Chapter 16
James
I haven’t told Ruby about Dad’s message.
I know that’s wrong. We swore not to have secrets from each other anymore and to talk about all our worries.
But I can’t bring myself to burden her with more of my problems. She’s got enough on her plate right now—A levels are coming up fast, and the deadline for finance applications is coming up even faster.
I don’t want to add to that, especially as I don’t even know yet what Dad’s cryptic email meant.
He was probably just trying to intimidate me, but it’s had the exact opposite effect. I’ve never been so certain that I’ve made the right decision. And I’ve never been more motivated to finally act on the plans I’ve been thinking about for weeks now.
On Saturday evening, I wait for Ruby to vanish into the bathroom to get ready for Wren’s party, then head to Ember’s room. I take a deep breath, then knock on the door, which is slightly ajar.
“Yeah?” Ember calls from inside. She’s sitting at her desk with her laptop open in front of her and a mug of tea in her hand. She raises her eyebrows at the sight of me.
“Have you got a minute?” I ask.
Ember nods. “Sure, come in. What’s Ruby up to?”
“She’s FaceTiming Lydia while she gets ready.”
“Oh, OK.” I come to stand by her desk, and she tilts her head up at me. “What’s up?”
I point at her laptop. “I’ve got a few questions about your blog. And also about blogging in general.”
Ember eyes me for a second or two, then nods briefly. If I’ve surprised her, she’s not letting on. Instead, she pulls a little wooden stool out from under her desk. “No problem. Have a seat.”
I sit down beside her and run my hand through my hair. Then I exhale audibly. “I’ve been trying to get my head around WordPress for the last couple of days, and I thought you might be able to explain things better than any of the guides I’ve found online.”
“Oh, yeah, totally. I wish I’d had someone to show me what to do when I was starting out,” she says. She turns her laptop around so that we can both see her screen. Then she opens the browser and types in a URL. A log-in screen pops up. She opens Bellbird in another tab.
“So: Everything you can see here on the blog is also here”—she switches back to the first tab—“in the dashboard, where you can control everything. I recommend starting by getting the hang of it here, because it’s where you run your whole site.” She clicks, and a gray-black page comes up.
“OK. How did you set up your blog? Have you got a web designer?”
“You need a web-hosting company. If you do that through WordPress, there are lots of ready-made themes you can buy. Here, I’ll show you where I found mine.”
She opens another page, where there are all kinds of themes for sale.
“First you need to think about what you want to do with your blog. Like, this is a really nice design, but it wouldn’t work for my stuff at all.”
I nod. “What were your top priorities when you picked a design?”
“It needed to be responsive and work as well on mobile as on desktop. Apart from that, I focused on the home page, oh, and the sidebar. There are so many hosting sites, and they have great themes in the shops. So I bookmarked the ones I liked best, and spent a week going through them all before I made up my mind.”
“Wow, how’s anyone supposed to know all this stuff?”
“You learn over time.”
“Was yours this professional right from the start?”
She shakes her head. “No, but I wish it had been.” She keeps scrolling through the page, and after a while, she pauses. Then she looks sideways at me. “Why do you ask?”
I shrug. “I like blogs. They help me chill. I can learn new stuff and see things I’d never find other ways.”
“That’s how I started out too,” Ember says with a meaningful smile. “And after a while, I made one of my own.”
The words are on the tip of my tongue, to tell her what’s going through my head right now: I have no idea what I want to do with my life, and this is the only thing I’ve been even remotely interested in for years.
Maybe one day, I’ll be able to say it. But the moment hasn’t come yet.
I avoid Ember’s eyes. “How did you know you had something to say?” I ask in the end.
Now a slight smile spreads over her lips. “Everyone has something to say, James.”
Ruby
Even on James’s phone screen, I can see how much color has come back to Lydia’s face. She’s got her hair down in waves, and her eyes are literally sparkling as she tells me about the last week.
“We found it too depressing to be indoors in such lovely weather. So Ophelia just moved her office out onto the patio.” She grins. “Mind you, I think she mainly wanted a good view of the gardeners who are doing some work for her at the moment.”
I have to laugh, and come close to burning my forehead on the hair straightener I’m using on my fringe.
“James and I really need to come for another visit soon. And I want to meet your new tutor. Is she still so superstrict?”
Lydia rolls her eyes. “She makes Lexie look like a pussycat in comparison.”
I glance skeptically into the camera.
“Seriously. She’s really nitpicky, and even makes a big deal about handwriting. If it’s not perfect, it has to be done again. On one hand, that’s really annoying, but on the other hand, I’m glad she treats me like a normal human being.”
“You are a normal human being, Lydia.”
She clicks her tongue. “You know what I mean.”
I grab the hair spray from the dressing table and shut my eyes as I spray it over my whole head.
“That’s making me want to cough from two hundred miles away,” Lydia remarks, which sets me laughing again. “You look stunning, by the way.”
“You’re too kind, thank you.” I study myself in the tiny image on the screen. Yes, everything is staying put. Hopefully it will hold all evening. “What are your plans for the weekend?” I ask.
“Nothing much. Graham’s coming later, and he’ll be here until Monday morning. I’m pretty sure Ophelia’s going to take the chance to talk him into having a baby shower.”
“Oh!” I squeal. “That sounds lovely.”
“You think?” She pulls a face. “I’m not sure. Isn’t it kind of weird?”
“Why?” I ask.
“Well. After everything that’s happened, I’m not really sure a party is in order.”
I can only shake my head at that. I bring the phone up close to my face and stare seriously at Lydia.
“Lyds, you haven’t had the chance to enjoy being pregnant.
But it should be a happy time in your life.
If you’re ready to let other people in and celebrate yourself and your twins, then I think you definitely should. ”
She sighs a long sigh.
“You are happy, right?”
“Yeah, I am these days,” she replies at once.
“Then I don’t see what’s stopping you from having a party for you and your babies.”
A slight smile spreads over Lydia’s face. “Would you come to a baby shower?”
“I’d love that. And I bet everyone else would too.”
“Ophelia is dying to host it. I don’t know where she finds the time, but in the last few days, she’s knitted a whole bunch of little hats and a blanket!”
“That’s so cute.”
“Uh-huh, but I have to tell you, knitting isn’t one of her strengths. The blanket is so scratchy you could use it as a dish scrubber.” She smiles. “But it doesn’t matter. I still love it.”
“I’m so glad to see you this happy. It feels like your time with Ophelia is really doing you good.”
“It is. It was meant to be some kind of punishment. Dad definitely didn’t expect us to get on this well.”
“That kind of sounds like you could see yourself staying longer.”
She nods. “I’ve been thinking that. It’s so good to be with someone who gets me like she does,” Lydia says. “But on the other hand, it’s not fair on her to mess up her life like this. She’s got enough to do without me.”
I walk over to my wardrobe and open it one-handed. “And how’s Mr. Sutton?”
Lydia just laughs. “You really have to stop calling him that!”
I pull out my brogues and head back to my desk. I cautiously lean the phone up against a water glass. “He might always have been Graham to you, but not for me. It’s so weird to suddenly call him by his first name.”
“We’ll get you used to it,” Lydia says gently. Then she bites her bottom lip before going on hesitantly. “Graham…asked me if I want to move in together.”
I pause with one shoe in my hand and look at the phone. “And?”
Lydia nods, and a smile spreads over her face. “I think I could live with that,” she whispers.
Right now, there’s such a difference from the Lydia I found crying in a pub toilet in Oxford that I feel warm around the heart.
“I’m happy for you both,” I say honestly.
“Please don’t tell my brother,” she adds hastily. “He’ll just ask me a thousand more questions that I don’t know the answers to yet.”
“My lips are sealed.”
“How’s he doing, anyway?” she asks.
I slip my shoes on and do up the laces as I think about the question. “Good, I think. But you know the way he bottles everything up until it eventually all explodes.”
Lydia sighs. “Sounds familiar. How’s he dealing with the thing with Dad?”
“Anytime I speak to him about it, I get the feeling he finds it uncomfortable. I’m trying to respect that. I’m trusting that he’ll come to me when he wants to talk.”
She nods. Suddenly, she looks thoughtful. “There are times when I could shake him when he goes all silent.”
I lace up the second shoe, thinking about what she said. “At the bonfire, he spent ages talking to Wren. The main thing is that he’s speaking to someone. It doesn’t have to be me.”
“I bet he just doesn’t want to worry you after everything that’s happened.”
“Not a clue.” I stand up, take a step back, and twirl. “What do you think?”
“Very nice! Did Ember make that skirt?” Lydia asks, narrowing her eyes slightly.
“How can you tell?” I ask, looking down at myself. It’s dark blue and very full, with little flowers embroidered on the hem that you can only see from close up.
“I dunno, just a hunch.” Her tone makes me prick up my ears.
“Admit it, she sent you a photo—that’s cheating!”
Lydia grins. “She’s keeping me up-to-date with her latest makes. Sometimes I’m even allowed to show Ophelia and ask her for feedback.”
“Want to say hi to Ember?” I ask, picking up my bag.
“Oh, yeah, I’d love to.”
Holding James’s phone close to my face, I knock on Ember’s door. I can hear voices in her room before Ember calls out, “Come in!”
I open the door, then freeze.
James is sitting at her desk, right next to Ember. They’re both looking at her laptop, and I can see the Bellbird logo on the screen. James sees me and stands up.
“Er, there’s someone here who wanted to say a quick hello, Ember.” I go over and hold out the phone. She takes it from me and grins at Lydia.
“That’s a lovely skirt you sewed for Ruby,” she says, diving straight in.
“Did you recognize it from the photo?” asks Ember.
I hear Lydia make a noise of agreement. Meanwhile, I turn to James and put a hand on his hip. “What have you been doing?”
“Ember was showing me her blog,” he says, but before I can follow up on that, he glances at his watch. “Shall we go?”
“Where are you headed?” Lydia asks.
“To Wren’s,” James says. “He’s having a housewarming.”
From the corner of my eye, I see Ember go suddenly pale at James’s words. “Oh. Cool.” She hands him back his phone.
“Thanks,” he says, turning his attention back to Lydia. “I’ll call you tomorrow, OK?”
“Great. I’m around after about one. I’ve got my tutor before that.”
“It’s Sunday tomorrow,” he says with a frown.
“She’s of the opinion that I should get through as much work as possible in case the twins arrive early. Which isn’t unusual,” says Lydia.
I whistle. “Now I get what you meant by ‘strict.’ ”
“Hey ho. Well, have a nice evening. Say hi to the boys from me!”
“Will do,” James says with a wry smile as he hangs up. He turns back to Ember. “Thanks for taking the time to explain so much. It really helped.”
“No problem,” my sister murmurs. “Have fun tonight.”
She’s focused on the screen, but I get the impression she’s just staring straight through it.