is it?”
“No, I’m off out with Stubbs.”
“Nice lad,” said Dad. “Always liked him.”
Interesting, Stubbs never struck me as the kind of person who you would remember. But I liked that Dad remembered him.
I felt a smile spreading across my face when I thought about meeting Stubbs later. I still hadn’t told him about the shop closing and that I’d be leaving as soon as I had found another job. Maybe Stubbs would come up with some ideas. At least Liv was trying with the café idea.
I crawled back through the hall so I would remain out of shot of Mum’s videocasting. I didn’t even know what Periscoping was but I thought it was cool she was Periscoping at her age anyway. Maybe if she could change jobs at her age, there was still hope for me.
“That you, love?” she said.
“You finished?” I asked.
“Yes, went rather well,” she said. “Seven thousand views. Not sure of the demographics mind, hoping to get some analytics later.”
“Analytics?”
“Yes,” she said and then she laughed. “Oh listen to me, rambling on about analytics and the like. You must think I’m barking.”
“No, I don’t, Mum. I think it’s cool.”
“Do you?” she said.
“Yeah, it’s really cool.”
“Well, it keeps me busy doesn’t it?” She smoothed her top down. “So ARE boot-cuts in then?”
I laughed. “No, Mum. I think I’ve had these since the first time around. What’s it like having a new career at your age? Only things aren’t going so well at the shop and you seem to take change in your stride.”
“I don’t know about that,” said Mum. “It’s all still quite terrifying at times, but you need a push in life sometimes. Nice to do something out of your comfort zone, isn’t it?”
“Terrifying? Really? Then why do you do it?”
“You can’t let fear stop you from doing stuff, love. The fear’s always going to be there whether you do it or not.” She furrowed her brows and looked a bit concerned.
“I suppose,” I said.
“Never goes away,” she said. “That’s how you get on with stuff, isn’t it? Same for everyone. You can’t let your fears hold you back.”
It had never occurred to me before that other people felt scared about doing new stuff. I thought everyone found it easy. Finding a new job and moving on would be scary, but everyone felt like that. I was scared if I tried again, I wouldn’t fit in, like at school.
Chapter Nine
“Wow, sounds like a rough week. You think you’ll be able to make that much money for the shop?” said Stubbs as I escorted him through the town centre. I’d met him after work by the Town Hall and was determined not to give anything away about our destination so he didn’t rubbish the idea.
“Can’t see how,” I said. “But what can I do? Liv will just have to find som
ething else, I reckon.”
Stubbs looked thoughtful. “Liv? What about you?”
“Well yeah, obviously, I’ll have to find something too. But I want to leave anyway.”
“I think Kelly is leaving at the club, might be some shifts there.”
“No, I mean I want to leave, leave. As in, I want to leave here. Boring Hampton. I’ve been applying for jobs.”
Stubbs briefly raised his eyebrows. I hoped he hadn’t taken it as a personal insult. I knew he was happy here, but it wasn’t for me.
“I’m not like you, Stubbs. I want a little bit more in life.”
Stubbs looked at the ground. “I thought you seemed quite settled,” he said.
“That’s the thing, isn’t it. I don’t want to be settled. I don’t want to settle for anything.”
I carried on, trying to explain how I felt while trying not to disparage Stubbs and his choice to stay here.
“See, it’s like this, when I wanted to work in events, I thought I was going to be working with these wonderful spectacular events all the time, and I wanted to be part of these special moments, like weddings and proms and parties, and I never got there. I didn’t keep at it long enough.”
“But they’re not your moments are they? Those weddings and other events. I just don’t get how they can be so special, if they aren’t yours.”
I supposed he was right, but I was so used to watching things from the sidelines that I just wanted to be close enough to the magic. It didn’t occur to me that the magic would never be mine.
“But it’s nice to create the magic for other people. I like making people happy, just like you do,” I said. “I’ve been applying for jobs, so we’ll see what happens.” I had been quite diligent with my applications. I was losing track of how many I had applied for.
“Yeah, but you need to make yourself happy as well as other people,” he said.
“It will make me happy, Stubbs. It’s like scientifically proven that making other people happy makes you happier yourself.”
“Well, okay then if you say so. It’s a cool thing to want to do though. I like how you’re always wanting to find these little moments.”