4
“Areyousureyou can’t come with me to this wedding, Ollie?” Carole said down the phone, unable to keep the pleading tone out of her voice. “It’ll be a great day! You’ll enjoy a terrific meal and you won’t have to pay for any drinks, I promise!”
“Sorry, Carole,” Ollie replied. “I wish I could say yes, but I’m on shift that day.”
Carole knew Ollie from back when they’d been friends at university. They’d stayed in touch over the years and often met for drinks with others from their graduating class to swap stories and catch up. He lived somewhat locally, near Southampton, which was why he’d made it onto Carole’s call list as a potential candidate for her wedding plus-one.
“Maybe you could switch shifts with someone else?” she asked.
“Sorry, but I can’t do that. Listen, I hope you don’t mind me saying this, Carole, but you sound a bit desperate.”
“That’s because Iamdesperate, Ollie. I really need a plus-one for this wedding.”
“I wish I could help, but I’m managing a big project at work right now and every minute of my shifts are tied up with tasks Ineed to oversee to make sure things go smoothly. I can’t switch shifts, not unless it’s a huge emergency.”
“Thisisa huge emergency! My mother’s trying to pair me off with some awful guy who’ll make my brain melt with boredom listening to his self-obsessed drivel if I have to put up with him for an entire wedding.”
Ollie laughed down the line. “I really am sorry, Carole. You’ll find someone who’s willing and able, I’m sure of it. Listen, I need to go, but we’ll catch up soon, okay?”
They said their goodbyes and hung-up. Carole stared at her phone contacts for a long moment, wondering who else she could call up and humiliate herself with. Ollie was the fifth male friend she’d called and the fifth to turn her down. Everyone was too busy to help, with work or family commitments or other weekend plans they couldn’t change at late notice.
So much for this being a straightforward matter of calling up a friend or two and easily finding a date.
She wondered if she ought to start phoning her female friends, too. Restricting her search to the menfolk she knew clearly wasn’t getting her anywhere.
“Surely there must be someone out there who’ll take pity on me?” Carole muttered to herself, still scrolling through her phone.
The sudden appearance of a head above the garden fence gave her a start and she let out a squeak of surprise. When she looked up, she saw her new neighbour, Tom, peering over at her.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you,” Tom said, giving her a sheepish grin.
“It’s fine. I was lost in my thoughts.”
Carole returned his smile and walked over to their shared fence line. Since moving into her new house, she’d met Tom on a few occasions as they’d both been coming and going. A couple of nights ago, he’d knocked on her door to give her a welcome cardand a bottle of wine. The thoughtful gesture had touched her. It was nice to know she had friendly neighbours on both sides of her terraced property.
“How’s it going with the unpacking?” Tom asked.
“Nearly there,” Carole replied, and then gestured to her grubby clothing. “Please ignore how I look. I was painting the kitchen.”
Tom grinned. “Just ignore how I look, too,” he said, waving a hand at the shirt she could just about see above the top of the fence. “I was baking and decorating fairy cakes and I think there’s more icing on me than on them.”
Carole now noticed the splodges of icing sugar and dusting of flour across his shirt. “I didn’t know you were a baker, Tom.”
“I’m not. Evie was here.”
“Ah, I thought I heard voices. Not that I was listening through the fence or anything,” she added, hastily. “When I came outside to talk on the phone, I heard laughter and…”
But Tom was already waving away her explanation. “My kitchen door was open and sound travels, especially the shrieks and laughter of a nine-year-old girl.”
Carole still wasn’t sure what relation the little girl she’d seen at the house a couple of times was to Tom. Perhaps a niece? She’d briefly thought the child might be his daughter, considering how well the two of them seemed to get on, but when she’d heard the little girl call him by his first name as she’d waved goodbye a few days ago, she’d ruled that out.
She was about to ask about their relationship, but Tom kept talking.
“Listen, if I tell you what Evie and I were chatting about earlier, then you’ll understand why I couldn’t help listening to what you were saying on the phone just now.”
Heat flushed Carole’s cheeks. “Ah, you heard me begging my friends to be my wedding plus-one?”
“Yeah, that’s what I heard,” Tom said, his expression mercifully kind.
