Page 19 of Lessons in Love at the Seaside Salon
‘Will you come too?’ He looks a little pathetic as he says it.
‘No. It’s for you to spend time with them. I do that every day. And night. And don’t just take them then stand around talkingto the other dads, please. Payattention. They need to know you care.’
His mouth opens and she holds up her hand.
‘I know you think you do,’ she says, ‘but you don’t. They can tell.’
He nods slowly. ‘All right,’ he concedes.
She stands, hoping he’ll take it for the signal to leave that she intends it to be.
‘Where are you going now?’ he says, slowly standing up.
‘To the park.’
‘Can I come?’
She sighs, considering her options. There are at least two loads of washing here, and she wants to make spag bol for dinner, and a casserole they can eat later in the week. It would be handy if she didn’t have to go to the park.
‘How about you take them?’ she says.
‘Oh.’
‘Seriously, Gary? You can’t handle taking your own children to the park? You need me to do it with you?’
His eyes water. ‘It’s not that,’ he says. ‘I just want to spend time with you.’
‘You had years to do that,’ she says. ‘And you didn’t. Don’t make the same mistake with the kids.’
He closes his eyes for a second or two then opens them and looks toward the garden. ‘I won’t,’ he promises. Then he picks up his car keys from the table and walks out the back door, calling to the children.
Anna heads for the laundry and starts the day’s chores. It isn’t until she comes across a stray sock of Gary’s – who knows where on earth the other sock is, because the eternal mystery of washing is how socks become separated – that she feels something bubbling up that she really doesn’t want to deal with. Not irritation, because she’d allow herself that – indeed,has been for months. Not anger. She’s not given to anything so forceful, usually.
No …
A sob erupts from her chest and she’s shocked by it.
What? WHY?
She’s not sad about him being gone. She can’t be. This is what she wanted.
Isn’t it?
Sniffling back the tears that threaten to pour out of her because she really does not want to waste time on an emotional outburst, she switches on the radio in time for the bridge of Bonnie Tyler’s ‘Total Eclipse of the Heart’ to waft out of it. Great. Not the song she wants to hear right now. Turning the knob through the AM dial she alights on a Lionel Richie song that is not about a broken heart and hums along to it.
Distractions. That’s what she needs in order to get through whatever this is.
Distractions and a new version of herself, so she’s not the Anna whose marriage went to hell.
Humming along to Lionel, she starts to daydream about who that Anna may be.
CHAPTER TEN
‘Um …’ Josie bites her bottom lip and looks around for the comb Trudy has just asked her for. Twice.
Now Trudy is jerking her head in the direction of the wheelie-tray thing that is on the other side of the salon. Seriously, Josie is starting to think Trudy is laying traps for her, putting the tools she asks for all over the place so Josie has to find them. Like a treasure hunt with no treasure, just the reward of combing someone’s hair.
Josie scurries over to the tray only to find three combs of different sizes but the same colour: tortoiseshell. That’s confusing. Oh, and the teeth are different on one comb compared to the next. How is she meant to know which comb Trudy wants?
