Page 19 of Second Chances at the Board Game Café

It hadn’t taken him long to locate her shop. The old co-operative building had stood empty for months, but she had brought it back to life, and she rose even further in his estimation. He stood outside, trying to pluck up courage to knock on the door, counting by nineteens in his head.

19. 38. 57…

There was bunting across the window, and inside was a table with her sewing machine on. Beside it, a dressmaker’s dummy was draped in huge swathe of scarlet fabric, creating the sort of look you’d see on the red carpet at a film premiere in Leicester Square rather than on a back street in Hebbleswick. Not that he knew anything about fashion. There’d been a mix-up one month and the newsagent had delivered Vogue instead of Model Rail Monthly. He’d idly flicked through the pages before returning it.

A small sign in the corner of the window had caught his eye.

TAYLOR’S. DRESSMAKING. MADE-TO-MEASURE CURTAINS. ZIP REPLACEMENTS. REPAIRS AND ALTERATIONS. SWIFT SERVICE GUARANTEED 😉

He’d laughed at her ‘Swift service guaranteed’ line. She was witty too, as well as attractive and quirky and…

No. He’d had to stop this train of thought or he’d have lost his nerve about knocking on the door, let alone asking her out for a drink. He’d taken a deep breath and knocked.

There was no answer.

After dithering for a few moments, he’d decided to push the trousers through her letterbox, with a note and his phone number. He’d pulled out his notebook, which he kept strictly for recording train numbers in. He never usually tore out a page, but he’d ripped one out quickly, before he changed his mind. Then using the pen that he’d bought in the souvenir shop of the Stacja (Station) Muzeum in Warsaw, a place Ludek had tipped him off about, he had scribbled a note to her. Then he’d pushed his carrier bag containing the note and the jeans through her letterbox; it was a bit of a squeeze but they went through eventually. He would ask her out when he returned to collect them, he’d decided.

Only it had all gone horribly wrong. It had been obvious that she’d shortened them too much as soon as he saw them, and he wasn’t quite sure why he’d asked to try them on. Then she’d said she didn’t have a changing room and, to his embarrassment, she’d taken him up to her bedroom, of all places. There’d been a pair of lacy pink knickers lying on the floor when she’d first shown him in. He’d averted his eyes whilst she had hastily tidied them away.

He’d put the jeans on, and glanced at himself in her full-length mirror. He looked like a schoolboy who’d had a sudden growth spurt.

What did he do now? What was the etiquette in these circumstances?

The easiest option would have been to pay her and walk away, to pretend that they were perfectly okay.

On the other hand, he did look rather comical. Perhaps they’d laugh about this and laughter was a great ice-breaker, wasn’t it?

And now here he was, standing in Taylor’s front room in the ridiculously short trousers, and it was clear that Taylor didn’t see the funny side; she looked horrified.

‘They were a little on the long side,’ he said, ‘but now they’re a little on the short side.’

He tried to keep his tone light, but she seemed really upset about it. She opened a notebook that lay on the sewing table, and began to leaf through it. There were Post-it notes and slips of paper in between the pages, and she pulled one of them out. Harry recognised it as his, torn from his train notebook. She held it out to him and there it was, in black and white: Hello Taylor, We met a couple of weeks ago in the board game café and I was wondering if you could perhaps take up these jeans? By 6 inches please.

‘My mistake,’ he said.

What must she think of him now? Such a careless error. He’d been so nervous about asking her out that he’d muddled metric and imperial.

‘I should have checked with you first,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry. I thought it seemed like a lot.’

‘No, no. Like I said, this is entirely my fault.’

She grimaced. ‘They’re ruined now. And they look brand new.’

‘They were. But it doesn’t matter. It’s entirely my fault.’

Why did he keep repeating himself?

‘I can’t believe I made such an error,’ he said. ‘I work with numbers.’

Why had he told her that? She’d think he was boring. He made a mental note not to mention his board game obsession or the fact that he was a railway nerd.

He waited for her to say something, but she didn’t. He probably ought to go and put his trousers back on, but wanting to prolong the conversation, he said, ‘You’ve got this place looking lovely.’

‘Thank you. I wanted it to look like a proper shop. From the outside at least.’

‘It does. The window looks splendid. In fact, the whole place looks rather wonderful. It’s nice to see an old building getting a new lease of life.’

‘Yeah, I was so happy to get offered this house. Although… well, it has its problems.’