by Alice Ross
‘Yes?’
Faye balked. When she’d left home, she’d thought she looked pretty cool in her cut-off denims and halter-neck top. Now, though, she felt like a blustering, blushing school kid.
‘Er, hi,’ she blustered. ‘I’m Josie’s friend, Faye. Josie invited me over for …’
‘Oh. Right. Just a minute.’ The woman didn’t wait for Faye to finish. She spun around on four-inch gold heels, and stalked across the black and white tiled floor of the hall, coming to a standstill at the bottom of a winding marble staircase.
‘Josie,’ she hollered up the stairs. ‘Someone to see you.’
Still hovering in the open doorway, Faye watched, entranced, as the woman then turned to a full-length gilded mirror, inspected her lipstick, and whisked off down a corridor.
Josie appeared a few seconds later, wearing shorts and a bikini top.
‘Hi,’ she said. ‘Sorry about that. Mum’s in a bit of a bad …’
Faye’s eyes grew wide. ‘That was your mum?’
‘Ah ha. Should we go straight down to the pool?’
Despite having been dying to see the pool all day, Faye had no desire to go there now. She wanted to stay in the house. And observe the vision that was Josie’s mum.
‘It’s the perfect place to escape from Mum,’ said Josie, as if somehow reading Faye’s mind. ‘I don’t know what’s up with her. She’s been in a foul mood for days so I’m trying to keep out of her way. You ready for a swim?’
‘Can’t wait,’ Faye heard herself replying.
The swimming pool at Buttersley Hall was every bit as impressive as Faye had imagined. Yet, despite its imposing proportions, and the fabulous setting of lush lawns, two professional-looking tennis courts, and the gloriously warm September evening, it was still Josie’s mother who held Faye’s interest.
‘What does your mum do?’ she asked, when Josie surfaced for air after swimming two full lengths under water.
‘Nothing,’ Josie replied, wiggling a finger in her ear. ‘She used to work as cabin crew for one of the big airlines before she met Dad and had me.’
‘She looks really … young,’ Faye said. Silently adding a stream of other adjectives, including gorgeous, stunning, amazing …
‘She’s thirty-seven. She had me when she was twenty. What does your mum do?’
Faye rolled her eyes. ‘Panders to my hideous brother’s every need. And nags me about stupid, boring things like I haven’t eaten any vegetables, and I should be doing my homework.’
Josie giggled. ‘She sounds nice. I’d like to meet her.’
Over my dead body, Faye resisted saying. How could she possibly take Josie back to Primrose Cottage when she lived in this demi-palace with a supermodel for a mother? Honestly. Life just totally wasn’t fair.
‘I’m starving,’ she announced. ‘Should we go and order some pizzas?’
‘Okay,’ agreed Josie.
Sitting at the island in the enormous kitchen at Buttersley Hall a few minutes later, swathed in a fluffy black towel, Faye eyed her surroundings approvingly. The sleek white units were enhanced with every in-built shiny, chrome appliance ever invented. Even the tap was uber-trendy, with several other gadgets hanging off it. This was the kind of kitchen Faye would love, not the washed-out green-oak effort at Primrose Cottage.
‘This kitchen is awesome,’ she said to Josie, who was sitting at the opposite side of the island, slicing strawberries for their smoothies.
‘It’s a total waste,’ huffed Josie, shaking her head. ‘It only ever gets used when Dad’s at home now. And that’s like never.’
‘Doesn’t your mum cook?’
‘Not these days,’ replied Josie. ‘She used to make some great stuff when I was younger but now she’s hardly ever home.’
Faye’s eyes grew wide. She couldn’t imagine life without her mother trying to ram some ghastly healthy concoction down her throat every evening. Josie really didn’t know how lucky she was. ‘So you can eat whatever you like?’ she asked enviously.
Josie nodded. ‘Which suits me fine, actually. I need loads of carbs for tennis and, since Mum became paranoid about her weight, she wouldn’t touch a carb if her life depended on it.’
‘Unreal,’ sighed Faye, wondering what she must’ve done in a previous life to deserve her miserable fate. Josie seemed to have it made here.
‘Josie, I’m just popping out.’
Faye’s head whipped around to find Josie’s mother standing in the doorway, now wearing tight white jeans and a glittering turquoise vest top.
‘Okay,’ said Josie, tossing the strawberries into the blender. ‘Oh, by the way, Mum. This is Faye Blakelaw. She just moved to the village a few weeks ago. Faye, this is my mum, Miranda.’
Two perfectly made-up, huge brown eyes regarded Faye again. ‘Hi,’ she said, with a fleeting smile this time.
‘Hi,’ gasped Faye, wondering how anyone could look so glamorous when they were just ‘popping out’. And what a gorgeous name. It was so … so … Sex and the City.
‘Oh. And Eduardo said to tell you that he’ll pop by tomorrow to sort out payment for my next block of lessons,’ Josie added.
Miranda’s shiny silver clutch bag fell to the floor.
‘Er, right,’ she muttered, bending down to retrieve it. ‘Well, I’d, um, better be off. I’ll see you later.’
‘Okay,’ said Josie. ‘Have a good time.’
‘Where’s she going?’ Faye asked, as Miranda disappeared in a cloud of expensive perfume.
Josie shrugged. ‘No idea. We used to be really close not so long ago. But now she does her thing, and I do mine.’
And that was the way, Faye discovered, that life operated at Buttersley Hall. Josie did whatever she wanted – and while the things Josie did were not necessarily the things Faye would have done, it all was still mind-blowingly awesome. Meanwhile, Miranda swanned about in fabulous clothes, looking fabulous and no doubt doing fabulous things. And all from their fabulous house with its fabulous pool. It was a gazillion light years away from Faye’s dreary life at Primrose Cottage, where her mother wouldn’t know Prada from Primark, and completely freaked if Faye happened to mention something as mundane as missing a class at college. But, of the two worlds, Faye knew which one she belonged to. Or should belong to. Which was why, ever since that first meeting with Miranda, she’d spent every possible minute at Buttersley Hall, feeding her obsession with the woman. An obsession of a purely educational nature. Miranda was Faye’s ideal role model. And Faye suspected that whatever she learned from her, however covertly, would stand her in much better stead than anything they could teach her at Harrogate Further Education College.
In fact, come to think of it, hadn’t Josie invited her over later that evening if she had nothing on? Faye reached for her mobile and scrolled down until she found Josie’s number. That she might smudge her nail varnish in the process didn’t matter one jot.
Copyright
CARINA™
ISBN: 978-1-4740-5815-5
A Winter’s Wish
© October 2016 Alice Ross
by Carina, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF
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