You and Me, Always

by Jill Mansell

  “There’s something else I need to buy.” He saw the confusion in Lily’s eyes. “It’s something for you…a surprise. I won’t be long… Back soon… Oh, and don’t call Coral to say I’m on my way. I’ll surprise her too!”

  “OK.” Bemused, Lily shrugged and watched him back away. As he turned and headed for the car, she called out, “But if my surprise happens to be chocolate truffles, I like milk, not plain.”

  * * *

  You might think there were only a couple of items you needed to buy, but start pushing a shopping cart up and down the aisles of a huge supermarket and it soon started to fill up.

  Then again, wasn’t this why she was here? Having lost her nerve when Lily had cheerfully informed her that Declan was on his way down from London, Coral had felt again the rush of adrenaline she’d experienced at the realization that she was about to come face-to-face with him once more.

  And like a perfectly mature and sensible forty-eight-year-old woman, she’d run away.

  Well, driven away. In an outright panic.

  Which was completely pathetic and ridiculous, because he’d still be there when she arrived home with her grocery bags, but at least this way she had an extra hour to mentally prepare herself for his arrival.

  Pausing in the toilet paper aisle, Coral reached for the sixteen-roll multipack of their usual brand and added it to the shopping cart. Oh God, look at her hands. She stopped to examine them, conscious of Trent’s parting comment last week. Spending so much time in the reclamation yard had always been hard on her nails; she kept them short, unpolished, and workmanlike.

  Had people been raising their eyebrows at her hands for years, inwardly appalled by the sight of her plain, unglamorous nails? Should she maybe head over to where they sold makeup and buy a bottle of nail polish?

  Since procrastination was the order of the day, she wheeled her cart over to the aisle that segued from shampoos and shower gels to shaving equipment, pharmaceuticals, and cosmetics. She was usually in a rush, so it made a nice change to be able to loiter and browse. And goodness, there were so many shades to choose from.

  Two women a bit further along were looking at lipsticks, comparing shades on the backs of their hands. Idly listening in, Coral wondered whether she should treat herself to a lipstick too.

  “Beigey-pink, that’s your color,” the dark-haired woman told her blond friend with an air of authority. “Don’t go for that purply one, whatever you do.”

  Coral paid attention; the woman sounded as if she knew what she was talking about. When they’d moved away from the lipsticks, she would choose a beigey-pink one for herself.

  “Oh my God, what are you buying that stuff for?” The blond one let out a muffled shriek and jabbed her finger at the slim cardboard package she’d just spotted in her friend’s hand. “Eurgh, gross!”

  “It’s OK, calm down.” The brunette laughed. “I don’t have hemorrhoids. You use the cream under your eyes to shrink your bags and tighten the skin. It’s like a miracle, I promise you. A face-lift in a tube! All the top beauty experts swear by it.”

  The blond woman stared at her in disbelief, then turned and clip-clopped back down the aisle. Returning with an identical tube, she brandished it at her friend. “OK, but only because I trust you. You’d better not be fooling with me.”

  Once they’d headed off to the checkout, Coral moved along to the makeup section and chose the beigey-pinkiest of all the lipsticks. Then she selected a nail polish to go with it. Who knew, maybe in the future people would stop shuddering with revulsion at the sight of her naked mouth and fingernails, and life would change out of all recognition.

  Finally she sidled down to the bottom-cream section and picked up a tube of the stuff the two women had bought. Well, if it was as miraculous as it sounded, might as well give it a whirl. She dropped the tube into the cart and covered it with some of the much-nicer-to-look-at bags of fruit and veggies. OK, now it was probably time to pay. This supermarket might stay open until ten o’clock in the evening, but she really couldn’t put off seeing Declan for that—

  “Hi,” said Declan’s achingly familiar voice in her head.

  No, not in her head. Behind her head.

  “Hwargh!” Coral spun around to find him standing right behind her. Oh God, and she’d actually emitted a ridiculous-sounding squawk, like a rugby player doing a war chant.

  “Whoops, didn’t mean to make you jump. You were miles away.” He smiled. “Sorry!”

  She clapped her hand to her breastbone. “It’s OK. You just caught me by surprise. What are you doing here?”

  Which, since he was standing in front of her clutching a security-tagged bottle of Laurent Perrier in each hand, wasn’t the brightest of questions.

  “I’ve just closed on that Georgian property in Kensington. I thought we should celebrate.” He raised his arms, because she evidently wasn’t clever enough to recognize two bottles of champagne when she saw them. “Anyway, how are you? Looking well! It’s good to see you again.” Belatedly he leaned across to greet her with a friendly kiss on the cheek, but the corner of the shopping cart was trapped between them. It promptly ricocheted off Coral’s hip, banged against the supermarket shelving, and sent a piled-up display of cardboard packages careening into her cart and onto the floor.

  Not painkillers. Nor indigestion tablets. Or vitamin pills. Oh no.

  It had to be dozens of packages of condoms, didn’t it?

  “God, sorry again. My fault.” Declan began hastily scooping them out of the cart.

  “Doesn’t matter! It’s fine! Let me do that…” Desperate for him not to delve down and find the Other Packet, Coral took over. “Why don’t you go pay for the champagne?”

  “It’s OK. We’ll go together. I can help you with everything at the checkout. Are you all done?”

  All done? She was overdone. The supermarket had air-conditioning, but she could feel her skin prickling with perspiration as they made their way over to the checkout. While they got in line, Declan said, “Sorry to hear about you and Trent, by the way.”

  “It’s all right. Those things happen. Well, you know that; it happened to you too. You go first.” Coral gestured at the conveyor belt as the customer ahead of them finished paying.

  “Ooh, I say!” The middle-aged cashier beamed up at Declan as she rang up the two bottles. “Someone’s got something nice to celebrate!”

  Declan smiled back and said “I hope so” at the exact moment Coral said “He definitely has!”

  Which caused a bit of confusion. “Oh, sorry,” Coral said. “I thought you said the deal was done?”

  “Ah, yes. That one is.” Declan looked momentarily flustered. “But there’s another one I’m still keeping my fingers crossed for…”

  “I was wrong, then.” As the cashier took his card, she confided, “When customers buy champagne, I always try to guess why. At first when I saw you two together, I thought you were celebrating your wedding anniversary…”

  “We’re not married!” Coral blurted out.

  “…and then I saw you weren’t wearing wedding rings, so I decided it was your birthday, and he was taking you out somewhere lovely for dinner.”

  “It’s not my birthday. We’re just friends.”

  The chatty cashier shrugged, unruffled. “Ah, right. Isn’t that a shame? Oh well, never mind.”

  “Want me to unload your cart for you?” Declan offered.

  “No, I’ll do it! You can help with the packing if you like.” Coral began busily piling things along the length of the conveyor belt. The friendly cashier started scanning the items. Declan filled up grocery bags. While he wasn’t looking, Coral found and deftly removed the tube of hemorrhoid cream from the shopping cart and placed it on the nonmoving side of the conveyor belt beneath a candy rack. Phew, done. She finished the rest of the unloading, then moved the cart to the other end and
began transferring the filled bags into it.

  “Hello? Is this yours?”

  The voice was clipped, authoritative, and boomingly loud. Turning, Coral saw a tall woman in her late sixties brandishing the tube of hemorrhoid cream. Of course she’s brandishing it, because this is my life.

  “No, not mine.” Coral shook her head. “Thanks, though.”

  “Well, I believe it is yours,” the woman persisted. “Because I saw you take it out of your cart. Is it yours, love? What is it?” The friendly cashier reached out an upturned hand for the item. “Want me to scan it?”

  “No, I don’t”—Coral’s voice went a bit high-pitched—“because it isn’t mine. And I don’t know what it is because I’ve never seen it before.”

  It felt as if everyone in the store was now listening to the exchange. Flustered, Coral lifted a bag into the cart.

  “Except you have,” retorted the woman, who clearly had no intention of backing down. “And I’m a GP, so shall I tell you why the fact that you’re denying it makes me so cross? Because you’re ashamed of your own body, that’s why! Too embarrassed to admit you have an intimate problem that some people might find amusing.”

  Oh God, where was a hole in the ground when you needed one to swallow you up? Coral said, “But—”

  “You!” The loud woman pointed an accusing finger at Declan. “Would you still love her if she had hemorrhoids?” As she said it, she put sarcastic air quotes around the word if.

  “Yes,” said Declan. “I would. Of course I would.”

  Coral just wanted to die.

  “Except they aren’t a couple.” The cashier shook her head at the loud woman. “They’re just friends.”

  “And I don’t have hemorrhoids,” Coral protested.

  “Oh, I give up. Some people just don’t want to be helped.” The loud woman dropped her wire basket to the floor with a crash and stalked off.

  “Ah, wasn’t this one great?” The cashier beamed and jerked her thumb at Declan. “Jumping to your defense like he did, saying he’d still love you even if you did have hemorrhoids. What a star!”

  “I don’t have them, though,” Coral said faintly. “I promise.”

  But everyone was looking at her and smirking. Worse still, she knew none of them believed her for a second.

  Having paid for their shopping, Declan removed his credit card from the card reader and said brusquely, “Let’s just get out of here, shall we? Right now.”

  Mortified, Coral felt herself blushing all over again. Oh dear, he’d clearly had enough.

  As they left the store, she blurted out, “I’m so sorry about that… How embarrassing. Look, confession time. I overheard someone saying that stuff was a miracle cure for eye bags… That’s all it was. I should have said so straightaway… I thought I’d give it a try, but then you turned up and—”

  “I meant it,” Declan interrupted her.

  “Oh, sorry. Of course.” All a-fluster, Coral realized he didn’t want to listen to her garbled explanation; he just wanted to be out of here, out of the parking lot, probably well away from her. “Well, look, you can go. I’m fine to unload the cart on my own. My car’s right there—”

  “What are you talking about?” Declan asked.

  “You want to get out of here.” As she steered the cart over to where her car was parked, Coral said with a slightly hysterical laugh, “And who can blame you?”

  “OK, stop.” Declan reached for the handle and brought the cart to a halt. “We’re at cross-purposes here. When that madwoman asked me if I’d still love you, I said yes. Just now, when I said I meant it… Well, that’s what I meant.”

  Coral stared at him. What? Oh. Oh.

  Declan paused too, as if listening to the words that had just come out of his mouth. He raked his fingers through his hair. “OK, I didn’t plan for it to happen quite like this, but I’m saying it now. I’d still love you. I just would. Because…I already do.”

  Coral was trembling. She wanted to ask if this was a joke but knew it wasn’t. All she could say, with a squeak in her voice, was “Really?”

  Declan nodded. “Oh yes, really. You’re amazing. The only reason I bought that cottage was so I’d have an excuse to keep coming down here.”

  Oh God, imagine that.

  “I had no idea. You didn’t say anything.”

  Declan shrugged. “I didn’t know how you felt about me. I thought maybe you weren’t ready for another relationship.”

  “And you had Gail…” she reminded him.

  “I know. I felt bad about that. But she was the one who told me you liked me.”

  “Gail said that? Oh my God! How did she know?” Feeling herself flush, Coral stammered, “I m-mean, she asked me, but I said it wasn’t true.”

  Declan was searching her face for clues. “Was it not true?”

  “Are you kidding? Of course it was true. I was mortified!”

  “So then I finished with Gail, but in the meantime you’d run off to Grimaud.”

  “Hello? Because I was mortified.”

  “And then you met Trent…”

  “Because I was so completely desperate to get over you! Plus,” Coral said, “I was still mortified.”

  “Well, I think you can stop being mortified now.” Declan’s voice softened as he drew her toward him. “I want to kiss you, but I don’t know if I can do it here.”

  “Really? Why not?”

  “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but we’re standing in the middle of a supermarket parking lot. It’s hardly the most romantic setting.”

  “Oh, I don’t know. Feels quite romantic to me,” murmured Coral.

  He broke into a smile and lowered his voice. “Also, people are watching us.”

  She wrapped her arms around him and felt months of fear and anxiety melt away. This, this was what she’d been waiting for. Pausing with her mouth a fraction of an inch from his, Coral smiled back at him. “Good.”

  And it turned out that if you wanted it to be, and if you were with the right person, a supermarket parking lot could be a wonderfully romantic place after all.

  Chapter 50

  It was the last week of October, and autumn had well and truly arrived. But today was a sunny, cloudless day, so Lily was able to see everything. From up here, the leaves on the trees glowed red and gold as if they were on fire.

  “Look over there.” Dan was leaning across, pointing out the window on her side. “Water-skiers on the lake.”

  Lily gave his arm a swipe. “Will you stop looking out the window? Watch where you’re going!”

  “Hey, calm down.” He waggled the wings for a second, just for fun. “This isn’t a car. I can’t steer it off the road.”

  “Well, keep your eye on the instrument panel. I still can’t believe you’re allowed to drive one of these things. And I really can’t believe I’m letting you drive me,” said Lily.

  “You’re being very brave.” He kept a straight face. “Although when it’s a plane, we do tend to call it flying, not driving. That’s the technical term for this up-in-the-air business.”

  It did all look incredibly technical, though. There were so many flight instruments: dials, switches, levers, and different-colored square buttons. Dan had already listed them, rattling off explanations of vertical speed indicators, airspeed indicators, the magnetic compass, and the altimeter. He appeared to know what he was talking about, which was a relief.

  Lily, who had never seen him actually being a pilot before, kept sneaking sidelong glances at this new professional version of Dan, in his crisp, white shirt and dark trousers, with his combed-back hair and aviator sunglasses. No wonder he was being propositioned endlessly by girls.

  The next minute, she clutched the sides of her seat and yelped, “What’s happened? Are we crashing? Oh God…”

  “Will you relax?
We professionals prefer to call it ‘beginning our descent.’ Look, there’s the River Tamar.” Dan was pointing again. “We’re crossing into Cornwall. Not long now before you’re reunited.” He sounded amused. “Try not to make a fool of yourself, OK?”

  “I’ll do my very best.” Lily was used to his teasing now. The view of the press was, naturally, that Eddie Tessler had been the one to end the relationship, and since neither of them had commented on the situation, Dan had played along with it. Whether or not he believed it was another matter.

  “Have some dignity,” he said now. “No bursting into tears and begging him to take you back.”

  “I’ll try not to do that. And in return, can you try to land this plane?”

  “Land it? Oh dear, that could be tricky,” Dan said. “Hang on, let’s see if anyone’s left a manual in the glove compartment…”

  It had been Eddie’s idea to hire Dan for the day. He was currently making a movie in north Cornwall and needed to fly to Paris for a meeting with an Australian producer. As soon as the meeting was over, he’d be returning to Cornwall. Aware that Dan was now fully recovered and back working for the airline, Eddie had asked if he was free that day and able to lease a small plane to take him to France and back.

  Which Dan, with his dreams of one day starting his own charter company, had been only too happy to do.

  And when Eddie had suggested that Lily might like to fly down with Dan and visit the movie set, she’d jumped at the chance.

  She smiled at the sight of Eddie walking toward her. The awkwardness was behind them now, and it was great to see him again after that last afternoon in Stanton Langley back in July. While Dan completed the necessary paperwork in the tiny airport office, Lily gave Eddie a hug. “What have they done to you?”

  “I know.” He ruffled his hair, cut spikily short and dyed white-blond for his role in the movie. “I keep catching sight of myself in mirrors and getting the shock of my life. Yet another reason why being a screenwriter beats acting.”

  They’d kept in touch by text, but Eddie had been vague about that side of things. Lily said, “Did you finish that screenplay, the one that was giving you so much trouble?”