Page 30 of Daydreams & Doughnut Cake

‘Er, no. Obvs,’ I said, looking at him strangely. I mean, why would I?

‘Right, well, I’ll let you know what it’s like, then,’ he said, and he wandered off, leaving me standing there staring after him like a douche and feeling like someone with a few kangaroosloose in the top paddock! (I heard that on my fave Australian soap and I wrote it down because it made me laugh.)

I couldn’t believe it.

I walked home thinking about what I’d said to him. I obvs didn’t make it clear that one of the cinema tickets was for me and I was asking him out on a date!!! But how could he not have known that’s what I meant?

It would have been way too embarrassing to start explaining I was asking him on a date, so I’d just said nothing and tried to look not bothered, as if it was what I’d meant all along. (Like I’m such a kind person, I go around buying RANDOM CINEMA TICKETS for people!)

When I told Fergie about it, I could tell he was trying really hard not to laugh. So I threatened to punch his lights out if he said ONE SINGLE WORD MORE on the subject. He sort of snorted into his fist and said he had only one more thing to say and it was about Reuben. So of course I wanted to know what it was.

‘The guy’s a complete tosser.’

‘You already said that, thanks,’ I replied crossly.

To which Fergie said, ‘I know. And I’ll keep saying it until you realise I’m right.’ He shrugged as if he wasn’t bothered but he was quite pink in the face and definitely not his usual joke-a-minute self. He walked away then he turned back and shouted, ‘His face is fine. It’s his personality that’s the problem.’

I was beginning to think Fergie might have a point but I wasn’t about to admit that.

‘You’re just jealous,’ I shouted back.

‘Jealous? Me? You’ve got to be joking.’ (I noticed he went even redder.) He grinned and walked right back to me. ‘That tosser has an ego the size of Birmingham. You do realise he probably makes lurve to himself in the mirror every night?’ He said thisin a funny sleezy voice, while doing some embarrassing but hilarious thrust actions to show me what he meant.

I laughed so much I thought maybe it was me who was in danger of having an accident in my pants.

But on the way home, I just felt sad.

It’s horrible being rejected. But I think I’ll live, as Granny Rose is always saying.

Rosie

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

I’d slept badly after my clash with Clare the previous night – but my body clock still woke me at seven as usual.

Not having to get up to see to Amelie – she was still at her sleep-over and Angela would be taking her to nursery – I lay there for a while thinking about what had happened. I’d still been feeling spooked from the scary events of the other night, so it was natural that I should hear footsteps behind me and think the worst – that it was the person who’d broken in who was now following me back to the house.

Butwasit the same person?

Was it Clare who’d snatched the food from the fridge in a temper, in an attack on my business? It seemed to me that whoever did it was in a proper rage at the time, flinging the cartons of curry all over the kitchen floor. Did Clare dislike me that much? Had she been harbouring her anger all this time, pretending to be my friend but secretly hating me?

But why on earth would she then pitch up at my door and invite me for lunch today with her family?

It just didn’t make sense . . .

I hadn’t agreed to go and I was inclined to just pretend it had never happened. With the terse reception she’d received from me, she surely wouldn’t beexpectingme to turn up at the Swan Hotel at twelve-thirty today?

I decided I wouldn’t go.

But as I stood in the shower, letting the hot water flow down my back and soothe me, I felt a prick of curiosity. I’d met Clare’s parents and brother quite a few times when they came to visit her in Brighton, and I’d liked them. Seeing them again today would be fine. And it would also give me a chance to talk to Clareagain, but this time in a more balanced way now that I’d got over the shock of her following me...

*****

Walking into the busy bar at the Swan Hotel, I was hoping it wouldn’t be a big crowd, with the whole wedding party having lunch.

So I was relieved to see just Clare, her parents, her brother Brian and his wife-to-be sitting at a table over in the corner.

Clare waved cheerily and beckoned me over and I smiled and said a general hello to them all.

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