But she didn’t do socializing, never had. Her childhood had been spent in isolation, being ignored by Fiona and with no other family that she knew of. After Fiona had become famous when Juliet was nine, life had improved somewhat, even if their relationship hadn’t. Juliet had made a few friends in secondary school, boarding her final year with a friend’s family. She’d attempted a normal life at university, derailed by her own folly in confronting her mother. In demanding answers.
And in the seventeen years since then, she’d chosen to live a quiet, solitary life. She’d told herself she preferred it. Shehadpreferred it until Lucy had come barreling in, stirring up all these feelings, reminding her of how lonely she was.
“You look nice!”
Juliet turned to see Lucy coming down the stairs, grinning at her. “What do you mean?” she asked sharply. “I look like I normally do.”
“Which is nice,” Lucy answered. “Anyway, you look a little different. Your fleece is pink instead of gray or blue and you’ve left your hair down. I don’t think I’ve ever seen it that way.”
Instinctively Juliet reached up to touch her hair, and then dropped her hand. “And you look like a yeti,” she said, glancing at Lucy’s fuzzy blue sweater.
“A blue yeti,” she agreed. “I love this sweater.”
Juliet watched as Lucy slipped her feet into totally unsuitable ballet flats—it had rained most of the day—and her velveteen blazer. She looked pretty and young and so natural, all things Juliet didn’t think she’d ever felt. She’d been bitter about Lucy, resented the hell out of her, and right now she realized she felt a little jealous. She wanted to be as relaxed as Lucy was, able to make friends with ease and collect relationships like trinkets. What had happened with Alex Kincaid last night that had Lucy coming home at nine o’clock at night, humming under her breath?
“Ready?” she asked, opening the door, and Lucy nodded.
“Ready to rock this pub quiz. How hard do you think the questions are?”
“I have no idea,” Juliet said, and walked outside.
The Hangman’s Noose was bustling with people, a fire burning cheerily in the inglenook fireplace, when Juliet entered with Lucy at her side, the warmth of the place seeming to both wrap around her and slap her in the face. Already she felt uncomfortable.
“Oy! Juliet! Lucy! Over here!” Rachel was waving at them from a table in the corner; she already had sheets of paper and stubby pencils laid out, along with a bottle of red wine. “I thought I’d get us a bottle,” she said as they made their way over. Juliet noddedto a few people she recognized; the smile on her face felt too tight, almost as if it hurt her skin. Lucy, she saw, had stopped to chat with Diana Rigby. A gale of laughter rose up from both of them and Juliet looked away.
“This is cozy,” she told Rachel as she sat on a stool, her knees brushing Rachel’s under the table. “Where’s Peter?”
“At the bar.” Rachel cocked her head towards the bar of polished mahogany that ran the length of one wall, Rob Telford, the owner, filling orders behind it. “He wanted a pint of bitter instead of a glass of red. Imagine that.”
Juliet picked up a pencil and twisted it between her fingers. “So how does this work, exactly?”
“Pretty simple. Rob asks the questions and we write down the answers. Then we exchange papers with another table and everyone marks the quizzes. Winner takes home a bottle. And hopefully we all enjoy ourselves.” Rachel’s eyes glinted teasingly. “Think you can do that, Juliet?”
“I’ll try,” Juliet replied without humor. She could see Peter making his way across the crowded pub, a pint in hand. Lucy was still talking to Diana.
“Hello, Peter,” Rachel called as he approached, then turned to yell at Lucy. “Get your skates on, lass, we’re about to start!”
Clearly, Juliet thought, Rachel saw herself as the social organizer of the evening. She’d already registered the speculative, steely glint in her friend’s eye and wondered uneasily what it meant.
“Hello, Juliet.” Peter’s smile was as affable and easy as always as he crammed his big body onto one of the little three-legged stools; his knees barely fit under the table. And, Juliet realized, one was pressed against hers. She tried to shift a little bit, but as Lucy plopped herself down on the stool next to her, she realized there was no room to move. She could feel Peter’s knee, and even some of his thigh, pressed against her own leg.
“How about a glass?” she asked a little too loudly, and Rachel poured her a large glass of wine as Rob came out from behind the bar to start the quiz.
“Areet, areet, you lot know the rules,” he called out, and received much good-natured ribbing and catcalling in response. It was nine o’clock and Juliet could tell that everyone had been having a merry time for a while already. She took a sip of her own wine, and then another, needing to feel just a little less conspicuous. A little less uncomfortable.
“I read the questions,” Rob continued. “You write down the answers. And if you hear someone’s guess at a nearby table . . . well, talk quieter, you lot!” He glanced at a table of boisterous women whose laughter rose like a flock of crows every few minutes. “Think you can manage that?”
“Oh, aye, we’ll manage areet,” one of them answered with a saucy wink, and Rob grinned.
Juliet felt as if she’d landed on an alien planet. She’d come to the pub before, but it had always been generally tame, with a few farmers leaning against the bar with their pints, a few tables with people conversing quietly. Nothing like this.
And yet Rachel and Lucy and even Peter seemed to be getting into the spirit of things, judging by the way the women laughed and Peter gave a small smile, his pint raised to his lips. He had on a button-down shirt that actually looked ironed, and a pair of chinos. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d seen Peter in anything so fancy, except maybe at the Christmas Eve service at church.
“Right, first question,” Rob called, and the room, to Juliet’s amazement, went silent. “How many years did the Hundred Years’ War last?” This was met with a moment of taut silence, followed by sudden guffaws of laughter.
“A hundred years, mate,” someone called, “or can’t you count?”
Rachel leaned forward, and Lucy and Peter followed, so Juliet, somewhat reluctantly, did as well, and all four of them sat at the table, their heads touching. “So it’s obviously not a hundred years,” Rachel stated in a low voice. “Anyone do history A level?”
