Lydia (leadinglady): Unless you’re rubbish at making things. Then it just proves that you care enough to give someone something awful
Elizabeth:Thank you, Lydia. Your confidence in my abilities is overwhelming.
Lydia: (leadinglady)I’m just saying!!! Remember when you tried to make Jane a birthday cake and it collapsed?
Elizabeth: I was sixteen.
Jane:It was a lovely gesture. The strawberries were perfect.
Elizabeth:The strawberries were the only part I didn’t make
Kitty:What are you making and for who?????
Elizabeth hesitated, her fingers hovering over the phone. She hadn’t told her younger sisters about Darcy yet. Not properly. Jane knew, because they had met at her party, but she could be trusted with state secrets and always knew everything anyway. But the others . . . well, the others would haveopinions. Many, many opinions.
Elizabeth:Just a scarf. For someone.
Lydia (leadinglady):SOMEONE???
Kitty:WHO IS SOMEONE
Mary:Elizabeth is entitled to privacy regarding her personal relationships.
Lydia (leadinglady):Mary stop being reasonable it’s BORING
Kitty:Is it a boy someone or a girl someone???
Elizabeth stared at her phone while Waffles spun in circles, perhaps under the impression that if he moved fast enough, the yarn would release him through centrifugal force.
She couldn’t explain to her sisters that she’d fallen head over heels for a man who owned actual art, drove a car that cost more than most people’s houses, and had a wine cellar catalogued like a museum. They’d either think she was joking or demand his full financial history.
Elizabeth:I haven’t told you that Waffles learned how to open the biscuit tin
Lydia (leadinglady):WHAT
Kitty:That’s terrible!! He’ll get fat!
Jane:Oh Lizzy, that’s not good for him
Mary:Dogs need consistent portion control for optimal health
Elizabeth:I’ve moved the tin. Crisis averted.
Lydia (leadinglady):WHO ARE YOU KNITTING FOR????
Her phone started ringing before she could respond. Not the group chat, but an actual call. From Mum.
Elizabeth stared at the screen for a moment, thumb hovering over the decline button. She could let it go to voicemail. She could claim she’d been in the shower, or walking Waffles, or struck temporarily deaf. But her mother had the persistence of a tax collector. If Elizabeth didn’t answer now, she’d only call back in ten minutes, then again in five, then eventuallyturn up at the flat with a spare key she’d lifted from Jane, who, despite her ability to keep secrets, was rubbish at hiding things.
She answered on the fifth ring.
“Hello, Mum.”
“Elizabeth! At last! I’ve been calling for ages.”
“It’s been thirty seconds.”
“Don’t exaggerate, darling. I wanted to catch up. Are you still writing those dreadful stories about people being murdered?”
