“Bye,” I say, as he opens the car door. “I’m sorry Acton hasn’t been kind to you. Collapsing ceilings and dodgy workout gurus. We must do better.”
“Wouldn’t have missed it,” he says with a grin. “Acton has a place in my heart.”
“We do have an amazing Thai restaurant here,” I say. “If you’re into Thai food.”
“I love Thai food.” His eyes crinkle at me. “Thanks for the tip. Oh, and remember.” He pauses, his hand on the car door. “I still owe you one. I’m serious. You haven’t forgotten?”
“Of course not!” I say. “How could I?”
I watch as the cab drives off, still smiling at his good-humored outrage—then head on my way.
—
The little exchange has buoyed my spirits, but as I get back to the house I start to feel flat again. I reheat the pasta sauce, inhaling the delicious scent, then put on The Archers, because that’s what Mum would do too—but it feels fake. I don’t listen to The Archers, so I don’t know who any of the characters are.
“Hey, Fixie.” Nicole wanders into the kitchen, interrupting my thoughts. I’m hoping she’s going to offer to help, but she doesn’t even seem to have noticed that I’m cooking. She leans against the counter, picks up the chunk of Parmesan I was about to grate, and starts to nibble it. “So I’ve had a great idea,” she says thoughtfully. “I think we should have yoga at the shop.”
“Yoga?” I echo. “What do you mean? Like … a yoga section?”
“Yoga sessions,” she says, as though it’s obvious. “We should run sessions in the evenings. I could do them.”
I put my wooden spoon down on Mum’s bunny-rabbit ceramic spoon rest (£6.99, bestseller at Easter) and peer at her to see if she’s joking. But she meets my gaze with a full-on, Nicole-taking-herself-seriously expression. The thing about Nicole is, she’s all vague and wafty until she wants something, whereupon she can suddenly become quite gimletty and focused.
“Nicole, we’re a shop,” I say carefully. “We sell saucepans. We don’t do yoga.”
“We have the Cake Club,” she counters.
“Yes, but that’s a selling event. We sell cake tins and stuff. It enhances our business.”
“Loads of shops do all sorts of evening events,” she responds. “It would build up the clientele.”
“But where?”
I’m picturing the shop, trying to imagine even two people putting down yoga mats, and I’m failing.
“We’d have to move a few things,” she says breezily. “Get rid of a couple of displays.”
“Every night? And then put them back?”
“Of course not!” She rolls her eyes. “Permanently. There’s too much stock, anyway. Even Mum says so. It’s overcrowded.”
“We can’t get rid of whole displays of stock to make space for yoga lessons!” I say in horror.
“Well, that’s your opinion,” says Nicole calmly.
“What about the cleaners? They start at six P.M. When would they get in?”
Nicole stares at me blankly as though she never even realized the shop gets cleaned every night.
Oh my God. She didn’t realize the shop gets cleaned, did she? She lives on another planet.
“We’d sort it,” she says at last with a shrug. “Like we do on Cake Club night.”
“OK,” I say, trying to be positive. “Well, would you sell any stock?”
“We’d be doing yoga,” says Nicole, frowning. “Not selling things.”
“But—”
“You’re trying to find problems, Fixie,” she adds.
“So Mum only left, what”—I look at my watch—“four hours ago. And already you want to change things.”
“You should be more open-minded!” retaliates Nicole. “I bet if I rang Mum now, she’d love the idea.”
“She would not!” I say hotly. I feel so sure of myself, I almost want to dial Mum’s number and prove it. But of course I won’t.
“You should do yoga yourself.” Nicole eyes me dispassionately. “Your breathing is really shallow. Look.” She points at my chest. “It’s stressing you out.”
I want to retort, “It’s not my breathing that’s stressing me out!” But the thought of Mum stops me. She’d be really upset to think that within hours of her departure, we were arguing about the shop. So somehow I force myself to take a deep breath.
“Well, this is what the family meetings are for,” I say as reasonably as I can. “We’ll put it on the agenda and discuss it.”
Uncle Ned and Jake will never go for yoga classes. It’ll all be fine.
“Could you do the spaghetti?” I add, and Nicole replies, “Sure,” in an absent tone. She wanders to the larder, now engrossed in her phone, gets out the spaghetti packet, and stands motionless for a bit while I count out forks.
“Nicole?” I prompt her.
“Oh. Yeah.” She gets out a saucepan and puts it on the hob, then peers at the spaghetti. “How much, do you think?”
“Well, there’s going to be four of us.”
“Right,” says Nicole, still peering at the packet. “The thing is, I never know with spaghetti.”
“Well, you know. It’s basically a clump for each person.”
I text Leila—Supper in about 10—and lay out water glasses. Then I glance at Nicole. She’s taken out a bunch of spaghetti and is looking at it, her brow wrinkled. For God’s sake. She hasn’t even put the water on.
I fill the pan with water, add salt, whack up the heat on the hob, and take the spaghetti from Nicole’s hands.
“I’ll do it,” I say. “You know we’ve actually got a spaghetti measurer? You know we stock them in the shop?”
I show her the spoon with the special hole in it, and she opens her eyes wide and says, “No way. I never knew that was for measuring spaghetti! You’re so good at all that, Fixie.”
As I start to measure out the spaghetti into the boiling water, she wafts out of the kitchen without asking if she can do anything else to help, bumping into Leila on the way.
“Fixie!” says Leila in excitement. “Guess who’s here.” She hurries forward and smooths down my hair, then produces a lip gloss from nowhere and slicks it across my lips.
“Huh?” I stare at her in puzzlement.
“Ryan!” she whispers.
“What?” I feel my eyes widen. But before I can say anything else, I hear Jake saying, “Come on in, we’ll have some grub.” And I force myself to leave it a full five seconds before I swivel round to see Ryan. Here. In our kitchen.
He’s as tall and blond and dazzling as ever. His easy smile has gone, though. His face is tired-looking and there’s a crease in his brow.
“Hi, Fixie,” he says vacantly. “All right?”
“Here.” Jake is already pouring him a glass of wine. “Drown your sorrows, mate. Ryan’s eating with us,” he adds to me.
“Right,” I manage. “Lovely!”
My stomach is flipping over. My thoughts are on a circular loop: He’s here! Where’s he been? Why does he look so down? Why hasn’t he texted? Is he with someone else? He’s here!
“I hope you like spaghetti,” I say in bright, fake tones.
“Yeah,” Ryan says, and takes a gulp of wine. “Great.” He stares into the distance for a moment or two, then seems to see me for the first time. “Hey. Let me say hello properly.”
He comes over and kisses me on the mouth.
“Sorry I haven’t been in touch,” he murmurs. “I know you’ve had it hard with your mum in hospital and everything. Thought you wouldn’t want me in your way.”
“Oh,” I say, a bit disconcerted. “Right.”
“I know what it’s like when people barge in,” he adds. “I didn’t want to intrude. I thought: Give them some space.”