She clipped the ribbon on her latest bouquet and walked over to the window display, placing it in a bucket to keep it fresh.
‘Roger, there is nothing to tell. He knows I am engaged, he is new to the area, is looking for work and wanted to speak to someone in the business. He is a landscape gardener, I told you. I said he could bring some business cards in, and I would recommend him to some people for their gardens. Plenty will be wanting them shipshape for spring, so hopefully he can get some work.’
Roger looked crestfallen. ‘That’s all?’
Lily didn’t look at Roger. Truth was, she was a little gutted herself. ‘That’s all.’ Apart from the fact that I can’t stop comparing him to Stuart, and thinking about his lashes. His eyes. The jolt I get just from touching his hand. She was pretty sure he felt it too. It was something she had read about many times – mainly in the romance novels she loved. She had never had that with Stuart. Ever. She felt a little panicked that she might never feel it with him. Was it a sign? She pushed the thought away. No good thinking like that.
‘He didn’t ravish you over the pork pies? Fondle your fancies?’
Lily laughed. ‘No! He bought me breakfast. That was it. Now, please, can we get on with some work?’
Roger pouted, taking his anger out on a sprig of baby’s breath as he thrust it viciously into an arrangement.
‘I am devastated. I was sure he was the one.’
‘Stuart is the one! You know, my fiancé?’ She waggled her fingers at him. He flicked his hand dismissively. ‘That Kinder egg monstrosity. No way! You deserve a man who can pick a ring that doesn’t look like it belongs to Cruella De Vil.’
Lily looked at her ring. It was ugly, to be fair, and Stuart had wasted no time telling her how expensive it had been. In fact, he had told everyone within a five-mile radius at the time. Truth was, Lily would have been happier with a prettier ring that cost a fraction of the price. Still, he was her husband to be. He picked the ring, and that was that. At least wedding bands were plain. She was grateful for that. Not that there was any sign of there being a wedding. This ring had been on her finger for years. They hadn’t even had an engagement party, as Stuart was busy building up his clientele.
‘You are mean to Stuart you know. He is trying.’
Roger came over, hugging her to him. ‘He is very trying, my dear. I don’t mean to be awful; it’s just that there is just something about him. Since you took me on when your parents retired, I have seen and heard a lot here, and I am not happy with a lot of it. He is a light stealer, my girl.’
‘Like Dumbledore?’ she teased, imagining Stuart running around Foxley Street with long white hair and a cloak nicking the street lights.
‘In a way, yes,’ Roger retorted, poking her in the ribs. She jerked away, motioning to the kettle. Roger nodded, scarce drawing breath before starting again. ‘He is a walking ego, and you are smaller, duller, when you are around him. I don’t like it. Your parents do it too, and you don’t even realize how much.’
‘Duller?’ Lily cried, horrified. ‘Do you mean boring?’
Roger eyed her sympathetically. ‘I rather meant dimmer, like a candle about to go out, but whilst we are on the subject …’
‘We are not on the subject! Not at all, and I don’t want to talk about it either!’
She sloshed water into two cups, before realizing that they were empty. She tutted loudly, throwing the contents into the sink before starting again. She banged down the sugar canister. Why did everyone have an opinion on her life suddenly? Her parents, Simon, Roger! When she signed for the business – something she had been dreaming about since she was a little girl helping out her parents in the shop – she thought that life would change. Her real life would start. She would move out, get married, be the grown-up she wanted to be, instead of just waiting for that milestone to occur.
Now she was here, what did she have? She owned the shop, sure, with a hefty mortgage, but nothing else that adults normally go through had kicked into gear. She still awoke in the same bedroom every morning, waiting to move on. At this rate, she would be wearing a wedding gown to work in her fifties, sat like Miss Havisham doling out floral creations to every other lucky bugger who had something to celebrate.
Ever since she had been a girl, she had loved the idea of romance and love. Disney has a lot to answer for, she decided. They sold girls the idea that they could be princesses, mermaids, warriors. Women who could rock a ballgown whilst brandishing a bow and arrow – and they would fall in love. Even a beast could be a prince. They sold that idea that the ideal man was out there, just waiting to find the other half of his heart like them.
Well, when would that happen? Would Prince Charming insist on a long engagement? Would he hell. He had Cinderella on the back of his horse, racing to the altar before they had even swapped numbers, let alone bodily fluids. The point was, Lily felt like she was finally seeing her life through the lives of others, and the view was not all roses around the door. The fact that it was bothering her now, and not before, had her more confused than ever.
Had she just sleepwalked through the last twenty-nine years? Stuart wasn’t perfect, sure, but she had loved him enough to say yes when he asked her to marry him all that time ago. They did okay – between them they managed to be relatively happy. In light of how her parents had turned out, maybe that was the thing to aim for. Relative happiness. Someone you didn’t want to plunge the bread knife into twenty years down the road.
The thunderbolt. Everyone talked about it. It was woven into the books she read, the films she watched. They all sold this idea that the right one was the one who made your heart thud, your palms go sweaty, and your pupils dilate. Anything else was settling, taking the easy route. Before today Lily would have declared it a fanciful notion, a plot trope that was as magical and elusive as unicorn poop. Since the breakfast with Will though, she had to admit, the idea wasn’t as far off as she had thought. Maybe she shouldn’t fear settling, but fear that bolt of lightning.
She made the coffees, leaving Roger’s on the work surface, and she walked out of the back with hers. Her shop came with a back area, all enclosed with walls and fences, and she had a couple of greenhouses she managed to get cheap from a mate of Simon’s. She intended to grow orchids and other flowers, selling them in her shop. Another thing her parents didn’t agree with. They had just kept the back swept clean, using it only to store deliveries, accessed through a gate at the back.
She loved it out here. It even had a spiral staircase leading to the first floor. If she moved in upstairs, she could have her coffee out here every day, walking down the back steps into her own little garden area. She thought of moving here again, and she felt a frisson of excitement. Roger was right – it would be perfect. Her parents would have to sort themselves out then, if she wasn’t there as a buffer. Surely they would speak to each other if they were alone in the house?
Deciding that Roger could do without her for an hour or so, she reached in her jeans pocket for her set of keys. The little gold key on the chain glinted at her in the early morning light. Time to make a start on her life.
‘Cinders,’ she said to herself out loud, ‘it’s time to get cleaning.’
***
Stuart was sat in his office at the golf club, looking at the calendar in disbelief. It was only a few short weeks till Valentine’s Day, and he had nothing planned. He knew that Lily wouldn’t make a fuss, but the very event of 14th February often showed him up as less than romantic. The ball at the golf club was the perfect cover. Lily wouldn’t get mad if he had to work; she understood. He just wished all occasions could be explained away as easily.
His excuse stash was running low with the people in his life. Compounded by the fact that he had been engaged for six years, and Lily’s impending thirtieth birthday, Stuart was feeling an ulcer coming on. He swigged at the bottle of Gaviscon on his desk, pulling a face at the taste, and opened his work diary. He needed to pull some hours in, make himself