Tell her about Joe, whispered the little voice in my head that loved to get me into trouble. But I knew if I told Sarah about Joe, she wouldn’t want to talk about anything else and I was there to catch up with her, not to describe his tropical-beach-blue eyes and thick black eyelashes and the way I thought the lower half of my body had been struck by lightning when he quoted my book back at me. I was literally here not to think about any of those things for as long as possible.
‘Taylor?’ Sarah said, stretching my last name. ‘Out with it. Is there something you want to tell me?’
‘Nope,’ I replied, stomping down all my thoughts of Joe as far as they would go.
‘Because if I learned anything over the last two years it’s that talking is better than keeping things bottled up and change is good.’ She took out a large powder blue mug from underneath the counter and carefully crafted my triple-shot vanilla latte with an added flourish of freshly shaved chocolate. ‘Turns out you don’t have to stick with something if it’s making you unhappy just because you’re already doing it. Or him. Or her, as the case may be.’
I sucked my bottom lip under my top teeth and looked down, flooded with guilt. It wasn’t only Joe that I was keeping from her. For almost thirty years, we’d told each other everything, even things we didn’t want to know, like the time she told me how Dave liked a finger up the bum during sex. Right before she walked down the aisle. But I hadn’t told her aboutButterflies. When I started writing it, I didn’t say anything because she was due to give birth to my second godson, and I really didn’t think I’d even finish it. When I found the courage to send it to Malcolm, Sarah was in the middle of herdivorce, and as much as we joked about it now, those things were never fun and I didn’t want to burden her with my silly little side project. By the time the book blew up, I simply didn’t know how to start the conversation and now it had been too long. What was I supposed to say? What’s that, Sarah? You’re leaving your reliable career as an accountant and taking a massive risk on a little local coffee shop while financially supporting two kids more or less alone because your well-meaning but ultimately useless ex-husband, who still wears Lynx Africa even though he’s thirty-four years old, can’t keep a job for more than six months at a time? Well, yes, that does sound quite stressful but please sit down and let me tell you about my movie deal, they’re looking at Ryan Gosling for the lead.
It hardly rolled off the tongue.
‘How’s that coffee?’ she asked when I’d been altogether too quiet for altogether too long.
‘Incredible,’ I answered automatically before I’d even tasted it. ‘Please can I get seventy-four more to help me get through this weekend?’
Sarah laughed as she poured herself a glass of water. ‘The visit is going well already then?’
‘As well as can be expected.’ As expected, my latte was delicious. I took a sip and transcended to the next level of existence. It was strong and it was delicious. ‘Dad’s being a weirdo, Mum’s stress vein has been out since I got in, Charlotte’s, well, Charlotte, and guess what? They’ve invited CJ.’
‘He’s not coming though, is he?’ She groaned when I nodded. ‘Oh, fuck off. I thought I’d seen the last of that gremlin. Imagine getting a pity invite to your ex’s dad’s birthday and actually showing up. He’s shameless.’
‘Even better, he’s staying at the house,’ I told her, attempting to laugh but failing miserably. It really wasn’t funny but Sarah seemed to disagree.
‘Sophie!’ she exclaimed. ‘That’s the best news I’ve heard so far!’
‘It is?’
‘Yes! It’s so much easier to kill someone when they come to you. Less lurking, more unaliving. Please let me do it. Please, please, please?’
‘OK but only because you asked nicely,’ I replied before turning an inquisitive eye on my best friend. ‘Speaking of the curse of heterosexuality, how’s that going? You’re not seeing anyone?’
‘Have you seen pink smoke coming out the Vatican?’ she asked. ‘My romantic life is made of silicone and takes three AA batteries that need replacing weekly. Who am I supposed to meet around here? You’re the one who is young, free and single, living it up in—’
‘Tring?’ I finished for her. ‘Nixon, the average age of a man in Tring is eighty-two and I’m not talking a Harrison Ford eighty-two, I mean soft foods only, bed by half-past seven and lucky if you wake up again in the morning eighty-two.’
She looked off into the dreamy middle distance and sighed. ‘Sounds like a dream come true. Whatever, Taylor, no one’s saying you’ve got to meet the love of your life at the pension office. Tring is what, half an hour out of London? You’re practically living with the pigeons in Trafalgar Square compared to me.’
‘The pigeons would make better boyfriends,’ I said as she chugged her water. ‘Trust me, the men of London are not better than the men of Harford. The men of London are human bin bags. Cheap black bin bags fullof hair and bin juice just waiting to split open in the middle of the kitchen. I’d rather go out with three raccoons in a trench coat.’
The two of us sat quietly for a moment, silently commiserating with each other and every other human unlucky enough to be looking for love.
‘I don’t know what’s wrong with them,’ Sarah said, leaning over the counter and resting her chin in her hand. ‘Imagine being a man with a penis and not wanting to put it in one of us.’
‘All we’re looking for are two decent humans with no baggage, some emotional intelligence, a good heart, the right stance on all political issues and preferably their own teeth, who won’t mess us around and break our hearts,’ I replied. ‘Is that too much to ask for?’
She lifted a glass cloche that covered a stack of chocolate chip cookies and handed one to me before taking another for herself. ‘I can be flexible on the teeth to be honest with you. And the decency. And I don’t mind a bit of messing.’
I broke the cookie in two then took a big bite. Heaven.
‘We’re buggered, aren’t we?’ Sarah said before taking a bite of her own biscuit.
‘Yep,’ I replied, unable to keep the image of Joe’s smile from sliding, unbidden, into my head. ‘Completely buggered.’
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
When I got back home, Joe wasn’t in the cottage, but that didn’t mean it was empty.
‘What are you doing?’ I demanded when I opened the door to find my sister pillaging my belongings, all the clothes I’d just put away strewn across the double bed, shoes on the floor, make-up dumped on the sofa, all of it open, unfastened or pawed through. ‘Didn’t I tell you to stay out my stuff?’
