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“What do you think, Lil?” Jim asked her. “She’s had one of them spray tan things, what’s going to get rid of it?”
“I suppose you could always spray a different color on top,” Lilian said doubtfully.
“Not going to happen,” said Jules.
“In that case,” the woman said, “I suppose plenty of showers and lots of exfoliation.”
Jules sighed. She was going to have to stop at the shop on her way home and see if Sylv had any exfoliating shower gel or something. She smiled her thanks at the woman. “I’ll give it a go. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’d better get going.”
“Oh no, don’t you go leaving me alone with this reprobate,” said Lilian, eyeing Jim.
“He’ll keep his hands to himself, won’t you, granddad?” Jules said, getting up and bending to kiss her grandfather on the cheek. “Thanks for the advice.”
“Mmm, you’d better get that sister of yours to come in and I’ll give her an earful about this spraying thing. I’ve got a mate that used to spray cars, he could give her some tips.”
Jules bit back a laugh. “Yeah, I’ll, er, I’ll let her know.”
By the time she was back outside again, she was in a slightly better mood. Alright, her problems weren’t exactly solved, but at least she had options now. And Jim always cheered her up, even if she was still suspicious that he was up to something.
She pulled her phone out of her pocket as she walked down the drive, seeing that she had a WhatsApp from Alea. Her tummy flipped over at the thought of her and she was grinning as she opened the message.
How’s the song going?
Crap.
Fine, she wrote back.
Do you like it?! Alea added a heart emoji after the exclamation point.
It’s great, Jules wrote. Very beautiful, she added which was a safe bet even if she hadn’t heard the thing.
Fancy giving me a taste?
Jules’s pulse raced and her heartbeat felt funny. Was Alea flirting? She was flirting, right? That definitely felt like flirting.
Of the song, I meant, said the next message followed by a laughing emoji.
Double crap.
Quickly, Jules typed: Not ready yet. Plus, we should keep it fresh so maybe closer to performance time?
Yeah, alright, replied Alea. GTG we’re lost on the way to our next gig!
Jules breathed a sigh of relief. That had been a close call. She shoved her phone back in her pocket. Alright, she couldn’t tell the truth to Alea now, could she? Which left the next best option, which was to tell the truth to Billie.
But first, she needed to take many showers. Many, many showers.
Chapter Nine
Billie carefully folded the electricity bill and slid it back into the envelope. As much as it pained her to admit it, her father may have had a point. The lights were all going off at night now. In fact, the lights weren’t even going on until she couldn’t see her hand in front of her face.
The combination of teaching at the school and the handful of private students she now had might be enough to keep her afloat for a while. That despite the fact that she was fairly sure that Jules Hawthorne wouldn’t be returning. She wasn’t paying rent, after all. But there’d be no saving money, no stowing pounds away for whatever was coming next.
Something had to come next.
Not that she was thinking about it or could even begin to think about it without a big black cloud looming in her vision.
This could not be her life. That was as far as she was willing to go. As far as she could possibly go into the future. She would not be the kind of person that came back home and never left again.
