Chapter Thirteen #2
‘Because to be perfectly honest, nothing short of an alien abduction is going to work for me.’
‘I got lost,’ I said, my voice small. ‘I strayed so far into my own head, into what I thought I wanted to achieve, I forgot what was really important.’ I gave a small laugh that threatened to break into a sob.
‘I stupidly thought a thousand friends online was just as important as my real-life ones.’
She stared at me for a long moment, almost without blinking.
‘I was wrong. So wrong. I was a bloody idiot.’
There was a weighty silence, filled only with the hum of the fridge.
‘Sorry. Was I meant to contradict you there?’ Mel eventually asked.
‘Not at all.’
She looked out of the window into the neat garden, which was bathed in morning sunlight.
‘You really hurt me, Ellie. I hadn’t done anything to deserve the ghosting.’
I wanted so badly to grab hold of her hand but was terrified she’d snatch it away, which would undo me.
‘There was no fault on your part. Or on Jackson’s.
You both tried, I know you did.’ That much at least I could remember, even though I wished the lightning had robbed me of that too.
‘I think I just got so overwhelmed with the fear of failing that I gave everything I had to the business. It became my baby.’
She flinched at that.
‘So, you chose to win at being an estate agent and fail at being a friend?’
I got to my feet, not sure how much longer I could hold back the tears.
‘Maybe it’s just too soon for this,’ I said, turning away from the table and pushing my chair back in.
‘Maybe it’s just too late,’ she countered, and that would have felled me to my knees if it hadn’t been for the crack I heard in her voice.
I was almost at the door before she stopped me. ‘You might as well stay and finish your coffee. I hate seeing anything good go to waste.’
I turned around slowly, hoping I wasn’t imagining the potential double meaning in her words. Did she mean us? Our friendship? She kicked my chair away from the table with her foot. It was all the encouragement I needed and I dropped back gratefully onto it.
I picked up my coffee cup and was mid-sip when my friend sighed.
‘Jackson warned me you’d probably do something like this.’
I wondered what she meant. Turn up and grovel? Beg for forgiveness? Or ask for her help? Because I couldn’t imagine her anticipating the last, but it was the ace up my sleeve, and I was desperate enough to play it.
‘I’m going to keep apologising as many times as you need to hear it,’ I assured her.
She shook her head. ‘I’m going to be honest, Ellie. I still don’t know if that’ll be enough to mend this.’
She was putting me through the wringer. And I deserved every last excruciating minute of it.
‘I understand. But apologising and making amends isn’t the only reason I’m here today.’
She immediately sat up straighter in her seat. ‘What did Jackson say to you?’
I’d inadvertently walked straight into a minefield. One wrong step and I could blow up our friendship even more cataclysmically than I’d already done.
‘Nothing. He said nothing. Except that I should give you some space and that you’d been through a bit of a rough time.’
I was used to seeing those eyes laughing at me, not narrowing in suspicion like they were doing right now.
‘I caved before it got to four weeks,’ I said, biting my lower lip, which was starting to tremble. ‘That felt like long enough.’
‘You always did have appalling willpower.’
I risked just the tiniest smile, because it was the first time she had referenced the way she knew me better than anyone else did.
‘And although it’s not the main reason I’m here today – far from it – I do have a favour to ask of you.’
‘Ballsy,’ she said with a shake of her head. ‘Asking me for something when I’m still spitting feathers.’
I let my eyes stray to the buff-coloured folder that I’d set down on her kitchen table.
‘The favour isn’t for me. It’s for a really worthy cause. And I want to get involved but I need help, and even though I know you’re still mad at me, you’re the best person – the only person – I know who can guide me on what I should do next.’
Her eyes strayed to the folder and then back to my face.
‘Damn it. Now I’m curious,’ she said, reaching out a hand to slide the folder towards her.
She paused with one finger on the corner.
‘If this thing erupts with a load of “I’m sorry” confetti, you and I might be done for good.
’ It wasn’t a big smile, but it was a glimmer of one, and right now that was way more than I deserved.
‘It won’t,’ I assured her.
‘You’re going to need to appoint trustees – at least three of them,’ Mel said, nibbling absent-mindedly on the end of a biro as she scanned the sheet of paper in her hands.
I added Trustees to my to-do list that already covered half a sheet of A4.
‘But not if you decide it will be a social enterprise rather than a registered charity. You won’t need them if it is.’
I added an oversized question mark beside Trustees and then three exclamation marks for good measure.
‘And how do I work out which one it should be?’
Mel shook her head, not quite in despair but more in resignation. She pulled her own notepad closer and scribbled rapidly upon it.
‘I’ll do it. It can be a minefield if you don’t know what you’re doing and it’s quicker and easier than trying to explain it to you.’
I wasn’t stupid, but I took the veiled insult on the chin.
Leaning back against the slats of the wooden garden bench, I resisted the urge to slip on my sunglasses.
True, they’d shield me from the midday glare, but they’d also hide the gratitude and admiration in my eyes.
And it felt important that Mel saw just how much it meant that she was willing to help me.
Except it wasn’t really for me, I knew that.
It was for all the potential visitors to the old yarn shop, who would now hopefully still have somewhere warm and comforting to go where they could enjoy a drink, a bite to eat, but more importantly some much-needed companionship.
‘I knew you’d be the right person to help me with all this,’ I said, daring a tentative smile.
‘Please don’t blow smoke up my arse. You’ll set off the detectors in the kitchen.’
I just about managed to smother a laugh, even though we were out of range of the alarms. We’d moved from the house to the garden and Mel had generously spent the last hour going through the contents of the buff folder, sometimes nodding wisely, sometimes shaking her head at whatever she read.
‘It’s a good idea. But it needs quite a bit of fine tuning to make sure you’re doing everything legitimately and by the book. Have you given any thought to who’ll staff the place? How many days it will be open, and the general running costs?’
‘Not in great detail,’ I answered truthfully. ‘I think all the shop owners who’ve said they’ll contribute financially are also willing to volunteer a few hours each week to run the place.’
Mel’s eyebrows had risen at that.
‘Even you?’ The incredulity in her voice had stung.
‘Yes, even me.’
This time it was Mel’s turn to lean back in her chair and eye me speculatively.
‘Something’s different about you.’
I didn’t bother pretending that she was referring to the way I currently wore my hair or did my make-up.
‘Yes. I feel different.’ In a thousand ways and for a great many reasons, but this wasn’t the time to share any of them.
The biro found its way back into her mouth as she bent to the next item on the list she was compiling, but not before I heard her murmur: ‘You remind me of someone I used to know, someone I’ve not seen for a really long time.’
My eyes were overbright, and while I could have pretended it was the glare of the sun, we both knew that wasn’t true.
Once Mel had grasped the size of the proposed project, she’d wordlessly disappeared into the kitchen, returning five minutes later with a plate of hastily constructed sandwiches.
From the outside peering in, we probably looked like two old friends enjoying a lazy al fresco lunch in the sunshine. But not every picture tells the full story. We were wallpapering over the cracks for now, but that didn’t mean they weren’t still there.
‘Have you decided what you’re going to call this place?’ Mel asked, tapping the point of her pen on the notepad as she waited for my reply. ‘Ripping Yarns doesn’t really work if you’re going to drop the crafting element.’
As I scarcely knew one end of a needle from the other, she made a good point. The answer came so easily to mind it was as though the decision had already been made a long time ago.
‘Florrie’s,’ I said decisively.
Mel nodded in agreement. ‘Florrie’s it is then.’
I left a short while later, taking back the folder which Mel had already photocopied.
I leafed through the papers when she handed it back to me, making sure I had them all, and almost dropped them in her hallway when I saw the chart of volunteers we’d drawn up to manage the shop.
Among the names of my neighbouring shop owners was one that took me completely by surprise. Mel Gooding.
She must have seen my shocked expression that was quickly followed by one of thanks.
‘I’m not doing it for you. It’s a really good cause, and this kind of thing is right up my street.’
I successfully bit back both ‘I know’ and ‘That’s why I’m here’ because our truce was built on gossamer wings and could be crushed by a single thoughtless comment.
‘You’re a good person, Mel, and even though I know I’m still in the doghouse, I want to say again how sorry I am for how I behaved. And that if you let me back in, I won’t ever do anything to hurt this friendship again.’
‘Let’s just concentrate on Florrie’s for now,’ she said, not meeting my eyes or the wistful expression in them.
‘Agreed,’ I said, not sure if I should offer her my hand to shake or my cheek to kiss. In the end I did neither.
She closed the front door behind me with a click that wasn’t quite loud enough to hide her sigh. At least she hadn’t slammed it in my face.
It wasn’t a big win, but it felt like the world to me.