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‘Okay for you, before I ribbon them up?’ She allowed herself then to look at him fully. He looked back at her momentarily, before glancing at the bouquet with a nod.
‘Perfect, thanks.’ She smiled at him. He was dressed in his usual work gear, and with it being January, he had a beanie hat on. Dark brown tendrils of hair licked around the edges, and she knew from memory that under his hat was a crop of thick curly locks. Down from the hat, he had a beautiful pair of deep chocolate brown eyes, hooded with thick lashes the average girl would kill for. She noticed he looked tired, with a day or two of stubble on his chiselled chin. She forced herself to look away before she peeked at his adorable lips. She could already feel her cheeks burning with heat.
She concentrated on wrapping the bouquet with ribbon, taking care not to curl her fingers instead whilst using her scissors with shaky hands.
‘All done,’ she said, relieved, and she passed them over the counter. He was looking at her, not moving, and Lily frowned. ‘You okay?’
He started, reaching for the bouquet clumsily. His fingers brushed hers, and Lily felt the roughness of them against her own. She shivered a little, and from the look on his face, he saw it. Damn.
‘Sorry,’ he said, rubbing the back of his hand across his mouth, ‘half asleep today. How much?’
‘Twenty pounds as normal, please,’ she replied, looking intently at the bouquet in his hands, rather than at him. ‘You need coffee. There’s a little café next door, with some seating. It’s nice and quiet.’
He raised his eyebrows a little as he handed over the notes. ‘Really?’ Something tugged at the side of his mouth, like a smile trying to escape.
‘Yes, it’s nice. I love their caramel latte. Do you like coffee? Or tea? They have tea.’
‘Do you mean now? I just, I have to go to work –’
‘Oh no! I didn’t mean with me, oh God no. I just mean you could have a rest before work, wake up a bit.’ She was panicking now, and she knew it. She had just accidentally kind of asked the man out! He looked at her open-mouthed, as though he was struggling to think of something to say. No doubt trying to make a swift escape from the crazy florist. Damn, a regular customer she couldn’t afford to lose either.
She looked behind her frantically, to see Roger staring at her, a ridiculously large grin on his face. She motioned behind her back for him to come and rescue her, but he just shook his head as if to say nope, you dug this hole, you dig yourself out.
He spoke again, his deep voice cutting through the high-pitched squeaking in her head. Here it comes, she thought. The embarrassing it’s not me, it’s you – crazy loony woman I have no wish to spend time with. She had to will her own eyes to stay open. She almost wished her parents were here. A good bicker would defuse the tension.
‘I could do tomorrow, same time. I have a late start but I would like to chat with you, actually.’
Lily’s mouth would have dropped to the wood floor if her lower face wasn’t frozen in a terrified lock-jaw grimace. She willed herself to speak. The first attempt came out as a whisper, so she cleared her throat and tried again. This time she sounded like Joe Pasquale, but she ran with it. ‘I, I don’t think …’
He looked straight at her, probably seeing a slight sense of panic crossing her features as she fumbled her refusal. The look on his face was so confusing that she couldn’t finish her sentence.
‘Go on,’ Roger said into her ear, his body suddenly so close she could feel his cardigan buttons digging into her spine. ‘For once in your life, take a chance.’ Lily was still staring, stuttering at the man before her, but Roger’s words stopped her dead.
‘Yes, tomorrow’s great,’ she said in a flourish of bravado.
‘Lovely! She will see you then!’ Roger stepped even further forward, giving her a sneaky poke in the back with his finger. She managed to smile at the customer, or at least that’s what she thought it was. She might have looked constipated, at best. He smiled and nodded.
‘Great,’ he said easily, as though he made coffee dates all the time (he probably did, to be fair – the man was sex on a stick) and giving her a little wave and a smile that melted her heart, he left. Turning at the door, he looked at her again, a deep look that nearly knocked the feet from beneath her. For a second she thought he was going to come back, change his mind, but he just looked at her as though he was asking her a question she didn’t know the answer to.
She looked right back at him, wondering what he was thinking, and why she asked herself this question every time she saw him. He smiled again, a tiny twitch on his lips, and then he strode away. It seemed that no answers would come today.
Lily stood at the counter, frozen solid, his cash still clenched tight in her hand. Her face felt as though it was on fire, and her whole body tingled. Roger had gone in the back and came through with the finished wreath, heading to the van. He gave her a tap on the arm that threatened to topple her mannequin challenge pose off balance.
‘Wow, girl, I should give you a pep talk every morning! That, my dear, took balls. Not tiny balls either!’ He tittered at his own joke as he set off on his delivery.
***
Just outside the shop, after walking to his flatbed truck, Will Singer opened his door, jumped in, and laid the blooms carefully on the passenger seat. He wondered to himself at how his morning had turned for the better. Monday mornings were not so bad after all – it seemed this one at least had improved. He looked at the carefully put together blooms and thought of the girl behind the counter. He’d had no intention of asking her out; he just knew that this was something he could never do. When she had talked about the café, something in him had just woken up, seized the day. Carpe diem and all that. Before he had engaged his brain, his tongue had made a move.
He shook his head at himself in the central mirror. He put the key in the ignition and, placing his hands on the wheel, he realized he had forgotten again, and his heart dipped back into his boots.
Reaching over into the glove box, he pulled out a small cardboard box, the size of a brooch box. It rattled as he pulled it open. His smile faded, and he frowned. Back to reality, he thought, sliding the gold wedding band back onto his ring finger. The ring felt like a brand of hot iron around his skin, and not for the first time, he wondered how long he could keep juggling the people in his life.
Sometimes, when he lay in bed at night, listening to the silence around him, he tried to put the pieces together, but they would never fit. He could never make everyone happy at the same time. Whatever he did next, he would end up hurting someone along the way.
Now, with this latest morning event, he had a whole new piece to fit into the map of his life. This piece was brand new, shiny. It made him happy to think of it. He made a promise to himself there and then. He would keep this piece separate. He wouldn’t even try to blunt the edges to make it fit. He would keep it to himself, just for a little while, and then he would sadly let it go.
CHAPTER TWO (#ud8fad6ef-4a84-5c11-ae60-001f8d220862)
‘Morning, Mrs Evesham, looking good with that swing!’ Stuart shouted as he flew past the blonde on the green. She waved at him, wiggling her bottom as he drove past. He was in his element, riding his personalized golf cart like it was a Maserati around the Willard Westfield Golf Club and Spa. Spencer Willard was the founder, long departed, and apparently a bit of a character.
Stuart liked to think he was keeping the spirit alive, giving the people who subscribed to the place the authentic Willard experience. Being the resident golf pro and sports manager, it was his prerogative that the business did well. He was always on the lookout for new talent, longing for the day a pampered child would walk in and be the next Tiger Woods, under his expert tutelage. Then he would be off, back on the tours, manager to the stars. Or his father would finally relent, give him the much-needed money and clout to play again on his own talent.
That was the plan anyway. Since his own tours had ended relatively early, and the sponsorship deals had dried up, his father had cut him off, declaring him to be a disappointment. The black sheep in the sporting family. It was only thanks to the nagging and pleading eyes of his mother that her husband eventually pulled a few strings to get him this job, up in the sticks of Yorkshire. Coming up to eight years later, Stuart Woodward was still wondering what the hell had happened to bring him here, and when something would come along to get him out of it. Back to the life that he should have, the existence worthy of a Woodward.
Stuart came from a long line of sporting heroes: rugby stars, tennis pros. His cousin Gerry even played football for England. Golf, whilst still considered a sport by many, was frowned upon somewhat by his family. His father loved golf – watching it, and playing it on a Saturday – but as for making a career out of it? Not so much.
Stuart frowned as he pulled into his parking space. Thinking back to the summers of his childhood made him shudder, even more than the cold snap in the post-Christmas weather. He was distracted from thoughts of him being belittled in the garden with his little plastic golf set by a vibrating in his pants. He climbed out of the cart and answered the phone in one swift movement.
‘Stuart Woodward. I put the swwwwiinnggg in your swing!’ There was a little hesitation, and then he heard Lily’s soft voice.
‘Wayne’s World quotes again? We have spoken about this,’ she said teasingly, and he smiled into the phone at the sound of it. Just hearing her voice made him forget about his family pressures. She made him relax without even trying, and he loved her for that.
‘Hey, baby, sorry, I thought it was a work call.’
‘And that’s how you answer work calls?’ she asked, obviously amused. ‘I er, I just wanted to know if you were free for lunch today. I can’t meet tomorrow now, I have a meeting with a … supplier.’
Stuart caught the waver in her voice. ‘You okay? You sound weird.’ It was true – she didn’t sound herself. Stuart could hear it in her voice. Not for the first time, he wondered whether she was as happy as he had been assuming she was. In truth, even Stuart expected her to wake up one day and realize he was more Beast than Prince Charming.
He started to walk down the drive to the large gravel path that ran to the golf club. Even in this weather, it was beautiful – even if the greenery was a little worse for wear. He would have to get a gardener in. Since the last person left, he had struggled to fill the position. Probably because Amazonian women with big racks were not often chomping at the bit to work in gardening. His last hire looked like a budget version of Charlie Dimmock, minus the personality and the incredible natural scaffolding. And she didn’t know one end of a conifer from the other. He suddenly became aware that the line was quiet.
‘Sorry, babe, what was that?’
‘I said I am fine,’ Lily replied, sighing a little. ‘It was a little fraught this morning at home, that’s all. I really think we need to talk about getting this wedding started, maybe it will give them something to talk about, as well as improve my living situation.’
Stuart winced. The golf club, being an old-fashioned establishment, didn’t allow him to have permanent guests overnight in his accommodation, a small cottage on site, but when they married it would be a different matter. No more excuses to hide behind. No more free rein. Could he do well as a married man? He knew himself well enough to doubt it.
‘I know, Lily, but we can’t rush these things just to stop your parents killing each other, can we.’
He could hear the tut down the line, and as he walked to his office, he knew that Lily was mad. The tone of her voice confirmed it, and he nibbled his lip nervously.
‘I somehow don’t think a six-year engagement could be seen as rushing things, do you? Seriously, Stuart, sometimes I don’t know how we ever got together. Forget lunch, I just realized I would rather work.’ And with that she slammed down the phone at the shop. Stuart stared at his phone. It took a lot for Lily to get mad; in fact she was the nicest person he had met, which was lucky for him. She trusted him completely, which made his guts twist. Lately though, he had been noticing subtle changes, and her putting the phone down was a first.
Sitting down at his desk some time later, still in shock, he looked at his golf lesson bookings for the day. Please, he thought to himself. Let one of these people be my key to a new life. Judging by the list of members on the page, today was not the day. He perked up a little when he saw that Mrs Evesham – young trophy wife of the rather portly (and loaded) Mr Evesham – was his first booking. Nothing like a bit of a laugh to pass the day. A nice bucket of sand to dig his head into.
***
Back on Foxley Street, Lily slammed down the black portable shop phone into its cradle and forked it aggressively. Roger, surprised at Lily’s outburst, quietly clicked the kettle on and reached for the biscuit tin. Lily sat at the counter, head in hands.
The shop was in a lull, people heading to work now, dropping children at school. The deliveries were done, so now she had a slot of time to check the online orders for the day and work on any new designs she had on the go. Her head wasn’t in the game though; in fact her brain was heading to the golf club with a pair of garden shears and a thirst for blood.
‘I mean, is it me?!’ she suddenly shouted, throwing her hands in the air and rapping her knuckles on the desk. Roger shook his head, wide-eyed, bringing her a coffee and a delicious Garibaldi over. She took them gratefully, nodding her thanks to him as the cup warmed her chilled bones. Winter sucked.
‘No, darling, and pardon me for eavesdropping but, why ARE you with him?’
Lily opened her mouth to answer, but she floundered like a fish instead.
‘I, er, I … I love him, of course!’ She ignored the eye-roll she knew Roger was giving her, choosing not to look at him. ‘He is funny, and he can be sweet at times.’ She gurned a little as she thought of Stuart, cracking bad jokes and being generally insensitive to others. Not lately, maybe, but back when they were dating. First few dates, at least. She thought back to how they had met, when he had come into the florist’s to get some flowers for a client whose husband had taken ill. He was so sweet, going above and beyond like that. Lily had been impressed, despite her parents’ misgivings at the time. Lily had ignored them, believing their meeting to be fate. A nice meet-cute to tell their grandchildren about.
A bit like the one this morning, she thought to herself as she remembered the events of her day. What are you playing at, Lily? She tried to rationalize her conversation with the dishy dark-haired client less than an hour ago, but she knew she wanted to go meet him tomorrow, even if the meeting was arranged by accident. What worried her more was the fact that she had not only kept it from Stuart, but had even made sure he wouldn’t turn up. She realized that Roger was talking, and she snapped her head back into the conversation.
‘Funny and sweet are all well and good, but will it still be funny when you are seventy?’
‘Oh Christ, Rog, I am only thirty this year – give me a break! I have a hard time thinking past next year at the moment, let alone into my pension years. Who knows what the future holds, eh?’
Roger smiled sadly. ‘Who was it who said life is what happens when you are making other plans?’
Lily shrugged at him.
‘Whoever it was, they nailed it. And as far as I can see, you are not living your life or making other plans.’
Lily turned to him, the shock registering on her features at his words. She thought back to earlier. Take a chance, for once in your life.
He smiled kindly. ‘Now, shall I go and get us a sarnie?’
Roger’s cheeks had flushed, and she realized he was worried he had upset her. She nodded, flashing him a grin that didn’t quite reach her eyes. ‘I’ll pay, and sod it, let’s have a bun too.’
Roger rubbed his tummy comically, making her giggle.
‘Deal. I can work it off at Zumba later.’
CHAPTER THREE (#ud8fad6ef-4a84-5c11-ae60-001f8d220862)
Lizzie Baxter stood on the back step, looking out of her conservatory doors to the garden beyond. It was a rather long, thin garden with a sprawling lawn and a ribbon of trees around it. Flowers filled the borders, although most were sleeping at this time of year. The leaves from the trees were blowing all over the frosty grass, and the contrast between the dark, empty trees and the blanket of colour underneath was quite striking in the morning light.
She sipped at her herbal fruit tea, pulling her cardigan around her a little tighter as the wind blew. There was no sound other than the rustle of trees outside, and the chime of the antique clock on the wall behind her. No sounds at all. Sometimes, when she had been home all day, she questioned her own hearing, turning the television or radio on, just to check she could actually hear it. She always could of course, but the house deceived her more and more as the weeks passed.
Irvin was sitting in the den, reading his morning paper with his coffee. She knew this because this was their new routine. Retreating to various rooms with hot beverages, and some semblance of a plan for the day. She came in and closed the doors against the chill. The house looked bare, too clean, and Lizzie knew it was more than the post-Christmas decorations despair.
Before they sold the shop to Lily, Lizzie had been fizzing with excitement. No more running the day to day, dealing with deliveries, listening to Lily telling them her plans for the business – it was hers now, to run as she saw fit. She had worked with them since leaving horticultural college, studying for her art degree long distance, alongside her employment. There would be time now: time to read, to garden more, travel to all those places that they hadn’t gotten to see with having a busy business, and a child to raise, a mortgage to pay.
Retirement, however, was a huge anticlimax. The child was raised, the business was looked after, the mortgage a distant memory. They had hung up their floristry shears six months ago, but the only thing they had done since was fight over what they should be doing with their free time.
Walking through their detached home, Lizzie marvelled to herself at how far they had come since they first moved to their very own Westfield home, fresh from their parents’ houses, full of hope for their future. They bought the business, had Lily, and never looked back. Now their only child was due to get married, and they should be embarking on a new chapter in their lives together. Lizzie somehow felt like their book was being snapped shut.
She thought of the old cliché, being on the same page. The truth was, she and Irvin weren’t even reading the same story. It saddened her so much, her heart broke when she thought of it.
It was January, the start of a new year. Lizzie couldn’t muster up the energy to even ring the new year in. New Year’s Eve had been a wash-out. Irvin had played golf all day, using a voucher Stuart had given him for Christmas. She had rattled around the house, ignoring the house phone ringing with invites to various parties and dinners with their friends. She just couldn’t face the well-meaning questions and chats about resolutions. By the time the bell struck twelve, she was snoring away in the spare room. Irvin hadn’t even come to find her.
This is not how it should be, and they both knew it. Lizzie just didn’t know what to do, and now the time she had on her hands felt like a millstone, not a gift.
She went into the hallway, hearing the tinkle of the letterbox as the post landed on the mat. Stooping down to pick it up, she winced as her knees screamed in protest. Leaning on the hall dresser for support, she pulled herself back up and sat on the seat next to the hall phone. Another ticking clock on the wall next to the dark wood staircase reminded her of the passing seconds, minutes, hours.
It was a funny old thing, time. It waited for no one. You could scream at the clock and it would still move, tick, tick, tick. Birth, death, sorrow – they all seem to slow it down, but never stop it. Suspend people in the illusion that no time had passed. She thought back to when she was younger, and her parents took her to the coast in the summer. She would marvel at how long the days seemed to last. The holidays were an endless time of fun and frolics.
Now, in retirement, she felt the breath of time huffing and puffing at her back. Six months had flown like a week, and they had no milestones to latch on to left. For funny it was that one day, every rite of passage, every event of childhood was a memory, not a goal. They say that youth is wasted on the young. Lately, Lizzie had to agree. The thought depressed her immensely. She wondered if Irvin felt it too, if this was the crack that started the fissure between them.
She looked through the small pile of post. A card from her friend, probably smugly wishing them a happy new year. A couple of special offers from catalogues, all containing things she either already had or would never need. She was just about to throw the lot in the bin when she came across a brochure for the community centre. The cover in large print said New Year Blues?
‘Yes,’ she said loudly. The ticking clock carried on uninterrupted. She read on.
Got the post-Christmas blues? Looking for a new challenge? Sign up to a course and learn a new skill.
‘A new skill …’ she said to herself. She saluted the clock. ‘Maybe not. What am I going to learn: flower arranging?’
Ignoring the sting of pain in her knees as she stood, she tucked the brochure into the letter rack and walked to the kitchen. Time for a sandwich, and then she could always make a start on the Christmas thank you cards. Opening the fridge door, she sagged against it. It came to a lot when the highlight of your day was a cheese and pickle bap, but here she was. She eyed the corked bottle of Chardonnay from last night, but dismissed it at the last minute. Whatever her retirement was going to be, daytime drinking was hardly a goal to work on.
‘Irvin?’ she called into the atmosphere. ‘Do you want a sandwich?’
CHAPTER FOUR (#ud8fad6ef-4a84-5c11-ae60-001f8d220862)
Lily woke up before her alarm and lay looking at the ceiling she had slept under her entire life. There was a crack running across the ceiling, about seven inches long. It stepped out from the light fitting, a wrought-iron flower design her mother had installed throughout, and ran across the white painted surface.
She remembered when it had happened. Years ago, her father had been getting the Christmas decorations out of the loft, and tripped. He caught himself quick enough, but not before a hairline crack had split Lily’s perfect ceiling. Her mum had gone mad, berating her father for being so daft, so dangerous. Lily had stood in her bedroom doorway, watching her dad pull the tree box down the ladder after him, shoulders hunched. Bump, bump bump, went the box, down each step slowly.
Her mother was stood halfway up the stairs, hands on hips, a dusting of flour from baking on her apron. Lily had been twelve at the time, and she remembered being shocked that her parents were shouting. They just didn’t do it. Just as her teenage self had worried what this might mean, she heard her mother laugh. Her dad turned around too, setting the tree down on the thick landing carpet. As he turned, he winked at Lily, and she relaxed. Soon they were all laughing too, putting the hoards of Christmas decorations up together, as always.
For years, that crack was the only reminder of that day. A subtle hint about how lucky they were as a family, to have each other. Now, as she stared yet again at that crack, she could almost see it widening, the fissure growing before her almost thirty-year-old eyes. Maybe Roger was right: she should get out. Get her own place, maybe even set a date for the wedding. The thought of her birthday, the big three-oh, was freaking her out, and nothing was going to change. Not before September anyway.
Not without Lily actually doing something to change, and when would that happen? She knew herself too well. She would take the path of least resistance, as always. Whatever they wanted, whatever route was easier. The thought depressed her and she huffed in bed, throwing a pillow at the wall. It made an unsatisfying flumph as it hit the plaster. Figured. She couldn’t even make a mark with her own tantrum.
Lily got out of bed and padded to the bathroom. She’d had the room to herself as a kid since her parents had the en suite, but nowadays she shared with her mother, who had seemingly taken up residence in the spare room. As she left her room, she peered around the corner. All quiet. To be honest, most days she expected to see sandbags across the landing, her parents firing up the mortars. All was peaceful. She sighed with relief and headed for the shower.
As she shampooed her long blonde hair, she thought of her morning coffee meeting and felt the butterflies fizzle in her stomach. The meeting wasn’t even a date, not really – more an ambush of a fit customer – but it still filled her with nervous excitement. There was something about the man who came into the shop that brightened up her day, and she was looking forward to actually speaking to him without the eagle eyes of her parents, or Roger egging her on in the background.
She had noticed him when he first started coming into the shop just over a year ago. He looked so tired, so worn down. Her mother had always made conversation with him, chatting away the silences when he came in twice a week. All nothings, every time. They discussed the weather, the politics of the day, the X Factor results.
Over time, he had gotten brighter. He looked less drawn, more at ease. His eyes were different though. Was it the darkness, the depth of the brown they were? He had sad eyes that never quite matched his lopsided half-smile. They looked at odds with everything in the world, and she found herself counting the days in between her seeing them.
It had become somewhat of a puzzle to her, a conundrum to solve. She found herself punctuating her working week with his visits. She almost wrote them in her diary, like a girl would record her secret thoughts. She wished that she did write them in her diary to be honest, if only to have something to jot down in there at all. The only thing she wrote in there lately were changes to deliveries, and the usual birthdays and anniversaries that everyone writes in a journal.
She often daydreamed about him, like now, when she had washed her hair three times. What his story was, the places he had seen. What work did he do? He sometimes came dressed up; sometimes he wore scruffy jeans, ratty T-shirts. He often had the telltale sign of dirt under his fingernails, so she knew he worked with his hands, out in the open.
Sometimes, when she was daydreaming, or reading one of her romance novels, she thought about what kind of job he did. Farmer? Builder? Did he live local? Westfield was a pretty close-knit place. Everyone knew the colour of your pants on the line, or so the saying went. Not that she dare ask around about him, of course. She just knew she wouldn’t be able to ask casually. Roger was already on to her.
Stuart worked outside for the most part, but he didn’t have hands like him. His hands were smooth, moisturized, not a callus in sight. In fact, you would think he was a hand model the way he went on sometimes. She had once asked him to put a few shelves up in the shop and he had looked at her as though she had asked him to hack someone’s head off. In the end, Roger had done it, Stuart ‘supervising’ from a distance. Lily was still amazed to this day that Roger hadn’t nailed him to the wall by his thumbs.
After that, she hadn’t bothered to ask him again. She still had some plans for the shop DIY wise, but she was determined to wait till she had more money in the bank, then at least she could hire a handyman. Simon from the village often did the odd job or two on a weekend, when he wasn’t busy working at the greengrocer’s with his dad, or chasing down new clients for his own business. He had been busy though lately in other ways, wining and dining the new girl who was working at the boutique. She seemed nice, not that Lily had spoken to her in person yet.
