Page 15 of Lie For Me

‘That’s one option.’ She rolled her eyes and laughed. ‘Or I could find the other one. And you could help.’

‘Or,’ Jack held the bin bag as Lucy emptied a pack of melted lemon sherbets into it, ‘you could take different shoes. Seeing as we’re supposed to be leaving about now.’

Lucy ignored him and muttered from somewhere down behind the driver’s seat. ‘It’s in here somewhere, I know it. Where are you?’

She emerged with an empty can of de-icer and another shoe that did not match the shoe already sitting on the top of the car.

‘Ha! I’ve been looking for you!’ she announced to the newly recovered shoe.

‘Luce, much as I’d like to hang about here and admire your growing collection of single shoes, we need to get going, or we’ll hit traffic, and the drive will be a nightmare.’

‘Okay, sure, I’m just making some room in here, clearing a few things out of the way,’ Lucy puffed cheerfully from her position bent double in the rear seats.

She handed out an old copy of Homes and Gardens.

‘Keep that.’

A handful of scrunched-up crisp packets, five coffee cups and a large diamante earring.

‘Bin that.’

She brushed off her hands and gathered up all the items from the roof of the car.

‘Won’t be long now,’ she said cheerfully. ‘Come on in.’

Jack made a silent prayer for patience and was glad he had suggested leaving earlier than strictly necessary. Experience had told him Lucy needed a time buffer, to account for the fact she’d be at least sixty minutes late being ready for anything more complicated than a relaxed drink with friends. He followed her into the house and ducked as he stepped through the low doorway into the living room of the old cottage.

The person who said how you do one thing, is how you do everything, had not met Lucy. While her car was a low-level bio-hazard, her home was a cosy, neat sanctuary. The living room smelt of geranium and lavender, emanating from a little oil burner on the windowsill, and the faint waft of fresh coffee drifted through from the kitchen. Books lined one wall, and colourful cushions were scattered across the overstuffed cream sofa.

‘Back in a jiffy!’

Lucy abandoned her haul of items from the car onto an armchair and disappeared upstairs. Jack could hear her pottering around as the old floorboards creaked before Bonnie Tyler started pounding out, overlaid with Lucy’s squalling. He listened. Not only could she not hold a tune, she didn’t seem to know all the lyrics, either, but she didn’t miss a beat. He sank into the old squishy cream sofa and considered the overstuffed bookcase covering the wall opposite. There were definitely more books than the last time he was there, squeezed in sideways on top of already packed shelves, photos of friends perched in frames wherever there was a little space. A well-thumbed copy of The Count of Monte Cristo, with a Dulcetcoombe bookmark sticking out of it, threatened to topple over the shelf edge.

He could hear the shower running upstairs, and Ella Fitzgerald replaced Bonnie Tyler, as Lucy crooned along to ‘Dream a Little Dream of Me.’ Jack smiled to himself and flicked through the books and magazines on the coffee table. He was immersed in a surprisingly interesting article in Homes & Gardens about how crafting is good for your health––and was wondering if he should be taking up knitting—when there was a clattering on the stairs.

‘Ta da!’

Lucy bounced into the room, arms in the air as if she’d just completed a perfect dismount off the parallel bars. She was barefoot—perhaps there was a real shoe shortage in this house—and humming to herself as she sauntered past him in a yellow summer dress, the afternoon sunlight turning her damp caramel hair a warm honey colour as she passed the window.

Jack reached for another magazine. ‘Darling?’ he called as he flipped the pages of a two-year-old copy of Country Living.

Lucy appeared in the doorway, looking suspicious.

‘Why did you call me darling? What’s wrong?’

‘Nothing,’ Jack said innocently. ‘I’m getting into character as your boyfriend.’

‘Humph.’ Lucy narrowed her eyes and disappeared back into the kitchen.

‘Darling,’ he called, grinning to himself, ‘we really can’t do this again. We have to deal with this.’

Lucy reappeared, gulping a glass of water, and gasped, ‘Gotta hydrate. And deal with what?’

‘The tension your constant lateness puts on our relationship.’

Jack lifted the magazine to hide his grin and flicked to an article about water gardens.

This weekend was going to be fun.

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