Her mobile bleeped and when she checked the message from Lucy she giggled because Lucy was only next door meaning she could have taken the short trip across the landing.
She smiled as she realised that she had another thing to add to her list, but this one would need to be raised tonight. She was finishing off the stir fry she’d made for Lizzie and realised that although she was drinking she hadn’t eaten since Sunday with her grandparents and hoped she might have lost a few pounds.
She jumped as Lizzie appeared next to her. “I think Daddy would rather speak to you now that I’ve told him what a great day I’ve had.”
Tasha smiled at Lizzie. She piled some food into a bowl and passed it to her as she took the phone back. “Hello again.”
“Safe to say Lizzie has had a wonderful day and informs me that it couldn’t have been any better, oh, and Jake is the coolest guy in the world ever.” Jim sounded a little put out by the final comment.
“Well, I would dispute in the world, but Jake is pretty cool especially when you’re fifteen and a wannabe model…talking of which,” she said hesitantly.
“I am not entirely happy that you find other mencool.” He sounded genuinely irritated. “But explain your talking of which reference,” he said, moving on quickly.
“Well,” repeated Tasha, making her way into the bedroom to ensure Lizzie wouldn’t overhear. “Lucy and her boss were wondering if Lizzie would be interested in doing some modelling with me, and I know she would, but I wanted to see how you felt about it first, you and Sara,” she explained.
“I don’t know, Tasha. She’s only fifteen and I know she would love it, but I really don’t know how I feel about it,” he admitted honestly. “I will speak to Sara and let you know.”
“Okay. I wouldn’t let her wear anything inappropriate you know.” She really felt the need to justify the offer having been made at all.
“I know you believe that, honey, but our ideas of inappropriate are very different,” he said seriously, but inoffensively.
“Whatever.” She sighed her one word petulant response, wondering if he would ever truly trust her judgement.
“Baby, don’t get all defensive about this. I’m making a point, a valid one, no more and she is my daughter.”
His valid point and reasonable tone irritated her further. “So you trust me to bring your daughter to England and to be responsible for her, but not to know which modelling shots would be appropriate or not for a fifteen-year-old. Even though I always, always, call you if there is any decision to be made where Lizzie is concerned, no matter how trivial.” She could hear the defensiveness in her tone growing stronger with every word.
“Tasha, please, I don’t want to fight with you. I do trust you to keep Lizzie safe, but my concern is our differing opinions on what’s appropriate, full stop. You are correct though, you do always check in with me where Lizzie is concerned, so for not giving you credit for that I apologise.” Jim’s words and sentiment were sincere, she knew that and she couldn’t deny that her choices were often a little suspect.
“Fine,” she conceded, but decided that now may be the time to get a couple of the items off her to do list so started with Jake and Gerry, and depending on how that went she might even do Kayla and the wedding guest list. “Gerry called me this morning to tell me somebody had contacted him about me,” she began to explain.
“Who? What did they want to know?” Jim sounded confused and concerned.
“They were asking about me and Gerry, but also asked him about any other boyfriends he knew about. I said it was probably just press, but Gerry wasn’t convinced.”
“Who was it?” asked Jim still concerned.
“I don’t know. Nobody Gerry knew, but he did say the guy had left him some contact details in case he changed his mind,” Tasha suddenly remembered.
“Get the details off Gerry,” Jim told her. “He didn’t give him a story did he?”
“No, of course not. He called me to tip me off because he was concerned that it was a bit odd, but I’ll get the details off him. In fact, he has suggested meeting up on Friday so I can get them then.” Tasha was very impressed that she’d got that in so smoothly.
“I see. Meet up how?” He already sounded agitated by her plans.
“As Lizzie is here and Pippa is coming to stay too he suggested we could catch up by spending the day at a theme park or something and Dan is usually up for white knuckle rides, so it’s not clubbing or just me and Gerry.” Tasha tried to reassure Jim, hoping this wasn’t going to become an issue or God forbid, a battle because he usually won those.
“So when does your fashion shoot finish?” He made no further reference to her day out with Gerry.
“Thursday.”
“So why aren’t you flying back sooner?” he asked bluntly.
