Chapter 18
Emma and Jo were already sitting on the terrace when I joined them on Friday evening, three porn star martinis laid out on the rattan garden table in front of them.
‘Ah, girls, did you wait for me?’ I asked.
‘Thems the rules! No starting till we’re all here,’ Emma replied, cheerily.
I sat in one of the comfy swivel garden chairs and reached forward for one of the glasses.
‘Although we did wonder if you’d still come. Not content with having one gorgeous Greek man in her life, you had to get greedy and have two?’ Jo asked as she handed me a bowl of crisps. I took a handful and popped them on my lap to pick from.
‘So, spill the beans then. Do you know how long he’s staying? What is he doing here?’ Emma asked, sitting forward in anticipation.
I brought them up to date with the latest developments.
The fact that he’d spoken to Demetri and that their mother was having a bit of relapse and that he didn’t feel the need to leave just yet and thought he’d explore Sandpiper Shore for a while.
I then went on to say that he’d been interested in the business plans I had and told them his suggestion.
It would be good to get their take on the situation.
‘But you hardly know him, Michelle. How can you possibly trust someone that you’ve only known a couple of days?’ Jo was concerned for me, I knew, but I couldn’t explain why I trusted him. I just did.
‘But he is Demetri’s brother and they can’t be that different, can they? Demetri, despite buggering off to Greece without me, was a decent man and was doing what he could to help his mother.’ Again, I was defending his actions.
‘Yeah, but just be wary, that’s all we’re saying, love. Why don’t you give Demetri a call and ask him about his brother?’ Emma suggested.
‘Absolutely not. We said that we wouldn’t reach out to each other unless there was an emergency.’ I shook my head hard. ‘I won’t call him. I can’t.’
I knew that my voice was coming across as sharp but I was determined not to give in and call him.
I would only have to hear his voice and I knew that it would knock me back again.
My already fragile heart had been shattered one too many times, and I was starting to rebuild my life again, without him in it, and that was painful enough for me to cope with.
I couldn’t let him back into my life in any way. It was all or nothing for me.
‘Where is Makis now?’ Jo asked.
‘He said he might stop in and watch TV, or he might go and have a wander down to the pub.’
Jo and Emma shared a look that perhaps they didn’t think I’d seen.
‘What?’ I snapped.
‘Nothing. I just wondered whether it was strange having someone in the house again?’ Jo asked, smiling.
‘I’d only just got used to having Demetri around when he left.
I feel like I’m on a proper rollercoaster to be honest,’ I admitted.
‘It’s funny. Since I moved here, life has felt very different to before.
Just knowing that you two were so close by felt comforting and safe.
For so long, I’d lived alone, no one looking out for me, and some days I never spoke to a soul. ’
‘But you had friends and colleagues, didn’t you?’ Emma asked.
‘Yeah, of course. But colleagues don’t message you on a weekend morning when you don’t have anything to get up for. And my friends, while they were great when we were together, probably never even thought about me when we weren’t. They didn’t know how lonely I was.’
‘Did you ever tell them? You can’t expect everyone to know what’s going on in your head,’ Jo said.
‘No, I don’t think I did tell them the real extent of it.
I did mention to one of my friends once how lonely it was on your own, and she just said that she’d swap with me any day because she had three kids and a husband and never even got to go to the loo alone.
She also said that because I posted on Facebook when I was doing something fun that she thought I was always out doing fun stuff all the time.
No one wants a whiny woe-is-me friend who’s always talking about how lonely they are, do they?
Either in real life or on social media for that matter.
I didn’t want to be that friend either.’
‘But if you don’t tell people, how do they know?’ Emma asked.
‘I suppose you expect them to consider you, but I also suppose that people are busy and when they have families and husbands to be with, you just get forgotten. It’s made me always think about my single friends more and check in with them from time to time.
There’s nothing nicer when you get up feeling alone than someone just sending you a brief “I was just thinking about you” text.
Makes you feel like you matter. It’s why I love The Lonely Hearts Club too. ’
‘You do matter to lots of people. And especially to us. And that’s why we’re asking about Makis now. We’re just looking out for you, that’s all. And that’s what friends do. That’s our job.’ Jo patted my hand.
‘I know and thank you. I’m grateful to have friends like you. But honestly, I’m a big girl and I’ve got this.’
‘OK, Miss Independent, then we’ll shut up about him,’ Emma replied. ‘Anyhoo, we’ve got a barn dance to organise and I have got some more jobs for you two. Here you go.’
Jo and I mock groaned as Emma gave us both a clipboard. On it were lists of jobs and who they were allocated to. She was so organised that it made me smile.
There was a lot to arrange and Jo’s jobs were mainly on site, helping Tessa to get the barn prepped, and they’d made major progress already.
At Tessa’s age, I didn’t think she’d be physically involved but apparently Jo had to stop her from moving hay bales around.
Jo had made her take a back seat and had got Seamus to help instead – and they’d cleared quite a lot of the barn out to make room for a makeshift stage and dance floor.
My tasks were more on the marketing and PR side of things, it was my forte after all, and I was looking forward to sharing some before and after pictures of the barn.
‘Actually, girls. There’s one more thing that I’ve arranged that I should come clean about too.’ Jo and I both turned to face Emma, who was slightly cringing.
‘Go on,’ Jo encouraged.
‘You know that Tom and I have been doing dance classes.’
Jo narrowed her eyes at our friend, who started now to smirk.
‘And you know you said you thought it was a great idea and that you’d love to do it too, Michelle…’ She paused and tipped her head to one side.
‘Mmmm…’
‘Well, I’ve arranged for some dance classes for The Lonely Hearts Club with the barn dance in mind.’
I wasn’t sure of the connection there, unlike Jo whose eyes had started to sparkle. ‘What sort of dancing?’ She grinned and then it clicked within me too.
‘You haven’t?’ Jo started laughing and I joined her.
‘Yep. I’ve had a chat with Carlos, my dance teacher, and he’s given me the details of a lady called Alex who is going to be teaching line dancing in the church hall for the next few weeks.
It’ll make it so much more of a success and I’ve always loved it in the films when they all do a group dance.
Instead of doing the do-si-do type of dancing where you swap partners, we’re going to be line dancing and it’s going to be so much fun.
And no one needs to be left out because they don’t need a partner. ’
‘That’s a great idea, Emma. I love the thought of this.’
‘Yeah, me too. And look at you! Our little dancing Queenager,’ Jo said.
Emma grinned. ‘Yeah, well, it took me a few years but I think we can say that I’ve definitely got my dancing mojo back.
’ Emma’s newfound confidence meant that she had recently started dancing with Tom and was absolutely loving it.
Due to a negative and hurtful comment made to her when she was younger, she’d stopped doing something that she’d loved and hadn’t realised how much weight she’d put on someone’s cruel words.
‘Me too. You’d better dust off your cowboy boots, ladies. This barn dance is going to be the talk of the county.’
‘Yeeha!’ I yelled out, and we all fell about laughing.
‘I wonder how many cowboy jokes we can think of between now and the barn dance?’ Jo asked.
‘Plenty!’ I couldn’t get my next daft idea out quick enough. ‘We could even have a sponsored “Talk Like a Cowboy Day”. I’ll never forget the day we did Talk Like a Pirate Day at work. It was the funniest ever and the boss literally made people walk the plank when they forgot.’
The memory of this was making me titter even more. Both Emma and Jo joined in the laughter.
‘Oh gosh,’ Jo said. ‘That would be hilarious. Hang on! I’ve just had another idea. We could have a Bucking Bronco at the event. That would be fun.’
‘With my back? You’re having a laugh! Just the thought of that hurts.’ I rubbed my back exaggeratedly.
‘Agree but the youngsters might like it.’
Emma scribbled in her notebook and we then fell about laughing thinking of appropriately named, or sometimes inappropriately named, cocktails for the event. We couldn’t decide if our favourite was a Cowboy Thigh Tingler, a Ride Till Sunrise or a Rodeo Rendezvous.
It was a smashing evening and just what I needed.
The setting of the sun above the turquoise sea and the golden sand was glorious; the bright azure blue of the day, magically transforming to the indigo evening sky, through the changing hues of amber, burnt sienna, magenta and ruby.
I hoped that I would never take the beauty of nature for granted.
Sunsets were one of my most favourite things in the world.
We laughed lots; we often did when we were together.
It felt good to laugh with these special ladies.
I felt like I was wrapped in a blanket of love and care when I was in their company.
Each of us had major changes in our lives in one way or another, not from our own doing.
We’d all been on such a journey together and we were finding our way in our new worlds.
We all still had a long way to go but we were doing it together, and I knew that wherever life took us, we would be friends for life.