Page 82 of Lessons in Love at the Seaside Salon
‘He doesn’t love me back!’
‘It happens in life. It’s hard and it hurts but it happens. And you need to get a hold of yourself otherwise you’re going to get into quite a state.’
Evie sniffles and her chest heaves. ‘Maybe I want to be in a state,’ she says.
Trudy thinks this is just about the crux of it: the girl hasn’t let herself feel anything for years, just holding things together as a single mum with hardly any help from that moron she had a kid with, and then she sees a handsome bloke and ends up in a tizz and it makes her feel alive. It’s easier to watch soap operas and let yourself ride the roller-coaster along with the characters – that way you get to feel things and it doesn’t have an impacton real life. But what would Trudy know? She’s just a slightly old duck who can’t get over her dead husband, so clearly she feels too much.
‘It’s not good for you. You’ll wear yourself out.’
Trudy has seen it with clients: ladies who invest far too much time and energy in a fella who then lets them down and they’re in the salon crying and asking Trudy what hairstyle they should get in order to win the man back.
None, is what she wants to tell them. But it’s not what they want to hear. They want her to wave a magic wand over them and give them a love potion they can take away with them. The worst part is that she knows, without ever having met these men, that they won’t be worth the pain. Even Sam, god bless him, isn’t worth the pain because she’s fairly sure he knows what’s been going on with Evie and he’s enjoyed the adulation too much to stop it. Until now, of course, which is why she’s so upset.
‘You need to let this go,’ Trudy says firmly, looking at Evie’s blotchy cheeks and her hair that’s all over the place from Evie running her hands through it, as she’s doing now. ‘And I’m being tough on you because it’s good for you. Any man who doesn’t love you back is not the man for you, I don’t care how good-looking he is. And that’s something else: good looks are just a fact. They don’t make a man nice or not, they don’t make him any better for you or not. They’re just afact.’
‘But he’s really sweet!’
Oh lord, she’s still trying to justify it.
‘In case you hadn’t noticed, pet, he’s sweet to everyone, including the eighty-year-olds and the teenagers. It’s just him.’
Evie looks stricken, but Trudy decides to keep going and really drive the point home.
‘I hate to say this to you, pet, but you’re not special to him. Not like that. I’m sure he cares for you a great deal – I can seethat by how he interacts with you – but it’s nothing romantic. It never will be.’
There’s more sniffling from Evie while Trudy starts to wonder if they’ll get drenched going from the car to the hospital building.
‘I know,’ Evie says at last. ‘He told me. That’s why I’m so upset.’
‘It’s going to hurt for a while,’ Trudy tells her kindly. ‘Then it won’t. So the only thing separating hurt from not-hurt is time. That’s the best I can tell you. Also this: distract yourself. Get a new hobby. Make a new friend.’
Evie nods slowly then sits up straighter. ‘I must look awful,’ she says.
‘Pretty bad, yes.’ Trudy laughs. ‘Come on, I’ll fix you up then we’ll try not to get wet and muss it all up again.’
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
Nothing in Josie’s life has prepared her for being captive in a bed in a hospital ward, completely reliant on other people, not even able to wee for herself. Or do other things.
That’s really the worst part – worse than the pain that comes when her medication wears off and goes when she takes more of it.Bodily functions.Things no one has helped her with since she was a very small child – so small she can’t remember her mum taking her to the toilet. It’s really humiliating, having to ask a nurse to help you with … you know. YOU KNOW.
When she said something to her mum about it, Erin just said, ‘Try having a baby, then you’ll find out about humiliation. You’re like a piece of meat on a slab and everyone’s poking you.’
Was that meant to make her feel better? Especially since she had been the baby in question? She supposed her mother was trying to be sympathetic but it didn’t work. And Josie really needs sympathy. Really, seriously. Her father, when he visits, looks miserable and says little, so she’s not getting it from him. The nurses are brisk and their smiles don’t seem genuine, and she can’t really blame them when they have to spend all day tending toyou know, among other things. What a horrible job. Josie couldn’t do it. That’s why she’s doing hair. Was doing hair. Does she still have a job? Her apprenticeship is stuffed.
Except Trudy came to visit, with Evie. So that must mean Trudy still wants her around. She didn’t say anything about the job other than ‘you just take your time getting better’. Whichcould mean ‘take your time because there’s no job to come back to’ or ‘take your time and I’ll hold it for you’.
At least those two were sympathetic. They gasped – loudly – when they walked in and saw her with her legs in casts.
‘Oh god, Josie, you poor little thing!’ Trudy cried when she entered the room.
Erin looked up from her magazine. ‘Hello, Trudy,’ she said. At least she put the magazine down and stood up to properly say hello. Most days she just sits in that chair and reads, and Josie wonders why she bothers coming here. Josie even said that to Erin the other day when she was feeling really low.
‘Where else would I be?’ her mother said. ‘I know there’s not much excitement for you having me around, but if I were at home I’d just be worrying about you.’
It wasn’t about excitement, Josie wanted to tell her. It was about privacy. She has none. No point saying that, though, because Erin will get upset and make her feel guilty, and Josie can do without the guilt. It’s bad enough her car was written off – she’s been feeling bad about that for days.
Her mum and Trudy chatted along like old friends, which made Josie wonder how many times they’d spoken before. Evie gave Josie the chocolates she’d brought; Josie didn’t tell her she couldn’t eat chocolates because her stomach is sensitive at the moment and chocolates make heryou know. These are things she actually wishes she could say to people because they might be sympathetic – we all have issues with digestion from time to time – but she knows her mother would flip, and as her mother is always around when Josie is conscious, that won’t happen.
