by Hannah Pearl
I shook my head. ‘I guess none of us had much experience back then. It was like kissing a slug. Who tasted like an ashtray. When we pulled back I had to wipe my mouth dry.’
Charmaine groaned, and I decided to spare her from any further details given her delicate state.
‘I saw him the other day,’ she said. ‘I drove past the garage where he works.’ She paused for a moment. ‘Didn’t you say you needed a new tyre for your Mini?’
I nodded, then realised a moment later what she was suggesting. ‘I’m not going to get it there though. Can you imagine how embarrassing that would be? He’d think I was stalking him.’
‘Or, he’d see you looking fabulous and realise what he missed out on, and you might accept that you’re a babe, and it isn’t your fault that you haven’t met the love of your life yet.’
‘It might not be open. It’s a Sunday.’
‘Luckily for you, his is the only garage around here that is open. I guess breakdowns happen every day of the week so today they’ve got no competition.’
‘Lucky me,’ I muttered. Charmaine just grinned at me. ‘Looking fabulous?’
She nodded. ‘I’ll help you,’ she said.
An hour later my hair was washed and hung in a long braid down my back. I was wearing skinny jeans. I’d refused to go into a garage wearing a miniskirt as Charmaine had suggested, but I had agreed that as it was June and quite warm, I’d skip the jacket that I’d wanted to cover up with, and wear a vest top. Tugging up the neck of it and wishing I had chosen something that at least covered my bra fully, I got out of the car.
Immediately two of the mechanics stopped what they were doing and walked over to help. I could hear Charmaine giggling in the passenger seat.
‘My right front tyre keeps going flat,’ I said. ‘I think I have a slow puncture.’
‘You’ve come to the right place,’ the younger man said, wiping his hands on an oily rag and tossing it onto the counter. He ran his hand through his hair, leaving a greasy mark on his forehead. It was almost impossible to talk to him without staring at it.
‘Do you think I need a new one?’ I asked.
‘We might be able to patch it up for a while which is the cheaper option,’ said his mate, doing the buttons up on his overalls to cover his belly, ‘but a new tyre would be safest.’
They began to talk me through the various tyres that they had in stock, and I tried really hard to concentrate on what they were saying, though to me the three choices seemed pretty much identical. ‘I think I’ll just get a new one,’ I told them, mostly so they would stop talking about all the different options.
‘Is Andy in today?’ Charmaine asked, getting out of the car. The last mechanic who had been tinkering under the bonnet on a Ford turned at the sight of my cousin and walked over to talk to us too.
‘He’s just nipped out for a spare part. Should be back any minute. Do you know him?’
‘We used to go to school with him,’ I said. ‘Thought we might as well say hi whilst we’re here.’
The older guy pointed to their office and told us to help ourselves to a cup of tea. ‘You can wait in there if you like. Andy should be back by the time we’ve fitted your new tyre.’
Charmaine and I wandered past the remains of several exhaust pipes and an engine. We looked at the mugs that were stood next to the kettle, but the line of grime around the bottoms put us off using them. If they had been washed this century then they could only have been dried with another of the greasy rags to leave them in this state.
‘Remind me again what we’re doing here?’ I asked her.
‘We’re proving that it isn’t you, it’s them, the guys you’ve been choosing,’ she said, gesturing at the younger mechanic who had his hand between his legs and was currently giving his own personal junk a thorough inspection.
‘Maybe he just has an itch?’ I said.
‘Does that make you any more likely to want to go near him?’ she asked.
I shook my head and hoped that if he couldn’t get his hands out of his trousers soon that he would go to see a doctor.
The car was ready and I was just paying when Andy strolled in. He set a small paper bag on the counter, and his colleague called him over to greet us. ‘Got your mates in, Andy,’ he called out.
Andy walked over, and the first thing I noticed was that although his face remained remarkably unchanged over the last ten years, his hair was already considerably thinner. He wiped his hands on his overall and held one out for me to shake. He licked his lips and I could see the tongue I remembered so well sneaking out. I felt a shiver go down my spine, and not in a pleasant way.
‘Nice to see you again, Evie,’ he said. ‘Good choice of car. A right little goer.’ He winked and my stomach heaved, even though my hangover had long since passed.
‘We just stopped in for a tyre,’ I said. ‘Thought we’d say hi whilst we were here.’
‘I’m almost finished if you fancy going for a drink,’ he said. I could see his tongue poking out of the side of his mouth. It still looked slimy.
I shook my head. ‘Sorry, we’ve got to run, but it was nice bumping into you again.’
I got back in the car and started the engine. Driving us home, I watched Charmaine rocking with laughter.
‘What was so funny?’ I asked.
‘You,’ she said. ‘You couldn’t get away quick enough.’
‘Did you see how he licked his lips when he saw me?’ I asked. ‘I can’t believe I ever went there.’ I shuddered. ‘I could almost see him drool and I’ve had enough of his spit on me to last a lifetime already.’ Even the memory of his kiss made me feel grubby and I wiped my mouth.
We got out of the car and went back up to my flat. Charmaine picked up the notebook and flicked through a few pages. ‘It proves my point though,’ she said. ‘You certainly wouldn’t have chosen to marry Andy, so there wasn’t anything wrong with you that time. Now, who was next in here?’
‘Bill Banks,’ I said, sitting back on the sofa. ‘And he was dreamy.’
‘What happened?’
‘Don’t you remember?’ I asked. She shook her head. ‘He kissed me at the school leavers’ party, then when I saw him at college after the summer holidays he blanked me. I cried on your shoulder for a week about that.’
She began to read from my little black book – or rather from my floral notebook. ‘The party was great, much better than I thought it would be, mostly because I got to make out with Bill! He’s so cute. He’s really tall and strong. I didn’t even know he knew who I was. He’s always busy playing football and yelling at the first years who dare to go near the pitch.’
I cringed at the memory. I’d been so chuffed that he paid me some attention and so crushed afterwards when I realised that I had read more into it than he had meant.
‘There’s an address for him in here,’ she said, showing me the page.
‘I always used to do that, I don’t know why. There’s probably either an address or a phone number, sometimes even a photo, for most of the guys in there.’ The plan to look up my exes had never occurred to me before, and I wondered why I had gone to such lengths to note so many personal details down about them. Perhaps it was just to prove to myself that they were real. I’d been something of a late bloomer where boys were concerned.
‘This is only round the corner,’ Charmaine said, standing up again.
‘Oh no,’ I said, shaking my head. ‘I’ve had enough humiliation for one day.’
‘Don’t you want to check, make sure Andy wasn’t a one-off?’
‘Do you really think chasing a guy who kissed me once at a party a decade ago will help me feel better?’ I asked.
‘There’s only one way to find out.’
Chapter Three
I can’t believe I’m doing this, I thought, as I found myself alone, knocking on the door. I had no idea how I was going to explain to whoever opened it what I was doing. If Bill himself opened the door I wasn’t sure whether I would wet m
yself or run away. Charmaine had been insistent though and I’d folded in the face of her confidence. So I here I was, waiting on the doorstep of a guy I’d fancied for a few weeks when I was sixteen.
I was preparing to apologise when the door opened, and I completely forgot what I’d planned to say. The man standing before me was dressed in jeans and a soft cotton shirt. He had light brown hair, a beard, and bare feet. ‘Yes,’ he said, looking at me. I stared back. He was beautiful. Not handsome exactly, his jawline was hidden by the hair, and his fringe was a little long and kept getting in his eyes. He swept it back out of the way again and looked at me.
‘I live round the corner,’ I began. ‘I was just looking for an old school friend who used to live here when …’ He was the most attractive man I’d seen in a long time, and I found myself getting tongue-tied. Kicking myself for being so awkward, I was about to try again. ‘I’m—’
My explanation was interrupted when a small blonde child appeared and gripped his leg. Behind him, a beeping noise began, joined a moment later by what sounded like a smoke alarm.
‘Blast,’ he said, looking around in confusion as he tried to work out what to do, look after the kid or stop the house from burning down.
I noticed hair bands amongst the curls and realised that she was a little girl, probably about three years old, and what’s more, I recognised her. I’d volunteered to run some story sessions in the library over the Christmas holidays, trying to distract myself from the feelings of loneliness after Ryan had dumped me. She had been there with a young woman who had been more interested in her phone than the sparky kid she was supposed to be looking after. ‘It’s Alice, isn’t it? Do you remember me from story time? We read Santa’s Little Helper.’ Actually, we’d read it twice as the children had loved it so much. The adults had all looked relieved that for once it wasn’t them reading the same book on repeat.
‘Let me help,’ I told the man, offering my hand to Alice. I wouldn’t have been so forward with a child under normal conditions, but the alarm was still sounding and the smoke that now reached the front door was black and acrid. ‘I’m a teacher,’ I said to reassure him that it was safe to leave Alice with me whilst he saved the house. She took my hand and he seemed to relax. Alice and I waited on the front step, singing nursery rhymes and chatting until the alarm stopped. The silence seemed deafening in its wake.
‘It’s safe to come in,’ the man said, returning to the doorstep to fetch us. I followed him into the house, thankful for the reprieve and at the same time wondering what I’d walked into.
He had opened the oven door and dropped the smoking tray into the sink. The air was thick with grey fog, and I threw open the back door so that we could breathe.
‘Uncle Jake burnt the cake,’ Alice said. Then, hearing the pleasing rhyme she had come up with, she started dancing around the kitchen chanting, ‘Uncle Jake burnt the cake’ over and over again, getting louder with each repetition, until the man who I now surmised was the Uncle Jake with questionable baking skills, picked her up and tickled her.
‘Okay, squirt, would you like a programme whilst I clean up in here?’ he asked.
The little girl squealed and ran off. He followed her and I was left alone in the kitchen, looking around at the trail of destruction. There was flour all over the floor, broken eggshells on the long wooden counter that ran across the sidewall under the windows, and the sink held only charred remains of their efforts.
I picked up the remains of the eggs and threw them in the bin. There was a kitchen roll holder bolted to the wall, so I grabbed a handful and started wiping up the worst of the flour. I’d just run in a sink full of hot soapy water when I realised I had company.
‘Sorry,’ Jake said. ‘You caught us in the middle of attempting to make my sister a birthday cake.’
‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to ruin your efforts.’
‘I suspect it was destined for the bin long before you arrived,’ he said with a sigh.
‘Was this your first try at baking?’ I asked.
He nodded. ‘It’s my sister’s first birthday on her own since her divorce so I thought I’d come and stay with her and Alice for a while. She’s at work. She’s an office manager and they had a break-in overnight, so she’s been up to her neck in paperwork and cleaning up on what should have been her day off. We wanted to greet her with her favourite lemon drizzle cake. It said online that the recipe was a good one to make with kids. I don’t know where we went wrong.’
I looked at my watch. ‘It’s only two o’clock,’ I pointed out. ‘Do you have more ingredients? I’ll stay and help, if you like.’
I was surprised at myself as I offered but when he looked up and I could see the relief on his face I was pleased that I’d suggested I help.
‘Would you mind?’ he asked. He held out his hand. ‘I haven’t even introduced myself. I’m Jake Archer.’
‘Evie O’Reilly,’ I said, shaking his hand. I rolled up my sleeves and we started measuring. I handed him the bowl and asked him to cream the sugar and butter whilst I weighed the flour. I leant past him to sift it into his bowl, and felt my pulse pick up as I accidentally brushed against his arm.
‘I meant to say, was there something I can help you with?’ Jake asked. ‘I was so distracted by the flames I forgot to ask.’
‘Flames? You mean the cake was actually on fire?’ I replied.
Jake nodded.
‘Impressive,’ I told him.
He gave a small bow.
‘Thanks, but I was just looking up someone I used to go to school with.’ This was true, but it was only half of the picture. Jake, standing with flour in his hair and soot on his shirt, was pretty cute and suddenly I wasn’t sure that I wanted to tell him any more details about why I was on my mission. I handed him a sieve and tried to distract him from asking any more questions. ‘Make sure there are no lumps in the flour,’ I told him.
We had to improvise and use a loaf tin to bake the cake, as the one Jake had used for his first attempt was black and charred. ‘You might owe your sister a new baking tin,’ I said.
‘It was just the three of us; me, Bea and my dad for most of my life. I owe her a lot more than that. That’s another reason I wanted to do something nice for her. She’s not much of a cook either, though she’s been trying recently. I thought it would be nice for her to come home to the smell of fresh baking. Thank goodness you stopped by,’ Jake said, putting the new cake in the oven and setting a timer. ‘This might have been where we went wrong last time. I forgot to check how long it had been in the oven, and then Alice needed the loo. And, well, you saw what happened.’
I grinned. ‘You should have seen my first baking experiments,’ I told him. ‘I got hooked on marble cakes for a while.’
‘That sounds pretty hard on your teeth,’ Jake said.
‘It refers to the colouring,’ I told him. He smiled at me as he scrubbed the tin, and I found myself smiling back. ‘You’re supposed to put gentle waves of coloured batter through the mix to give a marbling effect. I didn’t go for the subtle approach though. I wonder now how my parents used to eat these hideously green or blue cakes and not complain.’
Alice wandered back into the kitchen looking sleepy. She had a tatty old blanket in one hand and her thumb in her mouth. ‘Wanna drink, Uncle Jake,’ she said.
‘Say please,’ he told her.
‘Say please,’ she echoed. He got up and poured some milk into a sippy cup.
He picked her up and then sat with her on his knee. She snuggled against him as she drank. I wondered how it felt to be in his arms. I tried to snap my attention back to the reason I was there. ‘I mentioned earlier, I was looking for someone I went to school with who used to live here but it seems that they must have moved. I don’t suppose you know where they went, do you?’
‘I can ask my sister when she gets home,’ Jake said. ‘She only bought the house about six months ago and might have a forwarding address.’
‘That would be gre
at,’ I said, standing up. Alice yawned again and I thought I’d better head off and leave him to look after her.
‘Why don’t you come back at seven tonight? You deserve a slice of the cake given that you baked it, and you can ask Bea about the previous owners.’
I flushed at his offer, but as I watched, he was so engrossed in looking after his niece that his invitation seemed to be really just a simple offer of food and a chat. I accepted.
We paused in the hall and he leaned in close to me. I pulled back, bumping into the coats, which hung from hooks opposite the door.
‘Just opening the door,’ he explained.
If Jake wondered why I’d nearly jumped out of my skin when he got close, he was too polite to ask. I wasn’t sure I could explain it myself. I made myself hold out my hand to shake his. He looked a little quizzical at that, but he was a gentleman and didn’t leave me hanging. He held my hand for a fraction of a second longer than I expected and I felt my cheeks begin to flush again. It was a drawback of having such bright hair and pale skin. When I blushed there was nothing subtle about it. I went scarlet.
Ducking past him, I gave a wave and headed off as quickly as I could. Back home, I began berating myself for not being calmer when Jake was near me. I wanted to change my top as it was covered in flour and smelt of smoke, but as I lifted it I caught a waft of Jake’s aftershave. I breathed it in, then realised what I was doing. I balled the T-shirt and threw it straight in the wash. Then I showered and washed my hair for good measure.
Standing in front of my wardrobe, I picked out my favourite black jeans. I planned to dress down, though it wasn’t as if I often went out any other way in truth. I was only going back that evening to try and find Bill’s address. Then again, I was crashing a birthday tea, so maybe I should dress a little smarter. In the end I compromised with a burnt orange silk blouse that complemented my hair. I tried to put the beautiful man out of my mind as I buttoned it up and dug out my long neglected bottle of perfume.
