Page 16 of One Perfect Day in Lovely Bay
Cally turned back to the mirror. She felt a bit bonkers, but the coat had seemed to transform her somehow. Made her feel as if she belonged. ‘It does.’
‘Happy with it?'
Cally nodded emphatically. 'More than happy. Thank yousomuch.'
Molly beamed. 'My pleasure. Right, the care instructions will arrive via a PDF to your email. Honestly, it’s best if you follow them.’ Molly touched the cuff of Cally’s coat. ‘People joke about it, but a Lovely coat really can last a lifetime if you treat it right. Do you want to wear it out, or shall I pack it up for you?'
Cally hesitated for a moment. 'I think I'll wear it,' she decided. 'If that's alright?'
Molly chuckled. 'Of course it is.’
As Molly tapped on her phone to complete the sale, the shop door chimed. Both women looked up to see Nina coming in.
Nina smiled. 'I thought I saw you through the window. Hey, our Molly, how are you?’
‘Good. Just getting Cally sorted.’
‘Ahh, I thought so. Congratulations on your coat!’ Nina laughed.
Cally nodded. 'What do you think?'
Nina looked Cally up and down. 'It's gorgeous. The fit! Molly, you've outdone yourself as usual. Ooh, I loved it when I got my first coat. Such a good feeling! I think I stroked it for weeks,’ Nina joked.
Molly waved off the compliment, but Cally could see she was pleased. 'Cally made it easy, being such a good model.'
Cally smiled and looked down at the front of the coat. ‘I feel like I’ve joined a club.’
'I know the feeling. It's a beautiful coat, and you look lovely in it.' Nina agreed. ‘I remember when I got my coat. It feels like joining a secret society or something, doesn't it? I thought I was losing the plot having feelings for a coat, but there you are.'
Cally nodded, relieved that someone else understood. 'Exactly!’
‘You’ll keep noticing other people's coats now. It's like a weird shared experience.'
Molly chuckled. ‘You're one of us now—a proper Lovely Bay resident. Plus, you have a new model with the updated pocket situation. Not many have that one yet, so keep an eye on it.'
Cally nodded. Molly may well have laughed, but she didn’t know just how good the coat made her feel. She very much liked being in the club.
9
Cally had just come in from a long day doing a decluttering job with Nina in a hoarder’s house in the next town. Suffice to say, it hadn’t been pleasant. As she walked into the deli building, Alice poked her head around the door and wiggled a couple of letters that had arrived that morning. Tucking them under her arm, Cally smiled and nodded as she walked up the stairs at the thought of what the two letters contained. She’d been paperless forever, but now that she was completely and utterly debt-free and in possession of a very nice healthy bank balance, she wanted it in black and white in front of her. Therefore, she’d ordered paper statements to come in the post.
Chuckling to herself about the power of the little things, she thought that perhaps she’d frame both balances and put them on the wall. Slipping her shoes off, she plonked her bag down, did a wee, washed her hands and face and popped the kettle on. Ten minutes later, she was sitting with a hot blackcurrant and the crinkly credit card envelope in front of her. Splitting open the top, she read down to the bottom. A big fat load of zeros all in a nice neat row. Sighing, she felt a huge wave of relief. The credit cardhadand stilldidembody horrible things to her. Like a noose around her neck, it had always denoted her lack of control.It wasn’t as if she’d ever used it for nice holidays, designer bags, fancy shoes or the like, either. It had been for emergency use only and had saved her bacon a few times. The zeros winked happily at her from the bottom of the page.
The information in the other envelope was all the better. She read down the deposit column over and over again. Little bits of money here and there that added up to what was in front of her now. Long hours, three jobs, early mornings, bleary eyes. Sacrifice. All of it looked back at her. Oh, how fabulous did those numbers look? Freedom, security. Time to exhale.
Finishing her blackcurrant, she sat at her desk and thought about packing for her upcoming trip to Scotland, but instead added up her sums for a mortgage application for the hundredth time and then checked her emails. She was pleased to see that here was an email from Birdie’s company with the formal job offer, just as Birdie had promised.
After getting up and making herself another blackcurrant, she sat back down at her desk, opened the email, scanned down its content and felt her chin drop to the floor. Surprise whacked her around the chops a bit. This was no rubbish little add-on job to what she was already doing. Benefits, a very good salary, and bonuses swam in front of her eyes. What she hadn’t realised was that the chemist was part of a co-op type affair in the industry and that a full-time job included all the good things that came with that. Subsidised healthcare, all sorts of discounts on all sorts of things, gym membership, sick pay, a company vehicle, paid leave. Ding blimming dong.
Cally stared at the screen, her eyes wide and unblinking as she tried to process the information before her. The job offer from Birdie's wasn't just a step up as Birdie had intimated; it was a giant leap, as far as Cally was concerned, into a whole other world. She blinked and shook her head repeatedly as she scrolled through the details again, not quite sure it was real. Shethought that if she looked away for a minute, she’d realise that she’d imagined the whole thing or that it might all disappear.
As the enormity of what the offer represented began to sink in, Cally felt a lump in her throat. The emotion she felt wasn't entirely because of the offer, the salary, the benefits, the car, or any of it. It was the fact that the job represented the end of holding up the sky. Like the real end. No more having it teetering there on her circumference waving at her from the side.
Tears pricked as she thought about the scrimping and saving she’d done over the years. The nights she'd lain awake in the vile house on the estate worrying about how to make ends meet. The putting up and shutting up. The memory of standing in the supermarket carefully calculating. Deciding on whether or not to choose the blackcurrant with the gold top. All of it dropped on her head like a dead weight.
She swallowed, felt another prickle in her eyes and then a tear. It slipped down her cheek, followed by another. The sky falling down by way of the offer from Birdie was so intense, it almost made our Cally want to be sick. She laughed a strange macabre sound and wiped her eyes with the back of her hand.
Pull yourself together,she muttered in her head. Security and stability floated in front of her eyes. How long had she been chasing that elusive concept? It didn’t take a rocket scientist to work it out; her entire life. A constant struggle to stay afloat, to keep her head above water, to do all the things. Now, here in front of her, by way of an email in her inbox, it felt as if someone was offering her something on a silver platter. The realisation that Birdie had seen her potential and believed in her enough to put her money where her mouth was blew Cally away. After years of trudging along feeling invisible, another cog in the machine of life, Birdie valued her. Boy, oh boy, did that feel good.
