Page 92 of The Night Before Christmas
Any further, and she’ll be looking at the ceiling.
‘Well, this is hardly the place, now, is it?’ It was his turn to cross his arms. Felicity tried not to notice how his shirt fabric stretched in all the right places. She felt like a naughty schoolgirl again, but she was confident James would give Erika short shrift and then there would be plenty of time for her to make it up to him.
‘It’s important, James,’ said Erika, with a sideways glance at Felicity, as if daring her to butt in.
James contemplated her for a moment and everyone held their collective breath.
‘Okay, fine. But not here. I’ll give you my new number and you can call me on the phone like a normal person. In themeantime, let’s leave these lovely people to get back to their work, shall we?’
Erika nodded in satisfaction just as Felicity’s jaw dropped to her chest.
Wait, what?
Erika swept out of the building so quickly she practically left cartoon swish marks in her wake. James lingered long enough to keep up appearances, long enough to drop off the lunches he’d bought for them and check on the cats, but then he made a sharp exit. He had flatly refused to listen to Felicity’s explanations.
‘I know she’s tricky,’ was all he said. ‘But you are normally so kind. I’m surprised at you, honestly.’
That cut deep. She spent a couple of miserable hours that afternoon feeling like the worst person in the world as his words ran round and round in her mind like ball bearings. The logical part of her brain knew it wasn’t entirely fair. Clearly, he hadn’t heard the way Erika had spoken toher. She had only been responding, had only snapped because of the way Erika had been. Her attitude had just been so… horrible. Surely in those circumstances what Felicity had said was justifiable. Perhaps.
What a stuck-up cow, thought Felicity, and then felt shame all over again as if James could mystically hear her thoughts. She so badly wanted to talk it through with him properly,but knew she’d have to wait until later. In the meantime, she needed someone else’s take on this. As painful as it was to admit, she might actually have to ask Andrea what she thought. She had been a witness, after all. But, knowing Andrea as she did, she’d almost certainly wish she hadn’t asked.
God help me.
Despondently, Felicity lingered behind at the end of the day in hopes of probing Andrea on the whole incident while she was locking up. She wasn’t expecting a great deal, as Andrea usually gave some massive generalisation or other, told you what you needed to do to sort everything out in no more than three short sentences and then got a bit bored of hearing about other humans’ lives and returned to her animals.
So, she was surprised to say the least when Andrea leaned in conspiratorially.
‘What did you think of that Erika? I thought she was a complete cow.’
Felicity let out an impromptu snort of laughter.
‘A complete cow. Didn’t you think?’ said Andrea again, as if Felicity hadn’t heard her.
Felicity shrugged and tried to think of something nice to say. ‘I thought she was very beautiful.’
‘Oh yes, sure, very beautiful but also a total cow and nowhere near nice enough to be with James, by the way.’
‘Is that so?’ said Felicity.
‘Nowherenear.He’s an absolute doll. The only explanation is that she’s either got a really rich family and hooked him in with that or he was so blinded by her beauty he couldn’t see her cow-like characteristics.’
Felicity was starting to feel a bit better. ‘He was smitten with her,’ she said. ‘Totally smitten. He told me she walked out on him on Boxing Day. Broke his heart. I didn’t know they were still in touch…’
‘Shewalked out onhim?’ said Andrea. ‘She must have had a stroke. Or some kind of aneurism. A funny turn of some sort,anyway. Nothing else makes sense. What possible reason could anyone have to walk out on a man like that?’
That’s for sure, thought Felicity.
‘So, what the heck was she doing here then, do you reckon?’ she said out loud.
‘Oh, she wants him back,’ said Andrea, simply. ‘She will have invented some excuse. A family emergency or something. But it’s all a ploy to win him back. You mark my words. She’s a conniving cow.’
Felicity laughed. ‘It might be something completely genuine. Then you’ll feel awful.’
‘No, I bloody won’t. And speaking of bloody, if she ever comes back here, I know a few activist friends who would happily come and throw red paint at her for those leather gloves.’
‘You don’t mean that.’
‘I bloody do.’
