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“Oh, look, there’s nothing really. He’s just been a bit evasive about why he’s over here, that’s all. Anyway, he’s a locum for three months, so I can have fun and then send him on his bike back to Sydney.”
“What if you’re still hot for him in three months?”
“You know I’ll be bored by then.”
So why did the idea of Solo getting on that big beast and riding off into the sunset suddenly make her stomach bottom out?
Alice chirped even more unhelpfully, “What if your biological clock suddenly starts ticking?”
“It can tickity-tock right along without me,” Polly clipped back. “I’m never going to be in the game for babies. Being an auntie will be enough, thank you.”
Alice sighed heavily, clearly defeated. “Anyway, you look beautiful, you’ll knock the poor guy’s socks off like you always do.”
Polly fluffed out her hair. “Should I straighten these babies out?”
“No, they’re who you are.”
A memory of Solo coiling one of her curls over his finger as they lay in bed together cemented the decision to leave her tongs in the cupboard. Polly grabbed her Diorissimo and sprayed liberally. “Everything okay in the city of golden spires?”
“That’s Oxford, I’m in Cambridge.”
“Almost the same, all the buildings look like Hogwarts. How’s Aaron?”
“Perfect, we’re pretty much blissed out as usual.” The phone wobbled and Polly got a view of Alice’s jeans-clad knees. Then a bunch of radishes appeared. “It’s like Peter Rabbit’s garden here. Want some?”
“No, I think I’ll pass.”
“From Mrs Tiggywinkle, loads of hugs. Have fun with Sigmund Freud.”
Polly ignored the last comment. “Love to Aaron. Bye.”
When she’d put down her phone, she got up from the dressing table and admired her reflection in the mirror. A figure-hugging 1950s-style black sateen dress she’d got for a song on eBay accentuated her curves. She’d gone to town on her outfit. But hell, she’d promised to show Solo a good time, and that meant pulling out all the stops. That was the only reason, she told herself firmly as she did a quick boob hitch. The only disappointment was that since Solo had turned up, her lemon diet had fizzled. There had been too many nights she’d needed chocolate these past two weeks. Which meant that while her butt hadn’t shrunk, her breasts were looking magnificent. Why could you never get the balance right? Small butt and your boobs sagged like a half-empty sack of potatoes. Big butt, and—boobalicious.
If it was good enough for the Kardashians, it was good enough for her!
Another quick slick of Rosebud Red, a brush of blusher high on her cheekbones and she would have to do.
She was about to toe on her red stilettos when the doorbell rang.
She stilled.
It came again, more urgently. Barefoot, she tiptoed along the hallway and put her eye up to the peephole in the front door.
There stood Judith, her nose huge in a distortedly tiny head.
What the heck? From Judith’s usual description of a weekend, on a Saturday night she and Mark would be chomping on Cadbury’s Fruit and Nut and binge-watching Stan.
As Polly flung open the front door, Judith catapulted over the threshold and promptly burst into tears. Concern mixed with a dullthunkin the pit of Polly’s stomach as her night with Solo receded like the Starship Enterprise on a mission to another galaxy.
“Jude, what’s happened?” Her arms came around and hugged her friend. They didn’t normally have that much of a touchy-feely friendship, but this was clearly way out of the ordinary. Jude was not the kind of person who fell apart; she was always on an even keel.
“Mark’s… dum—ped… me.”
Polly’s eyes widened in disbelief. Mark of the terminal incapacity to do anything that didn’t comply with routine. How on earth had he gone so far out of his comfort zone as to dump the kindest, most giving woman in the world?
“Come in here.” She locked her arm around a sobbing Judith and marched her—gently—into the kitchen, sat her down at the kitchen table and drew up a chair.
Leaning forward, Polly probed gently, “Tell me what happened.”
