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Mary didn’t just work at the salon—it was also her home. Her Girl Friday position there had started out as a temporary subsidised role, but when it had ended Coral had offered her a permanent position with the added bonus of accommodation. She had also hinted at the prospect of an apprenticeship, although it had never transpired. Coral was only too happy to tell her why—aside from daydreaming, she was terrible at small talk, prone to saying the wrong thing...
Basically, she didn’t fit in.
Mary had long since known that.
‘This is Mary...’ That was how the social workers had introduced her, often late at night, or in the middle of a family dinner. ‘Mary Jones.’
Mary Jones—the ‘emergency placement’ that never quite worked out.
She’d been labelled ‘difficult’ and ‘odd’ by so many. Her withdrawal into grief had seen her labelled as sullen, and later attempts to be friendly had come across as desperate and clingy. Oh, how they’d laughed at one new school, when at Show and Tell she’d proudly shown the class a present her father had made her. While in prison.
Ha-ha-ha...
Now, at twenty-one, she was without a true friend, a career, or a home she could properly call her own—just a bed in the back room of the salon.
‘Tonight’s a chance to earn some good money,’ Coral said. ‘Heaven knows you moan about not having enough.’
That stung.
‘I’ve done a lot for you,’ Coral reminded her. ‘Just yesterday I defended you to the other girls when the tip jar went missing.’
‘That had nothing to do with me.’
‘We’re never going to get to the bottom of that...’ Coral sighed pointedly. ‘Though it has been going missing a lot lately, and if the other girls knew about your father...’ As Mary shrivelled, Coral became kinder. ‘Look, if you do this for me I’ll double the cash and do your hair.’
The thought of getting her hair done was actually rather tempting. Despite working in the salon, Mary had never had it professionally cut, and wore her wavy blonde hair in a low ponytail.
But still she shook her head. ‘I’m sorry, no.’
Coral didn’t even register her response. ‘Think about it,’ she said, leaving Mary standing alone in the staffroom.
She should have defended herself against the theft insinuation more strongly, Mary knew, except she always froze when her father’s criminal history was raised, terrified of the deeper truth coming to light if anyone delved.
Before the petty crime he was in prison for now, there had been some white-collar crime, in his attempt to pay legal and school fees and hold on to the family home. It was the crime prior to that that Mary could not bear to revisit.
William Jones had been driving under the influence and had been charged for the death of her mother.
It was a cold summing-up, but it was all Mary could manage.
Trying to push her thoughts aside, Mary started to collect up the mugs and headed out to the little kitchenette near her bedroom. Seeing the milk had again been left out, she put it back in the fridge, but as she closed the door she paused. There, between the notes and the other quirky magnets on the door, was one precious one.
It went everywhere with Mary.
A little fridge magnet with a picture of a beach in Cornwall and a tiny little thermometer that still worked. Mary checked the temperature each morning and could almost feel her mother’s smile. It had been with Mary since she had first been removed from the family home—a little gift she had bought her mother on their final family holiday.
Final everything, really.
How could she have guessed on that wonderful summer day that a few short weeks later everything would fall apart?
She ran her finger over the magnet and along the tiny thread of the thermometer, that was, despite the years, always accurate. Here, far back from the warmth of the salon, the thermometer reading was as cold as Mary was lonely.
From beneath it she pulled out a scrap of paper—a horoscope she had torn out when she’d been sorting out the salon magazines.
If today is your birthday...
Adventures awaited, apparently, if only she had the courage to take a chance...
She had torn it out partly hoping it was a sign that her mother was showing her the path she should take. Foolish, perhaps, yet it was all the guidance she had.
