Michelle Vernal Box Set Page 17

  Owen looked bemused. “It’s a dish shaped like a leaf. So what use will that be to you?”

  “I won’t actually use it you-you-eejit!”

  Jess moseyed up to the counter and handed the dish over nonchalantly. “I’ll have this please.”

  “It’s a pretty little dish, isn’t it, dear?” The old biddy behind the counter put her knitting to one side and turned the dish over in her hands.

  Jess sent up a silent prayer, asking for her not to spot the stamp. If it had been a hospice shop, she might have felt guilty enlisting God like this but since it was a community thrift shop, she was sure he’d be okay with it.

  “That’s one and a half euros ta, lovie.”

  She flashed Owen a triumphant I told you so look and handed over the money before telling the old dear not to worry about a bag. Then secreting it away in her own bag, she walked as fast as her skirt would let her out of the shop. To her surprise, when she turned around, Owen wasn’t behind her. She waited a few moments until he appeared in the shop’s doorway, toting a plastic bag. It was her turn to raise an eyebrow.

  “It was a bargain,” he said, opening the bag and showing her a thick Aran jersey to add to his Aran jumper collection. He had the good sense to look sheepish.

  Chapter Twelve

  “I think your man the pig farmer fancies you,” Brianna said. “And I think you fancy him too.”

  “I do not and his name’s Owen, not your man the pig farmer.” Actually, Jess thought, she wasn’t entirely sure how she felt. Her head had been all over the show since she’d had such an unexpectedly lovely afternoon with him yesterday. It had been an awkward goodbye, though, with neither of them knowing what to say. There had been no hint on his part that he would like to meet up again, either, with the only tenuous thread that suggested they might keep in touch being her promise to forward him the paper when it ran “Amy’s Story.”

  She had made him promise to keep her up to speed with Wilbur’s health, too, but whether he would or not—well, she could only hope. Hoisting herself with some difficulty back onto the train, she’d paused before sitting down to look back over her shoulder, mentally playing that childish game of “if he’s still there it means he likes me” but his back was turned and he was already walking away. The train’s doors had slid shut before it rumbled out of the station and that had been the end of that.

  Now, Jess and Brianna were huddled inside their coats on a bench covered in seagull poop down at the beach in Bray while Harry disturbed crabs in their holes by poking a big stick down them.

  “What about Nick?”

  “Oh, no question, I definitely fancy him.” Jess nodded emphatically.

  A little too enthusiastically, in Brianna’s opinion. “Do you? I wouldn’t have thought he was your usual type, Jess, not from what you’ve told me.”

  “That is the point. Despite what everyone seems to think, my mother in particular, I am capable of fancying a man who is gorgeous, successful, and mentally stable. I don’t always go for damaged goods.”

  “Hey, I’m on your side.” Brianna reached over and gave her friend’s hand a quick squeeze. “And I don’t disagree with you. It’s just that from what you have told me, your man Owen is good-looking and successful but he has one big thing you need that I am worried Nick might not have.”

  “Brianna, if you are talking about what I think you are talking about...”

  “Get your mind out of the gutter, girl! No, I mean he is sensitive. You need a man who is sensitive and not some cut-throat businessman—that just isn’t your style.”

  “Huh...you mean sensitive like Harry?”

  Both girls turned their attention to Harry, who had moved on from stabbing crabs while they slept to beating a dead fish that had washed up onto the pebbles with his stick.

  “Oh my God, Harry! Cut that out!” Brianna yelled, standing up and gesticulating for him to stop the carnage. Once he’d dropped the stick, she turned her attention back to Jess. “Whatever you do, don’t ever have kids,” she warned for the umpteenth time. “The stress is going to kill me. Honestly, one day I’m worried he will grow up to be a flasher, the next a cross-dresser, and then on days like this when the testosterone really kicks in, a serial killer.”

  Jess laughed and gave her friend her usual response to Harry’s quirks. “He is a gorgeous, totally normal boy, and one day all those things you just spieled off will be funny anecdotes at his twenty-first.”

  “You think?”

  “I know so. Listen, boys will be boys and like Harry, Nick’s got a soft side, too. I think you need to meet him and see for yourself.”

  “Okay, I’m up for that. How about you both come to our place for dinner, if it all goes well with your date this Wednesday, that is? That way, Pete and I can check him out properly and I promise I will try to reserve judgement until then. I’ll put the hard word on Harry to behave.”

  “Right! You have got yourself a deal. Dinner would be lovely and you’ll get to see for yourself that Nick’s lovely too. Now then,” Jess said, tucking her flyaway hair behind her ears, “all we have done is talk about me. What’s going on with you?”

  “Oh, the usual busy, busy—you know how it is. I am heading out later this afternoon to make placards for a protest the play group is going to stage.” She shook her head, causing her shoulder-length brown hair to bob up and down. “I really believe that corporate greed is the death of communities.”

  Jess didn’t think it would go down too well were she to point out that if it weren’t for big corporations, Pete wouldn’t have a job so instead she gave her friend a pat on the back. “Good for you, Brie, standing up for what you believe in.”

  “Well, you just make sure you stand up for what you believe in and don’t let yourself be bullied by Nora or your Mum where Nick is concerned, okay?”

  It was the second time she’d been warned about letting herself get bullied in under two days: first by her father and now by Brianna. Was she really that much of a pushover? Jess pondered and speaking of pushovers. “So have you heard from Nora? The last time I spoke to her, she was off waterskiing in the South of France.’

  “What! The South of France! Lucky madam, but she hates the sea.”

  “I know she does. She also hates mountain biking and skydiving but that hasn’t stopped her. I swear, Brie, this Ewan is going to be the end of her. She’ll have a bloody nervous breakdown if she keeps it up. I’ve tried talking to her but she won’t listen.”

  Brianna shook her head. “She’s mad. I’ll have a word, so I will. I haven’t spoken to her since last week, so I’m due to give her a call and tell her exactly what I think about her swanning around the South of France on a set of waterskis without telling me.”

  Jess shivered. The wind was losing its change of season chill and was feeling decidedly wintery today.

  “Come on, you’re turning blue it’s getting so cold, and I think Harry’s probably massacred enough sea-life for one day,” Brie said, standing up and checking her backside for remnants of bird poo. “Let’s head home for a cuppa.”

  JESS SUCCESSFULLY WHILED away the days until big date Wednesday by throwing herself into her work, taking time off only to heed Nora’s advice and upgrade her underwear drawer. It was ironic, really, that the gorgeous pale green, French lace bra and briefs she had splurged on probably cost more than the entire contents of her wardrobe put together! She definitely drew the line at second-hand undies, though she’d mused as she carefully snipped the tags off and after the shock of her support knickers, Nick deserved every penny she had spent on her new lingerie. She must remember to tell her mother she had upgraded in that department, too, because it might shut her up for five minutes.

  Actually, she thought, frowning, it was strange that she hadn’t heard from her mother. She’d have put money on her ringing with a pre-date pep talk. She’d kept expecting the phone to ring, with half of her hoping it would be Owen with an update about Wilbur and the other half hoping Nick would ring j
ust to see how she was. It had, however, remained stubbornly silent on all fronts. That was the thing with working from home, she’d thought, shooting the phone a nasty look; sometimes the silence got oppressive.

  It wasn’t until Tuesday morning, though, that she realised she’d been so busy tapping away at her laptop that she hadn’t heard from Nora either. For all she knew, she could be laid up in a French hospital with a broken leg thanks to her ridiculous waterskiing expedition. What kind of a friend was she? Jess chastised herself, picking the phone up and while images of poor injured Nora swam before her eyes, she speed-dialled her friend at work.

  Nora answered on the fifth ring. Instead of the usual harried “I am so busy” tone she reserved for work, her voice was despondent.

  “Hey, you sound awful. What’s up?”

  “Nothing. I’m fine.”

  “No, you’re not—spill.”

  “No, I’m not.” Nora capitulated with a sniffling sound.

  Jess knew better than to try to get to the bottom of whatever the problem was while Nora was at work. She was too much of a professional to offload between the hours of nine and five, so she decided to take affirmative action instead. “Right, that’s it. Nora Brennan, I am calling a girly pow-wow. Be at my place, seven o’clock tonight.”

  “But I’m...”

  “Nope. Whatever it is, cancel it. I’ll ring Brianna. See you then.”

  Nora knew better than to try to argue. “Oh, alright—and Jess?”

  “Yes?”

  “Thanks.”

  “You don’t have to thank me. That’s what friends are for.”

  Jess hung up, frowning and wondering what on earth had her normally upbeat and in-control friend down in the doldrums. It was most unlike her to let a man affect her the way Ewan apparently was. “Don’t let him have packed it in with her,” she said aloud to the empty room before tapping out Brianna’s number. Nora would be devastated if that were the case.

  Brianna was home and the girls spent ten minutes speculating as to what could have happened between loves young dream before agreeing that Brianna was to be in charge of crisps and dips while Jess would get the crackers and whip up one of her famous cheese balls, a Kiwi party staple of old. They’d both buy wine. They had a feeling they were going to need plenty.

  JESS STOPPED WORK LATE that afternoon in order to trot off down to Tesco’s. She was a woman on a mission, tossing the necessary cheese ball ingredients of both cheddar and cream cheese, salad cream, chopped nuts and some token greenery—a bunch of chives—into her basket. Throwing in a box of crackers, she decided that if the circumstances were as dire as she suspected they might be, then they could be in need of serious reinforcements so she added a king-sized bar of chocolate to her groceries—just in case. When she got to the wine aisle, the only special she could find worth bothering with was an Australian sav, so muttering, “It will have to do,” she plucked a couple of bottles off the shelf. Taking her stash up to the checkout, she received a sympathetic smile from the girl serving as her comfort food got stacked into a plastic bag. “I always find Milky Bar does the trick personally,” she’d said, waving the bar of fruit and nut chocolate under the scanner.

  As Jess had headed home to begin rolling her big cheesy ball, she thought to herself that chocolate was indeed the universal language of sisterhood.

  BRIANNA HAD ORGANISED to pick Nora, who was obviously in no fit state to drive, up on her way over and the two women buzzed their arrival at one minute to seven. Jess poured three generous glasses of wine while she waited for their knock at the door. When it came, she opened it and was shocked by her first sighting of Nora. She looked dreadful and Jess couldn’t stop the little gasp she emitted at the sight of her glamorous friend’s bedraggled blonde locks. She had no makeup on, either—that was unheard of. What really got to her, though, was the fact that Nora was in a leisure suit and on her feet was something she never ever thought she would see her friend’s dainty tootsies slide themselves into: Ugg boots.

  Nora didn’t do casual and Jess had had no idea she even owned a leisure suit, let alone Ugg boots. It was then that it hit home just how bad a way she really was in. Racing over, she wrapped her fragile friend in a bear hug. “Did you get a park okay?” Jess asked, looking over Nora’s shoulder to Brianna, who was bringing up the rear, laden down with supplies.

  “I’m in for the long haul,” she replied, holding up her bottles of wine. “So I got Pete to drop us off. He’ll pick us up on his way home from squash around elevenish—Harry’s at my Mam’s for the night.”

  The three women trooped through to the lounge where their glasses of wine were waiting.

  Brianna sat down and kicked her boots off before tucking her legs up under herself and reaching for her glass while Nora collapsed down on to the settee and knocked her drink back in two gulps. Then, spying the cheese ball, she dived into it, scooping big chunks onto the artfully arranged crackers and shovelling them in her mouth as though they were on a conveyer belt. Brianna and Jess exchanged glances that asked where had their friend the Dukan Diet Queen disappeared to?

  At last she stopped eating long enough to hold her glass out for a refill. “God, that’s better. Your cheese balls really are the biz, Jess. I needed that.”

  Jess preened as she got up to get another bottle out of the fridge. “I’ve always maintained that there really are healing properties in a cheese ball. I think it must be the cheddar or maybe it’s down to the cream cheese.”

  “Or maybe it’s just down to all the horrific calories,” Brianna said, snorting before she carried on with her crisp fest.

  With their glasses topped up, Jess and Brianna tussled over the crisps and dip. The cheese ball was out of bounds—poor Nora needed it more than they did. Supping their drinks, they listened while Nora filled them in as to what had got her knickers in such a knot.

  “Ewan wants us to...to do a b-b-b-” She sounded like a five-year-old sounding out her letters.

  “Wants you to do what, Nora?” Brianna and Jess chimed patiently, both bewildered and each hoping she wasn’t going to reveal some new sex act they hadn’t heard of.

  “He wants us to do a b-b-bungee jump together off the top of Liberty Hall.”

  Jess and Brianna looked at each other, shocked Nora was referring to Dublin’s tallest building. “And I can’t do it!” Nora wailed.

  “Right, enough is enough!” Jess stated, getting up from her armchair perch to shove another loaded cracker in her friend’s gob. It had an instant calming effect.

  “You need to tell Ewan the truth. You can’t keep pretending to be someone you are not and Nora, face it—you are not an adrenaline junkie.”

  “Why can’t I keep pretending? I managed to pull off the mountain bike ride, skydiving and waterskiing, so surely that qualifies me? I just need to find a way to fight the fear.” Nora’s expression was petulant.

  Brianna interjected, “Feck fight the fear! It qualifies you as an idiot, yes, because you were absolutely terrified doing all of those things and think about it. Where will it end? He’ll have you white-water rafting down the Amazon, or swimming with great whites if you’re not careful or, or...”

  “Or leaping off tall buildings with a piece of elastic tied round your legs,” Jess finished.

  “I know, I know. My nerves are shot and look.” She held out her trembling hands and both women looked in shock at Nora’s chewed fingernails.

  “Nora Brennan, listen to me. This is not you. You are not a nail-biter. You get your nails done once a week, for goodness’ sake! I aspire to have nails like yours.” Jess paused to gaze briefly at her own short clipped nails. Long nails were hopeless when you earned your money tapping out articles on a laptop. Her face took on a puzzled expression. “What I don’t get, though, is how come you managed to skydive and all that other stuff but you can’t do a bungee jump? What’s so scary about that by comparison? Not that I’m encouraging you or anything.” She popped a handful of dip-laden crisps in her mouth
. “Yum. Brie, that feta and spinach dip is divine.”

  “Yeah, it is, isn’t it? Marks had a special on, so I grabbed a couple.”

  “Excuse me, you’re supposed to be helping me sort my life out, not talking about bloody supermarket specials.”

  “Sorry.” Both women were contrite.

  Mollified, Nora answered Jess’s question. “I was naïve when I did the skydive. I had no idea what I was in for or how terrifying it would be. As for mountain biking,” she shrugged, “anyone can ride a bike; I just pretended I was doing a spin class. Being flown to the South of France in a private plane helped take the edge off the waterskiing.” Her blue eyes filled with fear. “But there is absolutely no fecking way I can throw myself off a building with nothing but a pair of pantyhose holding me up—not even if I popped a couple of Valium first!”

  “Then tell Ewan the truth for your own sake, or you’re going to give yourself a nervous breakdown.”

  “Okay, okay.” Nora held up both hands in defeat. “You’re right, I know and I will—I promise but he’s in the States for the next two weeks filming.”

  “Well, as soon as he gets back, you come clean.” Jess wagged a finger at her.

  “What do I say, though? Ewan’s said all along how great it is that he has finally met a girl who is into all the same stuff as him. If I tell him I’m not who he thinks I am, he is bound to give me the flick. He’ll think I’m just as fickle as those fans of his who send through pictures of themselves in the nude all the time.”

  “Women do that?” Brianna asked, frowning.

  “And men.”

  Jess raised an eyebrow. “Really?”

  “Yep, really. Honestly, you two have no idea what celebrities have to put up with.”