I took it as a yes.
‘And why don’t you invite Joe and Rosa’s grandson?’ she suggested. ‘It would be nice to meet him. I’m assuming he’s a handsome one given the way you blush every time his name comes up. Now hurry up, I’ve booked a table at the Polo Lounge for tea.’
Cackling to herself, she cruised out of the dressing room to find her Rolls-Royce, leaving me shoeless and speechless.
Myrna Moore never, ever missed a trick.
Even when the days were hot, the LA nights were perfectly cool. At sunset, after a long day of not party planning with Myrna, I finally found myself on the little balcony outside the guest bedroom, flicking through the stack of books I’d brought with me and barely made a dent in. So much for my holiday plan, I thought, tapping my fingernails against the notebook in my lap. Two weeks of reading and eating and flopping around in the pool like that walrus in Denmark who sank all those boats. It really had not worked out that way.
I picked up the first book in my pile, stroking the soft cover, smooth under my fingers. I loved books. I loved words. Gran was a big reader and there were few things I’d ever loved more than a wintery Sunday afternoon spent next to her on the settee, heating on, mugs full of tea, both of us lost in a story. While I would read anything and everything, Margaret Chapman was an avowed romance reader. She had an overwhelming collection in the back bedroom, spanning every subgenre from paranormal romance to doctors and nurses, the fantastical all the way through to the everyday. The one thing they all had in common was a happily ever after.
But it was more than simple escapism. Gran didn’t care for horror or thrillers or crime sagas because she’d seen enough unhappiness in her life, losing her husband in her forties, helping Mum through an ugly break-up then practically raising her kids for her; it wasn’t an easy life. Why wouldn’t she choose to surround herself with love and happiness? All words had power; the ones we read, the ones we spoke and the ones we listened to. I understood that now. We had to be careful which ones we let in.
I pulled my denim jacket around my shoulders as theevening grew darker and saw a light go on in Ren’s house. An upstairs window glowed yellow until the curtains closed and it all went back to black. My heart fluttered in my chest, just knowing he was close by. It was a crush. A harmless crush. I’d been caught off guard by too much sunshine and visible muscle groups. Would I feel this way if we’d met in the car park of Home Bargains on a rainy Wednesday? Obviously not. Poor Ren, I thought; I would get over my crush but he would probably never get to experience the wonder that was Home Bargains. His suffering was much worse than mine.
This was nothing. Even if it felt like something.
I picked up my pen and let it hover tantalizingly over the notebook in my lap.
Who decides when to give it a name? When the whispers in our heart are safe to shout from the rooftops. A fragile, fledging thing, too delicate to share, or brash and brazen and loud, loud, loud.
Let it all out, I told myself. Open all the doors and windows and air your feelings. Write it down and leave it on the page, like Therese always said.
Who decides what to call it? Does it have to last forever? Does it have to be returned in kind, or can it stand alone and still be admired? Different shades of the same colour, light refracted by a diamond. I could be the only one who knows, the only one who saw the sun on your skin and the water reflected in your eyes. I could be the only one who ever knew and it would be enough.
When I put down my pen, the houses in the distance that spent the day as faded charcoal silhouettes, stood out in sharp black relief against the paling sky and the puffball clouds glowed like hot coals. Were the sunsets this beautiful at home? I couldn’t remember the last time I’d bothered to look. That was something that would have to change. I re-read my words and pursed my lips together tightly. Hmm. It really didn’t feel like nothing.
‘It’s nothing but a crush,’ I said out loud as the solar-powered lights that lined Ren’s flowerbeds flickered into life in the garden below and up above all the stars came out of hiding, announcing the end of another day. ‘A harmless summer crush.’
I tore the page out of my notebook and folded it into a tight little square before sticking it deep in my jacket pocket where I could touch it but not see it. Where it could be real but not real.
I knew my words had power. Now it was up to me to decide which ones I would listen to.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Suzanne did not stop talking from the moment she walked through the door. By the time she paused for breath, I’d made us both a vanilla caramel iced oat milk latte, eaten an entire chocolate croissant, paid my gas and electric bills on my phone and finally worked a knot out of my necklace that had been there for two and a half years.
‘I should leave,’ she declared in between sips of her coffee. ‘That’s what I should do. I should walk into the CEO’s office and say, this is not my circus, they are not my monkeys, I do not want to deal with this any more.’
‘Nothing worse than other people’s monkeys,’ I said with as much empathy as I could muster for my very wealthy sister. ‘Hopefully they haven’t got the pox.’
‘They should be put down regardless.’ She let her head loll back so far, I thought it might fall off. ‘I really should leave.’
‘Only one problem,’ I pointed out. ‘You love your job.’
She pressed her hands against her face and gave a disheartened chuckle.
‘I know. What’s wrong with me?’
‘Nothing.’ I placed an obscenely large cinnamon bun on her lap and her face lit up like Christmas. Bel had filled me in on where to get the good stuff; now I too had the power of the Morning Buns. ‘It’s the way you’re made.’
‘Love it or not, I’ve told them not to contact me until Monday. Are you ready for some super-concentrated, extra-special powered-by-guilt sister time?’
‘My very favourite kind!’ I replied. ‘I’ve got a few plans but nothing we can’t work around.’
I was wrong about Suzanne’s head. It popped back up like a jack-in-the-box.
‘Plans? What plans? What plans?’
