Page 42 of Lessons in Love at the Seaside Salon
They order, a steak for him and fish for her, and while they wait for food he asks her questions about herself. No one ever has before – not like this. When you’re making a new friend you might ask some things, but usually you find out about the friend simply by hanging out and doing stuff – information just comes up. But he’s really asking her as if he wants to know.
Except what do you say about a life that has involved being a good girl at home and school, then learning to do hair and being an apprentice?
‘You don’t want to hear all of this,’ she says eventually, just as their meals are placed on the table. ‘I’m so boring.’
He frowns. ‘Boring?’
‘Yeah. I don’t do that much.’
‘Yes, you do. You deal with people all day. That’shard.’ He laughs. ‘Why do you think I work with cars?’
She hadn’t thought of it like that before. Is her work really that hard? Maybe it is. Clients can be tricky, getting upset about things she doesn’t think are that big of a deal.
‘Thanks,’ she says.
‘What for?’
She smiles. ‘For saying that. I guess it is hard sometimes. I feel like I do something important now!’
‘You do,’ he says, slicing into his steak. ‘You help people feel good about themselves.’
The look he gives her then makes her feel like she could float off the chair. It’s so warm and clear – like he really sees her. Likeshe’s special. It’s so unfamiliar a look to her that she can’t hold it, so she peers down at her fish instead.
They spend the rest of the meal talking about their childhood holidays and which TV shows they like, then he walks her back to her car.
‘Thank you so much,’ she says as he opens her passenger door and puts her bag on the seat. ‘I had such a good night.’
‘Not as good as mine,’ Brett says.
She wonders if he’s going to kiss her. Then she panics, because she’s never kissed anyone, which means she’d be so bad at it, and she would bet he’s kissed lots of girls because he’s so handsome.
There isn’t a kiss, though. Not on the lips. Instead he pecks her cheek then holds open her driver-side door and waits while she rolls down the window.
‘I’ll see you soon,’ he says, then he touches her cheek and walks off.
Her cheek feels warm all the way back to Gosford, but whether it’s from his hand or the fact that she’s smiling the whole time, she doesn’t know.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
It shouldn’t be, Evie thinks, Josie the nineteen-year-old apprentice who is prattling on about her first date with some bloke, as they’re in the kitchen making a cup of tea while there’s a lull in their clientele. White with two for Evie because she’s developed a sugar habit to go along with her Sam semi-obsession, while Josie has a dash of milk and no sugar and that’s probably why she’s a skinny minnie, and that’s another thing Evie plans to resent her for as soon as she’s over her resentment about the date.
No, it shouldn’t be Josie. It should be her, Evie, telling her co-worker about her date with their other co-worker Sam, except she hasn’t had one because he hasn’t asked her out and despite what Fran said, Evie is so on the verge of asking him that she just may –
‘We went to that cafe near the hotel,’ Josie says as she switches off the kettle just after the whistle has blown, then she turns, her eyes wide and bright and full of hope.
Evie remembers that sort of hope. You can only have it when you haven’t lived long enough to be disappointed by romantic relationships. Or, in her case, unromantic relationships. Some bloke fumbling with her buttons in the back seat of his car at the drive-in; another putting his hand between her legs as he stuck his tongue down her throat; another telling her, ‘My mother will love you’, over and over on a date then never calling her again. That wasn’t a love life, it was a loveless life, and she’s sick of living it.
Sam looks at her as if she’s the best thing he sees all day and that has to mean something, doesn’t it? It has to be the start of something, not the totality of it. That’s what she tells herself at night, after Billy has gone to bed and she’s sitting on the couch reading her Jackie Collins novels and dreaming of a more intense life than the one she’s living now. Sure, Jackie’s books aren’t about romance so much as sex and power, but Evie will take any distraction she can get from wondering why Sam hasn’t made a move on her.
The other day it was just the two of them left at closing and Evie thought it would be the perfect opportunity, so she swept the hair in his direction.
He grinned at her then nodded toward the floor. ‘Missed a bit, darl,’ he said.
That made her feel slightly sick and she wasn’t sure why. It’s the sort of thing she’d like to run past a friend – maybe an older version of Josie – but there’s no one she’d trust with it. She knows Fran will get cross with her, and a lot of her other friendships are fairly shallow these days, all revolving around school activities because everyone she knows outside of the Seaside Salon is associated with Billy’s school. She includes Stevo in that. But maybe not Oliver.
He called the salon the other day to talk to Sam. Evie answered the phone to him and they had a nice chat and she reflected, not for the first and probably not the last time, that it was really such a shame she didn’t like himthat way, because he’s so easy to talk to. But so is Sam. Maybe the brothers are just really good at chatting? That’s a little confusing for her, because if you’re chatting to someone who’s really good at conversation, how do you know if you really get along with them or if you’re just the latest in a line of people they’ve been chatting to? And does it really matter? Does she need to be the special one?
Actually, yes, she does. For once in her life she wants to be special to someone other than her son. Obviously she is special to Billy because all mothers are to their children, if for no other reason than the children need them to survive. She wants someone tochooseher, that’s it. Billy didn’t choose her. She chose him, in a sort-of way. She chose to keep him, even when everyone she knew told her not to go through with the pregnancy because it was clear to everyone – including her – that she and Stevo weren’t going to last. It was clear to Stevo too, as it turned out, although he tried his best.
