Page 44 of The Payback Plan
Wasn’t that where Emma Thompson kept hers?
He shrugged. ‘Sure. I guess.’
‘Then why haven’t you?’ She didn’t need to say,Your dad’s not around any more to police or object, it was implied.
‘I guess it’s never felt like… the right moment?’
Paige wondered what that moment might be and if it would ever occur but instead of pressing him on it, she just nodded. ‘I had a great-aunt once, Bessie, who as a young woman, fell in love with an antique china tea set with a delicate bluebell pattern that she’d seen in a local dealer’s window. She couldn’t afford it, so she negotiated with the owner to pay it off at a sixpence a week. It took her a year but she did it.’
He quirked an eyebrow. ‘Am I Great-aunt Bessie in this equation?’
Ignoring him, Paige continued her story. ‘It was her pride and joy and even as a kid I could see why. It was so pretty, the flowers all hand painted, the porcelain so delicate that when the sun shined on it you could almost see through it. Every time we visited I asked if we could use it for morning tea but she’d just ruffle my hair and laugh and say she was saving it for a very special occasion, like the Queen visiting.’
‘Let me guess,’ he said derisively, ‘the Queen never visited?’
Paige’s lips twitched. ‘Nope, she never did. She died when I was fourteen having never actually drunk tea or served cakes from it. She’dlovedit and waited to use it for over fifty years and she never did.’
The set had gone to her daughter who had sold it to a dealer a few months later which made Paige sad all over again remembering it now.
‘Your point being, life’s short, don’t wait for the right moment?’
‘My point being, get the damn Oscar down and spread some of that Hollywood stardust around to some little old ladies from the local WI.’
And for yourself. Get it down and see that it’s a one-foot-tallbaubleawarded at a moment in time and not a statement of a person’s worth or character. Nor was it a divining rod for a person’s success. Maybe at eye level it would be less intimidating. Maybe Oliver could see that it was just an object that had only as much power as he gave it.
Although Paige wisely said none of that.
‘Have you never just done something for someone for no other reason than because you knew it would please them?’
Surely, if more people in this world did that there’d be less Horrible Harveys.
He regarded her for long moments as if he was seriously considering the question which was clearly vexing him if the scowl spreading across his ridiculously attractive features was any indication.
Even scowling he managed to look effortlessly sexy.
‘Okay fine,’ he huffed. ‘You have a deal. I take the awards and you never play that damn instrument in my presence again.’
Paige nodded with zero smugness and left the room before he changed his mind.
8
Oliver hadn’t known what to expect in the WI hall but it hadn’t been a giant rainbow flag hanging on the wall behind the raised stage and what felt like every poster from every movie and stage play his father had ever starred in, decorating the walls.
It was a sweet gesture but it was alsoa lotand he almost backed out in the first minute. But then Paige’s words came back to him.
Have you never just done something for someone for no other reason than because you knew it would please them?
The answer to that had been easy – yes. For Bella. And where had that got him? A red-headed whirling dervish with a hamster in a cage on his doorstep. But her prompt had reminded him why he’d said yes to Bella in the first place.
Guilt. Repentance. And talking to the WI somehow felt all part and parcel of that. Plus, he didn’t really want to turn out like Great-aunt Bessie.
For fuck’s sake, he’d known Paige for three weeks and already knew about her aunt with a china fetish.
What was even happening now?
Still, standing in front of them all, their eager faces smiling at him, Oliver wished he’d inherited his father’s ease with strangers. Just being around him had given Oliver confidence and he missed him fiercely in this moment. But then he found Paige in the audience smiling and nodding at him and he relaxed.
If she could turn up here today, her hair scrunched into tiny balls all over her head, secured with multi-coloured bandsandin a jumpsuit that looked like it had been inspired by a Tellytubby orgy without a single qualm, he could certainly give his standard spiel about his father – the one everyone wanted to hear – and be back home on the couch next to Casper in an hour.
