by Jo Watson
“Hi! Can we please have a box of—” I stopped talking when I saw the strange look that had washed over Mike’s face. He’d gone white and his eyes were as wide as saucers, as if he’d seen a ghost. Who the hell was he looking at?
CHAPTER 16
“Michael.”
I swung around when I heard the voice. It was coming from an older-looking lady. She stood next to us, clutching a shopping bag.
“Mrs. Devereux,” Mike said sweetly, and then looked over at me in panic. “This is my primary-school teacher, Mrs. Devereux,” he said, very pointedly. It took a few moments for my brain to click. Excuse me for being somewhat slow, but my brain had been very much occupied with something else entirely.
“Oh! Oh!” I said. “Nice to meet you.”
“I was also his grandmother’s best friend,” she added. “I used to change his diapers when he was a baby, if you can believe it.”
I looked at Mike as his face went slightly red, and I tried to bite back a smile. “You don’t say.”
“And who might you be, dear?” she asked me.
“Sorry, this is Becca,” he jumped in quickly.
“Becca.” She extended her hand for me to shake. “So nice to see Michael with a lady friend. It’s been ages since he’s been seen with a female companion. Well, not since April, anyway.”
“Uh . . . Well, it’s only just May, so that’s not very long ago,” I said.
She burst out laughing. “Oh, you are a funny one. I meant April the girl, not the month.”
“Mrs. Devereux, please, I’m sure Becca doesn’t want to hear about that now,” he said, shaking his head a little.
“Took him by complete surprise, that did. Took us all by surprise. I mean, half the town was sure they would get married, but, as it turned out, she fancied someone else altogether. If you ask me, she was always a little cold. But her father was Swiss, you know.” She whispered that last part, as if it had some great significance. And then she leaned in and lowered her voice even more. “Very strict people, the Swiss, what with their watches!”
“Aaaah,” I said, trying to figure out whether I agreed with this sweeping assessment of an entire nation. I looked over at Mike and he rolled his eyes.
“There are no secrets in this place,” he said, half under his breath.
She looked at me and smiled. “He’s been quite the most eligible bachelor in town since she broke his heart, all those years ago.”
“He is, is he?” I tried to stop my smile again.
“No.” Mike shook his head at me again. “Not true.”
Mrs. Devereux nodded. “Turned into such a good man, despite the fact he was a terror as a child.”
“Really?” I asked.
She nodded. “So misbehaved in class. And, when he was a teenager, he had the whole town talking when he and his friends drew some rather obscene graffiti . . .” She leaned in and whispered to me. “It was a big, purple phallus. Right on Anthony Hopewell’s front wall. He nearly had an angina, the poor soul. He’d only just had his other hip done, you know.” She shook her head and then tutted loudly. “Mind you, maybe he deserved to have it. You know, he left his poor wife Violet for his physiotherapist . . .” She leaned in even closer to me now and looked around, as if making sure no one was listening. “She was from the Channel Islands. The mistress.”
I looked at her and she eyeballed me as if I was meant to know what that meant. As if I was meant to understand what being from the Channel Islands had to do with any of this. I had no idea, but I started nodding, anyway. “Well, you know what they say about people from the Channel Islands,” I offered up, lamely.
And then she winked at me. “Oh, I do know, dear,” she said.
“You do?” I asked. What do they say about people from the Channel Islands?
And then she put her finger over her lips and made a shushing sound. “We’ll keep that to ourselves, though, won’t we, dear?”
I nodded again. “We sure will.” I quickly made a mental note to google people from the Channel Islands.
“Yes,” she said, looking back at Mike, “he was quite the naughty one, growing up, but look at him now.”
I gazed at Mike. He was hanging his head now, looking embarrassed.
“Sounds like he was quite the rebel!” I said.
“Oh, he was.” She looked over at the man behind the counter. “Sorry, I disturbed you. You were busy buying a box of . . . ?” She looked at us, and Mike quickly jumped in.
“Cigarettes!” he said, still sounding somewhat panicked. He looked over at me, as if he wanted me to confirm this. I nodded.
“Michael Charles Wooldridge!” Mrs. Devereux suddenly grabbed a magazine from her basket, rolled it up and hit him on the arm.
“Does your mother know you smoke now?” she scolded him, and his demeanor changed a little, as if he was a small boy again. I put my hand over my mouth to stop the chuckle from escaping. “Your grandmother would be rolling in her grave if she knew you were sucking on those cancer sticks! Rolling in her grave!”
“They’re for me,” I interrupted.
She turned around and looked at me with that scolding teacher look. “Young lady!” she exclaimed loudly. “And does your mother know you’re smoking?”
I hung my head in shame, playing along. “No, she doesn’t.”
“You know those things will kill you,” she said, eyeing me. “Just last week, Laura Jacobs was diagnosed with lung cancer, and she smoked for forty years! She smoked through all five of her pregnancies, too, you know.” She leaned over to me. “Of course, no one knew it was bad for you then, like drinking Scotch. Everyone did it!” She paused now, and it looked like she was thinking about something. “Mind you . . . her one son did come out very short. Very short indeed.”
“I see,” I said, trying not to smile at this strange oversharing.
“He’s also quite unfortunate looking, but I’m not sure that’s from the cigarettes. But you can’t really tell, can you?” she added.
“Can’t tell,” I echoed.
“And his father was such a tall, strapping man. But, still, one never knows what causes these things. It might be the cigarettes, so best not to smoke them, right?” She glared at me.
I nodded. “Sure. Best not to smoke them,” I agreed.
“You’re absolutely right,” Mike said. “And that’s why she’s going to quit.” He took my hand. “Isn’t that right, Becca?” he said, turning to ask me.
“So right!” I said. “I am definitely quitting! I wouldn’t want short or unfortunate-looking children.”
“Good for you!” Mrs. Devereux exclaimed happily.
Mike tugged on my arm. “So, we’d better get you out of here, away from all this temptation.”
I nodded as he dragged me out of the shop.
“It was really nice seeing you again,” Mike said to his old teacher as we made our way towards the door.
“You too. You must come over for biscuits soon, and please bring your lady friend. You are most welcome.” She gave me a toothy grin.
“Thank you,” I said, as Mike pulled me out of the store and into the parking lot. “What are you doing?” I asked him.
“Well, I can’t buy a box of condoms in front of my primary-school teacher, now, can I!” he said.
I burst out laughing. “Who used to change your diapers,” I added, teasingly.
“You see my dilemma.” He looked over at the shop. “We’ll have to wait for her to leave, and then you’d better go in by yourself.”
“Why by myself? In case someone else who used to change your diapers is shopping there?”
“Exactly!” he said.
“Just how many people changed your diapers?” I asked, feeling so amused by all this.
He rolled his eyes at me. “It takes a village to raise a child.”
“Clearly,” I said, and started laughing again.
“Please, just go in by yourself. I know everyone in this town and I’d like to try to maintain some
iota of privacy—for example, by not having the whole town knowing when I’m getting laid.”
I laughed. “You’re getting laid?”
“Well, I assumed I might.” He smiled at me. “Unless I’ve read the woman signs wrong again?”
“No, you read them right. But, if you call it laid, you might just not get laid.” I smiled at him, and his smile widened even more. There was something about his ability to go from sexy-filthy, to boyish-cute in a matter of seconds. And it was making my knees very weak.
“Sure, I’ll go in by myself,” I said to him.
“Thanks.” Cue boyish-cute smile again. “When you live in a small town, nothing is sacred, not even your sex life. People in small towns survive on gossip and rumors, and like to spread them as if it was the town hobby. And I wouldn’t want this spreading and being discussed by everyone. Next thing you know I’m—”
“I’m your mistress from some chain of small oceanic islands somewhere, with questionable Swiss heritage and a bad hip,” I teased.
“Exactly. And we wouldn’t want that,” he said, playing along.
I shook my head. “No! We would not want that kind of scandal spreading here, in Willow Bay.”
He smiled at me and then sighed. “Do you know how cute you are?”
“Cute!” I exclaimed . “Um . . . is that a compliment, or a . . . I mean, cute? Puppies and kittens are cute!”
“Compliment. Terribly cute.”
Cue sexy-filthy smile.
Cue kneecaps turning to liquid and pooling on the floor.
“And fucking sexy, with red lipstick on!”
“I’ll . . . um . . . just go into that shop now . . . should I?” I stumbled over my words as his eyes searched me.
He gave me another smile and walked off, throwing a sexy-sounding, “I’ll be ready and waiting in the car!” at me.
CHAPTER 17
I lurked in the parking lot for a while, until finally, finally, after what felt like hours, Mrs. Devereux exited with a wave and I quickly slipped back inside and straight to the counter.
“Hi,” I said to the man once more. “Please can I have a pack of condoms?” And then I felt my cheeks flush. He knew I was about to have sex! And he knew that I knew that he knew. It was embarrassing. Like going to the pharmacy and having to ask for a vaginal cream when there are people standing behind you in the queue and you want to turn around and scream, I was on antibiotics! so they don’t make some strange assumption about you.
“What kind?” he asked, pointing at the MASSIVE row of them.
“Uh . . . wow!” When had condoms bred like this? I hadn’t bought condoms in years. Call me very unfeminist, but I sort of expected the guy to handle that, since we have so many other ovary-related things to deal with—it’s the least they can do, right?
I scanned the row: ribbed, studded, warming, kiss of mint, glow in the bloody dark (why? In case you were having trouble finding it?), bareback, long love, fire and ice (well, that didn’t sound nice). I stared at them, feeling confused.
“And what size?” the man asked.
“Size?” I asked.
“We have XL, if you need?” He seemed so casual about this, as if he did it all the time.
“Uh . . . Uh . . .” I stuttered. I didn’t really know. “Can you just hold that thought a moment, please?” I held my finger up and then ran out the store, across the lot, and knocked on Mike’s window. He opened it.
“So,” I said nervously, when he looked at me, “I was wondering, uh, what type you would like? I mean, there are A LOT! I mean, lots.”
“What do you like?” he asked.
“Normal,” I said quickly. “Totally normal.”
He smiled at me. “Me too.”
“Great, great.” I started walking away and then stopped again. “And, uh, what size?” I asked nervously.
He sat up in his seat and his eyes widened. “I guess . . .” He suddenly looked very uncomfortable. Damn, it was cute. “Normal,” he quickly said.
“So, average then?” I asked.
“Well, no. NO, not average-average, I would say. Maybe, uh, a—”
“So, XL then?” I cut him off.
“I wouldn’t say . . . XL.” He looked so uncomfortable as he squirmed in his seat. “Maybe more medium to large, but more on the, uh, uh . . .” He leaned out the car and whispered now. “Can’t you tell?” he asked, looking at my hand. It tingled at the memory.
I looked down at it and then back up at him. “So, like, six inches then?” I asked, with a teasing smile.
“Well . . .” He cleared his throat. “I’m sure it’s a bit more than avera- . . . but, I suppose that six to seven, maybe, should do the, uh, trick.”
“The trick, eh?” I smiled at him and started backing away from the car. All this talk was making my temperature rise very rapidly again.
He smiled back at me. Slightly boyish, a little bit dirty. “Maybe trick wasn’t the right word.”
“Mmm, and what’s the right word?” I continued walking backwards towards the store.
“God, you’re hot.” He ran his eyes up and down my body—slowly, deliberately, hungrily. Oh God! His smile grew and my stomach started to flutter.
“Okay, okay, hold that thought! Hold it!” I giggled and then ran straight back to the convenience store.
“Hurry!” he called after me.
“Hurrying!” I bolted into the shop at such a speed that, when I stopped at the counter, I did a little skid.
“Those ones!” I pointed. “Hurry!”
CHAPTER 18
“What the . . . ?”
I stood in the parking lot and looked around. There wasn’t a car in sight. Nothing. Nada. No car and no Mike. I swung around to make sure I hadn’t missed some parking lot behind me that had suddenly come out of nowhere and magically appeared with his car in it.
But, as I suspected, there wasn’t one. I could feel the packet of condoms burning a hole in the palm of my hand.
“You’re kidding me!” I threw my hands in the air. “You. Are. Fucking. Kidding. Me!” Had I just been stood up? It’s one thing being stood up on a date, but to be stood up in the almost-middle of almost-sex, for heaven’s sake, with a bag of prophylactics in your hands—well, this was just a whole new level of embarrassment.
Wait . . . Maybe he was parked on the street, to avoid being seen? I walked through the lot and looked up the street. Nope. I looked left and right, and left again. He’d stood me up. The bastard had gotten me all hot under the collar and then had just dumped me, with a box of condoms in my hand! He definitely wasn’t XL, that’s for sure. Someone who was XL would have had the balls, not to mention decency, to tell me they were leaving. That they had changed their mind.
I stood there for a few moments, trying to decide what the hell to do with myself now. I could see my hotel from where I stood, so I guessed the only thing to do was to walk back. I sighed. Turned around. Tossed the box of condoms in the trash can and then walked back to the shop, dragging my feet behind me. I opened the door and the little bell rang out again.
Great! Just announce my arrival. Announce the arrival of the girl not having sex right now!
I strolled to the first aisle and grabbed a few things: some chocolate to dull the humiliation, a biscuit or two to push down the feelings and, last but not least, salty crisps to rub in my gaping wound. I walked up to the counter and put my stuff on it. The man, who had, two minutes ago, sold me a box of condoms, looked up at me questioningly.
“I think I just got stood up,” I said, pulling some cash from my wallet and sliding it over the counter.
“What can you do, right?” the man said, as he rung my stuff up slowly on one of those old cash registers. Why didn’t he have a fast one that scanned the stuff? It was painful, standing there in silence as he pressed the buttons with one finger. “You know,” he said, looking up at me, “my son is a doctor. He lives in Cape Town.”
“Huh?” Was this man serious? Was he trying to set me up
with his son, at a moment like this?
He stopped ringing my things up and pulled out his phone, and then handed it over to me. I took it and looked at the picture on the screen.
“Mmm,” I mumbled. “Very . . . He looks . . . uh . . . like a doctor,” I finally managed, after not knowing what I was meant to say to this.
And then he leaned over the counter and whispered, “And he’s never painted a purple you-know-what on someone’s wall. That poor man, he’d just had his knees done—”
“I thought it was his hip,” I interrupted.
He shook his head. “No, it was his wife who got the new hip. If you ask me, she only got it done because she was having an affair with his chiropractor.”
“I thought it was his physiotherapist? And wasn’t he the one having the affair?” I said flatly, leaning on the counter now.
He shook his head again. “No, she had the affair. She was from the Canary Islands, you know.”
“I thought it was the Channel Islands.” I hung my head and shook it. What was wrong with the people of this town? Did none of them have anything better to do than know everyone’s business?
“Definitely Canary. She was as mad as a bird.”
“She was, was she?” I sighed deeply, taking it all in. How had I gone from almost having hot sex, to having a discussion about someone’s decrepit hips and knees and a woman who may or may not have been from some island?
“And you know what they say about people from the Canary Islands,” he said, and continued ringing my items up.
“Mmm. I sure do,” I lied. The people of Willow Bay were definitely a bit strange!
Finally, after what seemed like an eternity of hell, he put all my snacks into a bag and handed it over to me.
“Thanks,” I said dryly, and started heading for the door again.
“Good luck with the . . . uh . . .” he said.
I gave him a thumbs up, walked out the shop and stood in the empty parking lot again. I walked across it and jumped as a blast of bright light hit me. I turned and looked straight at all the motion-activated security lights.
