And first thing tomorrow I’d log on and start my search in the virtual world, since finding Trevor Moorcroft in the real one had been a failure.
Chapter Four
Elle
Elle,’ my mom called over the top of people’s heads as soon as she spotted me through the wire mesh, just outside the entrance to the parking lot. She waved her arm violently, knocking my eldest brother Tim – I have alotof brothers – in the head. Her voice was accustomed to being pitched above the din of over half a dozen kids squabbling at home, so it carried like a football announcer across to me. ‘Over here, honey. I left your ticket on the door.’
“The door” was a grumpy-looking teenager with a book of raffle tickets at the barrier. The place wasn’t exactly sold out.
My family took up the entire back row on one side of the bleachers, which had been brought in. Mom, Dad, Tim and his girlfriend Delia, Sam – another brother – Daisy, my brother-in-law Quinn who must’ve been roped in because my eldest sister Lucy was staying at home with the baby, my aunt and uncle and my parents’ neighbour. It was a full house. Wherever we went, we went in force. It was like mobilising an army for every extracurricular activity.
‘Here she is finally,’ Uncle Joe cried. ‘Better late than never as always, eh Elle?’
‘Better never than late when it comes to you, Uncle Joe,’ I quipped in response and flicked the brim of his baseball cap as I did the awkward side shuffle past them all to the space they’d left me between Daisy and Tim. I heard him laughing as I sat down.
‘We’ve just been staring at concrete anyhow,’ Daisy told me under her breath, referring to the asphalt stage with its bare-boned props of broken wooden crates and bald tyres. She wasn’t great at sitting down at the best of times. Daisy was always mostcomfortable when she was active but being parked here with the sun shining was especially painful for her.
‘Where’s your sun hat?’ I asked.
‘Oh, don’t start fussing.’ She groaned. ‘I left it in my kit bag, is all.’
‘She can use some of yours, can’t she?’ Tim commented, trying to rearrange his shoulder around my, admittedly, rather large white hat. I made no apologies. When you’re red-headed, you don’t sit out in the sun for two hours without protection unless you want to end up with skin the colour and texture of a red M&M.
‘Sure, I’ll share.’ I put my arm around her back, so the brim of my hat covered her. She rolled her eyes but leaned into my shoulder for a cuddle.
‘What have you been up to, Elle?’ Tim asked. ‘You look all in. Everything going OK with the book?’
‘Sure. Living the dream as always. Must just be the heat. So hard to sleep when it’s this hot.’ I plastered a grin on my face and fanned myself with the programme.
My parents – my whole family really, now most of us were adults – worried about my career. I’d given up being a midwife four years ago to write full time when my first two novels sold well, and I was offered the six-book contract. I actually made good money, but this was New York and I couldn’t say I’d ever really felt the benefit of it. Especially since Lucas, the boyfriend I’d been living with at the time I got my first really big advance payment, promptly moved out and left me to deal with the exponential cost of living rises as a single person.
So, if I gave my family any indication that things were not peachy, wonderful and amazing, they instantly started checking up on me, trying to find out if my medical insurance had lapsed and reassuring me that there was always a bed for me at home. I was so lucky to have them all…but also, having a minimumof eight immediate family members trying to look after me because they were worried I was going to starve, alone in my apartment, for the sake of my art, didn’t bolster my confidence. I wished they had a little more faith in me and my chosen career. Particularly whenmyfaith in myself was wobbly.
My cell phone started pinging in my bag and my sister nudged me. ‘Someone’s messaged you.’
‘Yeah, I got it.’ I pulled it out and saw that the Whatsapp chat had been busy in response to my SOS while I was out of signal on the subway.
The messages were predictably reassuring, kind, funny and supportive. I loved these women. Keisha, who was the only other member of the group currently in New York, had told me not to worry about trying to plan the changes yet. That I should just let my editor’s comments percolate in my brain for a day and go out with her this evening for drinks. It was amazing how often a writer’s solution to something involved alcohol, cake, caffeine or all three. But I knew that it was sensible advice (the space, rather than the drinking). I’d said the same things to each of them more than once.
The only thing bothering me was that it was mid-June and my editor was due on vacation in three weeks. Ideally, I needed to get the revised manuscript to her by then, so she could read it while she was supposed to be off the clock, relaxing. Three weeks was such a short amount of time for a massive overhaul. I had to use every minute I could spare, and I knew Keisha would understand that…
‘Well? Aren’t you gonna answer it?’ Daisy nudged me again. Teenagers are so twitchy about technology. She was thirteen and had only just been allowed social media, but when she wasn’t running around a track or hitting softballs, she was fielding hundreds of notifications on her cell.
‘Not yet.’ It would take a good thirty minutes to respond to everyone.
‘Oh, I get it.’ She nodded knowingly. ‘Who are you ghosting? Did you go on a date with a creep and now you have to shake him off?’
Mom’s head swivelled in my direction like a hawk sighting a mouse at a hundred yards, her blue eyes wide. ‘Do I need to speak to your father? He can send someone around if you’re being harassed.’
‘No.’ I leaned forward to look down the row, knowing Dad would already be listening in, picking up on the tone of Mom’s voice. ‘No. I’m not being harassed, no police presence required,’ I told him and his raised eyebrows.
‘Why have you turned it to silent now if you’re not trying to ignore someone?’ Daisy asked, after watching me switch my cell to vibrate and put it away again.
‘We’re about to watch a play; that’s just good theatre etiquette.’ Not to mention that’s how I liked it in general.
‘Yeah, yeah, what did the guy do this time, Elle?’ Tim chipped in, with a teasing grin. ‘Order your dinner for you? Put the jelly on before the peanut butter? Which interview question did he fail?’
‘I wish I’d never told you about that.’ I scowled at him. After the first couple of months of online dating, I’d devised a list of preliminary questions I needed to evaluate guys onbeforeI even agreed to going on a date with them. Pretty obvious stuff. If I couldn’t pick up on red or green flags from their profile, I needed to ask directly. What was the point of meeting up if I knew our politics were completely incompatible or they never wanted kids, or they thought that writing wasn’t a real job? Made sense to me but Tim had taken every opportunity to wind me up about being picky and high maintenance, ever since.
