16
On Sunday morning,Sam called to Sive’s house and they walked to the local supermarket.
‘Okay, we need a few avocados for the guacamole,’ Sive said, consulting her list while Sam pushed the trolley.
‘On it,’ Sam said, stopping in the fruit and vegetable aisle.
They both reached into the bin of avocados at the same time, and Sive felt a spark as their hands brushed against each other. She was still working her way through the pile of fruits, testing them for ripeness, when Sam picked up a couple and tossed them in the trolley.
‘Okay, what’s next?’ he asked, businesslike.
‘Um … do you know how to choose avocados?’ Sive asked, eyeing the two specimens in the trolley.
Sam shrugged. ‘They’re fine, right? I mean they look … avocadoey enough to me. Are they too small?’
Sive laughed and picked them out of the trolley to examine them. They were hard as rocks. ‘Okay, these won’t do. We need to find ripe ones.’ She returned them to the display and rooted through the avocados again until she found a good one. ‘Like this.’ She held it out in the palm of her hand. ‘You need to beable to make a bit of a dent in it with your thumb, see,’ she said, demonstrating. She handed it to Sam and he did the same. ‘It should have a bit of give.’
‘Okay, got it.’ He felt his way through the avocados and picked up another one. ‘I’ve found an even better one.’ He held it out to Sive triumphantly.
She gave it a prod and laughed. ‘Whoa, that’s way too squidgy. It’s over-ripe. They need to have a bit of give but not too much.’
Sam rolled his eyes theatrically and tossed it back into the pile. ‘Who knew avocados were so high maintenance?’
‘Oh, they’re renowned for it. They’re the divas of the fruit world.’
She watched Sam frowning in concentration as he rummaged through the display again. ‘Right, I think I’ve got it this time.’ He picked out a dark, bumpy-skinned fruit and handed it to Sive. ‘The Goldilocks of avocados, I’m sure you’ll agree.’
Sive pressed her thumb into it and nodded. ‘Perfect! By George you’ve got it.’
‘Another skill I can add to my resume.’
‘Okay, now we need coriander and limes.’
Sive discovered that even grocery shopping was fun with Sam. He made her laugh, clowning around, and she loved how friendly he was, chatting easily to the cashier at the checkout.
‘Now for the not so fun part,’ Sive said when they’d paid and packed the shopping into four large bags. ‘Lugging all this stuff home.’
‘Well, that’s why you brought the muscle,’ Sam said, swinging all four bags out of the trolley in two hands.
‘You can’t take them all. Give me a couple,’ Sive said.
Sam shrugged. ‘It’s fine.’ He was already moving towards the exit.
‘Give me one at least.’
‘Okay, if you insist. Here, you can carry this.’ He pulled a net of limes out of one of the bags and handed it to her.
Sive felt a little guilty as they walked back to the house, but Sam really didn’t seem to be breaking a sweat carrying all the shopping, and she couldn’t help thinking about the muscular arms hidden beneath his jacket.
‘Let’s have lunch first,’ she said as she let them into the house. ‘Then we can get stuck into the cooking.’
‘Good idea,’ Sam said, dumping the bags on the kitchen table. ‘I’m starving.’
Sive warmed some pitta bread and they grazed on hummus and salad. When they’d eaten and cleared away, they set to work prepping dinner and Sive gave Sam a lesson in pastry-making.
When the enchiladas were assembled and the pastry was resting in the fridge, they spent the rest of the afternoon running lines, happily playing in Dickens’ world, dancing and flirting safely behind the plausible deniability of their characters, her as the sweet, down-to-earth Belle and him as the smitten young Ebenezer. But there was a bittersweet tinge to their words, a melancholy shadow cast over their fledgling romance, knowing it was already doomed.
When they played the scene where Belle breaks off their engagement, Sive couldn’t help thinking about exes – those people who had once been such an integral part of your life suddenly cast out and consigned to the past – Ebenezer and Belle, her and Ben, Sam and Sophie … That was what happened when you broke up with someone. It was inevitable. When you were in a romantic relationship, it could go one of two ways – either it lasted or you broke up and they became just a memory, a shadow of someone who used to be there, now erased from your life. She couldn’t bear for Sam to become one of those shadows.
