The Summer of Second Chances

by Maddie Please

  I’d never even read Cosmopolitan, how did I know how to do those things anyway?

  My God, was this what my sister did with Trent?

  Was this what she meant by mind-blowing sex?

  I went cold with horror.

  I wasn’t the woman from last night any more. I was back to being Lottie, the girl who fell into flowerbeds and messed things up. The morning was breaking through the bedroom curtains, casting beams of light onto something glittering beside me on the bedside table.

  I moved the little clock to see what it was. Bonnie’s Koh-i-Noor earrings.

  Of course it was.

  I believed Bryn when he told me he and Bonnie had split up. Perhaps I had fallen for the oldest line in the Boys Book of Seduction. I felt a bit sick, embarrassed as I remembered what we had done, places we had stroked, kissed, licked, nibbled.

  With a small whimper I got out of bed and scrambled to find my things. My bra and T-shirt were in a tangle on the floor, my knickers on the windowsill. There was no sign of my Mickey Mouse socks. My jeans were also nowhere to be seen until I tracked them down outside the bedroom on the landing. Inside out. Then I remembered the frantic way we had pulled at each other’s clothes as we went to his bedroom. He had drawn me down against him halfway up the stairs and pulled my jeans off, I was desperate to feel my skin against his. I groaned at the memory and put my hands to my hot face. Then I got dressed as fast as I could.

  He appeared in the bedroom doorway with two mugs of coffee as I was putting on my trainers.

  ‘Oh.’ His face fell. ‘Are you going?’

  ‘Gosh yes.’

  ‘Why? Please don’t go, Lottie. Come back to bed.’

  ‘I’ve got such a lot to do,’ I said. ‘Things.’

  I couldn’t look at him. I kept having flashbacks. The faintly spicy smell of his skin. The kind softness, the muscled hardness, the warmth of his breath on my neck, the hollow at the base of his throat where I had tasted drops of wine.

  He had gone downstairs to make a snack at 2.30 a.m. when we had both been slicked with sweat, exhausted with lovemaking and yet unwilling to sleep. He had brought back brandy and a plate of toast and he had fed me. I had licked the dripping butter off his body and I had drunk brandy from his mouth as we kissed.

  Oh God Almighty, the taste of him.

  I felt panic and embarrassment rising up in my throat. What must he think of me? He must think I was a right slapper to do the things I had done. All these months I had kept myself in check, no matter how much I might have fancied him. Then the very first time he invited me into his house, I drank his wine, sat in his kitchen, snoozed by his fire and I had ended up in bed with him doing things I had never ever done before.

  God I was low. I was the lowest of the low. But then Ian had cheated on me, hadn’t he? That made a difference, didn’t it? I’d done nothing wrong, had I? I didn’t know what the etiquette was on these occasions. I mean, I wasn’t going to pretend a depth of sorrow I didn’t feel. Was that a sign I was OK? Or was I an insensitive cow?

  Ian hadn’t been dead for a year and I had lusted after and slept with another man. Although there hadn’t been that much actual sleeping involved. Hardly any, if I was honest. Perhaps a couple of hours? On and off. His arm had been round me, holding me close to his side. And all the time Bonnie’s earrings were witness to my behaviour, lying next to me on the bedside table.

  He had spoken words of desire, of need, of wanting me. He had touched every part of me and melted my cold, lonely heart. He had turned me and moved me and moulded my body to his until the air was driven from my lungs and I had gasped his name, sobbing with the depth of my feelings. Not once had he spoken of love.

  He must have lied when he told me that they had split up. Months ago? And yet her earrings were in his bedroom. In my eye line when I woke up, for anyone to see. Perhaps he didn’t care? Perhaps she knew? Perhaps they had one of those open relationships? And what about the business with Greg and their mother? Money had gone missing. Suddenly Bryn was a much less appealing character.

  ‘I have to go home,’ I said, ‘now.’

  I pushed past him and fled down the stairs.

  Next door in Holly Cottage everything was as I had left it, of course. The decorating had not been miraculously finished off by the pixies; yesterday’s washing up remained in the sink along with the stuff from the previous few days. I was a slob. I was both a slob and a tart. A slart.

  I had behaved badly, completely out of character. But if that was the case, why was my whole body tingling? Why did I feel as though I could run across Dartmoor? Why did I want to jump and shout and scream at the top of my voice?

  Why did I want to turn on my heel and throw myself back into Bryn’s arms? For just a moment I allowed myself to imagine myself doing just that. I would meet him as he was halfway down the stairs, his hair still wet from the shower, confused by my sudden departure. I would drag him back into the bedroom; pull his clothes off with trembling fingers…

  I did some desultory tidying up. Trying not to remember how Bryn’s kitchen looked. Trying to concentrate on removing the congealed food stuck to my plates. How did I know he had a particularly sensitive place at the base of his spine?

  Think of something else.

  Anything else.

  I went back upstairs to my bedroom with the intention of slapping paint onto the walls. I stood looking at the latest tub of white undercoat (there had been several) and remembered the day when I had fallen over and Bryn had pulled me to my feet.

  And then I saw you. Covered in paint. And I thought, who is this crazy, beautiful, accident-prone woman?

  Think of something else.

  I even got as far as tipping some paint into the roller tray and then I stopped. A lump of something slopped out in the paint with a splat. I knelt down and prodded at it with the stirring stick, wondering what it was. After a few minutes I reeled back, revolted. It was a dead rat. How the hell had that got in there, the lid was firmly on. I felt sick. Had it drowned in there?

  Then I stood up and made some retching noises. I lifted up the paint tray, nauseated by the weight of the dead animal. I staggered out into the garden and chucked it into the bin. I looked across the garden. Bryn was only next door. Had he seen me? Perhaps he had gone back to bed? Maybe Bonnie had phoned to ask about her chavvy earrings? Perhaps she was coming home and he was changing the sheets, opening the window to rid his bedroom of the reek of sex. Maybe he was thinking about last night’s triumph and smirking. I could almost visualise him carving a notch on his bed head with a huge bowie knife.

  I retreated back into the house and peered out of the front window to see that his truck was still in the drive. I chucked the roller down, grabbed my handbag and car keys and ran out of the house, petrified he would come out and see me. I drove away down the hill, blind to the beauty of the autumn morning. All I could see were Bonnie’s earrings on the bedside table.

  He had lied to me. He had told me a pack of lies and I had believed him.

  I wasn’t even sure where I was going, I just knew I had to get out and away from him.

  Away from Bryn with his wonderful blue eyes, his warm tanned skin, his wide white smile, his strong hands, his mouth on mine. I was going to go mad if I carried on thinking about him.

  Ooops, too late.

  CHAPTER 16

  Geranium – determination

  I drove aimlessly, listening to my mobile dinging triumphantly with the arrival of the usual cluster of text messages and emails. I ignored them until I pulled into Stokeley. There was a promising array of shops I hadn’t investigated before, one of which might well cater for my urgent caffeine deficiency. When I checked my phone there was nothing worth reading. How on earth did we manage in the days before this instant communication of unimportant trivia? But at least my day and succeeding days would be better for knowing that there were new friends waiting for me on the Jolly Bingo website, that there was a fully trained team of concerned experts waiti
ng to help me reclaim PPI and that there was twenty per cent off cruises to the Caribbean. Fat chance.

  I found a bunting-bedecked café nestling between a charity shop and a bank. I ignored the latter, examined the array of autumn dresses in the windows of the former and resisted the temptation to go in.

  The café was a warm, wonderfully scented haven of coffee and bread products and I found a table in the window and ordered a large coffee and a doughnut. A bored-looking girl with turquoise nail varnish and matching eye shadow brought my order and then stood next to me looking out of the window and grimacing at a group of her friends who had stopped outside. I stirred sugar into my coffee and gazed out of the window too. Although I didn’t pull faces at anyone.

  I allowed myself to daydream as I bit into my doughnut.

  Perhaps turquoise-eye-shadow girl would walk out of her job to join the grubby-looking set of teens sitting on the bench outside. Then the café owner, who would be sweet but ditzy, probably because she had adorable one-year-old twins, would offer me a job. And I would become indispensable and her new best friend. Or maybe not.

  Eye-shadow girl went back behind the counter and began re-stacking a perilous heap of Chelsea buns. Chelsea. That rang a bell. Didn’t Bryn do something in Chelsea? I had been so busy removing his clothes I had forgotten to ask.

  What was it? Tuesday? Outside it was an ordinary day, local people were wandering about, stopping to chat, enjoying the sight of a flustered-looking blonde trying to parallel park. Across the road a harassed mother with magenta hair dragged a buggy and two small children out of the sweet shop. I could hear their shouting from inside the café and I expect much of Mid Devon could too. Feeling slightly better, I ordered another large coffee.

  The sun was shining through the bull’s eye glass panes, sending a rainbow of light through the crystal vase onto the white cloth. I moved my left hand so that the colours sparkled across my fingers and then I realised something. My commitment ring. I wasn’t wearing it.

  I couldn’t believe it. I gave a strangled gasp and looked around the table, on the floor, in my pockets, turned out my handbag, but nothing. I knew I had lost weight in the last few months, the ring had been loose, the emerald swivelling around my finger like a pea, but this was the first time it had fallen off. I remembered Susan, the way she had kept her wedding ring on her thin finger with an elastic band. But my ring knew the inner secrets of my heart.

  It knew what I had been up to. It had rejected me. Where the hell was it?

  I went cold at the thought. What if Bryn found it when he went to remake the bed? Would he laugh and put it on the bedside table, pushing Bonnie’s Koh-i-Noor earrings to one side to make room for his latest trophy? Perhaps he had a cupboard somewhere with other similar nicknacks. Someone’s hair band, a particularly saucy pair of red satin knickers, a lacy bra with tassels attached. Good grief, my imagination was in overdrive.

  I dropped to my knees and scrabbled around on the floor, looking for it.

  I had a flashback to the day when Ian had put that ring on my finger. He had patted my hand. You’ll say yes eventually, he said.

  I sat back on my heels. What was I going to do? And how could I start to make my life easier instead of always, always mucking things up?

  I had an appointment with the solicitor tomorrow; perhaps he would be able to update me on the tortuously slow process of settling Ian’s estate and debts. It had been months since he had died; surely it couldn’t take much longer? Could it?

  I stood up, brushing the dust and cake crumbs off my knees, and sat down again. What was I going to do? I was sick of feeling so out of control. I could always go to stay with Jenny in Houston for a while, but I didn’t want to live there. England was and always would be my home. I couldn’t bear the thought of living in a country where the seasons were predictable, where Christmas took second place to Thanksgiving and where cafés didn’t – as this one had – put little cut-glass vases of lavender heads on the table. I rubbed the space where my ring should have been and finished my coffee. I went to pay.

  ‘Did yew find what yew was looking fer?’

  Behind the cake-laden counter, turquoise-eye-shadow girl, identified on her name badge as Gin, took my money and handed over some change. She had been a placid witness to my fruitless search as I grubbed around on the floor pushing dust balls and cake fragments to one side, looking for my ring.

  I shook my head. It wasn’t that I was tearful or upset, I just felt so hideously guilty.

  ‘I’ve lost a ring. I’ve no idea where it could be.’

  ‘It’ll turn up,’ Gin said, brushing crumbs off the front of her overall. ‘I lorst mine in bed once; found it stuck to me old man’s bum. Gawd we laughed! And once I found it down the bottom of the bed. Happens if you’re a restless sleeper. Expect that’s what’s happened to yourn. Pop back in a couple of days, I’ll let you know if I find it. Have a good look when yew gets home.’

  ‘Yes,’ I said, blushing.

  It might well have got lost in the bed, but the trouble is it wasn’t my bed. Possibly that was too much information for Gin, given our short acquaintance.

  I wandered around feeling a bit jittery for a while; perhaps that was my general state of mind – heightened by a huge caffeine and sugar rush.

  There was a small farmer’s market filling the town square and I meandered through the stalls alternately admiring the quality of the local vegetables and marvelling that someone local was still producing legless crochet dolls to cover the spare loo roll. I noticed a small jeweller’s shop, one half of the window filled with second-hand – or as P.D. Smith Esq preferred to describe it, vintage – jewellery. I made a note of the name and phone number and decided that I would return with some of my things. I needed the money after all. And I might just as well sell it as lose it in random strangers’ beds.

  ‘Lottie! Lottie!’

  Someone was calling my name and I turned to see Sophie hurrying through the stalls towards me. She reached my side and after looking at me for a long moment, threw her arms around me and hugged me.

  ‘Are you all right?’ she said at last, suddenly angry. ‘We’ve been worried sick about you. I even phoned up that witch Susan but she wouldn’t tell me anything. I asked Jess and she said you were OK but didn’t want us to make a fuss. Every time I phoned you didn’t answer. Then she and Greg have been away, I think they went to Spain; I haven’t seen them for ages.’

  ‘I told you about the mobile reception, but to be honest, Sophie, I didn’t want to see anyone. Not after…you know.’

  She almost danced on the spot with frustration. ‘No, I bloody don’t know! We’ve been friends for a long time, Lottie. What happened doesn’t change that, you silly cow!’

  I shook my head. ‘I know, yes, I know. I should have…oh I don’t know, Soph, it’s all been such a bloody mess.’

  The tears were very near the surface now. Sophie put an arm round my shoulder and pulled me over to the one bench in the square not filled with smoking teenagers. We sat down and I filled her in on Holly Cottage, the cleaning, the decorating, Trudy, Susan, my imminent visit to the solicitor. All the time she gasped and groaned in all the right places and occasionally patted my hand or rubbed my arm in sympathy. It was really nice.

  ‘It’s all been pretty shit,’ I said as I finished my tale of woe.

  Sophie puffed out her cheeks in a sigh. ‘What will you do next?’

  I shrugged and didn’t answer.

  ‘And you’re sure Jess is selling the house?’

  I nodded. I didn’t trust myself to speak any more.

  ‘So have the estate agents been round? You know, to value the place and measure up?’

  I frowned. ‘No, that’s odd, isn’t it? And it’s been a while. I wonder why not.’

  ‘Perhaps she’s changed her mind,’ Sophie said. ‘Decided not to sell after all.’

  ‘I don’t know. Surely she would have told me?’

  Sophie pulled out a diary and a pen. �
��Write your address and all your bloody contact details here. And don’t be such a twit in future. Come and see us.’

  ‘I’m so ashamed, so embarrassed, I’ve made a complete fool of myself.’

  Sophie looked puzzled. ‘How? Don’t be daft. You have nothing to be ashamed about, nothing to apologise for. We’ve all missed you. There are still public phone boxes. And if you can’t ring you could always write, you know. Postcards, letters, cards. Got the idea?’ She checked her watch and then winced slightly. ‘Bugger, I’ve got to go, I’ve got an appointment with a physio; frozen shoulder.’

  I nodded. I didn’t tell her the latest piece of the story. Bryn. I’d keep that to myself. But I did feel a little bit better about things. Perhaps I wasn’t friendless after all.

  She hugged me and made me promise we’d see each other again soon. Then she dashed off down the street.

  I got back to Holly Cottage late in the afternoon when the sun had set. The evening was chilly and fog was beginning to thicken in the road between the high Devon banks and in the garden. To my fevered imagination it looked as though Bryn – huge and bear-like – might be lurking in the shadows, although his truck was missing from the drive and there were no lights on in his house. I parked my car as far as possible down my driveway, hoping when he returned he wouldn’t notice it, went inside, locked the door and closed all the curtains.

  Inside, I wandered around looking for my ring and feeling wretched. I searched everywhere. That way I could pretend that it wasn’t next door down the back of Bryn’s sofa, or halfway up his stairs, or on the rug under his bed. He might have shaken out the duvet and wondered what had fallen on the floor and rolled out of sight. I expect he would eventually hoover it up and maybe it would block the nozzle, collecting a revolting bouquet of hair and random bits of plastic.