by Kate Hewitt
“Oh Lindy,” Olivia exclaimed with a laugh, “do you honestly think Roger would come to this class without his mother if he wasn’t interested in you? I think he’d rather have his eye gouged out with—with an oyster fork!”
“Ouch.” Lindy winced at the mental image even as pleasure unfurled in her at the realisation. Judging from how painful Roger had found some of the dance lessons, she thought Olivia might be right.
And if so…then what was she going to do with that information? Just the nameless, barely formed possibilities made everything in her fizz with excitement and fear. Lindy was still battling both emotions as she headed back upstairs with a tray of teas, only to stop in surprise at the sight of a pretty, shy-looking young woman standing by the door, chatting to Roger.
“Oh!” The syllable seemed to explode out of her, tea slopped from the cups onto the tray, and the woman turned to her with a questioning smile.
“You must be Belinda Jamison?”
“Please call me Lindy.” She glanced enquiringly at Roger, who was as blank-faced as usual. “And you are…?”
“Helena Winter. I’m so sorry I’m late. I had to cycle in from Witney. I was hoping you had space in the class…?”
“You wish to register for the Monday class for beginners?” Lindy said a bit stupidly, belatedly realising she sounded rather like Roger in her wooden formality.
“Yes…if that’s okay?” The woman smiled at her encouragingly, while Lindy just stared, her mind spinning.
Why was she feeling so wrong-footed? Perhaps it was the way Helena had seemed to chat so easily to Roger, as if they already knew each other. Did they? Had he invited her? Was that why he’d come alone tonight, wearing the blue shirt he looked so nice in? He seemed to have taken extra care with his appearance, and now Lindy thought she knew why.
Helena was young and shy-looking, but also lovely, with wheat-blonde hair that brushed her shoulders and wide, blue eyes. She looked like a gentle Barbie.
“Yes, of course it’s okay,” Lindy said as brightly as she could. “Let me just put this tray down and then I’ll get you a registration form.”
The next few moments seemed to pass in a blur as Olivia handed out cups of tea and Lindy found a form for Helena to fill out.
“How did you hear about the class?” she asked as Helena began writing, her blonde hair swinging down to hide her face.
“I saw a leaflet in the post office. My auntie lives in Wychwood and so I come here often enough.”
“I see…”
“I had no idea Roger was taking the class,” Helena added with a laugh. She shot Roger a smiling look that seemed both secretive and knowing, and made Lindy ridiculously feel like hissing.
“Helena and I work together,” Roger explained stiffly. “At Hartley and Fein Accountants.”
“Do you?” Lindy tried not to reel from this unexpected information. “How lovely.”
She let the conversation drift over as she sipped her tea; Helena was quite chatty. She worked as a receptionist where Roger was a senior CPA. She’d been there for eighteen months, and judging by the looks she kept shooting at a straight-faced Roger, she had something of a crush.
Lindy thought Helena couldn’t be more than twenty-one or twenty-two, but perhaps Roger didn’t mind the age difference. She had lovely hair and skin, a willowy figure, and a tinkling laugh. All of it made Lindy fight an urge to clench her hands into claw-like fists.
As they all finished their tea, a weird pettishness took over her, like some sort of OCD alien invading her body; she heard herself asking Helena to put the cup on the tray rather than the counter, and wondered what on earth had got into her. She wasn’t like this. She didn’t do passive-aggressive or snippy; she hated veiled barbs. And yet here she was, rocking all three. This had to stop.
Lindy realised, as she took the tray of empty cups back to the kitchen, that she’d never actually thought she’d have to compete for Roger’s attention. She’d never expected to feel jealous, and it was an emotion she didn’t like at all—prickly and unpleasant, like a rash spreading over her skin, making her want to scratch viciously. It was a wake-up call to the reality of relationships, and all the messy, tangled feelings they created and exposed in her. She hated every single one.
Things only got more complicated when they started up with the foxtrot—Maureen insisted on dancing with Lindy, because ‘it helped her hip’ and so Helena was partnered with Roger. She only came up to his shoulder, and she looked tiny and delicate next to him, and made Lindy feel like a lumbering giantess.
She tried to lift her dark mood as she foxtrotted with Maureen, whose hip, for once, seemed fine. It really wasn’t like her to feel this way—grumpy and jealous and fierce. Every so often she couldn’t keep from glancing at Roger and Helena, and noticing how awkwardly they moved around the dance floor; it would have given her an absurd and savage sort of pleasure, except for the fact that Helena didn’t seem to mind at all.
She was chatting nineteen to the dozen, and every time her tinkling little laugh floated through the room Lindy felt herself tense. This was so not good. This was so not her.
“You’d better scoop him up fast,” Maureen said, fortunately in a quieter voice than usual. “Before that young one takes him. She’s got the looks for it, you know.”
Lindy bit the inside of her cheek and did not reply.
The evening felt endless by the time everyone was saying their goodbyes, Helena lingering by the door, as if waiting for Roger.
“Do you have to cycle all the way back to Witney?” Lindy asked, trying to sound concerned rather than waspish. What she really wanted to say was, Hadn’t you better get going?
What was wrong with her?
“Yes,” Helena said on a sigh. “And it’s getting so dark in the evenings now.” She glanced at Roger, who was thankfully not taking the hint.
“I can run you back,” Simon offered. “I’ve got the car parked out front. I don’t mind.”
“Oh…” Helena looked torn, and Roger was still silent. “Thanks,” she finally said, “but there’s no need. The exercise is good for me.”
At last they were all gone, Roger included, and Lindy locked up, doing her best not to feel utterly disconsolate. She had another student, so that was something. And if Roger preferred Helena, then so be it. Perhaps it was better that way. She certainly didn’t enjoy feeling so tangled up inside, and hopefully she wouldn’t, if she and Roger stayed just friends.
Maybe that was how it should be—friends, and nothing more. No what-ifs, no possibility, just another person to smile and chat to. She hated feeling so out of control, being snappish instead of sunny. Maybe, Lindy thought, she wasn’t cut out for romantic relationships. The jealousy she felt was most unsettling, especially because she’d never experienced it before. She certainly hadn’t felt it with Philip. She didn’t want to feel it now. Friends it was, then. Good.
So why did that thought make her feel even worse?
Chapter Ten
Something had gone wrong. It was a Tuesday morning in mid-October, two weeks after Roger had shown up to dance class in his blue shirt, feeling fine. Feeling hopeful. And since then everything had gone depressingly downhill.
The kettle in the office kitchen switched off, and morosely Roger poured boiling water over his limp-looking teabag. What had gone wrong? Maybe he’d just been misreading the signals all along, something he knew was perfectly possible, even likely. Or Lindy had gone off him, if she’d even been on him in the first place. Whatever it was, the last two weeks she’d done her best to be a cheerful, chirpy dance instructor and nothing more.
At first Roger had wondered if it had to do with Helena showing up, something that had rather blindsided him. He hadn’t even recognised her from the office, and yet Helena had acted as if they were far friendlier than they were. She’d kept looking at him as if he had the answers to the universe, and Roger hadn’t known how to act—not an unusual occurrence, admittedly. Helena hadn’t been flirting
with him, as far as he could tell, but she’d been looking at him like she wanted something from him and he had no idea what it was.
She’d kept by his side the whole evening, and she hadn’t seemed to mind that he had absolutely no response when she’d mentioned she was taking her A levels, because she’d missed out on them when she was younger. Roger had stared at her in something like bafflement; he’d taken his A levels twenty years ago.
While Helena had continued to stay near him, Lindy had continued to treat him as if he were the same as Maureen, and if he’d had more reason to hope, he would have thought she was jealous. As it was, he was pretty sure she’d simply had enough of him.
On Saturday he’d volunteered at Blue Cross and noticed Lindy had had her home visit and was officially approved to adopt a pet. She was picking up Toby on Thursday, and she hadn’t even told him.
“Roger, my man!” Chris came into the kitchen with his usual waft of Lynx Africa and Polo mints. “How’s it going?”
“Fine, thank you,” Roger returned as he dunked his teabag. Yesterday they’d had their usual rave exchange and Roger’s reply that he was thinking of starting his own had been decidedly lacklustre. He simply hadn’t been able to put his heart into the usual banter, not that Chris would even realise he had been doing that all along.
“You’re looking a bit down, Rog,” Chris said in his overly familiar way. “How’s your lady friend?”
Roger hesitated and then, deciding on honesty, said, “Not very well, I’m afraid.”
Chris staggered back, looking comically shocked. “What? No…”
“She seems to have cooled in her affections,” Roger said stiffly as he reached for the milk. “At least, that is my best estimation.”
“What happened?”
He gave a little shrug. “Nothing. I suspect it was all wishful conjecture on my part, nothing more.”
“She must have given you some hints to how she was feeling,” Chris pressed, and briefly Roger thought of Lindy doing the foxtrot with him, her body pressed against his. He remembered their time in the kitchen, her fingers tracing his eyebrow…
“I believed she did,” he allowed. “But it appears I was mistaken.”
“She’s changed her tune?” Chris shook his head sorrowfully. “It happens, man. These women…they don’t know their own minds.”
“I believe the lady in question knows her own mind very well indeed,” Roger replied. “I am quite sure the misconception was entirely my fault.”
Chris cocked an eyebrow. “You don’t seem like the kind of bloke who would go around thinking a woman had the hots for him when she didn’t, you know what I’m saying?”
“I believe I do,” Roger answered after a pause. He wouldn’t have phrased it that way, certainly.
“She must have changed her mind. Did you do something to put her off? Forget to send her flowers?”
“I have never sent her flowers,” Roger replied, scandalised. “Our relationship had not remotely reached that stage.”
“Ah.” Chris nodded knowingly and Roger wondered what on earth he was doing, talking about his love life with this gel-haired twenty-three-year-old. “So do you think you’ve been friend-zoned?” he asked, and Roger stared at him for a moment.
Friend-zoned. He had not heard the term before but he could guess what it meant, and as he stared at Chris, idly wondering just how much gel he had to use to get his hair to stick up in such stiff points, he realised that had to be exactly what had happened.
Lindy had friend-zoned him. Completely and utterly. He didn’t know why, but did it even matter? And really, wasn’t it just as well? If things had gone any further, he would have undoubtedly made a mess of their fledgling relationship, disappointed or even hurt Lindy, and frustrated himself in the process. Really, this was better.
Even if it didn’t feel like it.
“What you’ve got to do,” Chris says, “is really wow her. Make her look at you differently.”
Roger gazed at him, nonplussed. “I’m not sure I’m capable of wowing anybody,” he said matter-of-factly, and Chris let out a sympathetic laugh.
“Come on, Rog, you’ve got your pluses. The ladies love tall guys.”
“So you are implying my height is my only advantage?”
“Well, it’s one of them.” Chris rubbed his spotty chin. “You’ve got to make her see you as something other than a mate.”
That, Roger thought, was obvious even to someone like him. “Thank you,” he answered as he took his tea back to his desk. “I’ll bear it in mind.”
*
All day long Roger did his best not to think about Lindy, which wasn’t too difficult because work took up all his mental energies, as it so often did. When he was gazing at a spreadsheet, he felt consumed. It was an emotion he suspected most people would not understand.
Still, despite his focus on figures, Lindy remained on the edges of his mind, the periphery of his vision, just out of reach and yet still most definitely there. And even when he absolutely wasn’t, it still felt as if he were thinking about her.
It wasn’t until he’d got back to Wychwood that he decided to do something about it. So he’d been friend-zoned, he thought as he checked on his mum, who seemed cheerful, and then headed back to his own cottage. He’d stay in that zone, then. He didn’t mind, not really. He could use a friend, heaven knew, and he realised he liked Lindy. As a person. He would like to spend time with her.
And if he really was just a friend, then surely it would be a fairly normal thing to do, to ring Lindy and ask her how the adoption process was going. Of course, he already knew how it was going, and he wasn’t good at prevarication. Still, it was a reason to call.
Roger waited until he’d changed out of his suit, put a load of laundry in, and heated up the shepherd’s pie he’d made over the weekend, before he called Lindy. He cracked open a beer for a bit of Dutch courage and then swiped his phone to dial her number.
Ring. Ring.
What should he say his first? How should he sound?
Ring.
Hey, I was just calling to see how it was going with Toby. That sounded okay, didn’t it?
“Roger?” The sound of her voice, so warm and vibrant, shocked him into a moment of stupefied silence that stretched on uncomfortably. “Roger?” she said again, sounding concerned.
“Yes, um, hello.” He cleared his throat, conscious he’d already messed up.
“Is everything all right?”
“Yes, fine. Er…I was just wondering if you’d managed to pick up Toby yet.”
“Oh. No, not yet. But I’ve been approved. Did you know, from your volunteering…?”
“Yes, I did see your application. Well, it’s good news.”
“Yes, I’m very excited. I pick him up on Thursday.”
Which he already knew. “Right-o, very good,” he said, sounding, he thought, a bit like he imagined Colonel Mustard would.
“What have you been up to?” Lindy asked, and again Roger’s mind blanked.
“Work,” he said after a moment. “Mainly.”
“Right.”
Another one of those awful, sticky silences where his mind felt as if it had spun itself into a web and he had no idea what to say.
“And you?” he finally forced out, and Lindy gave a little laugh.
“Work, too, I suppose. I’ve started teaching a class of Year Sixes at the primary, and I’ve got four in my junior class. Twinkle Toes, it’s called now.”
“Oh. Good.”
“Yes, slowly but surely, I suppose.”
Silence. This was horrible. This was not at all how Roger wanted this conversation to go. “Well,” Roger said, to no purpose.
“Are you…are you still up for walking Toby with me?” Lindy asked after a moment, sounding uncertain. “Maybe on Saturday?”
Relief rushed through him, along with a frustration that he had not been able to ask her himself. “Yes, that would be…” He paused, trying to think of a word, and e
nded up saying, “Acceptable.”
Right.
“Oh, okay, then.” Lindy sounded a bit startled. “How about two o’clock?”
“Yes, that should be fine.”
“All right. See you then.”
“Okay. Yes. Bye.” Roger swiped to end the call and then let out a huge exhalation of relief. That had been painful, but he’d got the result he wanted. They were going on a walk.
*
Lindy was in love. Completely and utterly.
From the moment the staff member at Blue Cross had opened the door to Toby’s kennel and the sleek, trembling greyhound had cautiously ventured out, stubby tail wagging, her heart had been taken. Forget romantic relationships; here was what she needed.
“Hey, Toby.” Her voice had dropped to a soft, encouraging whisper as she stroked the dog’s narrow head. “Aren’t you a sweet boy.”
It had only taken a couple of weeks for her to be approved for adoption, and it still felt surreal to walk out of Blue Cross having signed a few forms and paid a bit of cash, with a dog. Her very own dog.
She’d kept glancing at Toby curled up in the back seat of her car, his thin body trembling with nerves, amazed he was actually hers. She had a faithful companion, a partner in crime. Never mind that he couldn’t actually talk; his eyes, like melting chocolate buttons, spoke volumes. Why had she never thought of getting a dog before?
Of course, she knew the answer to that—she hadn’t had the time or space or opportunity. But now she had all three, and she was so very happy.
The first night in her home, Toby had started in his fleece-lined bed downstairs. But it had only taken a few seconds of mournful whimpering for Lindy to bring him up to bed with her. All the rules about being a strict and responsible dog owner went right out the window. Why shouldn’t Toby sleep in her bedroom? No one else was.
He settled onto the sheepskin rug at the foot of her bed like he was made for it.
Of course there had been some growing pains—Toby could be clingy, and when he was nervous he tended to wee, which was challenging as he was nervous about ninety per cent of the time. Plus he liked to chew, but a boxful of squeaky toys and a few treats from Waggy Tails had helped to solve that particular problem.