Page 39 of An Enchanted Moment on Ever After Street
‘Mine too.’ I hadn’t intended to cry tonight, but her kind words make my eyes threaten to fill up.
‘We’ll save it. You, me, and…’ She gives me a hug and glances towards the wall behind me like she can see the flower shop beyond. ‘Him. Some weird guy none of us have ever seen.’
‘He’s just…’ I clutch at straws for a word to describe Darcy. It’s not weirdness, it’s… lack of confidence. Lack of trust in other people and a certainty that he will be judged and disliked based on what he looks like. ‘…a little unconventional.’
‘That’s okay, all the best people are.’
TheAlice in Wonderlandquote puts a smile back on my face, and I try not to think about how much I wish Darcy was here to share the joy of this night.
It’s 8p.m. that night when Cleo’s downstairs, seeing off the last of our guests with a promise of hosting another friendship evening next month, despite the fact I have no idea if we’ll evenbehere by this time in November. After a full day of work, then setting up, then hosting the friendship dates, matching couples, and keeping an eye on everything, I’ve been on the go since breakfast. My feet are killing me, my back started protesting by lunchtime and hasn’t quietened down since, and all I want to do is catch up on the sleep I didn’t get last night for worrying about today’s event. But tomorrow is a working day, the shop needs to be returned to normal, eleventy billion plates and cups need to be washed up and returned to the castle where Darcy borrowed them from, and Cleo’s helped more than enough already, I can’t expect her to help with clean-up too. It feels like I’m going to be here until 2a.m. as I clatter the first lot of tableware into the sink upstairs and turn on the hot water.
There’s a knock on the other side of the wall.
‘Darcy?’ I look up in surprise.
‘Successful night, by the looks of it?’ His voice is muffled through the brickwork. I’ve always known I could hear him through the wall, but it’s the first time we’ve tried talking through it.
‘I think so. Everyone seemed really happy. I’ve been added to chat groups, exchanged more phone numbers than I know what to do with, and inadvertently volunteered to start a book clubanddo this again sometime. Thanks for all your help.’
‘We’ve got a problem on this side, Marnie.’
My stomach sinks. I’m too tired to deal with any problems. He hears my groan of despair before I have a chance to formulate a response.
‘There’s one date left.’
Oh, hell’s bells. There’s someone still over there? How the heck did we miss that? I thought we’d cleared out any stragglers. I swear out loud at the thought of having to traipse all the way down the stairs and over to Darcy’s again. ‘I’ll be round to clear them out now.’
I don’t expect his response to be laughter. ‘I don’t mean that. I mean there’s a table set up for one friendship couple who haven’t had their date yet.’
‘Oh, come on, don’t tell me I’ve missed someone.’ I wrack my brains. The forms were a lot to keep on top of, but I thought I had a better grasp on them than that. There can’t still be someone down there waiting, can there?
‘You and Cleo, you flipping idiot!’
I’ve never been called an idiot with such affection before and it makes me laugh. ‘I can’t, Darcy. I’ve got to clean—’
‘You two come through the back and unlock your front door on the way so Mrs Potts and I can come in and clean up in there.’
‘Don’t be silly, this is—’
‘It’s not optional. I didn’t want to get involved with the people, but the one thing I can do is clean up, as long as I’m leftalone. So get Cleo and make the most of the last date of the night. There’s tea that isn’t going to stay hot for long if you don’t hurry up.’
Tears prickle my eyes and there’s a lump in my throat. I’venevermet anyone kinder or more thoughtful than this man. I put my hand on the wall, palm flat against the painted plasterwork, wishing he could feel it. ‘Thank you.’
I don’t want to leave cleaning up to Darcy, but the thought of sitting down with a hot cup of tea makes me want to cry with longing, and I go downstairs, find Cleo where she’s rubbing carpet cleaner into a coffee stain on the bookshop carpet, and drag her through the back door.
Entering Darcy’s garden tonightislike walking into Wonderland without all that pesky falling through rabbit holes stuff. It’s what I imagine the Beast’s rose garden must’ve been like. Inside the gate, he’s put up a topiary archway with pink roses woven through it and fairy lights wrapped around it. There’s a neat path leading up the garden alongside the hedge, to a set of two wide steps up to a closed back door and a patio area where a gazebo has been set up for the buffet. The rest of the garden has grass that’s so neatly cut, it looks like it could’ve been done with scissors, and the empty chairs and tables are now in tidy stacks, apart from one, which has got a steaming teapot and dainty china cups on it, and a large serving plate piled high with pastries and cakes. He must have raided the buffet before it was ransacked and put aside the best for us.
Also on the table are two hand-cut roses in a vase filled with twinkling fairy lights. The gazebo is strung with fairy lights too, and unlike my haphazard branch-fest, his hedge is cut in a neat box shape and has got warm-white fairy lights threaded throughout it that he’s surely only put there for tonight. Around the edge of the grass is a gravel path lined with vintage-looking stone planters filled with orange and rust-coloured autumnroses. No wonder he spends so much time out here. If my garden looked like this, I’d probably be fonder of the outdoors too.
The scent of roses is strong in the air. It’s a scent that wafts over the hedge occasionally, not just of one rose, but a blissful concurrence of the scent of each rose, and it’s a heady floral mixture that could be bottled and sold as the most elegant perfume.
‘How can someone who calls himself a beast be hiding such a beautiful garden?’ Cleo pulls out her chair and sits down to pick up the teapot while I set the teacups and saucers out. ‘Aren’t you ever tempted to try to catch him? See what he’s hiding?’
The image of his bent fingers and scarred hand flashes in my head, and I let my fingertips run along one of the beautiful roses in the vase. It’s a white rose with red-edged petals, such a contrast that it would make anyone stop and stare. ‘No. Because it’s about more than what he looks like.’
I’m not even sure itisabout what he looks like. He keeps cutting off that ‘deserves’ word, the one I can’t stop thinking about, and I keep wondering if this is less about Darcy being accepted and more about Darcy feeling like he doesn’tdeserveto be accepted, for whatever reason. ‘He’s been an absolute rock since this started. He makes me feel like I’ve got someone battling alongside me, andthatis what makes a relationship. Too much emphasis is placed on looks these days. “Handsome” is considered a top-tier compliment. If we like someone, is handsome really the nicest thing we can say about them? Do they not have other personality traits apart from being nice-looking? Aren’t they kind? Funny? Do they get us in a way that no one else does? Deep? Intelligent? Caring? Handsome is the least important thing someone can be, but the world makes it seem like themost. Anyone who doesn’t fit a traditional mould is left feeling like an outsider.’
‘If anyone’s going to help Darcy with that, it’s you.’
