Felix looks up at me. ‘I thought you said it was a kissing challenge.’
Lizzie seizes the moment. ‘Well, it’s a quick kiss challenge before they go to separate bedrooms when they stay over at each other’s houses.’
Felix scratches his head. ‘So, Rory has had three sleepovers but called the women by your name, Emily, before they all went to bed?’
‘In separate bedrooms,’ adds Lizzie. ‘At separate ends of the house. In their own pyjamas.’
I nod and pray for a change of conversation while Bill is trying not to laugh.
Felix gets bored and turns to Lizzie. ‘Emily’s going to give up her dressmaking.’
In unison both Lizzie and Bill shout, ‘NO.’
Lizzie grabs the screen and glares at me, her face close to the camera. ‘DO NOT GIVE IT UP.’
Bill peers over Lizzie’s shoulder. ‘I think you should broaden your range and go into men and women’s sleepover nightwear.’ He winks before Lizzie pushes him away.
‘Ems, what’s made you think about giving up your business?’ shouts Bill.
I let out a heavy sigh. ‘The house is always in chaos. Felix hasn’t got a normal living room.’
‘There is the other bedroom,’ Felix says. ‘With all your boxes of stuff from your flat.’
Lizzie claps in agreement. ‘Exactly, Felix, there is another room.’
‘I haven’t been inside those boxes for months.’
He looks up at me. ‘Mummy used to throw out my toys if she hadn’t seen me play with them for six months.’ I watch him scratch his head and I can’t help thinking about how he’s been scratching a lot in the last twenty-four hours. The last thing I need right now is head lice.
‘She claimed it was every six months but some of my toys went missing a few weeks after I had got them for Christmas. Remember when you bought me that toy trumpet? That vanished.’
A smile spreads across my face as I recall getting bombarded with texts from Vivi after I had given Felix a huge toy trumpet for Christmas. She jokingly claimed I was an evil sister, and she even recorded the dreadful sound a young Felix was making as he marched around with his trumpet.
‘Anyway,’ says Felix, ‘Mummy said if you hadn’t played with something for six months then it was time for that toy to move on to someone else. You haven’t touched all those boxes so maybe it’s time for someone else to use your stuff.’
I think about the small room upstairs.
Lizzie shouts with glee. ‘Felix – brilliant idea. Ems, sort out the room and move your business in there. You can’t close Forever Vintage as I won’t have the world’s best dating conversation starter.’
‘Which is?’
She pouts at the camera. ‘Did you know I am a model in my spare time?’
‘Emily,’ says Felix. ‘I know you said I wasn’t to look inside the boxes…’
In the last twenty-four hours it has become really clear to me that nothing is sacred with Felix. ‘But you decided to look anyway?’
He nods and Lizzie giggles.
‘Yes. Every single one. It’s a shame all that brand new kitchen stuff including the cool toaster are not being used.’
‘I bought the new stuff because before your Mummy died, I was thinking about getting a flat with Rory.’
Before Anna appeared in our life, Rory and I had talked about renting a place together. We had looked at a few flats to rent but didn’t like any of them and I was still unsure about whether I wanted to move out of Lizzie’s place. That didn’t stop Rory and me going to IKEA one Sunday, getting excited and buying a lot of house stuff.
Lizzie laughs. ‘You kept saying you were not sure, Ems, but kept coming home with more stuff.’
Rory’s face appears in my mind and my heart aches. ‘I wonder where he is.’
