"Well, good morning, sunshine!" Alice trilled across the shop as I closed the door behind me, her tone laden with sarcasm. I located her position by the cash desk just in time to witness her pointed glance at the clock. "We were starting to wonder if you'd make it in today, weren't we Roxy?"
Eighteen year old Roxanne, our magenta-haired Saturday girl, was on her knees in front of a heavily pregnant customer, half a dozen dress pins protruding from her cherry red lips. She sent me a sympathetic eye roll before bowing her head again and continuing to adjust the hem of the customer's dress.
"I know. I'm sorry," I responded, cringing as I heard the automatic apology fall from my mouth. "It turned into a late night, that's all."
"A boozy late night too, by the look of it. You look awful."
God bless Alice for pointing out the obvious. "I had two glasses of champagne," I objected, picking my way around the racks of clothing and trying to ignore the blatantly curious but amused looks of my customers.
She uttered a soft snort. "Of course you did. I think I need to have a word with that nephew of mine. That's the second time in a week you've let him get you plastered. For someone who refuses to take painkillers, it's amazing how blasé you seem to be about alcohol intoxication."
"Alice! I swear I didn't..." I stopped in defeat as she cast me another disbelieving look. Why was I even trying to defend myself?
"Well, at least he had the decency to bring you into work."
Did anything ever get past Alice? Having first taken me home to dump my overnight bag, Drew had merely laughed when I'd told him that if he was going to insist on dropping me off at the shop as well, we'd need to concoct a cover story—then laughed even harder when I bashed my knee in my haste to scramble out of his Audi before she spotted us. Still, at least the painful moment had overshadowed what I'd feared might be an awkward farewell. I could still see his shoulders shaking with mirth as he drove off, the bastard.
"He stayed over last night," I fibbed, dumping my handbag besides Alice's vast hold-everything-bag beneath the counter. "I didn't have the heart to wake him up when he crashed out on my sofa." Not that it was difficult to make that sound convincing—it had happened on more than one occasion in the past.
She uttered a harrumphing sound under her breath but made no further comment, instead fixing a smile in place as a customer came to the till with a white shirt over her arm. "Hello dear, can I take that for you?"
I resisted the urge to sigh loudly then muttered, "I'll go and put the kettle on then, shall I?" And after exchanging another glance with Roxy who nodded gratefully, I turned on my heel and headed for the door marked 'Private' at the back of the shop.
But as I headed for the kitchen sink, pausing
en route
to check out my reflection in the full length mirror on the wall—occasionally we used the kitchen as an extra changing room—I had to concede that Alice could be forgiven for assuming the worst. It certainly looked like I had a hangover. It felt like a hangover. The mere act of filling the kettle made my arms ache.
"Ow-ow," I whimpered, setting it down on the base and flipping the switch before slumping over the counter with a groan. And to think the day was relatively young. If having a night of passion equated to how one might feel after climbing to the top of Ben Nevis—and heaven help me, it was starting to seem as though it might—then the worst of the discomfort was surely yet to come. Would I even be capable of putting one foot in front of the other by the evening?
"Thank God you're here," Roxy said behind me, making me jump. "You won't believe how mad it's—oh holy crap." She broke off as I turned around, amused astonishment in her voice. "You look completely shagged."
"What?"
She laughed, her heavily-kohled eyes hawk-like as she inspected me from head to foot. "Shagged," she affirmed confidently. "As in like, totally fucked."
"Roxy!" Startled by her candour—and her unnerving accuracy—I forced a 'how-could-you-even-think that?' laugh. "It was just a late night, that's all. Late night, too much wine—"
"And lots of sex," she finished triumphantly. She grinned. "Way to go, boss. I was starting to think that you and Drew were never going to get it on."
Uh oh. How was I going to nip this in the bud?
"Get it on?" I gasped, striving for innocence. "Me and Drew?" I tried another laugh, this time managing a much more convincing noise. "No!"
She shot me a dubious glance.
"Seriously," I protested. "It's not like that, honestly. We've been friends for years.
Just
friends, okay?"
"Friends?"
I nodded, surprised to hear something approaching disappointment in her tone. "Drew and me—we could never have that kind of relationship," I explained, struggling to keep my words light as the reality of that statement started dragging at my chest. "It just wouldn't work. He's not interested in me like that. And that goes for me too," I continued hastily before my heart could remind my head I was lying. "I'm not interested in him like that either."
"Right." But Roxy still looked sceptical. "I'm sorry. I just thought that you two..." She trailed off, shaking her head. "I don't usually get this stuff wrong." She gave me another considering stare. "You certainly look as though you've been up all night—and up in a good way, if you know what I mean?" Her face crinkled into a smile. "And you and Drew—I've seen you two together. You
look
like you should be getting it on."
"Ah well, looks can be deceiving." Hearing the kettle boiling behind me, I turned to reach into the cupboard for some mugs, relieved that I'd only needed to sound convincing this time.
How the hell could she tell?
"What is it about being your age?" I burbled, overcompensating now. "God, I remember being eighteen. Thinking that everybody was getting it on, and if they weren't, there must be something wrong with them."
Fuck, that was patronising. Not to mention another bare-faced lie. Thanks to the botched transplant, I could hardly remember being eighteen at all—and as for getting it on—well,
I
hadn't, had I? I'd been nothing like confident, self-assured Roxanne.
Though quite how she'd managed to become confident and self-assured, I had no idea. Needing an extra pair of hands in the shop at weekends, Alice and I had taken on a shy, mousy-haired sixteen year old girl who wouldn't say boo to a goose. Two years later, Roxanne sported spiky pink hair, wore only black and thought nothing of saying exactly what she thought. Our customers—once over their initial shock at her appearance—loved her, not least because she was also a dab hand with a sewing machine, willing and able to alter garments to fit at a moment's notice.
And if her lurid accounts of her personal life were to be believed—and I suspected they were, having met a few of her boyfriends—she knew more about relationships than I ever would. She definitely knew more about sex.
"Right." To her credit, Roxy sounded decidedly unfazed. "My bad."
At her age I'd have been mortified to think I'd got something like that wrong. How I envied her ability to let the moment pass.
"Oh, no problem. Easy mistake to make," I said brightly. Much too brightly. "It's not like you're the first person to think something might be something going on between us. But it isn't. So..." I found myself glaring at the neat row of mugs on the shelf, fighting back unexpected tears. "What do you fancy, tea or coffee?"
"Tea." But suddenly, Roxy's arm was around my shoulders. As though she was the woman who'd just turned twenty-five and I was the eighteen year old Saturday girl.
As though she knew damn well I hadn't been telling the truth. Could she tell? Or was she simply picking up on my vulnerable state? Having clocked my appearance in the mirror for myself, there was a good chance she'd simply decided I felt every bit as awful as I looked.
"Go on," she said, in the manner of a mother chivvying a reluctant child into school. "I'll make it. Alice needs you out there." The role reversal effect was as comical as it was touching. "Mrs Lewis is in the changing room getting out of that dress I was just pinning up. Can you tell her I'll have it hemmed by three so she can wear it tonight?"
"You sure?" I risked a sidelong glance in the hope I'd be able to work out how much she'd guessed.
Instead of getting a clue, I was rewarded with a grimace. Roxy-the-teenager was back. "Sam, it's
your
shop," she said with exaggerated patience. "You pay me to make the tea, remember? Get out front and serve some customers. I'll bring it out when it's brewed."
Roxy had clearly spent far too much time with Alice, I decided ruefully, already trotting obediently towards the door.
But the thought flew out of my mind the moment I stepped back into the shop.
"Whoa, what happened?" I muttered, sliding behind the counter beside Alice and motioning to the first in a long line of queuing customers to bring her purchases to the till. "Did we just have a coach load turn up or something?"
She sent me a harassed grin, deftly folding a pair of our best-selling maternity trousers and slipping them into a bag. "Now you know why we were pleased to see you," she said cheerfully. "It's been like this all morning."
After taking a burgundy chiffon dress from my customer and shooting her an absent smile, I turned back to Alice. "Really? Why, what's going on? How come it's so—?"
But before I could finish, she reached under the till and slapped a slightly crumpled newspaper on the counter in front of me.
Britain In Full Bloom
, the headline screamed, before adding underneath in smaller letters,
What the nation's best-dressed Mums-to-be are wearing this festive season
.
