She does a twirl.
‘Lovely.’ I nod approvingly. ‘Maybe I’ll be Darth Vader.’ Something black and voluminous would be just fine for covering up all the squidgy bits that haven’t seen the light of day for years, and which I’d rather remained a mystery …
‘And here we are!’ announces Lucy, producing my outfit with a theatrical flourish. ‘I call it “Big Breakfast at Tiffany’s”. What do you think?’
I stare dumbfounded at the contents of the hanger.
And carry on staring …
My face must seriously look like it belongs to Elastigirl; it’s pulling in so many different directions at once as I try to work out what’s actually going on there.
She has to be joking.
It’s a ‘big breakfast’, all right, although the only nod to Audrey Hepburn’s elegant attire in the movie is a black T-shirt dress that looks at least three sizes too small for me. Surely she doesn’t expect me to—
‘Oh, don’t worry,’ says Lucy, clocking my doubtful expression. ‘There’s such an enormous amount of “give” in this fabric. Look. It’s quite extraordinary.’ She stretches the garment out to really ludicrous proportions, so that even a portly walrus could be shoehorned into it at a pinch.
I shoot her a suspicious glance.
But she just smiles and murmurs, ‘D’you know, Twilight, I think it’s going to look fabulous on you.’
That’s when she turns it around and I realise I was looking at the back view. The front is something else altogether … and are they my shoes?
‘Come on, off with the clothes!’ Lucy urges me, with a glance at her watch. ‘Don’t be shy, we’re all girls together here.’
There appears to be a lull in conversation. And when I look up, everyone – without exception – is turned towards me, watching, as if I’m the hired stripper for the evening or something. There’s nothing else for it. Breathing in for all I’m worth, I start undressing. The zip sticks on my trousers and as I’m frantically trying to make it go down without breaking it, I can sense Lucy giving my figure the once-over.
‘Mm, the trousers are a little – um – snug,’ she comments, far too loudly. ‘I can let them out for you, if you like. I’m a whiz with a needle and thread.’
I smile at her through gritted teeth. ‘It’s all right, thanks.’
She frowns at my bottom but thank heavens, at that moment the zip unfurls and I’m free.
Finally, after lots of wriggling and twisting and panting and straightening of fabric, I’m standing there, catwalk-ready, staring at myself in the full-length mirror.
This is Lucy’s version of ‘fabulous’?
The dress might have looked okay with some armour-plated underwear and a pair of skyscraper heels. But with my legs in yolk-yellow tights disappearing into over-sized tomato-red trainers, and three fabric bacon rashers appliquéd onto the front of the dress, along with two enormous, strategically placed fried eggs, I’m clearly the comic turn of the evening.
Paloma takes one look and guffaws so loudly, I worry for her vocal cords.
No one could blame her. I look like a mobile hangover cure.
I nod urgently at the kitchen door, through which Lucy just vanished, looking for Olivia. ‘She designed this specially for me,’ I hiss. ‘I know she did.’
Paloma grins, shaking her head. ‘You’re just being paranoid.’
‘I am not! She wants to make me a laughing stock.’
‘Honestly, you’re imagining it.’
‘Oh, so you really think it’s a coincidence that you get the gorgeous diva outfit and I get the greasy fry-up?’
Paloma snorts with laughter, tears in her eyes. But she nods. ‘I do. You were the last to be kitted out, so you got the ‘witty’ costume. It was just bad luck, that’s all. Nothing personal.’
‘Hm.’ I actually feel quite shaky and, to my horror, on the verge of tears.
‘It’s true. Honestly,’ insists Paloma gently, seeing my face. ‘If I’d been last, I’d have been lumbered with the “transport caff extravaganza”. Honestly, I wouldn’t worry. You can really camp it up on the catwalk in a get-up like that!’
I attempt a smile. She’s right. Of course, she’s right. It’s all just a bit of fun. I’m daft for taking it so personally.
Lucy bursts back into the room. ‘Don’t forget the hat!’ she calls gaily.
And marching over, she slaps a giant baguette on my head.
*****
‘It was really nice of Lucy to let you borrow those recipes of her grandma’s.’
‘Hm?’ I murmur distractedly. We’re walking back from the pub and I’m only vaguely aware Paloma just said something.
‘What are you doing, Twi?’
I glance up sheepishly from Lucy’s grandma’s recipe book. ‘I’m – er – examining the ingredients for anything suspicious.’
Paloma grins. ‘What, like: Victoria sponge cake. Butter, sugar, eggs, large pinch of arsenic (optional)?’
‘You never know with Lucy,’ I mutter darkly. But I put the little notebook away, in my bag.
I didn’t know what to think when Lucy produced it earlier in the evening, saying she thought my café idea was fabulous and that she’d be so thrilled if her lovely late grandma’s recipe book could help inspire me to even greater things.
‘Gosh, well, thanks!’ I said, taking the small blue notebook and leafing respectfully through the pages of spidery writing. The gesture had taken me completely unawares and I wasn’t sure what to say. Now, I was starting to wonder if trusting me with her grandma’s book of recipes was Lucy’s way of saying sorry for all the horrible things she’d done to me in the past.
Her fashion show certainly rounded off the evening in style. A very peculiar sort of style, admittedly, but at least it got everyone nice and relaxed and chatting away as if we only left school the week before.
I did what Paloma said and camped it up in the Big Breakfast outfit and everyone roared with laughter, which made me feel tons better. I almost felt I’d got one over on Lucy in deciding to just go with it and not show I was embarrassed or uncomfortable wearing something so preposterous. When everyone was laughing and applauding me, my eye landed on Lucy at one point, and she was standing there, straight-faced, arms folded, just staring at me, a cold, intense look on her face. A bit like creepy Mrs Danvers in Rebecca. It freaked me out for a second, but then I remembered what Paloma said about being paranoid and I told myself not to be so silly.
It was Lucy’s show. She was frowning because she wanted it to be a success. Of course she wouldn’t be able to kick back and have fun like everyone else.
‘I might try this clean eating plan of Olivia’s,’ says Paloma, snapping me back to the present. ‘If I’m going to be training for a 10k, I might as well go the whole hog and start eating healthily as well.’
‘Really? But you won’t be able to eat carbs.’
‘Won’t I?’
‘No. That’s the point of it. Nothing processed. No gluten. No sugar. No dairy. And the thing is, I really need your input this weekend, testing all the cakes and tray bakes I’m thinking of putting on the café menu.’
Paloma’s face lights up at the thought. ‘Yeah? Oh well, bugger clean eating.’
‘So you’re seriously going to train for this 10k?’
She shrugs. ‘Why not? It’s all in a good cause. Sending little Harry to America. And I sort of feel if Lucy and Olivia are spurring on the whole village to get involved and get fit in the process, I’d quite like to be part of it?’
She has a point. It’s just the last time I took any serious exercise, I was running around a tea room garden in Devon, on holiday with Mum and Dad, trying to escape from a wasp that had taken a fancy to my strawberry jam scone with lashings of clotted cream.
Mind you, I have got stamina.
‘We all agreed we’d sign up,’ Paloma reminds me, nodding back at the pub. ‘And to be honest, I’m quite looking forward to Lucy’s boot camp training sessions.’
<
br /> ‘You are?’ I stare at her, aghast. I can’t think of anything worse than Sergeant Major Lucy Slater breathing down my neck, yelling threats and making me run faster. (Actually, that just about sums up my schooldays in a nutshell.)
‘Yeah, I thought I might go dressed as a chipolata,’ says Paloma, straight-faced. ‘You know, continue the Big Breakfast motif. With perhaps a side order of fried onions on my head?’
We look at each other and snort with laughter.
A car draws up alongside us just as I’m doing an impression of Lucy introducing one of her fashion designs. ‘Ladies, this is my take on practical footwear with a twist. Mops for the feet! Get the housework done in no time and look super-uber-stylish while you do it. Note the fabulous grey fringing—’
I frown at Paloma, who’s stopped laughing and is now digging me urgently in the ribs. ‘What?’
I turn towards the car and my heart nearly gallops out of my chest when I see who it is.
My ‘childhood sweetheart’ as Mum quaintly describes him.
The only man I’ve ever really loved …
Chapter 6
Jason Findlay is smiling up at me through the open car window with that thoroughly kissable mouth and those lovely, warm brown eyes. Eyes that used to gaze at me so lovingly from behind his glasses, my heart would turn somersaults of joy.
He must wear contact lenses these days …
And then my face turns into a scorching radiator on max when I realise he’s just witnessed me making a total arse of myself, ridiculing his girlfriend, Lucy.
Not that he looks anything but delighted to see me.
‘Well, hello,’ he says. ‘If it isn’t Scully herself.’
A stupid smile spreads across my face at the mention of our heroes back in the day, Mulder and Scully from The X-Files.
‘Mulder.’ I swallow hard. ‘How are you?’
‘I’m good, thanks. All the better for seeing you. I hear you gave up a high-flying PR career to make pastries. Brave move.’ His eyes twinkle.
I laugh. ‘Yeah, some might say stupid. But hey, you’ve got to follow your dreams.’
‘And you always were a bit of a dreamer.’
We lock eyes and a wealth of memories shimmers in the space between us.
Me at fifteen, on the miraculous day Jason approached me shyly after school and asked if I wanted to go to the cinema with him. I’d liked him for ages but never thought I stood a chance. After saying yes, I walked on air all the way home and squealed into my pillow when I got to my room. The movie was Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, but I don’t think I heard a word of it – I was so delirious with happiness just to be with Jason.
Then at sixteen, listening to music with Jason in my bedroom after school, laughing, kissing and lounging together on the white fluffy bedspread, eating Screwball ice creams with bubble gum at the bottom.
And at seventeen, losing my virginity in the back of Jason’s Ford Escort. People said the first time was always a disappointment, but it wasn’t like that for us. I was madly in love and thought it would last forever.
At eighteen, I went off to university in Manchester, assuming we’d be true to each other in spite of the two hundred miles separating us. Then the horrible phone call from Paloma, six months into my course, telling me Jason had been seen out with Lucy. She’d agonised about whether or not to tell me, but I told her she’d done the right thing, letting me know.
I phoned Jason and challenged him, and he admitted they’d gone out just as friends and that was all it would ever be as far as he was concerned. But the thing was, I knew how mad Lucy was about Jason and I just knew, deep down, that with me at a distance, she would use every trick in her power to steal him from me …
To be fair on Jason, he ended our relationship before anything happened with Lucy, although it came as a horrible shock to me.
I’d taken the train home for a weekend in the middle of the summer term, a few weeks after Paloma’s revelation. I’d assumed that after my stressful phone call with Jason about Lucy, things were okay between us again. More than okay. Jason and I were meant to be together; I couldn’t imagine us ever splitting up.
We’d gone for a long walk in the lanes around the village, ending up in our special place – a secluded spot in a pretty little wood by a stream, just beyond the village boundary.
We’d sat down and I’d leaned against him in the dappled sunlight beneath the trees, listening to the lazy gurgle of the water sliding over the stones, and Jason took my hand and told me he was finding our long-distance relationship much harder than he thought it would be.
While I was in Manchester, he said, Lucy was still there, in Hart’s End. They’d been friends first, before he started to develop feelings for her, and he swore nothing physical had happened with Lucy. I believed him because Jason always told the truth. That was one of the things I loved about him – his total honesty and inability to tell a lie.
Now, he looks up at me with a wistful smile. ‘You’re looking great, Twi. We should get together for a drink. For old times’ sake.’
‘You think?’ My tone is laden with cynicism because I really can’t see Lucy allowing that. Paloma reckons Jason is completely under her thumb and I can well believe it. Jason is sunny natured, the eternal optimist and, if he has a fault, it’s that he can sometimes be way too easy-going and forgiving for his own good. I can imagine Lucy taking full advantage of this.
‘With Lucy as well,’ Jason adds swiftly.
I nod. ‘Of course.’
We smile at each other, acknowledging that nothing to do with exes is ever that simple.
‘Oh, there you are!’ a bossy voice screeches. ‘We thought you were never coming, so we decided to walk.’
I swing round. Lucy is tapping daintily along the pavement towards us, with Olivia in tow. (I’m guessing she’d gallop in her eagerness to stop Jason and I talking, if it weren’t for the skyscraper heels she’s wearing.)
‘Hi, love.’ Jason’s smile is a little sheepish. ‘I spotted Twilight and I couldn’t resist pulling up for a quick chat.’
Lucy’s eyes sweep over me, like a cold front blowing in from a northerly direction. She leans down to speak to Jason. ‘Olivia’s coming back for a drink. To talk about the 10k. She’ll probably stay over.’ She opens the back door for Olivia to get in.
Jason looks surprised. This is obviously the first he’s heard about it. But he says, ‘Yeah, fine. I’ve got an early start in the morning anyway, so I’ll leave you girls to it and grab an early night.’
‘The bin needs putting out,’ she snaps. ‘Please don’t forget to do it like you did last week.’
He grins. ‘I won’t.’
Hurrying round to the passenger side, she flicks her eyes over me. ‘If you want those trouser seams taking out, Twilight, give me a call and I’ll come round and collect them.’ I notice she doesn’t suggest I drop them off because, presumably, there would be a chance I’d bump into Jason again.
‘Oh, right, thanks.’ I have absolutely no intention of calling her for this or any other reason.
‘I think your trousers look perfectly fine as they are,’ says Jason, grinning at me, and I wonder if this is his small revenge for Lucy’s snippy comments about the bin.
‘There’ll be no nooky for him tonight,’ mutters Paloma as we watch them drive off, Lucy with a face like thunder.
Chapter 7
It’s three days since Lucy’s fashion show and all the buzz around the 10k charity run has had an effect on me. I have decided – albeit reluctantly – to get fit for the first time in my life.
But I’m not as fearless as Paloma.
She’s started running every evening, through the village and out along country lanes, but I’m not terribly keen on putting my wobbly bits on public show like that. So, I’ve decided to join the gym instead. I figure if I go prompt at seven in the morning, when it opens, there’ll be fewer people to observe me tackling the treadmill. (I’m thinking particularly
of Theo Steel. I really do not want to bump into him in my baggy T-shirt and tracksuit bottoms.)
Leaving the house, I give the milkman a cheery wave and head for the sports centre. Avoiding the main gate and taking a short cut through the bushes into the sports centre car park, I do a quick scan of the few cars parked there at this evil early hour. A pink Porsche, a clapped-out old Fiesta that looks as if it’s been abandoned and an ugly, shiny people carrier. In other words, none that screams ‘Theo Steel’.
Phew!
I whip off the dark glasses, which are probably a little over the top at seven in the morning, with the sun just a cheery promise lurking on the horizon. Then I change my mind and put them back on. At least they mask the puffiness from a very late night spent perfecting my scone selection.
By the time I crashed out around three, I had five different varieties cooling on wire trays. The date scones are my personal favourite, although I know Paloma prefers the cherry and coconut. Throw in a savoury flavour – cheddar, parmesan and cracked black pepper – plus blueberry lemon cream, and classic sultana, and hopefully, there will be a scone to suit every customer’s taste.
What prompted this morning’s early rise was Paloma knocking on my door last night, just before six. She was hoping to persuade me to join her on a jog around the village, but I despatched her speedily on her way, joking that I had far more enjoyable things to do with my time, such as cleaning the hard-to-reach bits behind the radiators and watching paint dry.
But after she’d gone, I decided that if I was to take part in Lucy’s 10k with everyone else and not totally show myself up, I needed to do something about my lack of fitness because I suspected you needed a bit more than natural stamina to run all that way.
Walking into the sports centre, I find reception deserted, except for a model-like girl leaning on the other side of the desk painting her nails. Dressed in a skimpy bright pink leotard, she’s wearing massive rollers that look more suited to flattening road surfaces than styling hair.
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