‘Unload?’ asks Phoebe, and as she does, she looks properly at the contents of the truck. It is piled high with furniture. Shespots planks of wood that look like a bed frame piled on top of a pine table with its legs in the air. There’s a mismatched array of dining chairs in different colours and, in the middle, an extremely bright orange sofa.
‘I remember you telling me about your ex taking all the furniture from your flat when he left,’ says Kate as Phoebe casts her eyes over it all, taking it in. ‘Between us, we all had some bits and bobs we didn’t need anymore. You don’t have to keep it all forever if you hate it, but it might just help get you back on your feet?’
‘The bed frame and dining table are from my parents’ attic,’ says Hester. ‘They used to belong to my grandparents but have just been getting dusty up there since they passed away. I think they’d love to know they were being used.’
‘The chairs are from all of us,’ says Jazz. ‘I hope you don’t mind that they’re not a matching set.’
‘And the sofa is from me,’ adds Sandra. ‘I’ve been meaning to find a new home for it. I hope you don’t mind the colour, I know it’s not to everyone’s taste …’
The women are clearly waiting for her reaction, huddled around the pick-up truck in their matching boiler suits, all with equally eager expressions on their faces. But Phoebe can’t find any words. She looks from the women to the truck and back again.
‘I … I love the colour. I love it all! This is one of the nicest things anyone’s ever done for me.’
‘Come on,’ says Sandra, unlocking the truck. ‘Let’s get all this unloaded. Kate tells us you live above the deli?’
They start with the dining chairs. Jazz explains that she’sdone her back in, so she guides them up the stairs as the others take a chair each.
‘Lovely light in here,’ Sandra comments as they set them down in the living room. ‘It will be gorgeous when we’re finished and once you’ve given the place a lick of paint. Only recently moved in, have you?’
‘I’ve been here three years,’ admits Phoebe. As she looks around, it strikes her how un-lived in the place looks, not just because of the lack of furniture but because of the plain walls and simple venetian blinds that were there when they moved in.
‘Oh. Well, magnolia is a very practical choice. And some people do prefer to keep things simple …’
‘I don’t,’ replies Phoebe quickly, only really realising how true it is when she says the words out loud. ‘I’d much prefer bright colours on the walls.’ She pictures her parents’ home, which is chaotic but colourful, the living room a sky blue and the kitchen filled with striped Cornishware crockery in multicoloured shades, the fridge covered in photographs. She glances down at her outfit of tight cropped trousers in a post-box red worn with a gingham shirt and her usual biker jacket over the top and it strikes her that the place where she lives has none of her personality visible in it. ‘Max preferred things simple, and besides, we never seemed to find the time for decorating …’
‘Maybe we can head to the hardware store once the furniture is in?’ Kate suggests. ‘We can help you paint?’
‘Ooh, I love painting,’ says Jazz. ‘I find it very soothing.’
‘That would be amazing,’ Phoebe replies, blown away yet again by their kindness.
As they head back downstairs for the next load of furniture, the door to Giuglia’s swings open. Phoebe feels her stomach involuntarily tighten at the sight of Luca stepping out onto the street in his green apron, his mop of curls as messy as ever and a dab of something that looks like pesto smeared across one defined cheekbone. Through the window behind him, she can see that the deli is empty, apart from the same older gentleman with the Italian newspaper who Phoebe remembers seeing the first time she stepped inside the shop.
She meets Luca’s eye and he raises a questioning eyebrow, but there’s a faint smile on his mouth. Heat rises to her face.
‘I know there was a bit of noise when I was getting the shop set up, but moving out? Am I really that bad a neighbour?’
His tone is teasing, as if he’s forgotten the awkwardness of the last time they saw each other. But Phoebe hasn’t forgotten. It’s beenhauntingher, along with the frustration of knowing that she wouldn’t have been so goddamn stupid if she hadn’t been drinking. She hasn’t touched alcohol since her conversation with Mel, even when her parents offered her wine at the table on her first night staying with them. After she refused, she noticed that the next day there were no wine glasses set out for any of them.
He puts his hands into his apron pockets and leans back against the door frame, that particularly mischievous curl falling down over one eyebrow. For the first time, Phoebe notices the dimple in his chin and the fact it looks exactly the size and shape of the pad of her little finger.
‘I’m not going anywhere. Just, um, redecorating,’ she explains, before adding reluctantly, ‘bad break-up.’
‘Ah.’ He raises his eyebrows and nods. ‘I know about those.’
It’s her turn to raise an eyebrow now, but he offers no further explanation, just a steady smile.
‘Just what we need!’ declares Sandra, causing Phoebe to break eye contact with Luca and notice that the others are staring at him in varying degrees of subtlety. ‘A big strong man.’
Luca’s cheeks flush as red as Sandra’s boiler suit.
‘Um, isn’t that a bit anti-feminist?’ chips in Hester, scuffing the toes of her shoes into the ground.
‘I wasjoking, dear,’ replies Sandra, rolling her eyes and waving a hand carelessly. ‘I know we are perfectly capable of moving the rest of the furniture by ourselves. But the fact wecoulddo it by ourselves doesn’t mean weshouldhave to. We have nothing to prove here, ladies! And besides, given the gender pay gap, I think it’s only fair to get men to do a bit extra to help out every now and then. After all,weare essentially working for free from January until March each year.’
‘Yes, to that!’ Jazz says with a cheer.
Sandra only somewhat undermines her speech by adding, ‘Plus, look at those lovely arms, he looks highly suited to furniture-lifting.’ She winks lasciviously and Phoebe tries her best not to follow her gaze to Luca’s biceps.
