Chapter 13
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
MAISIE
Morgan
Don’t get too drunk at nain’s birthday party
Maisie
Very funny. You all better have called her today!
Morgan
Bright and early!
Maks
Any news?
Maisie
None yet.
Miles
I’m in a lecture! Be quiet!
Morgan
HI LITTLE brOTHER!!!
Maisie
You’re all idiots (except you Maks).
“What a miserable Wednesday.”
The houseplant that she’d bought from the supermarket in an attempt to make her flat feel not so cold and empty didn’t judge her for still being in her pyjamas at midday, working. She didn’t know what the technical name of the plant was, its waxy leaves bigger than her palm, but she’d called it George. It came in a striped orange and white pot that’d caught her eye more than anything else.
Between the tasks her boss sent through, Maisie’s own project for the last couple of days had been to update the website for Faye’s bakery. She’d been the one to design everything online for Baked By The Dozen since it opened its doors, and most days the website pretty much ran itself. Though when there was an update to a menu, for example, she had to step in, and now there was a new location to be added to the homepage. In a month, when renovations were complete at the new bakery in Manchester, she’d be able to add photos too.
It was all so exciting to watch her friends thrive, and she couldn’t wait to see them all again. Time wouldn’t move fast enough to bring her to Baked’s opening day. It was on a Saturday, so she’d have to miss a hike. She hadn’t looked up how to get there just yet, but Maisie was determined to be there. She was sure that everything would be fine. How hard could it be to get a hundred miles north from here?
Shoppers braving the rain walked by beneath her window, and Maisie looked over at George on her desk. “You’re right,” she said. “Time to get dressed.” Her bed-rotting attire would have to wait another day.
Maisie took a quick body shower and pulled her comfy work-from-home clothes out of her wardrobe to toss on her bed whilst she dried and moisturised. She couldn’t quite look at the organised spread of her underwear in their drawer anymore without thinking of Iain, how every bra she owned had covered his feet and the sound of his unbidden laugh as Vera made jokes. She’d only heard it once. Merely tiny cracks of a chuckle had broken since then which sounded more like the beginnings of choking instead of laughter.
Once she was lathered up and smelling like cocoa, Maisie grabbed the ugliest bra she owned in the hope of getting Iain out of her head. How he’d decidedly and slowly drawn the zip of her coat down over her breasts the other day definitely hadn’t been fuel for a few of her fantasies as she’d lulled herself to sleep at night – not at all. It hadn’t been the hottest moment of her life …
Four days and she still couldn’t convince herself of that.
Their plan to fake date had been spontaneous and uneventful as of yet. Maisie hadn’t even had a text from Iain to discuss it further, though maybe it was too corporate of her to expect one? She didn’t know what they would discuss anyway. The plan wasn’t really much of a plan at all, which was a problem – one that they needed to sort out soon if they had any hope of Vera and her co-conspirators backing off from setting them up. Slightly selfishly, it was an unorthodox method of obtaining someone her own age to be around, and it seemed to have worked in her favour for now. Iain would likely begin to find her intolerable the more and more relaxed that she became around him.
Maisie couldn’t pinpoint when exactly she’d subconsciously decided that it was her task – as a friend – to inject some vibrancy into his life. He’d never said outright that he was unhappy, but he didn’t need to when it was in everything that he did. And with what he’d told her about his suspended state of pending job termination, she wasn’t surprised that he was stressed.
Her bum landed in her seat at her desk for all of three seconds before her phone rang.
“Hi Nain , happy birthday!” she cheered, taking the chance to wake up her computer from its nap.
“Thank you, Moo Moo.”
Maisie opened her mouth to ask how Vera’s morning had been.
“Sweetie, are you busy?”
Her answer was grim as she glanced at the to-do notepad filled with bullet points by her keyboard. “Sort of.”
“I’d like to go and find a new dress for the party tonight.” Vera had a knack for asking questions without actually asking them. A mistress of insinuation.
Maisie knew exactly where this phone call was heading but pretended as though she didn’t. “Okay?”
“It’s raining. Would you be able to take me?” The blow that Maisie had seen from a mile away was delivered with perfect, persuasive innocence.
“ Nain , I’m halfway through my lunch break.” Now was really not the time, and she was logged on to an online portal that tracked the hours she worked – she couldn’t just leave .
“It’ll only take an hour.”
“Could Ronnie take you?” He wasn’t the kind of man who’d leave Vera’s side on her birthday , of all days.
“I don’t want him to see what I choose before the party.”
Agh . Maisie rubbed her thumb and fingers across her forehead, reminding herself of all the times when she’d been in London and missed something as simple as going shopping with her grandma.
She could go, she supposed. She could take an hour for lunch and push her workday back to five o’clock, which would still leave her enough time to get ready for the birthday party tonight.
Concealing her sigh through her nose, she asked, “Where did you want to go?”
Vera’s voice was immediately brighter. “To the outlet down the boulevard. It’s a five-minute drive.”
“I’ll be there in ten minutes.”
Her umbrella put in a valiant effort to keep her dry on the short walk to Vera’s house, rendered almost useless by the sheets of rain plummeting from the sky as if the clouds had a vendetta against her. When she arrived, dripping from the waist down, Mister Roberts sat in the bay window glaring like a guest deterrent.
“Not today, mister.” Maisie huddled under the porch and knocked on the door.
Vera answered in a flash, handing over the keys to her eldermobile with a brief comment about how light the rain was.
Maisie still didn’t know why she was the one driving her nain to the edge of town on a workday when Ronnie could’ve easily taken her and stayed in the car whilst she shopped – thus fulfilling Vera’s request to not let him see her new dress before the party. She hadn’t planned her workday around this, and it didn’t entirely feel fair to have to at such a last minute. But she couldn’t exactly have refused Vera on her birthday, especially when no one else from their family was able to be here with her.
Besides, this hour alone together was the perfect time to bring up a few topics: firstly, Iain and how they were now (allegedly) dating, and secondly – though most crucially – the question of Vera’s behaviour to unearth whatever secret she was hiding.
Unfortunately, rain pelted the tin car too heavily to have any real conversation that didn’t involve shouting, and the journey to the clothing shop was too short.
“Did you know Iain works in that industrial park just beyond the river there?” Vera pointed out of the windscreen as Maisie pulled into the modest car park.
“I didn’t.” It hadn’t occurred to her to find out where exactly Iain worked beyond that evening where Faye had encouraged her to internet stalk him.
They jumped out of the car into the onslaught of rain, Vera hugging her cast to her body like she’d been instructed to keep it dry, but the automatic doors to the shop squeaked open a little too slowly for any chance of that.
Pulling back her hood, Maisie checked the time on her phone. “I only have … forty minutes,” she said.
“That’s okay, sweet pea. I’ll be quick,” Vera replied, immediately setting off.
For some reason, Maisie felt as if that wasn’t true.
She wiped her ankle boots on the mat and followed two steps behind as Vera unhurriedly began to peruse the rails. “What kind of dress are you looking for?”
Vera hummed in thought, her permed hair still perfectly in place after removing her rain bonnet. “I’m not sure yet. I believe I’ll know it when I see it.”
Lucky you, Maisie thought bitterly, to have that luxury.
Party wear was arranged on mannequins and railings in one corner of the shop. Maisie’s fingers trailed across the assortment of fabrics, all too used to touching without ever being able to try on. Every once in a while, the numbers on the hangers gave her a little spark of hope that they might actually stock something in her size here, but nothing she liked the look of so far.
There weren’t too many other customers around, only a woman folding pairs of trousers for a display, certainly quiet enough to slide into the conversation Maisie hadn’t been able to do earlier.
“Have you found any more stuff you’d like to take to the charity shop?” She broached the question like she would handle a delicate clay piece. She was all for spring cleaning, but her nain didn’t have all that much to be sprung.
“A few things. What do you think to this?” Vera held a dress on its hanger in front of her body, using her leg to kick out the frilly skirt.
“It looks very … modern.” Not quite the chique, classic look that Vera normally wore, but the woman would look good in a potato sack if that was the option.
“Well I’ve got to keep up with the times, Moo Moo.” Replacing the dress on the rail, Vera eyed her curiously. “Do you have something to wear tonight?”
“I have a few dresses.” Failing that, Maisie owned enough long skirts and blouses to choose from for a party.
“Well why don’t you have a look and see if there’s anything you fancy here? I’ll pay.”
All of a sudden, Maisie was plunged back to being a teenager, and worst of all – she’d seen it coming.
Clothes shopping had never been a simple case of walking into a random high street store and picking whatever she liked the look of off the rail. She was used to having a different experience to her friends when they went out clothes shopping together. Faye and Sienna wore straight sizes, meaning they could always pluck something to fit them right off any hanger. Maisie told herself that she didn’t mind, she was there to see her friends and laugh together, but a part of her did care.
At first glance, this particular shop didn’t seem so bad for choice. Still, when she stood in place and looked around, aware of her nain watching her scrunched mouth, she grew nervous. She already had a dress in mind for the party, but she needed an excuse to bring Iain into conversation – soften the blow of the shock of seeing them together tonight.
They had no plan. They were going in blind. And Maisie didn’t like the feeling of that at all. But having the rumour mill spinning in advance would play excellently into their hands.
She pretended to peruse and unhooked a purposefully bold choice of dress from its railing; something low cut with a slit up the thigh, nothing that she would ever usually wear; and searched out Vera across the shop.
Red faced, she bolstered up some courage to nonchalantly ask, “Do you think Iain would like this?”
“Why are you concerned what Iain might like?” Sparkly eyed, Vera’s tone in no veiled way said that she already knew.
Here it goes . Time to set the cat amongst the pigeons, the ball into play, and ten other epithets.
“Because … he kind of asked me on an official date.”
“Moo Moo! When were you going to tell me?” Vera dropped the jumpsuit in her hands with her excitement to crowd her.
Maisie crouched to pick up the garment before giving in to her nain’s squeezing arms. Her ears warmed, even if the ‘date’ didn’t actually exist. “Don’t tell anyone, please?”
“Of course, no. My lips are sealed.”
Your lips lie. Vera will have texted each and every one of her hiking friends before Maisie had gotten her home. Exactly according to the plan she formulated a minute ago.
“Are you going to my party together?”
The question put her on the spot. “Iain’s going to walk Ted and then meet me there. So he might be a little late.” She made a mental note to find his phone number in the group chat and text him that, since she’d made it up three seconds ago. “Why do you look so happy?”
“I’m happy for you , Moo Moo. Iain is a world away from the boys you’ve dated before.”
The differentiation really couldn’t have been any more obvious. Maisie would bet her whole life’s savings that Iain didn’t own a gingham bow tie.
“He’s a man ,” Vera stressed wistfully. “A whole lot of man …”
Maisie’s lips pulled together in a bashful smile that was genuine. The more time she spent around Iain, the more painfully obvious it became that, aesthetically at least, he was in a separate universe to the people she’d dated before – the antithesis of the lanky, colt-limbed ‘men’ that Sienna once informed her she had eyes for because they were, quote: ‘easy prey’ .
He’d already said that he wasn’t in a position to date and Maisie respected that, but she couldn’t help but wonder: if this was real and Iain actually proposed that they see where the spark of chemistry between them went, would she push him away?
Getting involved with Iain beyond this fake date plan was the worst idea, anyway. She didn’t have time nor the mental energy to start giving her heart away again. She’d been burned over and over by boys who gave fancy promises and broke their words to be patient with her needs. She was tired of having to do it all again; be vulnerable only to have her wounds thrown back in her face.
For once, Maisie just wished that someone would actually listen when she said that she needed time.
“And as for this dress …” Vera ran her fingers down the edge of the calf-length skirt, noticing the slit in the satin-soft fabric. It had long, cold shoulder sleeves that were perfect for hiding bra straps, since the low V-neck would be perilous for Maisie without any kind of support. The intense tone of the emerald fabric paired with the body shaping style gave a far sexier vibe than she usually went for – certainly too much for a seventy-one-year-old’s birthday party.
Vera’s open-mouthed silence and glittering eyes said enough.
“It’s too much for your party,” Maisie said, adding, “I don’t want to scare Iain off.”
“I don’t think he’d be scared off at all, sweetheart. I think he’d be a silly soul not to fawn over you in this.”
“I don’t think Iain knows how to fawn.” Maisie drew the dress out of her nain’s grip, intending to put it back where she’d picked it from across the shop.
“He might surprise you.” Vera threw her a wink, and Maisie guffawed.
How would a man of Iain’s stature fawn over a woman? She couldn’t imagine him being soft and sweet and buying her ‘just because’ flowers on a random Tuesday.
“Right,” Vera announced while Maisie pictured Iain in a florist’s, looking utterly confused. “Come on, Moo Moo. I don’t have a dress, and time is ticking.”
“Yes, right.” She pivoted.
“Don’t you dare put that dress back on the shelf.”
Maisie stumbled to a standstill. “But I already have a dress for tonight.” She wasn’t going to buy this one – it was too much of a showstopper for her to have any occasion to wear it.
“Maybe. But there are always other nights.” Vera flexed her fingers in a ‘give it here’ motion.
“Nain—”
“Quit protesting,” Vera insisted. “Let me spoil you while I’m still alive.”
After a further minute of protest, Maisie handed over the dress, worried to the bone by that offhand comment.
Still alive – was there a reason for Vera not to be soon?
This is what sent Maisie’s stress hormones into overtime. She needed to ask outright what was going on, but she couldn’t do it on Vera’s birthday.
‘Are you dying?’ What kind of question would that be on the day she celebrated another year of life?