Page 49 of One Snowy Day
Georgie let out a long, slow sigh. ‘Oh, Mum, I’m so sorry you found out. I didn’t want you to know.’
Jessie felt like she’d been slapped. ‘But why? Why wouldn’t you tell me about it?’
‘Because I didn’t want the job. It would have been crazy. Who wants to go to Colorado in winter?’
If that lass thought that she could get away with lying to the woman who had been her mother for thirty-eight years, she must have inhaled too much hairspray doing Cathy’s hair today.
Jessie pursed her lips. Raised her right eyebrow. Waited. And,of course, Georgie had cracked. She’d always been a terrible bluffer.
‘Argh, okay! I didn’t tell you because you’re finally getting to retire, Mum, and I knew that if you heard about this, you’d put your life on hold and try to make it happen for me. You’ve already given me your salon and I know how lucky I am to have that, so there was no way I was going to ruin the plans for you and Dad to go off and live your best lives. But, at the same time, I couldn’t just shut up shop for six months and bugger off. The salon would take years to recover from that. So there was no option but to refuse the job. But I’m totally fine with that decision – I’m not the adventurous type anyway.’
Jessie was flabbergasted. Stunned. This whole time, there she’d been, dreading going off into the sunset and now, Georgie had given up what sounded like the opportunity of a lifetime, because Jessie wasn’t going to be here. This discussion wasn’t over by a long shot.
‘But, Georgie, if you’d told me about it, we could have come up with a plan. I could have stayed here longer. Another six months working in the salon wouldn’t have made any difference to me.’ Jessie could hear herself and hoped that Georgie didn’t realise that this time it was her who was lying. The truth was, she’d been on her feet since she was eighteen – that was forty-seven years of standing all day tending to people’s locks. She was done. Exhausted. It was time to put her feet up. The problem had never been that she was being forced to retire – she was wholeheartedly looking forward to that. If she never spent another day standing behind a chair, clutching a comb and a pair of scissors, that would be just dandy. The problem was that she was going to be spending that retirement in a place that didn’t have… She looked around her, as if making the point to herself. Tenerife didn’t have this. Friends. Family. Her community.
‘Mum, please forget about it. I turned it down and it’s over with, and I’m happy. Let it go and just enjoy your night. You deserve it.’
Jessie recognised that she was being brushed off, and she knew that Georgie was doing it with the best of intentions, but this wasn’t sitting right with her at all.
Although, perhaps here and now wasn’t the best time and place to have this conversation, because the door kept opening and more people were arriving every two minutes.
‘Helena! Eve!’ Jessie exclaimed. ‘Och, the two of you are radiant, so you are.’ Cathy’s daughter and granddaughter made their entrance – two lovely ladies who couldn’t be more different. Helena was a terrifyingly astute criminal lawyer, and Eve was a talent agent who loved a party. Georgie adored her cousins, and the cheeky madam was now using them as an excuse to get out of this conversation, saying, ‘Ladies, come with me and let’s get you a drink. I think Aunt Cathy and Richie are over at the buffet.’
She then turned back to Jessie and said in a smiley singsong voice, ‘Mum, we’ll chat later, but don’t you worry about a thing. Everything is exactly the way it’s supposed to be.’ With that, she kissed Jessie on the cheek and shepherded her cousins through the crowd to the other side of the room, passing her brother on the way. Grant reached Jessie, threw his arms around her and then pulled back, took one hand and twirled her round as Loretta belted out ‘Man, I Feel Like A Woman’. Loretta and Moira were having a ball – over next to the area that had been cleared for dancing, they’d pushed two coffee tables together to fashion a makeshift stage that would never pass a health and safety inspection, and the crowd was loving it.
‘Great party, Mum. Although, if there’s a crime spree in Weirbridge tonight, they’ll clean everyone out because the whole village is here.’
‘True. The head of the Neighbourhood Watch is over there, line dancing in the opposite direction to everyone else.’ He followed her eyeline and then howled when he spotted Val, who was indeed going left when all the other Shania Twains were going right.
Jessie stretched up on her toes, so that she could speak to him without shouting over the music. ‘I need to talk to you, son.’
‘Oh, no. I wasn’t there, it wasn’t me, and I didn’t do it,’ Grant retorted, parroting the same line he’d frequently used as a teenager to deny all culpability for any misdemeanour, especially if hewasthere, itwashim and hediddo it.
Jessie gave him an unimpressed nudge and got back to the point. ‘Does that sister of yours still tell you everything that’s going on in her life?’
He eyed her with suspicion. ‘Maybe. Perhaps. I can’t confirm or deny. Why?’
‘Because if she does, then she might have told you that she got offered a job in America working with Ollie Chiles.’
Jessie was studying his face intently. Like Georgie, he was a terrible liar, and she could spot a porky with her eyes shut. Grant knew that, which was probably why he was going for vague acknowledgement but confirming nothing.
‘I may or may not know something about that situation, but I’m not a grass, so I can’t possibly say and you’ll never break me.’ He’d never been the same since he binge-watchedChicago PD.
‘And if she told you about it, then she probably told you that she turned it down.’
That appeared to be news to him because his surprise gave the game away. ‘She did? Bugger. I’ve been trying to talk her into taking it all day. Six months on a TV set is a brilliant gig. If he’d asked me, I’d be there in a heartbeat. Don’t ever tell Gabriel I said that.’
Okay, now that he’d dropped the coy act and become an official informant, she needed him to cough up the crucial info.
‘Grant, did she want the job? Did she say no to it because she didn’t want to trouble me?’
‘No!’ There was a short pause, before he surrendered. ‘And by that I mean yes. Okay, yes. To both questions. She would have loved to have taken the job, but the timing didn’t work with you retiring, so that was her dilemma.’
That was what she wanted to know. The whole point of giving the salon to Georgie had been to set her up for life. She hadn’t considered for a second that Georgie might have wanted other options.
‘Am I excused, or do you want to shine one of those candles in my eyes and grill me for more information?’
‘No, I want you to mind the door here while I nip to the loo and be sparkling and gracious to everyone who arrives.’
