Page 3 of Last Dance, Second Chance

By the time she walked along the road from the train station, Jessica was somewhat regretting her decision to surprise her parents. If they’d known she was arriving, her mum or dad would have insisted upon coming to pick her up from the airport and she wouldn’t be dragging her luggage along behind her now. But it would be so lovely to see the excitement on their faces when they opened their front door to find her outside. She hoped they were in. Her dad might be at work — he ran the local estate agent’s, and had done for over thirty-five years. Her mum was a teacher at the town’s primary school, so she was on summer holidays. If no one was home, Jessica knew where they kept their spare key so she could let herself in and wait for them, or wander down to her dad’s office and surprise him there. Her mum sometimes popped in to lend a hand during the holidays so Jessica might find her there too.

She turned the corner into the cul-de-sac. Their cars were in the driveway so that was a good sign. Jessica stood across the street from her family’s home for a moment. The house was red brick and perfectly symmetrical at the front, like a doll’s house, with a window on either side of the front door, and three windows evenly spaced along the upstairs.

This was the house she’d lived in until she’d moved to America, though she’d been away during term time at dance school in London for two years before that. She’d been so desperate to leave the little town which had no professional ballet academy, so intent upon following her dream — a dream she’d have had to put on hold if she’d stayed at home and taken Alevels at the local sixth-form college. Her parents had been amazing, though she knew they missed her terribly.

Jessica took a deep breath and went to cross the road, but stopped when she heard a voice calling, “Jessica Stone, well I never!” She turned and hoped she’d managed to hide the dismay she felt at the sight of the enormous grey-haired figure of Mrs Edith White hurrying along the pavement towards her. Mrs White, as anyone under the age of sixty referred to her, considered herself the matriarch of the town. She’d lived there her whole life and knew everyone, and was on so many committees that Jessica doubted even she remembered all of them. Basically, if you lived in Bowerbridge and wanted to do so much as put new Christmas lights on the tree outside your property, you’d better check with Mrs White first.

“Good afternoon, Mrs White,” Jessica said, dutifully.

“So, you’ve finally been able to manage a visit!” Mrs White proclaimed. “Thank goodness your parents have your brother, is all I can say. I don’t know how they’d manage without him.”

Jessica’s mum and dad were only in their late fifties, and in good health. She knew they didn’t rely on her brother to look after them, but that didn’t mean Mrs White’s words didn’t rankle.

“He’s a wonderful son,” Jessica replied through gritted teeth.

“So, will you be staying for long?” Mrs White asked nosily.

“No. It’s just a flying visit. I’ve got to get back to work.”

“Oh, yes. The dancing.” She said it like she was sure Jessica was secretly a stripper or a pole dancer.

“That’s right. Anyway, lovely to see you again, but I really must go. Mum and Dad are waiting for me,” Jessica fibbed.

“Do give them my regards,” Mrs White said, and she bustled off down the road.

Jessica would have liked to have taken a few moments to compose herself again — an encounter with Mrs White was always unsettling — but her mum chose that moment to open the front door and come out with a bag of rubbish for the bin. Sarah looked up and spotted her daughter. “Jessica?! What are you doing here, darling?” She dropped the garbage in order to rush to greet her daughter with a hug. Sarah was the same height as Jessica, and slim, but not to ballerina standards. She’d also had black hair, but it was heavily peppered with silver now.

“I wanted to surprise you!” Jessica said, pushing Mrs White firmly to the back of her mind.

“Well, you’ve certainly done that!”

Jessica spotted a troubled look pass over her mother’s face.

“Is everything all right, Mum?” she asked.

“Yes, of course. It’s wonderful to see you. It’s just... well, why don’t you come in and see. Let me take your case for you.”

Puzzled, Jessica followed her mum through her parents’ colourful little front garden and into the house. She was greeted enthusiastically by a large golden retriever.

“Who’s this?” Jessica asked, laughing as the dog did its best to lick her anywhere it could.

“This is Monty,” Sarah said. “We adopted him a few weeks ago. Your dad saw a photo of him on the local dog rescue’s Facebook page and it was love at first sight.”

“Wow! I thought you didn’t want a dog...”

“Your dad wore me down,” Sarah admitted. “Monty’s going to go into the office with him when I’m back at work. We were going to introduce you to him the next time we FaceTimed.”

Jessica looked around her and realised the floor of the hallway was covered in packed suitcases.

Jessica turned to her mum. “What’s going on?”

“We’re going on holiday,” Sarah said. “We’re leaving tomorrow morning.”

“Oh no!” cried Jessica.

“I’m so sorry, sweetheart. If we’d known you were coming, we never would have booked it.”

“It’s not your fault. It was all so last-minute. I wanted to surprise you!”

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