Sive was melting with relief that things could be normal between her and Sam again. They could carry on being friends and she wouldn’t have to avoid being alone with him or come up with excuses for not dating him. But she still felt guilty at the thought of him waiting for her, when he didn’t have all the facts.
‘Maybe it’s not a great idea, though, you and me. I mean, it would be lovely. But you’re a friend, and I don’t want to mess that up.’
‘And I probably would mess it up.’
‘No! That’s not what I’m saying.’
‘Is this why you were trying to pair me off with Orla?’
‘Maybe.’ Sive smiled guiltily. ‘But you should feel free to go out with other people. I just don’t want you to wait because … what if the time is never right?’
Sam shrugged. ‘I’ll take my chances. And in the meantime, we’ll still be friends.’ He took Sive’s hand again. ‘Is this okay?’
Sive nodded. It was more than okay.
Sam glanced at his watch. ‘Right. Let’s go watch Sandra get her man.’
14
The theatre festival over,rehearsals forA Christmas Carolmoved to Halfpenny Lane the next day. Even though the space was smaller, it felt good to be home in their little theatre.
‘How did it go yesterday?’ Mimi asked Sive as she joined her at a table in The Halfpenny Place during their lunch break. She unloaded coffee and two wedges of spanakopita from a tray.
‘Great. The movie was really good.’
‘And it was okay with Sam? Nothing happened?’ Mimi pulled out a chair and sat.
‘Well, he did try to kiss me,’ Sive admitted. ‘But I stopped him. He assumed it was too soon after my break-up with Ben, and I let him think that. So he’s backing off for now.’
Sive was glad that everything was relaxed and easy between them again and she didn’t have to avoid Sam. She’d had fun with him yesterday after that awkwardness was out of the way. Even though she’d wished they could have been on a date, and she’d longed to let the kissing happen, she loved spending time with him as a friend. Sitting beside him in the dark of the cinema, eating popcorn and giggling together over the movie, she’d forgotten her troubles for a while.
‘What’s this?’ Mimi nodded to the notebook in front of Sive.
‘I’m making a list of all the jobs I could possibly do.’ Unfortunately, Sive’s money worries had come slamming to the front of her brain again as soon as she woke up this morning. In an effort to calm herself, she’d pulled up her CV and started brainstorming ways to parlay her special skills into real-life jobs.
Mimi leaned in to look at what Sive had written. ‘Barista.’ She read the first item.
‘I’ve got my certificate and I’ve done it lots of times on set. I was the barista in The Nook for a while, remember?’ The Nook was the café in the long-running soapNorthsiderswhere Sive had had a semi-regular stint as a background artist.
‘Secretary,’ Mimi read. ‘Where’s that come from?’
‘I can touch type,’ Sive reminded her. ‘Sixty-five words a minute.’
‘But you’ve no experience. You’ve never worked in an office a day in your life. I think there’s probably more to being a secretary than typing.’
Sive shrugged. ‘I’ll just look on it as another role. I could totally play a secretary – shuffle papers around on a desk, staple things together, answer the phone.’ She mimed all these activities as she spoke.
Mimi pursed her lips, clearly not convinced. ‘Fishmonger?’ she shrieked, pointing to another item on the list. ‘Really?’ She screwed up her face.
‘You know I did that fish filleting course. And I have real experience at that.’ She’d been delighted her filleting skills had paid off when she’d got a part as an extra in a costume drama, playing a stallholder in a nineteenth century London fish market.
‘I don’t think miming it is quite the same as doing it for real.’
‘I wasn’t just miming. We worked on real fish for that shoot.’
‘Mmm, I remember.’ Mimi wrinkled her nose. Admittedly, the smell had clung, and Sive had come home reeking every day. ‘But I don’t think playing the part on a TV set counts as actual work experience.’
‘I don’t see why not.’
