Page 26 of You Had Me At Pumpkin Patch
Luna let out an inexplicable sob and threw her thin arms around her mum.
‘You daft sod,’ Bonnie giggled.
Their teeth chattering, Rosie invited her new friends inside, with the promise of a warm fire.
‘And I might have an ulterior motive,’ Rosie confessed, as Mags, Bonnie and Luna moved towards her cabin.
‘If it’s got anything to do with that food I can smell, I’m in,’ said Mags.
‘It certainly does,’ Rosie replied, bundling them through the door and closing it behind them, keen for Zain not to see from wherever he might be moodily lurking, because he couldnotclap his eyes on this.
‘Welcome to the world’s smallest pumpkin farm retreat! You’re my chief testers.’
18
‘You massacred his pumpkins!’ Luna gasped, her eyes landing on a Magic Lantern variety that Rosie had quite badly carved with a smiley face and filled with a tealight.
Rosie had packed her cabin with lots of them, like a mini pumpkin-themed grotto. The glow from them was wonderful, although she was acutely aware that decorating one small hut was a million miles off organising successful retreats. She didn’t even know where retreaters would sleep, or how she’d cater for them, what activities she could arrange, or if she could do any of that without Zain committing first-degree murder.
‘Oh, youarebrave,’ Bonnie breathed, as though in the midst of someone heroic.
‘Nooooo. All of these are from the nearest village shop,’ Rosie rushed to clarify. ‘He’d carvemyhead if I butchered his precious Cinderellas without his say-so.’ Her forehead creased as she wondered how on earth she’d ever secure such permission.
‘He’ll come around, love,’ said Bonnie. ‘And it does look incredible in here. So inviting. You’re a natural.’
‘It’s not like he does anything else with them,’ Luna reasoned as she sat herself on the rug, drying her pink hair with her towel. ‘I mean, he just grows them all – massive ones, weird ones, multi-coloured ones – and they end up as compost. Surely, he has bigger dreams for them than worm food?’
‘A pumpkin deserves its moment of transformation into a carriage, if only for one night,’ Rosie added wistfully, her mind wandering off into a world of fairy tales.
‘Or to shine brightly in a pie,’ said Mags, rubbing her belly.
And it was time to dish some food.
After stripping down to her swimsuit and plunging into a cold, dark lake, sharing her tentative pumpkin farm retreat ideas with the others didn’t feel as daunting as she’d expected. There weremmmsof delight at the pumpkin and spiced apple soup she’d made earlier in Agnes’s extremely disorganised, cat-filled kitchen. Bonnie was soon suggesting she could make pumpkin wine instead of elderflower, and Mags chipped in with thoughts on pumpkin bread and sweet treats. Luna became animated about Rosie’s pumpkin pampering ideas, from face masks to hair treatments and maybe a spot of peaceful pumpkin painting.
With the warm glow from Bonnie’s wine, they were soon chatting like they’d always known each other. Rosie couldn’t remember when she’d last felt like this. She would usually duck away from socialising, because past friends had been too vocal about her iffy choice of boyfriends, even if she now knew they’d had a point. Being at home with a book had always felt easier, but maybe there was something to be said for opening up to more real-life friends.
As the evening went on, Bonnie confided that her illness had brought her and Luna to the water, both determined to enjoy every moment, because you never knew what lay ahead. ‘C word,’ she said simply, touching one of her breasts. ‘Though I’m all right again, for now. They thought it was stubborn. But it hadn’t met me.’ She winked. ‘I come here to feel skin-tinglingly alive. And because Luna vetoed mountaineering. Though she’ll have to learn to let go at some point.’
There were a few tears, and some words from Mags about how bloody brilliant they’d both been.
Rosie could already feel the guilt of her own omissions bubbling up inside her, mixing with the sadness of all that beautiful Bonnie and her close ones had been through. Bonnie had shared something so personal, and Rosie was still pretending to be someone completely different. Even if it might put her job and home in jeopardy, could she really go on being dishonest with these women?
Just as she was grappling with her conscience and panicking at the thought of Agnes drop-kicking her over the farm gates for being Fake Rachel, Mags picked up a slip of paper that Rosie had hastily thrown on the fire pile before their swim.
‘Hey?’
Rosie saw Mags’s eyebrows raising and realised in a belly-dropping instant what she was holding.
‘You thought the float went on your toe?’ Mags asked, looking at Rosie. Then her eyes widened, and she clapped a hand over her mouth. ‘Ignore me,’ she mumbled. ‘Nothing to see here!’ And she swiftly threw Zain’s note from earlier, about tow floats and not drowning, into the log burner.
Bonnie and Luna looked over, only half-registering. Rosie’s mind raced through her options, mentally packing her bags, facing rollockings, and going to live in a cardboard box, before realising that she might be catastrophising. If her secrets got out to Zain, that might well be her fate. But tonight, with these women, she felt drawn to release some of her baggage. Because a problem shared was one less problem that could eat you alive.
‘Look, I need to tell you something. Feel free to judge me or hate me for not coming clean before. But I’m not who you think I am.’
Telling Mags, Bonnie and Luna the truth about who she was and why she’d ended up here hadn’t been nearly as dreadful as Rosie had imagined. She opened her mouth and let it all spill out, and to her immense, slightly sweaty relief they were nothing but kind.
‘No offence, but I guessed you weren’t a wild swim expert,’ said Luna, with a cheeky half-smile. ‘Anyway, I like you just as you are.’
