Tonight was going to be interesting.
She wandered back into the kitchen to grab the additional place setting as her father and Pete came back in from the garden.
‘Hey, what do you think you’re doing?’ Her mother slapped Pete away from the oven as he tried to open the door and pinch a roast potato.
‘It’s only a potato, love.’ Pippa’s dad stuck up for Pete.
‘Pfft! We’ve got lots for dinner tonight, and I’ve counted. He’ll mess my numbers up.’ Just as she turned to whip her husband with a tea-towel, Pete took advantage, wrenched the oven door open and rammed a potato in his mouth.
‘Owww!’ He hopped up and down as the potato took its revenge.
‘Serves you righ—’ Jan’s retort was cut short as Jim plopped a kiss on her lips in an attempt to divert her. He followed up the kiss with a series of smacking noises.
‘Hmpf, get off me. You’re such an oaf.’ Her mother tried flapping her husband off to no avail. They were still so cute. When Pippa found that,thatwas when she’d know she was ready. Relationship goals, right there. However, there was no way she was going to tell them that.
‘It’s no wonder Polly hides in her bedroom. She’s the most normal out of all of you,’ she said instead.
‘Us, out of us. Don’t think you’re off the hook for not being weird. Your clothes are what, seventy years old?’ Pete weighed in.
‘You’re not so old I still can’t take you!’
Ding dong.
‘Quick, Pippa, go get the door.’ Jan spat on her hand and tried to smooth Pippa’s hair down.
‘Urgh, will you get off me? That is not okay.’ Pippa flapped her hands in a futile attempt at self-protection.
Ding dong.
Chapter Five
James had grown up gorgeous, all blond floppy hair and sun-kissed biceps. He may work in the City but clearly spent all his downtime on the best beaches in the world. Pippa had a hard time not dribbling into her supper.
Dinner had been fun, James also was in full charm offensive mode and didn’t bat an eyelid at Polly coming down the stairs still with her ketchup cling film wrap on and (almost) convincing everyone that what she was doing was rational. He had kept up a steady stream of conversation with Pippa’s family, whilst his own family bathed in the golden light of reflected glory.
He managed to talk to Dad about how things were doing at the garage, and got Jan to talk about what it was she loved about her volunteer work at the hospice. Pete, he engaged in conversation about the Liverpool game the night before, and Polly was charmed as he discussed the summer festival circuit and her plans to fit as many as possible in. He mentioned that he may be able to get her a couple of VIP passes to two of them and her whole face lit up, flushing the same colour as the ketchup in the glow of his attention.
The only person he didn’t address directly was Pippa, although he would include her in little asides, collaboratively, as if they were an established team, and she supposed they were. She just wasn’t entirely sure what sort.
He really was very beautiful, like a warrior lion king, made of an odd mix of masculinity and sunshine, holding court, dazzling all present.
Their first course finished, James jumped up to help clear the table only to be firmly put back in his chair by Jan coquettishly pushing his shoulders back down until he was sat back in his original position. Her eyelashes practically took flight she was batting them so furiously. ‘No, you’re the guest and a much valued one. We can’t have you doing chores. You sit here and talk to Pippa. You’ll have all sorts to catch up on. Why, you can’t have seen each other since you were Polly’s age.’
And she was right, they hadn’t, and her comment naturally meant that their very last meeting popped into Pippa’s head where she had been battling to keep it out of all evening.
As children the two had been inseparable, making mud pies and sandcastles, rock-pooling and den building on Penmenna bay, years of being each other’s ultimate confidante, partner in crime and all-round bestie.
Secondary School rolled around, its presence inevitable, and the two were split into different student cohorts. As they matured they drifted apart: Pippa spent her time with the artsy creative set, a little bit too much eyeliner and lots of talking about feelings and the meaning of life interspersed with drunken high-pitched shrieking. James, on the other hand, spent his time discussing coding and Firefly with his friends, the slightly geekier kids, the chess club clique, Pippa and he now only coming together when their families did. And even then, James would find himself spending time with Pete, who would constantly be talking cars. Even if the two did hang out together on holiday, Pippa knew she was guilty of racing back to her other friends as soon as term time returned.
She also knew James had then had more than a little crush on her. It wasn’t that she didn’t fancy him back then… actually, that was exactly what it was. She didn’t fancy him. His conversations were way too complex to follow and he didn’t really wash often enough. He was intense and competitive, and she much preferred the easy-going banter of her own friends to the soulful puppy eyes and waves of body odour emitting from her once best friend. As her life became a mad social whirl from the age of thirteen, more and more space grew between them.
That wasn’t the last time she had seen him though.
Oh no.
The Christmas after he had first left Penmenna for university, left the idyllic coastal charms behind for fast-paced urban ones, he had returned home a different person. Bags of confidence had shone from him then, bright as tinsel and just as captivating. That and the fact that he had clearly ramped up the importance placed on personal grooming. Hair product and deodorant seemed to be one of the many new habits he had picked up from one term in Manchester.
Pippa wasn’t sure what had triggered such a remarkable change, but it was a James who Pippa was interested in and could relate to. A James far more sophisticated than the boys who had stayed behind in Cornwall. Pippa didn’t consider herself to be particularly shallow but at eighteen her head had been turned very easily and that Christmas they spent every day together, the core friendship they had so deeply buried not so far from the surface.
