Page 36 of The Little Flower Shop By the Sea
Odd that they were hidden under the floor though.
‘How do you think it’s coming along?’ Woody asks. ‘As you’d hoped?’
Jake and Charlie have just finished applying a coat of the bright blue colour to a second wall, and Amber and Bronte are admiring their handiwork, having stained the first of the dressers. It looks like new with its translucent white coating.
‘Yes,’ I say, looking proudly around me at the transformation taking place. ‘I think it’s going to look even better than I’d hoped.’
‘Great,’ Woody says. ‘I think I might have to get this same team in when the station wants a new lick of paint.’
There are shouts of derision at Woody’s suggestion, and a chorus of voices telling him this is strictly a one-off, a special case.
And as I look around me at the St Felix massive, as Bronte had named them earlier, all pitching in and helping me get my grandmother Rose’s shop back in business, that’s exactly how I feel: special.
I really shouldn’t tar all people with the same brush, I think, wincing at my awful pun as I lift the brush that’s in my hand so I can continue painting the window frame in front of me. The people of St Felix have been nothing but lovely and helpful since I arrived.
Being back in St Felix would never feel the way it had when I used to come here with Will, I knew that.
But with the help of my new friends, it was already beginning to feel just that bit special again.
Twelve
Acacia – Secret Love
‘I’m just going to hop in the bath, Poppy!’ Amber calls up the stairs. ‘Even without salt crystals, a bubble bath is gonna ease my aching muscles.’
Amber had tried everywhere in St Felix to get some sea salt crystals to add to her bath tonight, telling us all that the salt would draw out our impurities and aches a treat. She refused to believe she couldn’t buy sea salt in a town so close to the sea; she’d even tried Mickey’s chip shop. But the type of salt Mickey used to fill the cellars that stood on his shop counter wasn’t conducive to the sort of spiritual healing that Amber had in mind. So instead she’s having to make do with Radox and some lavender bath salts that I found in my grandmother’s bathroom cupboard.
I’d stepped into a lovely hot shower as soon as we came in from our long day of decorating – which amazingly was nearly finished. I couldn’t believe how much we’d managed to achieve in one day. I guess the saying many hands make light work really is true.
I flop down on the sofa in my PJs with a mug of hot chocolate and one of the doughnuts left over from the huge box that Ant and Dec had popped round to the shop in the afternoon when spirits and energy had been beginning to lag.
What a day it’s been. Not only the progress in the shop itself, but getting to know the St Felix townsfolk who came along to help with the renovations. Especially Jake’s family. His kids are a real credit to him; Bronte, like he’d said, seems a bit of a tearaway, but nothing compared to what I’d been like as a teenager. Charlie’s a quiet, unassuming, lovely young boy. But what they, and their aunt Lou, quite obviously have in common is their love for Jake.
I think about Jake as I finish off my doughnut and sip on my hot chocolate.
He’s a strange one. One minute he’ll say or do something that seems to imply he sees me as more than just a friend, and the next he’ll make it quite clear that that’s not on his agenda at all. Jake wouldn’t be the first male to confuse me; most relationships with the opposite sex end up leaving me bewildered, but usually I’m the one making things complicated.
Maybe I have been imagining signs because I hoped they were there. I mean, why would Jake be interested in me? He’s a nice guy; he probably wants to help me because he knew my grandmother. Perhaps there really are good guys out there who don’t want anything from you, only your friendship.
I’ve not had that many male friends in the past that werejustfriends, but then I’ve never had that many friends full stop.
It wasn’t always that way. At primary school I had loads of friends; there’d been parties, and play dates, and I was never the last to be picked for anything. Even when I went to secondary school all was fine to begin with. I was on the hockey team, and the netball team, and the school council too. I played the flute in the school orchestra, and appeared in countless school productions. I was quite the swat too – the teachers reckoned I’d get A or A* in every one of my GCSEs. I was the archetype of the perfect pupil.
But then one summer everything had changed…
I go to the French windows and pull back the doors. As I step out on to the balcony a gust of sea air is strong enough to billow my long, freshly showered hair up and around my face. It licks my cheeks, and I have to push it back to restrain it. But I don’t go indoors, I stand there willing the salty air to blow away my memories and remove them from my mind like Amber’s salt bath was going to purge the aches from her body.
‘I won’t go back there,’ I shout into the wind. It immediately whips the words from my mouth and tosses them high into the sky where no one can hear them. ‘I won’t think about how my life changed the day I lost you.’
Angrily, I storm back inside the room, slamming shut the French windows.
‘Everything OK up there?’ I hear Amber call from the bathroom downstairs.
‘Yes, everything’s fine. Just enjoy your bath!’ I call back. Lovely as Amber is, I need some space right now. A breather for a few minutes.
The cardboard box that Woody gave me earlier is sitting on the table next to the sofa. In an effort to steer my mind away from the painful memories that have suddenly resurfaced, I decide to investigate its contents.
As I had thought, the box is full of old financial records, individual customers’ accounts, and lists of flowers supplied for various events. I set the latter to one side in case they might be of use to Amber, and I’m about to give up on the box and get another doughnut, when I spot something lying right at the bottom. It’s a bundle of worn-looking books of varying sizes, bound together by a frayed and faded piece of white ribbon. I fish the bundle out, untie the ribbon, and take a look inside the first book.
