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“I’m not orange,” was Jules’s first response. Mostly because she’d been exfoliating as hard as she could without actually scraping skin off and was pretty sure that the tan was almost gone. “And what’s wrong with being a barmaid?”
It was Billie’s turn to bite her tongue. “Nothing,” she said, sweeping past Jules and into the living room. “Coming, or not?”
“And the song isn’t stupid,” Jules said as she followed Billie into the room.
“Go on then, play away,” said Billie, gesturing at the piano.
Jules looked from the keyboard to Billie and then back again and had a sudden feeling that she didn’t want to do this. Billie was being strange, angry and even hurt. And Jules didn’t want to deal with it.
“Play or leave,” Billie said coolly. “The choice is yours.”
The choice was hers. Jules didn’t know what Billie Brooke’s problem was, but she was damn sure that it wasn’t her problem. She was paying for this, and if Billie couldn’t treat her like an equal, well… Well maybe Amelia and Cass were right. Billie did think she was better than everyone else.
So screw her.
“Fine,” Jules said.
Without another word she turned around and left the house, banging the door behind her.
GRANDDAD JIM HAD his cigar in his mouth, unlit as usual, and was chewing it thoughtfully as Jules sulked.
“You screwed up,” he said finally.
“What gives you that impression?” Jules asked, still annoyed at Billie.
“Listen, you paying the girl to be your friend or to teach you the damn piano?”
Jules sighed. “Piano, I suppose.”
“Well then, makes no difference what else has happened, does it? You need more friends in your life? Or you need someone to help this plan come to fruition? Because you’ve got choices to make here, girl, and as far as I can see, there’s only one way to get what you want.”
“Fine,” grumped Jules.
Jim sat back in his armchair, the leather creaking. “Knew her father, I did. Billie Brooke’s dad. He was a stick-in-the-mud, boring little fella, but always paid his round when that wife of his let him in the pub.”
Which doubled Jules’s knowledge about Billie, given how little she knew about her. “Yeah?” she said, hoping to prompt her grandfather into saying more.
He sniffed. “Always proud of her, he was, you could see him glow when her name came up. Not like that wife of his though, not always spouting off about how Billie could do this, that and the other. No, he was a quiet one. Mind you, from what I heard, she was a talented girl, that one.”
“Yeah, so I’ve heard,” Jules said. “And yet here she is back in Whitebridge, so I’m thinking that talent didn’t take her too far, did it?”
“No need to be uncharitable,” said her grandfather. “And no need to be cold-hearted neither.”
“Me? Cold-hearted?”
Her grandfather leaned forward. “Listen, you’ve never got a clue what someone else is going through.” He sat back again. “Did a job once with a mate of mine, good lad he was. Reliable as anything, except this one job, when he had his eyes closed when they should have been open, if you get what I mean.”
Jules, who didn’t probe too deeply into her grandfather’s affairs, grunted in response.
“I was ready to gut him, I was, as was the rest of the crew I was working with. But then it turned out that his wife just got diagnosed with cancer and he was working and keeping the house, running her to appointments, and burning both ends of the candle.”
“Sad story,” said Jules, who had no idea what her grandfather was trying to tell her.
“Didn’t ask for help though, that wasn’t his way. It’s not for some people, they like to stew in silence.” He looked at her sternly. “Maybe your Billie’s one of those types.”
“She’s not my Billie,” Jules said.
“I’m just saying that everyone carries their own load in life.”
