Page 69 of So, I Met This Guy . . .

‘I don’t think you know Rory. He’s even got my stepdad Colin giving me grief now.’

‘Why, what’s he saying?’

‘Asking me what’s going on . . . telling me to come home . . .’ Flick broke off to take another much-needed swig of her beer. ‘I told him not to worry. That I’m here to break a story. To get an exclusive. I tried telling him all about romance fraud, how it’s a really important issue right now, that this could be my big break.’ She rubbed the top of her nose. ‘He’s always been really supportive, he knows how ambitious I am. I think he just worries about me, especially with Mum not being around to worry about me any more.’

There was a gap in the conversation. Maggie looked at Flick and felt suddenly maternal. She was too young to lose her mum. Too young to know that kind of grief. It changes you as a person. She should know.

‘Are you close to your stepdad?’ she asked, after a moment.

‘Yeah . . . at least, we used to be.’ Flick looked troubled. ‘I always wanted a dad when I was little. I never knew my real dad. He disappeared when Mum got pregnant, so it was always just the two of us. I think I was about seven or eight when Mum met Colin. I remember him first coming to the house, being all goofy and playing in my Wendy house with me, pretending to have tea . . .’ She smiled at the memory. ‘I was so excited when they got married and I got to be a bridesmaid. I’d always wanted to be a bridesmaid.’

She paused, her mind flashing back to being eight years old in a confection of pink tulle.

‘But then Mum got sick and things changed. We’d had our ups and downs before, when I was a teenager, but this was different. When we lost Mum, it was like something broke, like the glue that stuck us all together wasn’t there any more . . . do you know what I mean?’

Maggie’s mind slipped back to when they’d lost her brother, how everything had fallen apart in their family when he’d died, as if he was the glue and they’d come unstuck.

‘Yeah, I know what you mean,’ she began, before being interrupted by a jangling noise. It was Flick’s phone.

‘Oh crap, he’s trying to FaceTime me.’

‘If he doesn’t believe you’re telling the truth, why don’t you FaceTime him here? Show him your sexy Italian Stallion is actually a very unsexy middle-aged woman,’ suggested Maggie, smiling, but Flick frowned.

‘You’re not unsexy. You look great for your age.’

‘For your age?’ Maggie pulled a face.

‘What? That’s a compliment!’

‘No, it’s not, it’s basically telling someone they don’t look too bad for being old.’

‘That’s not true,’ protested Flick, then frowned. ‘Is it?’

‘I think you’d better answer that.’ Maggie gestured to the phone which was still vibrating away on the table, Rory and Flick’s faces beaming up from the screen, a symbol of happier times.

‘That’s a nice photo.’

‘We were at the Isle of Wight music festival. That was taken before I saw the portaloos . . .’

As she grimaced, the call rang off and her phone fell silent. For like a second. Then started again.

‘He’s persistent, I’ll give him that,’ quipped Maggie, but Flick’s sense of humour had deserted her.

‘Maybe better if I take it in the room.’ Snatching up her phone, she stood up. ‘I don’t want to have another row and spoil this lovely evening for everyone.’ She gestured to the tourists sitting all around them, enjoying drinks. ‘You OK here by yourself?’

‘Don’t worry, I’ll be just fine. I’ll finish my wine and watch the sunset.’

‘Enjoy.’ Grimacing, Flick quickly dashed off.

‘Love to Rory.’ Maggie raised her glass as she called after her.

Relationships, huh? Who’d have one?

You Again

After Flick disappeared back to the hotel room, clutching her phone with a look of dread that Maggie was pretty sure shouldn’t be the expression worn by a young woman about to speak to her boyfriend, Maggie remained alone at the cafe drinking her glass of wine. In a sea of couples, she felt a bit like Shirley Valentine.

God, she loved that film. It had been on TV one rainy afternoon a few weeks ago and for a couple of glorious hours she’d been transported from a damp, soggy caravan in northern England to a sun-filled Greek island. The first time she’d watched it, she’d been a teenager, and she remembered thinking Shirley was this frumpy, old, middle-aged woman, so it had come as quite a shock to discover Shirley was only forty-two.