Wildflower Bay

by Rachael Lucas

  Isla gave one nod. Without the chance to check out what had happened, she had no way of proving that Chantelle had somehow sabotaged her – even though she was almost certain that was what had happened. There was no way she could have made a mistake. She’d been working her backside off, and she’d been a bit stressed of late, but she didn’t make mistakes.

  ‘I’m not in the habit of giving second chances.’

  ‘Yes, I know, but—’

  ‘I don’t do but, either. You know the deal, Isla. You’ve worked here long enough.’

  Isla stood stock still, unblinking. She knew what was coming, but couldn’t quite believe it was happening to her. She’d seen it so many times over the last five years of working in Kat’s salon.

  ‘To be honest – and I’m being kind, here . . .’ Kat looked at her with a thin smile. Isla realized that she was trying her best to be generous – something that didn’t come easily to Kat, who’d fought her way from a Saturday job washing hair at a tiny salon in Leith to a chain of award-winning salons across Edinburgh. ‘If it was anyone else, they’d get the chop.’ She smiled again, amused at her own joke. ‘But you’ve worked hard for me, Isla, and I appreciate a grafter. You’ve gone as far as you can here. Chantelle has been bleeding off your clients over the last few weeks, and I’m promoting her to senior stylist.’

  Isla stepped back, reeling. ‘You want me to work alongside Chantelle?’

  Kat inclined her head. ‘You’d have a problem with that?’

  ‘You can’t do that.’ Isla swallowed, trying to keep herself calm. There was no way she’d worked up to this point to have it all taken away. She had the reunion coming up, and this was all part of her master plan. Kat couldn’t take this away.

  ‘I can,’ said Kat with a small, cat-like smile, ‘Or you can go quietly. Two months’ gardening leave, full pay. I don’t want you taking any of my customers elsewhere. And I’ll give you a good reference, naturally.’

  ‘I should bloody well think so,’ exploded Isla. ‘I’ve worked my arse off for you for the last five years.’

  Kat inclined her head again slightly, this time in acknowledgement. ‘And it’s dog-eat-dog in this world, darling. Get out, have a break. Go and have a bit of a life.’ She looked at Isla levelly, raising her eyebrows. ‘God knows, you need one. And then you can find something else in town. I hear Daniel Pardoe’s main girl is off on maternity leave soon. Well,’ Kat gave a humourless laugh, ‘either that, or she’s been making one too many visits to Greggs the Bakers at lunchtime.’

  Isla looked around the salon. Her stunned expression was reflected back at her from every shining mirror. Beside her, Kat sat, long legs extended confidently, examining her fingernails.

  ‘I need to sort my kit. I haven’t even had a chance to clean it after last night.’

  ‘Fine.’ Kat’s tone was airily dismissive. ‘The juniors will be in shortly. Best if you’re gone before the others arrive, don’t you think?’

  She stood up, motioning towards the door with a sweep of her arm. Isla, nonplussed, found herself walking, robot-like, towards the exit.

  And then she was standing at the foot of the steps on a chilly, deserted Edinburgh street. A discarded chip paper ruffled up in a gust of wind, lifting into the air before being plastered to her leg. Isla bent down to peel it off. The number 6 bus pulled up, depositing the first of a never-ending stream of office workers, laptop bags swinging from their shoulders, pouring into the coffee shop next door to Kat’s salon, ordering the jolt of espresso they needed to start their morning. She stood, dazed, in the middle of the pavement. The swarm of commuters scurried round her, ant-like, heads down, not focusing.

  ‘All right, Isla, darlin’.’

  She looked up into a familiar face. Tam was standing in front of her, his dog panting obediently by his side. One ear was plugged into a headphone wire that snaked below the heavy overcoat. Of course – he was heading up for his morning coffee. Not much chance that Kat or Chantelle would sort him out with a drink, or sneak out a handful of chocolate biscuits every morning.

  ‘Cheer up, hen. It might never happen.’

  ‘It just did.’

  Chapter Three

  Getting pissed in the afternoon wasn’t on Isla’s to-do list. In fact, she thought as she swayed gently towards the impossibly chic Harriott’s Bar on George Street, dressed immaculately, she didn’t even have a to-do list. She didn’t have anything to do.

  Sacked, she’d gone home and dropped the car off, made her way upstairs, dropping off the post to a surprised Mrs Jones from downstairs (‘Forgotten something, my dear? You’re normally out first thing’) and then headed into the flat, where she’d stress-cleaned the entire place from top to bottom because – well, what else was she supposed to do? What did people do, when their perfectly executed plans went tits up?

  Five hours and seven bin bags of decluttering later, with the kitchen cupboards turned out and sparkling, not a speck of dust to be found even in the darkest of corners, and two of her nails having been administered emergency first aid in the shape of professional nail glue, Isla realized the answer as she slithered out from underneath the spare-room bed with the hoover hose in hand, sneezing from the dust.

  People don’t hoover when the shit hits the fan, thought Isla. And I haven’t come this far not to be in control. After coiling the hoover wire neatly around the handle, folding the dishcloth into precise quarters and hanging it symmetrically on the mixer tap, she folded her arms in a childish gesture of defiance that would have made her dad smile, and decided that what she needed to do now was exactly what people in films would do at this point.

  She showered, scrubbed, buffed, moisturized. She trimmed and shaved, plucked, varnished, blow-dried and tweezed. Foundationed and blushered to within an inch of her life, then and only then – dressed in the skinniest of skinny black jeans and the sharpest of scarlet stilettos, with her tiniest black vest top and a designer jacket that had cost a month’s pay packet but which she’d allowed herself as reward for winning Stylist of the Year in the regional heats – she opened a bottle of champagne.

  With the first glass she composed a text to Chantelle, telling her exactly what she thought of her snide behaviour and her back-stabbing – not to mention her shitty, uneven haircutting, and the time she missed a whole chunk of a colour job and Isla had to repair it the next day. It was deeply therapeutic. With the second, she booked a taxi into town for half an hour’s time. The third and fourth glasses slipped down quite agreeably as she stalked Facebook, catching up on everyone’s gossip on the school reunion page and deciding that even if she was temporarily unemployed (and they didn’t need to know that), she had still done a pretty good job of making the best of herself, and she was bloody well going to show them.

  Fuck it, thought Isla, who never swore. She got into a taxi, four glasses of champagne down on an empty stomach. Fuck it. I’m going to allow myself one night to feel sorry for myself. I’m going to let myself have that. And then tomorrow I’m going to pick myself up and get back in control.

  Isla opened her eyes cautiously. Her tongue was glued to the top of her mouth and she pulled it away, wincing. Light was streaming in through the window of the sitting room. She must’ve fallen asleep on the sofa. Except – she realized, heart thudding – this sofa smelt of stale beer, and something she couldn’t place that was vaguely herbal. And there weren’t any curtains at the window of this room. And she was lying wrapped in the arms of a –

  ‘OHMYGOD.’ Propelled by a bolt of adrenalin that cut through the hangover fug, she jumped sideways off the sofa, sliding in the process on what looked like an ancient sateen bedspread from the 1960s, and nearly landing in a discarded pizza box with one slice of pepperoni curled up in the corner. She looked at the sofa where she’d slept. Lying in a pair of boxer shorts, fast asleep and with his arm still describing an Isla-shaped arc where she had been dead to the world just a moment ago, was a total stranger. Quite a handsome one, some part of her brain reg
istered, not very helpfully – but a stranger nonetheless.

  The stranger opened one eye at a time, grimacing. Underneath his thatch of glossy dark-brown hair were two soulful, chocolate-drop eyes. He looked up at her through his fringe, and a lazy smile spread across his face.

  ‘Morning, gorgeous.’ He reached out, finding the slice of pizza, and sat up, crossing his legs. His boxers gaped alarmingly. Isla averted her eyes.

  ‘Want a bit?’

  ‘No. No, no. No, I’m fine. More than fine.’ Unable to look directly at him for fear of his accidental exposure, Isla peered out of the window. She had a vague idea that she was in Bruntsfield, or Morningside – all the streets in student Edinburgh looked the same.

  ‘Right. Well, I’m going to –’ She looked down at her phone. It was dead, completely out of battery. Her tiny going-out bag hadn’t had room for the back-up battery pack that she carried as a matter of course. Where was her tiny going-out bag? Was this what champagne felt like? Isla, who had never drunk more than two glasses before the previous night, had a vague recollection of ordering bottles in a noisy bar in what seemed to be an underground vault of some kind. She caught a glimpse of her bag hanging from the corner of a broken wooden chair, and stepped over another sleeping body – which lay with its head beside an ashtray, half covered with a sleeping bag – to retrieve it. It came away dripping with what she hoped was stale beer. The alternative was too gruesome to contemplate.

  ‘That was a belter of a night. When you got up and sang Dolly Parton in the Taverners . . .’ Her sofa companion gave her an appreciative thumbs up.

  Isla looked at him, recoiling in horror. ‘I don’t sing. And I definitely don’t sing karaoke.’

  ‘So you said. In fact, you told me about forty-eight times on the way home. And you told everyone in the pizza shop on the Meadows, too. D’you not remember?’

  Isla felt a wave of nausea. Her skin was somehow alternating between ice-cold and clammily warm. Her head felt like someone had put it in a vice. She needed to be at home, in the cool embrace of her perfect white sheets – now.

  ‘Oh, yes,’ she lied. ‘Yes, I remember all of it. Ha ha, the pizza shop. That was fun, wasn’t it?’

  ‘You’re no’ rushing off, are you?’ Brown Eyes leaned back against the sofa, pulling the stained satin bedcover over his legs. He beckoned in what he clearly thought was an enticing manner. ‘Get a bit more sleep. Tam over there does a killer bacon roll. He’ll be up in a couple of hours.’ He motioned to the sleeping lump beside the table.

  Isla shook her head politely. ‘Thanks, but I really need to get going.’ She pulled the first excuse she could think of out of the hat. ‘I’ve got to get to work.’ Never mind that it was Saturday and she was off all weekend.

  ‘Work?’ Brown Eyes snorted with laughter. ‘That champagne was stronger than it looked. You spent all night telling us you’d got the sack, and how some bitch called Chantelle had stabbed you in the back.’

  Isla closed her eyes. She’d forgotten, momentarily. Right, even more reason to get out of this hellhole and back to normality. A quick shower and a half-hour’s sleep, and everything would be back to normal.

  ‘Oh yes,’ she said, adopting the breeziest tone she could, given the clanging in her skull. ‘Forgot that bit. Ah, well, places to go. Thanks for a lovely evening. Would you mind just . . .’ She paused for a moment, wondering how best to word the question. ‘Where exactly are we?’

  The taxi driver smirked as she climbed into the back of the black cab.

  ‘Walk of shame, eh, doll? We’ve all been there.’ He winked at her in the rear-view mirror.

  Isla didn’t reply. She sat in silence, damp bag by her side, her designer jacket crushed and stinking of cigarette smoke, as they wound their way down through the narrow streets of the Old Town, along Princes Street, which was already packed with tourists, and up Hanover Street. She looked the other way as the taxi idled in a traffic queue outside Kat Black Hair, not even allowing herself a glance inside. The thought of Chantelle catching sight of her in this state was appalling.

  At her building, too mortified to ask for change, she handed the taxi driver a huge tip and waved him away as he made for his bag of coins.

  ‘Two paracetamol, a bottle of Irn Bru and a bacon sandwich,’ he offered as a hangover tip, unsolicited, in exchange, ‘and you’ll be right as rain, hen.’

  Giving him a thin smile, Isla clambered laboriously up the stairs to the flat. When she made it inside, slipping off her shoes and pairing them neatly by the front door, she paused only to plug her phone in to the charger by the sofa before heading for the bathroom cabinet, painkillers, and a mercifully hot shower.

  Isla stood by the sofa, not knowing where to begin. She’d slept for hours, waking only to drain a pint of water and two more headache pills before falling into another unmoving, dreamless slumber. When she’d eventually surfaced, clambering bleary-eyed out of bed at five o’clock in the evening, it was to a phone screen plastered with notifications.

  Dad: 20 missed calls

  Dad: text

  Dad: text

  Dad: text

  Dad: text

  Kat Black: text

  Chantelle: text

  This must be what it’s like to be popular, she thought.

  And then it all came flooding back. She’d heard the girls in the salon of a morning, groaning with recognition as their wine-fuelled exploits from the night before came back to them piece by piece. But Isla wasn’t a drinker. She liked life ordered and organized. She had a plan. She didn’t lose focus. So it was with an unfamiliar sinking sensation that she sat down on the edge of the sofa and remembered how last night had unfolded. She opened up her messages, scrolling backwards.

  Text Message to: Chantelle

  I can’t prove it but I’m certain you swapped the bottles over in the stock room. You’re a poisonous bitch and you and Kat deserve each other. I won’t forget this.

  Text Message from: Chantelle

  R U some kind of psycho? UR going 2 regret sending this.

  Text Message from: Kat Black

  Isla I would appreciate it if you could refrain from threatening my staff. I have to confess I wondered if I had been a bit severe. Your obsessive behaviour over the last few months has been increasingly erratic. You need a break. Get some help before it’s too late.

  Text Message to: Dad

  Hiya Dad, if you’re around tomorrow thought I might pop round, tidy up a bit. Got a bit of time off work. Love you.

  Text Message to: Dad

  Actually there’s something I need to talk to you about, the thing is I ve don

  Text Message to: Dad

  Ops sorry, didn’t mean to send the last one. Mistake

  Text Message to: Dad

  Oh god dad I messed up and I don’t know what to do. I’ve lost my job and I can’t even get a job here for 2 months because am banned from working for any other salon in case I poach any clients not that I’d have any to poach Because my reputation is probably shot but anyway

  Text Message to: Dad

  Sorry hit send by msistake I blame autocooret anyway don’t worry have met lovely friends in pub who has said they can find me job working at the chicken factory will be nice and relaxing also free chiken ehich is nice

  Text Message from: Dad

  sounds good – all ok? Flat out here, haven’t stopped all day

  Text Message from: Dad

  don’t worry darling – we will sort this x

  Text Message from: Dad

  where r u now? Am worried you are not ok

  Text Message from: Dad

  sweetheart I’m worried about you. Don’t worry about the job, something will come up. Let me know when you’re home safe.

  Text Message from: Dad

  BTW – is your phone keyboard broken?

  Isla swallowed back a sickening wave of hangover mixed with terror. What the hell had she done? With trepidation, she pressed the keypad, activating her voice-mail inbo
x.

  ‘Hiya Isla, it’s your dad here. Just checking you’re OK.’

  ‘Isla, darling, give us a call when you get this. Just wanted to say a wee hello.’

  ‘It’s Dad. This isn’t like you, sweetheart. I’m a wee bit worried about . . .’

  Isla hit the button, stopping her father’s message in mid-flow. There was no point putting it off any longer. She hit the dial button and waited.

  ‘Dad, it’s me.’

  ‘Isla! You’re no’ dead then?’ He laughed.

  ‘Not quite, no. I’m sorry about last night. It was a bit of a . . .’ She paused, trying to think of a suitable word for the horrors that were coming back to her, bit by bit. Disaster? Nightmare? Total meltdown?

  ‘Ach, darling, you need to let your hair down once in a while. Anyhow, I’ve taken the evening off. You about?’

  ‘About’ was one way of putting it, thought Isla, looking around the immaculate sitting room. Completely devoid of anything to do, with no friends and no job, was another way. She suppressed a sigh. ‘Yes, I’m free.’

  ‘Give me half an hour.’

  Isla pulled out her leather overnight bag from underneath the bed and laid it carefully on the table. She removed a creaseless pair of white cotton pyjamas from the drawer and stacked with them a pair of pale skinny jeans, a beige cardigan, and one of her standard-issue white vest tops in the case. Her weekend outfits were always the same – summer was vest tops, winter was crisp white shirts and chic scarves. Streamlining her wardrobe meant she didn’t have to think about what to wear, and she always looked immaculate. Her travel toiletries were, as ever, ready to go – the thought that she never went anywhere except to visit her dad crossed her mind as she zipped them into the side compartment, but she chased it away, closing the case. Everything was sorted. The flat was spotless – for now, at least. When Hattie returned tomorrow evening it would be about ten minutes before the place was in a state of devastation.

  The beep outside alerted her to her dad’s arrival. He waved up at the window, grinning. She gave him the thumbs up and ran down the stairs into his waiting arms.