Page 164 of Falling for You
‘How’s work?’ Dad smiles at me as he puts a steaming mug down on the kitchen table. ‘How’s Pam?’
‘Is she still smoking at her desk?’ Mum grins.
Last year, Penny, Tanya and I had to move out of the flat for six weeks while our landlord finally got round to tackling the mould that was skirting around our walls like condensation on a shower screen. Penny moved in with Mike (and his three housemates, who all sit on different parts of the hygiene scale) and Tanya moved in with someone from work. I came home, not that I really had much choice. It’s not that I didn’t have any other friends that I could ask. It was more that if my mum had found out that I’d needed somewhere to stay for six weeks and not come home … Well, let’s just say that she would have been dressed in black for the rest of her life to mourn the loss of her daughter, who chose a friend’s sofa over her childhood bedroom and home-cooked meals.
Anyway, I didn’t fancy commuting to London every day, so Pam let me work from home while the work was going on. I organised all the viewings with houses and schools and spoke to any prospective clients before matching them with someone in the team who was based in London. On paper, it sounded great. A clean, warm house for a month. A fully stocked fridge and washing that’s lavished in fabric softener.
In reality, Mum and Dad saw it as their chance to see me ‘in the real world’ and made no effort to hide the fact that they were desperate to watch me work so they could look at each other adoringly and praise themselves for creating a functioning adult. Pam met them over Zoom, as they insisted on ‘popping in’ to the kitchen every time I was on a call to eavesdrop, and – if they had their way – get involved. I mean, thank God I don’t work in sales. They’d be standing behind me demanding the client take the deal before they ring up their parents and tell them what’s what.
Luckily, my parents seem to love Pam even more than I do. And the feeling turned out to be mutual. They are a similar age, so can chat for ages about ABBA and EastEnders. I got very little work done that month.
‘She’s all good,’ I smile. ‘She liked my costume for Halloween.’
‘So she should!’ Dad says loyally. ‘Actually, did you hear back from Atif?’
Mum’s brow knits. ‘No, I didn’t, I’ll send him a message.’
I try not to groan. Atif is the editor of our local newspaper, where Mum spent my entire childhood emailing the team pictures of me in my costumes, until one day she met Atif’s wife at the bakery and somehow managed to wangle his phone number out of her. I’m sure Atif rues the day that he woke up with a penchant for sourdough.
‘Why are you messaging Atif?’ I ask, already knowing the answer.
‘For his Halloween piece in the paper!’ Dad says. ‘He always loves to include your picture.’
‘No, he doesn’t.’
‘Yes, he does! He told Mum, didn’t he?’
‘Yes!’ Mum chirps back.
I roll my eyes. There is no point telling her that Atif is just being polite.
‘Now, what’s next?’ Dad smiles at me. ‘Have you got any more orders in?’
I take a sip of my tea and feel myself warm at the sweetness. Dad always puts a spoonful of honey in it, even though I told him that I gave up the habit years ago.
‘Just the gremlin one that came through the other day,’ I say. ‘I’ve nearly finished.’
‘Fantastic,’ Dad beams at me. ‘I can’t wait to see it.’
I smile, picking up my phone which has burst into life at the sudden influx of signal and is vibrating wildly.
My three-way group chat with Tanya and Penny is going ballistic. For a second, I fear that they may have spotted a mouse again and they’re demanding I come back to London to sort it out (last time, they both hid in Tanya’s room for hours one night squealing whilst I chased it out of the house and promised that I spotted where it went and carefully – and securely – blocked its entrance. Reader: I have no bloody idea where it went, but I was so delighted that it had disappeared and they’d stopped screaming that I was prepared to swear on the Bible if it meant I could go back to bed).
But when I open the messages I see that Tanya and Penny are sending me endless photos of men’s Instagram profiles.
Annie – we’re trying to work out which man is the most likely to be your type. It’s quite tricky without you here, but Penny has come up with an equation!!!!
I grin as I look at the seven emojis Tanya has sent along with her message. Tanya is the most glamorous, suave person that I know, until she writes a WhatsApp message. Then she may as well be christened Judy from Accounts.
Male, aged between 18 and 40.
I nearly drop my phone. Eighteen! What does she take me for? I could be his mother!
I mean, I would have been fifteen, but still.
American looking, nice man x the likelihood that Annie will find him attractive considering his type is a woman dressed as a bat.
I raise my eyebrows as I read Tanya’s following message.
