The Great Christmas Breakup (15 page)

I grabbed my purse and pulled out my compact. Surveying the damage, it seemed the
blood was coming from my mouth.
I’d bitten into my tongue.

‘Scarlet, do you want me to call someone?’ Robert’s face was close – his aftershave smelled amazing.

‘Just my tongue, it’ll heal.
Looks worse than it is.
’

Relieved, Robert sank back into his chair, and the waitress appea
red with some napkins and a dish of warm water so that I could clean myself up.

When I was fairly confident I’d got all the blood off my chin,
I gingerly took a drink and tried not to
flinch.

What a moron I was.

As if someone like Robert Simpson would do business with a ditz like me?

‘Are you sure you don’t want me to run to the pharmacy for you?
Get something for your tongue?
’

‘No, ‘at’s o’kah,’
I tried to say, but my
tongue
had swelled up and I could hardly form
words
.

Wondering what to do, Robert
decided there was no
other option but to discuss the shop windows he’d mentioned.

‘I don’t know how many retail food windows you’ve done . . .’ He looked at me questioningly.

Might as well tell the truth, he probably wasn’
t going to recommend me for the job now,
was he?

‘
Nown.’

‘A number,
did you say? Good, that’s great. Well, my, er friend owns those
Chocolat
o
places.’

A shiver of anti
cipation crept up my spine. Those shops
were famous for their tiny chocolate animals.
Pe
ople queued for hours, or so my
kids told me. A box of chocolate frogs
around thirty dollars
though
, so naturall
y, we Teesons weren’t frequent visitors.

‘And it
needs a Christmas makeover – something clever like you did with
LollyBliss.
Can you manage that?’

‘I ‘dow now.’

‘Start now? Gosh, Scar
let, you are amazing.
Lolly said you did her window in an afternoon, including sourcing all the materials, but I didn’t really believe it.’

‘’At’s
‘
oo.’

‘
This job might take a bit longer
, of course. There are three stores. Now, how
about I
give you a float of one thousand dollars for materials, and the balance on completion of the windows?’

He was giving me the job?

Pushing
a sheet with some addre
sses and names on it over to me, he smiled.

Th
at was it?

I’d got the job?

Maybe Robert
fe
l
t
sorry for me, after
witnessing the sorry spectacle of me
bashing my face into
the table like a complete loser?

‘Those are the ma
nagers
’ names
and
the locations,’ he continued.
‘
Is a week
long enough?’

A week?

How was I going to get time off work
, to say nothing of
deal
ing
with the
kids and Cecily 2.

That was, if I still had my job
after failing to turn up today.

Dan Phillit was
probably
making voodoos of me as I sat there – I could feel the twinges in my back.

‘I’ ‘igh’ ‘ee’ ‘onger.’

‘
You don’t need that long?
I suppose you’ve got a lot on? Lolly says you
’re
in high demand. Three days, then?’

‘Oo, ‘at’s
‘ot ‘ossible.’

‘Not impossible? Brilliant. I’ll call you in a couple of days to make sure it’s going okay. And maybe when
the windows are
done, I can take you out to dinner to celebrate?’

The innue
ndo was as discreet
as Hammertro mig
ht try on an aging beauty queen at a bus stop, but
I was
still
flattered.

If Robert
found me attractive, ther
e was
still
hope for me, one way or another. 

I nodded instead of replying,
in case he mistook what I said for something x-rated,
an
d let him help me up and lead me back to
LollyBliss
.

*

Lolly and Lu
cinda were waiting breathlessly
at the shop. As I entered,
both
of them
literally stepped back in
unison upon seeing the state of me.

‘M
y God, did he punch you?’ Lolly looked at me, face pinched with concern.

‘Are you into that,
’ Lucinda asked,
‘
because some women are?’

‘’Oo! ‘E ‘idn’t.’

‘He hit you?’ Lolly translated.

‘Hit, punch, not much in it,’ Lucinda said.

Making my way through customers and
the
racks of new stock that were in front of the counter, I took up Lolly’s curly tipped pen and wrote on the back of one of her politically correct
brown paper
carry bags.

I did this to myself. An accident. I feel like a moron.

‘You look a bit like one too, with that lip,’ Lucinda noted.

‘Lucinda. Completely
inappropriate
’ said Lolly tiredly. ‘G
o and put those clothes out before one of the customers has a slip and trip and I get sued.’

‘I’m only trying to help,’ Lucinda replied sulkily.

Lolly turned back to me.
‘
Let’s get out of here, Serendipity?
Perfect time of year
for one of their frozen salted caramels
. And it couldn’t hurt that lip.’

‘O ’ay,’ I said, glancing at my watch.
It was still early and the kids had sports after school. If I didn’t w
ant to be landed with Cecily 2 –
having to discuss
the
Jerry Springer ‘stars’ who lived in their mobile home park and, obscenely, all the cats her own cat Spo
r had shagged –
I needed stay away until I had backup in the form of the kids or Carson.

Lolly sprung for a cab, and hopped out
halfway to get be something for my  swollen tongue
. By the time we reached the iconic ice cream parlor, normal speech had been resumed.

‘Thank you. You don’t know how idiotic I feel.’

‘It’s not the end of the world, Sc
ar,
’ Lolly said, spying a table
and barging through inexperienced
tourists to bag it.

I pushed through the crowds after her.
‘You don’t
know
what rubbish
that
man believes about me, though.’

Lolly went white.

‘What? Lolly?
Are y
ou okay?
Do you feel
ill?
’

Lolly stared pointedly behind me. I turned to find, f
or the second t
ime that day, Robert Simpson
standing
directly
behind me.

‘Robert. What are you doing here?’ Lolly asked brightly, hoping he hadn’t heard.

‘Business. Around the corner.’

He looked at me. ‘H
aving dinner with the husband?’

It sounded like
an accusation –
but
no, why should it be?

The more important question was, why would he think I was meeting Carson?

‘If you mean Carson, we’re not. Just us,’ Lolly said.

Robert frowned. ‘
I just passed a man in the street I cou
ld have sworn was Scarlet’s husband.
’

Lolly and I were flabbergasted. ‘But Robert, how do
you know what Carson looks like?
’
she asked.

There was the slightest reddening of his left cheek. ‘From the old days, when he and Scarlet began dating.
They always sat in the same corner of Grando’s, didn’t they?
In
fact, I’d remember him anywhere, with that hair.
’

Was it my imagination or was Robert slightly out of order with respect to Carson?

Lolly tried to keep things light.
‘Gosh, yes, that revolting stained sofa with the round purple patches. Why on earth didn’t the authorities make them take it away? Definite health hazard.’

Robert was quick was a reply,
‘Well, it didn’t worry Scarlet and er, Carson.’

His
voice was taking on a sing-songy pitch that hurt my ears.
It must be a nervous thing.

I wasn’t one to comment though,
was I? I
’d
managed to almost bite off my tongue by trying to cover up my nerves.

‘Join
us?’ I asked, eager to sit down – the shoes Lolly had loaned me were gnawing at my ankles.

‘Sorry, love to, but
I
need to fly – business awaits.’

Sh
ooting me one final awkward glance
,
Robert pulled his collar up
against the rain
and dashed through the door as a
drenched teenage
couple entered.

‘What’s
with him?’

‘Who knows?’

We might have discussed it further but
the iced drinks my friend had ordered
moments ago,
with the
casual flick of a hand,
arrived.
Lolly was obviously a regular
t
here. 

She
handed me a spoon.
‘Enough about men, this is what life should be about.’

And even though the cold ice made my tongue sting, I couldn’t disagree.

Eventuall
y, the food was gone and we moved
on
to
coffee.

‘What was Carson doing in town?’ I wondered aloud.

‘I
t probably wasn’t him. No offenc
e, but Carson doesn’t look like the man you first met, does it? His hair is totally different, for one thing.’

‘True.’ Lolly was right.
Carson’s hair had gone from a mad, curly affair just like mine to a whisper of what it
once
was –
now it was
short, fine and delicately arranged for maximum coverage.

‘I suppose I don’t look the same, either, do I?’

She shrugged.
‘So what? You’ve got a life,
and
you’ve had
two
kids.
’

Watching Lolly, model-like in her slick
Burberry
mac, shiny
Versace
boots, together with
that
sheet of unbelievable blonde hair, I wonder
ed why she hadn’t dated recently.

If she had, she never spoke of it
.

I thought back. There’d been a few boyfriends over the years, but no one who’d lasted more than a month or so.

‘What about you, Lol?
The business is taking off.
Isn’t it time to make babies?
’

Instead of scrunching her face up like she always did
at the mention of pregnancy
, Lolly’s eyes fogged with sadness.

I grabbed her hand. It was freezing, despite the hot coffee she was clutching.

‘Lolly, what’s up?’

‘It’s hopeless.’

Now hopeless
I knew about, but Lol
ly didn’t display
any of the
usual
characteristics required for hopeless
ness
.

‘Why? You’re gorgeous. Just take your pick. I can give you Carson’s old
alumni yearbooks.
Literally, take your pick.
Most of those nerds don’t leave the lab or hospital or wherever they hang out. They’re ripe for the picking.
’