Page 102 of Thursdays at Orange Blossom House
‘I’m forty-seven.’ Checkmate.
‘I know.’ He steps towards her. ‘I really don’t choose women based on their age.’
‘So why did you choose me?’
‘Well … I don’t think I did actually.’ He takes her hand and she lets him. ‘It’s just one of those things.’
‘I’m too old for children.’
‘I don’t remember saying I want them. Hasn’t working in a high school put you off them anyway?’
He takes her other hand and stands opposite her. His eyes are hazel, with flecks of gold and green in them. She hasn’t looked into his eyes for long enough to notice before.
‘You haven’t said you don’t want to come with me,’ he says softly.
His hands holding hers are warm and dry, and she makes herself remember this detail because years from now, when she’s an old lady sitting in a sunroom with a blanket over her knees, looking back on her life and thinking about the few high points, she wants to remember this man standing in front of her, to recall the touch of his hands and the way he looks at her with acceptance and attention.
Maybe that old lady will regret what she’s about to do. She’ll just have to wait to find out.
‘I don’t want to,’ she says firmly. She, who dislikes lies. But the stakes have never been as high as they are now.
Because she does want to go away with him – why wouldn’t she let herself be swept up in this opportunity and what it might become? – but it would mean changing everything she knows. Leaving her parents behind, with no one to look after them. Abandoning the career she has tended like a pot plant for years. There would be yoga in India, but no Dorothy or Grace Maud. So yes, she has many reasons for not telling him the truth. None of them an obstacle in and of themselves, but added up they make a mountain.
‘I don’t believe you,’ he says, but he lets her hands go and she feels the regret that she knew would come. ‘But I’m not going to push you.’
He smiles faintly and takes a step back. ‘Like I said, I’m not leaving until the end of the year. So you have time to reconsider.’
‘I won’t,’ she says quickly and looks away, not wanting to meet his eyes.
He nods slowly. ‘All right. Guess I’ll see you at school.’
‘You will,’ she says, nodding so quickly she’s worried she’ll shake something loose. ‘And I won’t make it awkward. You know.’ She gestures at nothing.
‘I know. I won’t either.’ He starts to turn away. ‘See you there.’
She doesn’t say goodbye but she does watch him walk away, thinking about how she’s so great a coward that she can’t take what he’s offering her with open hands and let the consequences happen as they may. Because that’s not who she is.
She knows she is stuck; she knows she can’t change. Because the price of change is embracing the unknown – and the most terrifying part of that is realising that she might like it.
CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO
‘What on earth is wrong with you?’ Grace Maud says more loudly than she normally would in the sanctuary of the yoga class.
Patricia looks up from rolling her mat, clearly sheepish. ‘What … what do you mean?’ She clears her throat and bends over her mat once more.
‘You’ve rolled up that mat and unrolled it about three times. And during relaxation I could hear you breathing. Loudly.’
‘Sorry,’ Patricia says meekly.
‘You’re missing the point. I don’t ever hear you breathing.’ Grace Maud glances at Dorothy, who has folded her arms over her large belly and is shaking her head from side to side.
‘Something’s wrong,’ Dorothy says.
‘Or right,’ Patricia mutters.
‘Honestly, Patricia, if you’re going to obfuscate,’ Grace Maud says, slinging her handbag over her shoulder, ‘I’ll start to lose respect for you as an English teacher.’
‘Grace Maud!’ Patricia says with a look of horror.
