Page 24 of Perfect

Ella now looked fed up and I decided to snap her out of it, she was bigging me up and felt insecure. I was used to it. I saw it all the time in my friends.

“OK, well thanks for the warning and as for you being seen as one of the boys, that’s rubbish. If I were a guy I would, you remind me of Belle from Beauty of the Beast,” I grinned with raised eyebrows.

Her face creased in the semblance of a smile but it didn’t quite reach her eyes and I was being fairly sincere. She wasn’ttotallyunfortunate looking; yes, her eyes were a bit on the big side but was that really a flaw?

Ella shrugged me off with an air of polite indifference. “That’s sweet and thank you I guess.”

Anna suddenly appeared in the doorway and began sweeping the gravel off the front step, looking her usual windswept self.

“Sorry Ladies,” she chuckled as she showered us with a cloud of dust.

We moved to the side and I touched Ella’s arm to try and show her that I wanted us to be friends. “Look, thanks for coming to see me, and don’t worry, I shall tread carefully with the farm boys,” I reassured her with a pointed look. I was pleased I’d kept my cool.

One of Ella’s bushy eyebrows curved and she tilted her jaw to deliver what I took as a pensive stare, her eyes roaming over my face. “As I said, like a rash.”

I felt a frisson of something heat my spine. I narrowed my eyes, cutting her a hard look. “I suppose we’ll see.”

“I suppose we will,” she mirrored. She still saw me as a threat but in respect of who was anyone’s guess.

I decided to bury it. She gave me her number and I put it in my phone and said I’d call her mobile and hang up. I was relieved as the banter had been like being on a see-saw.

I watched her as she walked away, my eyes burning into the back of her head as Anna came to stand beside me. We stood in silence for a moment staring as Ella departed down the driveway.

“Poor girl. She’s had a funny time of it recently.”

Really? It sounded like farm life was much more interesting than I had once thought. I schooled my irritation at her empathy.

“Really, in what way?”

“There were whispers around the village that she got herself into trouble earlier this year.”

Her revelation didn’t really need a footnote, but I wanted to shake the actual words out of her.

“No, sorry, what do you mean?”

She sighed and tucked a strand of frizzy hair back over her ear. “There was a pregnancy rumour. It was probably just mean talk. It happens way out here too you know; silly girls and boys making up stories.”

What the actual fuck? I almost choked. “Are you sure there wasn’t any truth in it?” I questioned, uncertainty whooshing into me as I thought about Ella’s ‘complicated’ comment and strange behaviour.

Leaning on the broom, Anna pushed her free hand into the pocket of her dusty apron before she replied. “No, not really and if she did get pregnant, she must have got rid of it as no one ever saw a baby. She left town for a while, went abroad travelling around America and that’s when the questions started. She went backwards and forwards over the space of a few months and seemed to calm down a bit. Less into the partying and became more reserved. She’d grown up I suppose.” And there was the reason for the occasional twang. She’d travelled around America.

A sick feeling hit my stomach. How awful! The poor girl being the brunt of such horrible gossip; if itwasgossip.

But if it was true? My heart and my mind were momentarily paralysed as a surreal thought floated to the surface. I turned to Anna, getting straight to the point.

“Was there talk as to who the father was? I mean, if there were any truth to it?” I asked.

There was a beat or two before she answered; her expression now vacant.

“Anna?” I prompted and she shot me an apologetic look.

“Sorry, there was talk of course but that’s all it was. It’s died down now thank goodness,” Anna replied at last, her weathered face full of sympathy. Technically she hadn’t answered my question and I wondered why.

A strange taste spilled into my mouth; like I’d been sucking on metal.

Could Connor have been the father of said alleged baby? That would surely explain her weirdness and obsession with talking about the guy. Maybe they’d kept their affair a secret?

Although, during our Connor related discussion, she’d seemed the most at ease. Wouldn’t she have givensomethingaway at that point?

---