‘But the pink one is the right one. Daddy always gives me the pink one with my pink pumps.’
‘Daddy would,’ Archie muttered as he hung the offending coat back on the peg and searched for the right one.
‘You’re going to MacDonald’s?’ Phoebe asked, still waiting for an answer to her previous question.
‘Bloody hell, you’re quick.’ Archie shoved a pink jacket at Maria.
‘I thought Jack was cooking.’
‘He was. But he changed his mind.’
‘It’s all chopped up,’ Maria added, ‘but he said he didn’t feel like doing it after all and Archie could take me for burgers and milkshake. Do you want to come?’
Phoebe frowned. ‘Not right now, honeybun.’ She peered past Archie to the empty kitchen. ‘Where is he?’
‘In the garden,’ Archie said. Phoebe nudged past him, heading for the back door.
‘Bye, Phoebe!’ Maria called, and then the front door slammed, leaving the house silent.
Phoebe found Jack sitting at the patio table staring at a can of beer. ‘What’s the matter? Archie says you’re feeling under the weather.’
‘I’m perfectly well.’
‘Then what’s wrong?’ Why have you sent him out with Maria to get tea? You hate Maria eating MacDonald’s and she always eats tea with us.’
Jack’s gaze met hers. He looked empty. ‘I need to talk to you and I wanted to do it alone.’
‘About what?’
No reply.
‘Has something happened with your mum?’
‘Not exactly.’
There was another heavy silence while Phoebe waited for him to expand on his reply.
‘For God’s sake, stop being so cryptic!’ she snapped.
Another silence, shorter this time. And then:
‘At the cosplay launch event, it was you on the roof, wasn’t it? Why did you tell me it was Midnight?’
Phoebe suddenly felt sick, and it was nothing to do with her hormones this time. She dropped into a seat opposite him and hugged herself.
‘I’m right?’ he asked.
‘Yes.’
‘So it was you kissing that man?’ Jack didn’t shout. Instead he looked sad and disappointed. In many ways, this was far worse. She wished he would shout, and then she wouldn’t feel like such a turd. If he did she could shout back, defend herself against something that she’d actually had no control over. But she felt guilty. Why? Was it because, despite the nature of Adam’s trick on the rooftop, a little bit of her had liked it?
‘Is it true?’ he asked quietly.
‘I can explain –’
‘So it is true?’
‘Yes, but…’
‘Why did you lie to me?’
‘It was an act… it didn’t mean anything…’
‘If it was an act then why did you have to lie?’
‘I… I don’t know.’
‘And why did your boss pay the original guy who was supposed to be playing Batman fifty quid to swap with him at the last minute? Was it some weird sex game you’d cooked up between you?’
Phoebe’s mouth fell open. ‘How dare you!’
‘Okay, that was a bit harsh,’ he said. ‘Perhaps you can explain it to me, because I’m struggling here…’
‘How did you…’
‘Find out?’ Jack finished for her. ‘It doesn’t matter, does it?’
‘It bloody does! Even I didn’t know Adam had bribed Gareth to do that.’
‘Adam? First name terms, eh? More than just a boss, then.’
‘Have you never called a boss by their first name before?’
‘We’re not talking about me.’
‘What the hell, Jack! This is stupid! He kissed me, not the other way around, and it didn’t mean anything.’
‘It does now, to me. I can’t understand why you never told me.’
‘Because I knew you’d react like this!’ Phoebe bit her lip. That wasn’t fair and she knew it. To this day her motives for acting so irrationally that evening and for keeping it all from Jack were as clear as an advanced algebra paper. And if she had told him there and then, he might have been a bit miffed, but they would soon have laughed it off as a wacky misunderstanding and moved on. He was right – now it looked a whole lot worse and it felt like she had something to hide. She sighed. ‘Okay, my turn to be sorry. That was a bit harsh too.’
‘How could you do that to me? In front of all those people like that? For God’s sake, Phoebe, Archie saw it… and Maria!’
‘Nobody knew it was me up there…’
‘But I was there, and now I know it was you! Archie knows it was you as well! You say you want respect from him but then you go and do something like that. What kind of message is it sending out?’
‘Look, I was only filling in for Midnight because she got cold feet about the whole rooftop thing, and if I hadn’t done it the whole stunt would have had to be cancelled. I’m sorry that Archie and Maria had to witness it but that’s the truth. I didn’t know it was Adam, I swear – not at first anyway. He tricked me, and before you go off with a hatchet to take him out, you cannot say anything. He can have me sacked from Hendry’s quicker than you can say P45 and he would.’
‘He’d have an unfair dismissal case on his hands, and probably sexual harassment to boot,’ Jack growled.
‘Maybe. But my career would still be over. Even if I won and got my job back, how could I continue to work there under those circumstances?’
‘It’s not right.’
‘I know it isn’t. But I can handle it my own way without making a fuss…’ She moved closer, emboldened by his apparent understanding, and looked up into his eyes. ‘You trust me, don’t you?’
He paused. ‘Yes. But sometimes I feel I hardly know you.’
‘When have I ever given you cause to feel like that?’
‘I… never. It’s me. Don’t listen to me, I’m just an idiot. It hurt so much last time I lost someone I loved that I don’t think I could go through it again. I’ve only just learned to trust fate and let my guard down with you after all those years alone and… please don’t let me down.’
‘Jack… you have to know that I would rather cut off my own arm than hurt you. Not knowingly anyway. This business with Adam, I promise it’s nothing to me. He’s just an idiotic jock who thinks he can get whatever he wants. But he didn’t bargain on how much I love you.’
‘So we’re safe?’
Phoebe nodded. ‘We’re safe.’
He hooked a thumb beneath her chin and tilted it up to kiss her. ‘I have a long way to go, I know. I was shocked when I heard but I should have realised there would be a good reason behind it all. And I should have known that mum would twist it to make it sound as terrible as possible. I know I can trust you.’
Phoebe didn’t want to reopen the wound again, but she had to know. ‘It was your mum who told you?’
‘That’s the bit you’re not going to like…’
‘No shit Sherlock.’
‘My thoughts exactly.’
Phoebe was happy to see that Jack seemed to have accepted her explanation and was as keen to draw a line under the episode as she was. He might have been jealous but he wasn’t the sort of man to hold a grudge and he certainly wasn’t vindictive or petty. His mother, however, was a different matter entirely. Any excuse to besmirch Phoebe was too good to miss. ‘I bet she loved that,’ Phoebe muttered. She paused as another thought occurred to her. ‘When was this?’
‘She called me about an hour ago.’
‘But how did she find out? I mean, I could understand Hendry’s gossip getting around the store, but as far as your mum?’
‘Uncle Fred.’
‘Oh…’ Phoebe shook her head with a puzzled expression.
‘Linda told him,’ Jack elaborated. ‘You know, the woman who works for him. She overheard it in the Bounty according to mum.’
‘I bet that went down well, too,’ Phoebe said.
‘You could say th
at.’
‘Bloody hell,’ Phoebe said, ‘you’d have thought there was more important stuff for the shopkeepers of Millrise to talk about.’ Phoebe chewed her nail as she mused on the situation. ‘How come Archie knows? Does that mean she’s speaking to him again?’ Perhaps something good could come from this mortifying situation. It was a forlorn hope but there had to be some positive to counteract all the crappiness.
Jack shifted in his seat. ‘That was me. I know it was probably a bad move but I just lost it – I needed to talk it through with someone and he came back from college after she’d gone.’
‘Oh. I bet he was complimentary about me, wasn’t he?’
‘If it makes you feel any better, he did actually stick up for you.’
‘He did?’
‘Hard to believe, eh? He said there’d be a simple explanation. He said you’d have to be pretty dumb to cheat on me in front of the whole town. He also said he believed you were pretty dumb, just not that dumb…’ Jack gave her a strained smile, one which she returned. Archie was probably right – she did feel pretty dumb right about now.
She was also beginning to wonder whether Midnight had had something to do with this information leak. Midnight loved to share titbits of gossip in the Bounty when she went for her lunch. ‘Are we okay?’ she asked Jack.
Jack reached across the table and laced his fingers in hers. ‘I want us to be okay,’ he said. ‘I have to know you won’t keep stuff like this from me in the future. I’d rather hear it from you than my mum, you know? How can we build a rock solid relationship if we can’t trust each other?’
And there it was. Phoebe was keeping something massive from him; something that would make the kiss on the rooftop seem like an ant compared to a huge hairy mammoth of a lie. No, not a lie exactly, she told herself, but an omission of the truth. And as truths went it was a whopper.
She took a deep breath. Jack needed to know. But where did she even begin? He would want to know how, and then she would have to tell him about the days she had forgotten her pills and told him everything was fine. He would want to know when, and she would have to tell him that she didn’t know because the whole forgotten pill situation had happened more than once but Phoebe had been convinced that everything would be fine. Where she was normally so careful and methodical, his caresses in the heat of passion had made her throw all common sense aside and she had never uttered a word to stop him, never once heeded that warning bell in her head. It would be okay, she had told herself as another pulse of desire had rippled down her spine; what were the chances of her getting caught?
When she had revealed all these lies and omissions, he would start to wonder how much of a liability she was. But she couldn’t keep her secret any longer, not after all that had happened today.
‘There’s something else,’ she said slowly.
His grip on her fingers tightened. She tried not to wince even though it was close to uncomfortable. Just to be safe, she prised her hand from his. There was no knowing what a shock like this would do to him and she found her digits rather useful the way they were.
‘I’m pregnant.’ She held her breath and waited for a response. He stared at her.
‘Say something,’ she faltered.
Jack pushed his chair away from the table, got up and walked across the garden. He stood with his back to her and stared into the depths of the leylandii, the same hedge where he had hidden Phoebe’s special Easter egg, back when they were happier than any couple had ever been. So much had gone wrong since then, at times it felt as though some invisible machine had steamrollered over their lives. Phoebe watched him. She sensed that he needed time and space and she should leave him for a while. Wrapping her arms around herself, she shivered in a sharp breeze that rattled across the patio.
Time passed and stretched like an eternity, a silent emotional wasteland filled only with the low hum of an aeroplane high above them and the intermittent barking of a neighbour’s dog.
When she could stand it no longer, Phoebe went to him.
‘Are you angry?’ He shook his head, his back still turned to her. ‘Then why won’t you say something?’ She laid a hand on his arm. ‘Jack?’ Tightening her grip, she tried to pull him to face her, but he shook himself free. Phoebe tried again. ‘Jack, please…’ Her voice was husky now, broken by tears that she tried to suppress.
But then he turned around and she saw his own tears rolling down his cheeks. Phoebe took a sharp breath. She had expected many reactions, but not this. She felt her heart would break to see it.
‘Jack?’
‘I can’t do it again,’ he said. ‘I just can’t…’
‘Jack…?’
‘I’m going to lose you too.’
All at once, understanding flooded in. Phoebe threw her arms around his neck. ‘God, no! We’ll be fine; you’ll see!’
Jack buried his face in her shoulder and she clung to him. Over and over she promised it would be okay. But it wasn’t a promise she could make and they both knew it. Hadn’t Rebecca looked forward to years with Maria and Jack? Hadn’t Jack thought she would always be there to share Maria’s childhood? Life had a way of screwing up your plans when you least expected it and you’d never even see the crash coming.
Phoebe knew it would be a long time before Jack really came to terms with her shock news. Even as she left him that evening, when they had talked and cried till they could talk and cry no more, the pain and fear still shone in his eyes and no amount of reassurance could banish it. They had decided not to tell Maria or Archie, not until Jack had got his head around the news himself at least, which meant that they couldn’t tell anyone else either. That wasn’t necessarily a bad thing as far as Phoebe was concerned – apart from anything else she wasn’t remotely ready to deal with Carol’s response. Jack’s mother needed no excuse to think the worst of Phoebe, as the Bat-Gate incident had clearly demonstrated. They would have to tell his parents eventually, of course, but a little more time was definitely the sensible approach.
Bat-Gate had also taught her that she couldn’t afford to reveal her news at work either. Gossip had flown around Hendry’s like a racehorse with a pitchfork in its backside, but it had apparently spread up and down the high street as well. News of her pregnancy would reach Carol’s ears long before she and Jack had a chance to tell her properly if she wasn’t very careful. She was sick, she was tired, she was moody and irritable, but Phoebe would have to hide it from everyone – at least for a little bit longer.
The evening with Jack had been so exhausting that Phoebe had gone home late and fallen into bed. As the alarm went off the following morning, she realised that she hadn’t moved position since she had drifted off to sleep. It was incredible how tired crying could make you. For the first time in weeks she actually felt like she’d had a proper night’s sleep, and she dressed quickly so that she could get into work early and catch Midnight before anyone arrived.
Phoebe had greeted plenty of people as they came and went from the staffroom but by nine o’clock there was still no Midnight. With a slight itch of annoyance that she wasn’t here when Phoebe most needed to speak to her, she was forced to take the stairs to her own office and begin her working day. After an hour of vague answers and preoccupied gazing into the distance, she excused herself from the office and headed back down to the shop to try and find Midnight again.
On the stairs, however, she met Adam. That man seemed to be omnipresent, like an aftershave-soaked god. Phoebe was beginning to suspect that one day soon horns would sprout from his head and he’d whip out a contract for her to sign.
‘Good morning!’ He smiled. His hand went to his jacket pocket and Phoebe wondered whether this was the moment he would try to bargain for her soul.
‘Hi…’
‘Are you in a rush?’
‘Sorry… yes… something I need to sort out…’ Phoebe replied, her gaze drifting towards the stairs as she searched for an escape route. In fact looking anywhere but at his face was good.
‘Do you mean the rumours?’
Phoebe looked sharply at him now. ‘What rumours?’
Adam lowered his voice and leaned into her. ‘About us.’
‘How did you…?’
‘I hear all sorts in that stockroom when I’m doing my secret inspections.’
Phoebe blinked at him. He didn’t appear to be angry or embarrassed at all. In fact, he seemed unconcerned by the whole thing.
‘Can’t you do something?’ Phoebe asked. ‘To stop them.’
As soon as the question left her lips she realised how stupid it was.
‘What can I do? People will talk whether I tell them to or not.’
‘But you’re not angry about it?’
‘Workplace scandal is like giving a budgie a mirror to play with. It keeps everyone entertained and happy.’
Phoebe suspected that his analogy said a lot about what he really thought of his staff – her included.
‘But the way I see it,’ he continued, moving forward so that Phoebe was forced back against the wall, ‘is that you may as well be guilty, if everyone thinks you are anyway.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘If people want to gossip, and they will, then you might as well give them something to gossip about.’
Phoebe ducked around him. ‘I have to go…’ she ran down the stairs as fast as she dared. She’d probably pissed him off by running away mid-conversation, but at that moment she really didn’t care. As she hurried away she was sure she could hear chuckling from the top of the stairs.
A quick inspection of the shop floor and a word with Steve revealed that Midnight had taken the day off. She’d probably mentioned it at some point but Phoebe must have forgotten with everything else jostling for attention in a brain that was ready to explode as it was. Intending to return to her desk, but then looking up to see Adam stalking the shop floor, she took the only course of action she could to avoid him, which was to dash out through the shop entrance. Agitated now beyond reason and huddled in the shadow of one of the huge pillars as rain started to soak the high street, Phoebe pulled out her phone. Midnight might still be in bed if it was her day off, but right now Phoebe didn’t care.
The Spring of Second Chances : An absolutely perfect and uplifting romantic comedy Page 22