‘You too,’ she commands. I do as I’m told, unable to stop a laugh at the ridiculousness of it all.
We lie there looking up, the moon shining bright and the stars twinkling in the blue-black sky. I’ve never done this before and I wonder why. I feel the vastness of the universe, the smallness of me and the joy of companionship as I look across to the nutty girl lying by my side, who makes me do these crazy, life-affirming things that I would never have even dreamt of.
‘You know what we have to do now, right?’ she asks.
I haven’t a clue.
She moves her arms up and down and her feet across from side to side at the same time.
‘You’re bonkers!’ I laugh.
‘Do it!’ she shouts, the laughter in her voice cutting through the threat, and, of course, I obey.
We thrash around on our little spots next to each other, laughing so much I’m convinced we’ll wake up the whole district, until she jumps up, pulls me to my feet, turns me around and wraps her arm around my waist, holding me tight to her as I look down at the grass.
‘You and me, Walters, we are dawn-beating snow angels. Night-time stealth-attack snow angels. Almost as cool as wood frogs, huh?’
I do entreat that we may sup together.
December Nineteenth.
Belle.
Phew, I can’t believe it but my crazy week is over and I have a shiny thousand pounds in my bank account. A thousand and two hundred and fifty pounds to be precise. I have never had that amount of money to play with in my life.
In My Life!
Which is insane considering I’m thirty-one and that’s less than a month’s minimum wage these days. But if my cleaning job and the shop hours cover next month’s rent and if I put half of what I’ve earnt in the schools this week to cover me for January once the shop work stops, in case I can’t get something else to tide me over, that still means I have a lot more money this Christmas than I’m used to, even once I pay Luisa back. A bit of me wants to reach for my phone and let Rory know all about my new-found financial whizzery, and my very sensible idea of saving half. He’ll definitely like that bit. I bet he has savings. He probably had an ISA in uni.
However, I need to retrain my brain from dwelling on Rory. My crush is no longer a little one, it’s a major one. So major it has epaulettes and a flag. On the upside it means I’ve broken my dreadful Lost Boys pattern and now I have taste that I can be proud of. Taste that doesn’t make me feel like I need to sign up for therapy or shower myself in bleach.
On the downside there is nothing,nothingI can do about it. The man is still deeply traumatised and in love with Jessica and everyone knows you can’t compete against a saint. Secondly, he’s only in the UK to care for his sick mum. You cannot jump the bones of someone when they’re only here for their sick mother.
It just isn’t appropriate.
I may have been queen of the inappropriate before but I’m actively trying to change and even I know there are lines one should not cross. Rory is one of them. He has enough to deal with without having to fend off passes from me. I seem to be giving him something other than his mum to think about over here, I’m not going to complicate that by overtly panting over him or trying to ram my hand down his pants. No, my crush on Rory is going to have to simmer down and I’ll allow myself the treat of sobbing about what might have been when his plane takes off on the first of January. The fact that he opened up about his grief, his fears for his mum and his ongoing love for Jess reinforces the fact that I need to step right back and dial this crush down.
But honestly, it’s not going to be easy. As I drift off at night I see the green of his eyes as he looks at me, usually laughing. It’s his face I see when I wake in the morning and the biggest smile crosses my face as I open my eyes. I can’t ever remember that being a thing in my life before. I think of all the things he has done for me and know that no one – no one – has ever nurtured me with such tenderness. In my head he has become the perfect man and the thought of us having a future together is akin to Cinderella finding her prince.
And just as likely.
I have no chance with Rory, none at all. When he talks of our relationship he uses the word ‘friend’; it seems to stand out in his sentences and be said in a very firm tone and it makes me feel like he is saying it specifically to make sure I don’t get any ideas. He is saying he has no interest in me. And I don’t blame him for that, I really don’t. I wouldn’t have interest either. The truth is, life shouldn’t be about levels or leagues, but it has them. And I am not on his level.
My eyes light on the salt-dough gifts on the side. Marsha and I had worked hard and tried to personalise them in all sorts of ways for the people they were intended for. My dad has a snowman with a chef’s hat on – part of me is desperate to give it a wine bottle and a restraining order but I want to be a good daughter. My mum and Rose have intricate snowflake decorations for their trees. Marsha has made more snowmen for her mum and dad with a muffin in one person’s hand and a phone in the other. Fair representation. I’ve known Remi for seven years and not once have I seen him without his phone in his hand.
I can get Chardonnay a proper present now – she would never have appreciated a salt-dough creation although I can’t quite stretch to sound-proofing her bedroom.
I’m going to write a shopping list right now. I’ll get something for Luisa and Remi, Marsha obviously, and I saw some lovely mini Jesus pictures on Etsy the other day – I have no idea how I stumbled across that, it was a late-night thing – the ones with the light all above and around him, Temperance will love that. And Rory. Rory is definitely having something special, not to represent my crush but to signify how much I appreciate his belief in my Shakespeare project, his attempt to help and all the little things he does wordlessly for me since he’s come back into my life.
I’m midlist when my phone goes.
It’s still face-down on the sofa next to me and I have butterflies in my stomach as I turn it over. It could be anyone, but I have that slightly sick, slightly wavy, fully trepidatious feeling in my tummy as if I’m twelve and the grown-up boy from down the road has flashed me a smile on the way to school.
This is ridiculous.
This cannot be healthy.
It probably isn’t him anyway.
