by Harper Bliss
Gloria shook her head. “I’ll text you when I get home.”
“Okay.” Ash hadn’t spent a full weekend with someone in her personal space like this in a very long time. Still, she wished it was a bank holiday weekend, so Gloria could stay a day longer.
“Is your brain doing that over-processing thing again?” Gloria kissed her long and soft on the cheek. “If it’s meant to be, it will work out,” she said, just as softly.
It was exactly this kind of thing that made Ash so crazy about Gloria. Ash also wanted very much to believe her.
“Okay,” she said, again, and pulled Gloria towards her for one last kiss on the lips. Then she let her go.
“Read my lips, Ashley Cooper,” Lewis said. “Take a day off work.” He shrugged. “Besides, I’m your boss. If I tell you to take the day off, you will bloody well take it.”
“Take the day off and spend it in Murraywood?” As far as Lewis’s far-fetched ideas went, this one sounded very appealing and easy to achieve. “Holed up in Gloria’s house so no one sees me?” She had to laugh. What else was she going to do?
“Why not?” Lewis asked.
Indeed. Why not?
“You’re smitten. I can tell,” Lewis said.
“I wouldn’t go that far.” Instead of hovering over the coffee machine like they usually did, Ash had gone into Lewis’s office to process the weekend. She was also underplaying how she felt, because it made her feel so ridiculous.
“Ever heard of body language, darling?” Lewis eyed her intently. “You don’t have to say it for me to see it.”
“Aren’t you a regular Sherlock Holmes.” Lewis made sure he always stood out, but with his shiny suits and gleaming shoes, he seemed to sparkle even more on what was quite the dreary Monday morning. It could only be due to Ash’s perception of him—and everything else around her.
Lewis tapped a few times on his keyboard and looked at his computer. “You have seventeen days of leave carried over from last year, that is on top of this year’s quota.” He shot her a mock-steely glance again. “You’re making me look bad by not taking the days off you are allowed, Ash. Like I make you work night and day for me.”
“You don’t have to convince me. I’ll take a day. This week or next week. Or both.” Ash was feeling frivolous. “I just need to check with Gloria when would suit her most.”
“Good.” Lewis nodded, then his expression turned. “Are you ready for my news now?”
“Always, darling.” Ash could have perhaps thought of taking a day off herself. That it hadn’t occurred to her spoke volumes about how rarely she took leave.
“Jonathan and I were in this new bar in Kensington on Saturday. This posh new place with chandeliers hanging from the ceilings and the plushest armchairs you’ve ever had a cocktail in. We were trying out the house cocktail, it’s called a Paloma, and it’s truly delicious, although quite lethal…” He waved his hand dismissively, as if knowing he was getting away from the point he was trying to make. “Anyway, we were sitting there, minding our own business, as we do. You know what we’re like, darling. When suddenly, out of nowhere, Charlotte turns up in front of us.”
Ash did a double-take. “Charlotte?” It wasn’t inconceivable. Charlotte was living in London.
Lewis nodded. “She wasn’t alone, Ash. And the woman she was with, was not a friend, if you catch my drift.”
Why did it feel as though someone had just punched all the air right out of Ash’s lungs?
“How do—d—did you know?” Ash tried to stabilise her emotions by taking a deep breath—as if that ever really worked. During the divorce proceedings, she’d taken so many deep breaths, she must have amassed enough oxygen in her lungs to last her a lifetime.
“Because she told me,” Lewis said calmly. “Made no bones about it either. She seemed… I don’t know. Almost proud that she could tell me.”
“Was she off her face, at least?”
“Hard to say.” Lewis planted his elbows on the glass top of his desk. “But I thought you should hear it from me. In fact, if you need to take today off, feel free…”
Take the day off to do what? Try to find out who Charlotte was seeing? “Hell, no. I’m working.” Ash tapped the tip of her foot against the leg of her chair. “Was it someone you’d seen before?”
Lewis shook his head.
“What did she look like?”
“Like any other lesbian,” Lewis said on a sigh. “I don’t know. She had nothing on you, Ash. Nothing.” He emphasised the last word.
“It’s fine. It’s completely fine. We’re divorced. She can go out on the town with whoever she wants.”
“Maybe it’s good that you’re both moving on.” Lewis was tapping his foot now as well, making Ash aware of what she was doing, so she stopped. “You are both moving on, aren’t you?”
“I have no fucking clue what I’m doing.” Ash tried to tune into the warm glow being with Gloria all weekend had left under her skin, but it seemed to have dissipated.
“Let me tell you what to do then.” Lewis’s voice was uncharacteristically warm. “Call your lady friend. Set a date. Go see her. Be merry again.” He opened his palms as if he’d just solved a huge problem—as if it was that easy.
“Thanks for telling me.” Ash got up.
“I’m available for drinks tonight,” Lewis said, as Ash exited his office.
The first thing she did after she sat at her desk was text Gloria.
Chapter Thirty
Gloria was studying the different kinds of ground coffee her local Sainsbury’s offered. She’d drunk the same brand of coffee for years, for decades, but after tasting the coffee Ash had made for her with her fancy machine, she thought she’d try something new. From the corner of her eye, she noticed a familiar figure push a trolley past the end of the aisle.
Gloria put back the pack of coffee she’d been holding and hastily shoved her trolley in the opposite direction she’d just seen Mary head into. After the weekend she’d had, Ash’s mother was the last person she wanted to see. Whatever would she reply if Mary inquired about her weekend? Gloria wouldn’t be able to keep a straight face.
She reached the end of the aisle and looked left and right. Mary was near the freezers on the left side of the shop, so Gloria took a quick right. She hadn’t finished her shopping yet and Sindhu and Fiona were coming over for dinner tonight. Then her phone beeped in her purse. She had to find a safe space where Mary couldn’t see her before she retrieved her phone.
The cold hard light of the day had not come with the reality check Gloria needed just yet. Her body was still awash with residual hormones brought on by a weekend of sex. Gloria had woken to find certain body parts pulsing for no apparent reason, while others felt a bit tender from so much activity after such an extended drought.
That reality check came now, under the glaring, unrelenting lights of the supermarket, Mary roaming about somewhere close to her. Although she’d been the one to recklessly claim that if it was meant to be between them, it would work out, Gloria was very much convinced that nothing could ever work out between her and Mary’s daughter. Because, right now, Ash wasn’t the woman she’d spent the weekend having the most glorious sex with. She was very much Mary’s daughter. And that was simply not what you did with a friend’s daughter, no matter how mature and consenting they were.
Gloria decided to ignore the text and not waste any time. She needed to get out of the supermarket and get her car loaded before Mary turned up in the car park. If it was an urgent matter with one of the girls, they would call instead of text. At least, that was what she always asked them to do, despite her girls being of a generation raised on text messages. A ringing phone seemed almost like an affront to them, something alien and not to be taken into account.
God. Her girls. Gloria tried not to think of either of them taking up with one of her friends. She quickly filled her trolley, not caring too much if she forgot something. There was always frozen pizza. Sindhu and Fiona might frown up
on her unimaginative food choice, but she was sure they would be far more disapproving over what Gloria was intending to tell them later that night. Because she had to tell someone. Sindhu would ask about it.
Oh bugger, here she was ready to fall apart in the dairy aisle. Every time she heard someone behind her, she cast a furtive glance, hoping it wasn’t Mary catching up with her. She tried to look relaxed as she nodded at a few people she knew, made a bit of small talk about the weather with the lady at the till, all the while hoping to avoid the reckoning that would come if she had to face Mary.
When she was finally safe in her car and had driven out of the car park, she hurried home. Only in the driveway, did Gloria relax her shoulders and expel a deep breath. Mary had invited her to her sixty-fifth birthday party and this was how Gloria thanked her? By going up to London to sleep with her daughter? Gloria was beginning to wonder what had come over her. How on earth had she ended up in Ash’s flat?
With a sigh, she reached into her bag and grabbed her phone. It was a text from Ash. Gloria closed her eyes. It had been easy enough to push reality aside while in the safe and very sultry confines of Ash’s home, but now, back in Murraywood, everything was different. Gloria couldn’t deal with Ash’s message right now. She needed a cup of tea first. And another cold shower, perhaps. And to never run into Mary or Alan again.
“What?” Fiona twirled the stem of her wine glass nervously between her fingers—maybe because it didn’t contain any wine. Neither Sindhu nor Fiona had brought a bottle tonight. Gloria could only assume that, after last week, Sindhu had told Fiona that it would be better for them not to drink in front of Gloria. It had happened before, since Gloria had joined AA, where she had asked her friends to refrain from drinking around her, but not very often, and there had always been an underlying reason. “Can you say that again, please? I’m not sure I understood correctly.”
Sindhu elbowed Fiona in the arm. “Come off it.”
“What? You already knew and you didn’t even tell me,” Fiona said.
“I didn’t know this had happened.” Sindhu sounded vexed. “But I’m happy that it has.”
“I miss one dinner and this is what goes on?” Fiona shot Gloria an incredulous look.
“You missing dinner had nothing to do with it,” Sindhu said.
Gloria let them fight it out amongst themselves. She was happy Sindhu was taking the heat for her—she’d let her do so for a few minutes longer. Until Fiona had calmed down a bit. They bickered a while longer, then fell silent.
Gloria shifted in her chair. The small of her back still felt a bit strained from bending towards Ash so many times over the weekend. It was a pleasant ache. One that reminded her of how things could be, if there was no one around to judge.
“Does that mean you’re a lesbian now?” Fiona asked.
Gloria chuckled. It was a question she had asked herself. Could one weekend with another woman turn you into a lesbian? She shook her head, because the question was valid but also irrelevant. She could just picture how Janey would roll her eyes at someone saying something like that. Good heavens. Janey. No matter how open-minded and fluid and averse to labels today’s youth might be, Gloria’s daughters could never find out about this.
“I really don’t think so,” Gloria said.
“But you enjoyed it?” Fiona asked.
“Oh, yes.” Gloria couldn’t keep the glee out of her voice. “It was just…” Either she couldn’t describe how it had felt to be with Ash, or she didn’t want to. It was their thing, their shared intimacy. “It was like a dream.” It was as near to bloody perfect as you could get. “I mean, it was real,” Gloria mused. “But, in a way, it also wasn’t real. Like we were trapped in a bubble where that sort of thing was made possible, just for forty-eight hours, until it inevitably burst.”
Because Gloria’s bubble had well and truly burst, which was why she hadn’t responded to Ash’s text yet. She wanted to take a day off this week and come to Murraywood to spend more time with Gloria. Gloria wanted nothing more than to see Ash again, but she wasn’t sure she could do it in Murraywood. She also had a busy week at work. She supposed she could go back and forth to London—so many people commuted into the City every single weekday—but she wasn’t sure that she should. She wasn’t sure she should postpone the inevitable. Their return to reality. “I saw Mary at Sainsbury’s this morning. Or no, I didn’t see her, because I hid from her. I slinked around the aisles like a fugitive hiding from the police because I didn’t want to talk to her. This woman who has been my friend for decades. It wasn’t a pleasant feeling.”
“Oh, shit,” Sindhu said. “She didn’t see you?”
“I don’t think so.” Gloria sure as hell hoped not. “But it was just such a brutal reality check.”
“Okay, let me get this straight,” Fiona said. “You spent the weekend having sex with Ashley Cooper, Mary and Alan’s daughter.”
Gloria groaned. When Fiona put it like that, it sounded so awful, so crude, so unlike the time she and Ash had actually had together.
“Are you saying that you regret it?” Fiona continued.
“I don’t regret it.” It was physically and emotionally impossible to regret a weekend like that. “But I don’t think it should be repeated. The ramifications are too… I don’t know. I don’t want to be that kind of person in Murraywood. For years, I’ve been George’s poor widow. Now that I’m finally just Gloria again, I don’t want to be the person who ran off with the Coopers’ daughter.”
“You make it sound as though Ash is a young and impressionable thing,” Sindhu said. “She’s in her forties. Very much a grown woman capable of making her own decisions.”
“But still,” Fiona said, voicing Gloria’s thoughts exactly.
“Murraywood is where I’ve lived my entire life. It’s where I work. Where George and I built a life together and where my girls have grown up. I’m inextricably linked to this town. Can you see me walking across the town green with Ash on a Sunday afternoon? Hand in hand?” Gloria scoffed. “On our way to Mary and Alan’s for tea?” She threw up her hands in defeat.
“You’re looking far into the future tonight,” Sindhu said.
“It’s the only way.” Gloria sagged in her chair.
“How does Ash feel about all this?” Fiona asked.
“She texted me earlier to ask if and when she could come over this week.” Gloria glanced at her phone, which lay untouched on the sideboard. “She wants to take a day off to spend time with me.”
Sindhu’s eyebrows rose almost to her hairline. “She’s keen.”
Gloria nodded and it was hard to ignore the small pang of pride rushing through her.
“She’s actually falling for you?” Fiona asked.
“Is that so surprising?” Sindhu sounded very offended. “We are women in our prime.”
“As long as we get a fresh hormone patch every week,” Fiona said matter-of-factly. “Is that what this is? Maybe you need to get your levels checked, Gloria.”
“Maybe.” Gloria had no intention of doing so. “I don’t know what to do.”
“Do you want to see her again?” Sindhu asked.
“Of course I do, but it’s not a good idea. The longer we keep seeing each other, the harder it will be to end it.”
“You’re absolutely sure you want to end it?” Fiona’s question surprised Gloria.
“No, I’m not. But what’s the alternative?”
“See how things shake out,” Sindhu said. “At least let her come to Murraywood. See how it makes you feel.” She inclined her head. “If you end it now, you won’t have really given it a chance.”
“You and your words,” Gloria said. “You can make anything sound reasonable.”
“No, I really can’t. I understand that you’re conflicted about this. It would worry me if you weren’t. But, Gloria, the light is fully on in your eyes, and, as your friend, it is such a pleasure to behold.”
“True,” Fiona said. “Actually… I noticed
you were walking a bit strangely earlier when you brought the food to the table?” She thought this so hilarious that she slapped a palm against her thigh.
“Maybe it’s not as impossible as you think it is,” Sindhu said.
“Maybe…” Gloria paused. “It’s strange, because, over the weekend, it was mostly Ash who expressed her doubts about this. Like she was several steps ahead of me already. I didn’t want to think about any of this when I was in London. Maybe it was easier for me, because I went to her. I was away from here, where I feel I’d be judged in an instant, and she was in her home. I don’t know.”
“Let her come here,” Sindhu repeated. “See what happens.”
“And keep us posted.” Fiona seemed to be coming around to the idea of Gloria and Ash together. But that was all it could be to her right now. An idea. Until she saw Gloria and Ash together. How would she react then? Gloria could speculate all she wanted, but she actively put a stop to it. Since coming back to Murraywood, her speculations had become more negative than positive, and she wanted to hold on to the lovely memories she and Ash had made a while longer. For all she knew right now, it might be all they’d ever have together.
Chapter Thirty-One
On Tuesday evening, Ash packed a bag and took the train to Murraywood. Gloria would be home around nine and Ash would be waiting for her. The train to Murraywood was half-empty. Most commuters were safely home already.
On the train, she listened to Gloria’s favourite song on repeat. Even though she was well aware it was an action worthy of a lovesick teenager wanting to feel closer to the person they had a silly crush on, Ash didn’t care. And maybe that’s what this was. After her marriage, maybe she had some regressing to do. Some teenage lust to channel.
