by Harper Bliss
“Of course,” Ash said. “Every single last one of them.”
Gloria laughed with her. She tried to picture Charlotte, but she couldn’t remember if she had ever seen her. She hadn’t been able to go to the wedding; the reason why escaped her. Mary must have shown her pictures—she used to be the type to organise a viewing party to show off her holiday snaps—but, for the life of her, Gloria couldn’t recall.
The song ended and they stepped away from each other.
“Thank you for this dance.” Ash curtsied. “It’s easily the best one I’ve had all night.” She winked at Gloria again and, just like the first time earlier that night, it gave Gloria pause. She watched Ash saunter off to the table where Mary was sitting, clearly uninterested in dancing any more. Gloria could do with a sit-down herself. Then she felt a tap on the shoulder.
“What do you say, Gloria?” Jim, Mary’s youngest brother, asked. “Shall we show them how it’s done?”
“Sure.” Gloria gave him a smile. Out of the corner of her eye, she looked at Ash, and saw her looking back at her.
Jim took the lead and twirled them around the dance floor. They exchanged pleasantries and Gloria tried to give him her full attention, the way she had done during the previous dance with Ash. But it seemed to her she had little attention left to give. Either she was tired—or she’d spent it all on Ash.
The sensation of being led around the dance floor by a man was nice enough. It even brought back some memories of better days. George loved to dance. At any party, he’d be on the floor from the first song to the last. And Gloria had adored dancing with him. They’d regularly danced in their living room. Often, without any music to guide them. George would scoop her up and draw her near and they’d sway to an imaginary beat, one that only they could hear. No wonder Gloria had never fallen for another man again. She couldn’t picture hearing that soundless beat with anyone else but George.
As she spun around, Gloria’s gaze caught Ash again. She was still eyeing her. Or maybe she was just looking at the goings-on on the dance floor. No. Her glance was solidly aimed at Gloria. Gloria could feel it, the way you can feel someone looking at you even when your back is turned to them.
On the next go-around, Ash smiled at her, taking away any doubts Gloria might have had about the direction of her gaze. Gloria swung her hips extra fancifully when she had her back turned to Ash. She didn’t really know why. It was just something she felt like doing in the moment.
Chapter Five
Lewis could not look less like a hedge fund manager. He wore a suit all right, but it wasn’t the kind any other banker wore. It wasn’t the obligatory navy or black suit that made you fit in. Her boss wore what Ash called ‘chat show host suits’, with loud flowery patterns and made out of shiny, gaudy fabrics.
“You always look so fresh-faced when you’ve spent a weekend in the country, darling,” Lewis said, after he had air-kissed Ash.
“Murraywood is hardly the country. It’s half an hour on the train.”
“Imagine what actually going into the countryside would do to your complexion.” Lewis pushed the button of the automatic coffee machine. Just like her, Lewis didn’t believe in lunch. Not eating throughout the day kept him sharp. In fact, Ash had picked up the habit from him. “Here you go, darling.” He handed Ash the tiny espresso cup.
Ash knocked back the coffee. It was her third of the day. Some days, she could take four, but most days, three of these tiny but awfully strong beverages was her limit. “You keep promising to get yourself a country pad. How about putting your money where that big mouth is?” Lewis wasn’t just Ash’s boss. He had also become her best friend.
“I’ll have to get my trophy husband on to that.” Jonathan was anything but a trophy husband. He ran a company that imported Japanese sake and whiskies into the UK and was more often than not on a business trip to Asia. If Lewis and Jonathan actually had a house in the countryside, neither one of them would use it. Ash would use it, though. Although, if she needed a hit of country-ish air, she could just go home to her parents.
Ash’s phone buzzed in her back pocket. She fished it out and read the message.
Still waiting for those London tips.
A smile spread across her face. Gloria hadn’t been at the forefront of her mind since the party. On Saturday, Ash, like the rest of her family, had battled a nasty hangover. She’d hung out at home, watching the Chelsea game with her dad, and eating her mother’s chicken pie—an excellent cure for hangovers and post-divorce-blues alike. On Sunday, when she’d felt fresh as a daisy again, she’d spent the day with her nephews.
“What’s that smile about? Did Charlotte flee the British Isles?” Lewis asked.
Ash shot him a look, then asked, “What smile?”
“I hate to be the bearer of bad news, darling,” Lewis said, “but you’ve hardly been a barrel of laughs since the whole divorce debacle. I’ll make do with the tiniest hint of a smile on your gorgeous face.”
“Oh, please.” She wanted to give Lewis a good comeback, but her brain was too occupied forming a reply to Gloria’s text. “I’m well and truly over the divorce,” she lied. Ash had stayed with Lewis and Jonathan, in their lavish town house in Kensington, after she and Charlotte had first split up.
As she looked up, she just caught Lewis’s exaggerated eye roll. “Is there someone new on the scene?” he asked. “You know you can’t keep vital information like that from me.” Since Ash had found a new flat and had moved out of Lewis’s house, he’d tried to set her up with no less than three women he vaguely knew, one of which he had only suspected of being interested in women. For some reason, maybe because he’d been with Jonathan for decades, Lewis was very interested in Ash’s love life. He hadn’t had much to sink his teeth into. Ash simply wasn’t interested. Why would she even try? To end up divorced again?
“You’ll be the first to know if ever there is something to know again.”
“You’re not going to tell me who just texted you then?” Lewis insisted.
“It’s just a friend of my mum’s, looking for some tips on what to do when she comes to London next. It’s nothing. Sorry to disappoint you so immensely on a Monday.”
Lewis briefly pulled a face. “Just remember. It’s all well and good to not want a relationship. I totally get that, but you don’t want to get any cobwebs down there. You have to keep the juices flowing, if you catch my drift.”
“It’s utterly impossible not to catch it, darling.” Ash shook her head. “And we’ve had this conversation a dozen times before. A prolonged period of abstinence will hardly kill me, as hard as that is to believe for you.” She tapped her fingers against her phone screen. “Now if you’ll excuse me. I have to get back to work so I can make you some more money.”
“You are the perfect employee, Ash,” Lewis shouted after her, his voice dripping with honey.
It was an in-joke that had started after Ash told him she knew so much about Lewis’s private life, he could never fire her.
Back at her desk, Ash replied:
It’s only Monday. Give a girl a break.
On the train back to London, her mind had drifted back to the dance she’d had with Gloria. She’d watched her dance with Uncle Jim afterwards and Ash could have sworn Gloria hadn’t had the same sparkle about her as when she’d danced with Ash. Of course, Ash had been quite plastered and her memories of the night were subsequently hazy. Gloria’s reply came quickly.
Sorry. I have Wednesday off and I was thinking of taking the train up. Didn’t mean to rush you. xo
Why had Gloria included ‘xo’ in her message? Maybe that was just her usual sign-off. But, hadn’t she just said she’d be in town the day after tomorrow? Ash checked her schedule. There was no way she could take a day off, but she could surely blow off the monthly Women in Finance networking drinks she’d planned to attend after work and, perhaps, take Gloria out for dinner instead. Even though that was not what Gloria was asking for. She was just asking for tips on w
hat to do in London. Nevertheless, the sudden prospect of having dinner with Gloria sparked something in Ash.
I promise to send you some suggestions tonight. One of them will be to have dinner with me in the evening.
Gloria didn’t reply so quickly now. Had Ash put her off? It was just dinner. It didn’t mean anything. She liked Gloria because she was so easy to talk to and so much fun to be around. Ash craved people like that around her right now. Besides, her mind wouldn’t even dare to venture anywhere else. Gloria was a friend of her parents. Maybe she could be her friend as well.
Ok. Look forward to it. xo
Look forward to what? Ash thought. Getting the message or having dinner with me? And was that a yes? She took it as a provisional yes. Her stomach growled. Ash drank a glass of water. Then she put the message out of her mind for the rest of the afternoon—she ignored it, just like the pangs of hunger that sneaked up on her—and focused on her work. It was how she had got through the divorce. Ironically, she’d started working even more, as if trying to disprove Charlotte’s allegation that her working too much was the cause of their divorce.
Chapter Six
“You’re being rather rude,” Sindhu said. “What happened to no phones at the dinner table?” Ever since Janey had left for uni, Gloria cooked dinner for her two best friends on Monday night.
Sindhu’s husband worked the late shift at the fire station and Fiona was more than happy to have dinner with her friends instead of her husband one night a week.
“I’m sorry.” Gloria had trouble putting her phone away. She was expecting a message from Ash. “Bad habit, foisted upon me by my daughters.”
“I don’t see any youngsters here.” Fiona scratched the side of her arm. A gesture familiar to Gloria.
“Fresh patch Monday?” Gloria asked.
Fiona nodded. “Bring on the hormones. I’m ready for them.”
They all chuckled, because you had to laugh, really.
“How was Mary’s party?” Sindhu asked. “Not an eligible bachelor in sight, I suppose.” She speared a piece of sausage onto her fork.
Gloria couldn’t help but chuckle again.
“What’s so funny?” Sindhu sounded too innocent to not be in on the joke.
“They put me at the singles’ table, with Karen.” Gloria played with the gravy on top of her mash.
“If you were fighting over bachelors with Karen, you likely didn’t stand a chance.” Fiona waggled her eyebrows.
“There were no bachelors. Both Mary and Alan come from very sturdy and loyal stock. Not a widower or divorced man in sight.” Not if Ash was to be believed, at least. “Not that I was looking.”
“Did you dance into the wee hours?” Sindhu’s voice sounded as though she would like to do exactly that sometime soon.
“Pretty much.” Gloria scooped more mash onto her plate. “It was a pretty lively do, especially if you consider the average age of the people there.” Gloria had left not long after dancing with Ash and Jim. She had worked the afternoon shift on Saturday and needed to get her beauty sleep.
“You must have been the youngest guest,” Fiona said.
“Apart from Mary’s children. Yes.” Gloria eyed her phone. She’d put it on the sideboard next to the table. No message alerts. How late did Ash work?
“Simon has Adrian’s youngest in his pre-school class. He’s just the cutest child you’ve ever seen. Quite well behaved as well, I hear,” Fiona said.
“How was the hotshot from London?” Sindhu asked.
The question made Gloria glance at her phone again. “Ash is doing well, I think. She sat next to me at dinner. She’s a lovely girl.” A lovely girl. What did that even mean? And why did Gloria feel so flustered talking about Ash?
“Has she digested the divorce?” Fiona asked.
That was the thing about living in a small town like Murraywood. Even if your children lived miles away, everyone still knew a little about their private business.
“I think so.” Gloria suspected this wasn’t entirely true, but it wasn’t for her to say. Ash had made some bitter comments about her new status as a recent divorcee. “When I go up to London this week, I might meet up with her,” she blurted out.
“With Ash Cooper?” Fiona sounded surprised.
Gloria nodded.
“Are you switching sides?” Sindhu would say something like that. “Is she taking you to a lesbian bar?”
Gloria huffed out a nervous chuckle. “Of course not. We just had a nice time at the party, so why not meet up? It’s not as if I have a family waiting for me at home. I might as well go out for a meal in London.”
“I don’t want to imply anything, Gloria,” Fiona said, “but as one of your best friends, I feel like I should tell you that you just sounded a touch defensive.”
“You just sounded as though you’re really enjoying that bottle of red you brought,” Gloria was quick to say, and, in doing so, confirmed her defensiveness to herself.
“It is pretty good.” Sindhu topped up her glass and took a sip, as though she had to prove the point there and then. “But you’re totally right, Gloria. Go out. Have fun. Make new friends. We don’t have to tell you that life can be bloody short.”
Gloria wondered what George would make of all this. As he lay dying, he had made Gloria promise that she wouldn’t stay alone. He wanted her to be happy again. To not mourn him for the rest of her life. She was still so young—barely forty-five when George had died. And Gloria had made the promise. Not because it was what she wanted, but because it was what he wanted.
A few years later, she had remembered George’s deathbed request, and she had tried. Little had she known that she was actually much happier single than when she tried her hand at the old dating game. George couldn’t have known either, of course. They’d been happy together. One of those couples other people envied—and their daughters called gross because they kissed each other on the lips in their presence all the time.
“Thank you for your permission.” Gloria smiled at her friends. She knew they meant well. Cooking them a weekly dinner was the least she could do after the endless hot meals Sindhu and Fiona had provided for her and the girls in the first months after George’s death. She could never repay them for their kindness, but she knew she didn’t have to.
Just then, Gloria’s phone buzzed on the sideboard.
Sindhu looked at her as if to say: don’t you dare.
“It’s probably Ash,” Gloria said. “Confirming our plans for Wednesday.”
“By all means,” Sindhu said. “Don’t let us keep you from arranging your date with the young lesbian.”
Gloria got up with as much dignity as she could muster. She reached for her phone and there was, indeed, a message from Ash.
It’s going to rain Wednesday, so I would recommend a museum. There’s a really great Turner exhibition at the National Gallery. I’ve been and it was really fantastic.
Gloria had barely had time to read and process the message when a second one came in.
Am I safe in thinking I have carte blanche to pick the restaurant?
“She’s keen.” Sindhu wasn’t letting it go, despite what she’d said earlier.
Gloria put her phone away. She would reply later, when her friends had left. But she was happy to have heard from Ash, who could have easily not bothered to reply when Gloria had texted her earlier today. She could have decided to forget all about last Friday and forget that Gloria existed at all. And why wouldn’t she?
But she hadn’t. They were going out to dinner in London. It would make a nice change from all the meals Gloria had enjoyed on her own while going into the capital. She didn’t mind. She was used to it. But the prospect of sitting across from Ash filled her with giddiness nonetheless.
“When are we going for a big night on the town?” Fiona asked. “It’s been too long.”
Fiona always said things like that, but they all knew their truly epic nights on the town were long behind them, which was just fine with
Gloria.
Chapter Seven
Ash took a large bite out of an apple. The first bite of anything solid she’d had all day—and it tasted like the most delicious morsel of food she’d ever had in her life. It was like that every day when she broke her fast. She checked her watch. She’d only be a few minutes late. Meeting a friend of her mother’s was unchartered territory for Ash. If this were a date, she’d deliberately arrive at least ten minutes late—not that Ash ever had to actively try to be late anywhere. It always seemed to happen of its own accord, no matter how early she set off.
She threw the apple core into a bin just before she arrived at the bar she’d chosen to meet Gloria. Ash hadn’t been there before because bars that only served alcohol-free cocktails weren’t really her thing. She’d just missed out on being a millennial, and sometimes, Ash thought it really showed. All these youngsters who preferred to go to the gym instead of the pub after work. Ash didn’t get it. But she did understand that Gloria didn’t drink alcohol, and she wanted to make her feel as comfortable as possible.
Gloria hadn’t arrived yet and Ash wondered if she could quickly sneak off to the pub next door to have a shot of something. Just to take the edge off after the work day had ended. She either needed sufficient time to shake off the stress of her day job, or a stiff drink. Tonight, she wouldn’t have either. Meeting Gloria like this was turning out to be stressful in a way Ash hadn’t expected.
Whenever her phone had lit up with a text during the day, Ash had found herself hoping it would be from Gloria. Something about her soothed Ash in a fundamental way. She was curious to see if that feeling would remain with her tonight.
