‘I’m glad she likes it,’ Bess smiled. She’d bought Eva a toy school bus with little people inside.
‘You shouldn’t have brought a gift, though. I told you those weren’t necessary.’
‘And I told you I wanted to. Are you saying you want me to take it back?’
Pen in his hand, already scribbling on a form, he laughed. ‘Are you kidding me? She’d kill me with her bare hands.’
Bess saw to her own admin – it was a good idea to get a jump on things before another job came in. Thankfully, today that didn’t happen and she had it done it without interruption.
She’d just passed a file to Nadia when Maya came over, having finished checking weather and flight conditions. She perched on the edge of the desk. ‘I haven’t had a chance to ask whether you’re excited? Surely it’ll go better than the last one.’
‘Huh?’
‘The date tonight.’
Bess looked across at the calendar. ‘Oh, God, it’s Tuesday.’
‘Don’t tell me you forgot?’
‘Kind of.’ Even the brand-new dress hanging on the back of her bedroom door hadn’t reminded her this morning. She’d bought it thinking it might be a good luck charm for yet another date she’d found on the app she was using. Surely at some point she had to meet someone half-decent. It was the law of averages, wasn’t it?
She grabbed her phone.
‘What are you doing?’ Maya asked.
‘Cancelling.’ The guy from the other night was enough for now. She couldn’t face any more disappointment, at least for a while.
In a few clicks, the deed was done. She swiped up to clear the screen when yet another text message came in from her mother.
‘Why are you cancelling?’ Maya asked.
‘My head’s not in the right space for a date.’
‘Because of the last one?’
‘Kind of.’
‘You’re still thinking about your mum,’ Maya realised.
Maya knew the shock Bess had felt seeing her mum at the scene of the accident for a start but even more so, discovering the man she’d been in the car with. And ever since that night, Bess had done her best to push the facts deep down into the recesses of her mind.
‘I need to get my head around my mother’s “date” before I can go on another one of my own.’ She put the word date in air quotes, having no idea whether it was a first date, a fifth, or whether the relationship had turned serious. She was sensing itwas the latter, given her mum’s reaction to Malcolm’s injuries and the worry she had for him.
‘Have you spoken to her about it yet?’ Maya tied her chestnut hair up and out of the way as they headed out of the kitchen and into the hangar, which needed a tidy. ‘Take it from me: the longer you put it off, the worse it seems. For the both of you.’ She was speaking from experience.
Bess reached for the broom. ‘She deserves to be happy. But it’s a lot to get my head around. It’s been three years since Dad, but it still feels so odd to me.’
Maya stopped what she was doing, a bin bag in her hands. ‘After my mum passed away, I think it was years until my dad dated. And then, it was very on and off, and we weren’t talking by then, so I could easily block it out.’ She smiled kindly. ‘I can’t say I recommend that approach, though.’
Bess swept the main concrete floor, got rid of some of the debris from beneath cabinets against the walls. She couldn’t begrudge her mother some happiness, some fun, but ever since her dad died, the man her mother had described asone of a kind,the only man she would forever love deeply, she’d thought her mum would be content with her daughter, her friends and acquaintances. And a man stepping into her mum’s life meant he was stepping into Bess’s too and she’d shocked even herself by how much it unsettled her.
She stopped sweeping and leant her chin on her hands against the top of the broom handle, crossing one ankle over the other. ‘Seeing Mum crying about a man who isn’t my dad, saying his name, her worry for him when I had absolutely no idea she was seeing anyone was hard. I reacted by not talking about it and… well, I’ve been avoiding her calls, sticking to text messages.’ She’d used the excuse that she’d covered shifts for Kate, twice, and then that she had extra training sessions.
‘I’m sure you and your mum will sort this out; give it time.’
‘You’re so wise.’
Nadia breezed into the hangar, bringing with her a waft of the floral perfume Bess had given her for her birthday. ‘I think it’s the scones.’
