Welcome to Rosie Hopkins' Sweet Shop of Dreams
Page 80

‘Yes,’ said Mike. ‘The planet. Like I said. What are you up to, you lazy old witch?’
‘You won’t believe this place,’ said Rosie. ‘I get lunch breaks and everything.’
‘No way,’ said Mike. ‘And don’t tell me, no one ever pees at you or hollers abuse.’
‘Hmm,’ said Rosie, reflecting. ‘Nope, I’m afraid there is both pee and hollered abuse.’
‘The world of sweets is more cut-throat than I thought,’ said Mike. His voice softened. ‘When are you coming home, love? We heard about you and Gerard.’
Hmm, Rosie thought. They’d heard about it from Gerard. Which meant it probably didn’t reflect well on her. Still, that wasn’t really her business.
‘What did he say?’
‘He said …’ Mike paused.
‘What?!’
‘Oh, nothing. He said you’d gone a bit mental in the country.’
‘He said what?’
‘And that he thought maybe the sugar had gone to your head. And that you’re living with a mad old spinster lady and turning into her.’ Mike said the last bit in a rush, as if he were trying to get it all out.
‘OK, OK, that’s enough,’ said Rosie crossly, looking in the shop window. Everything in it seemed to be waxed, even the skirts. Or worsted. She sighed. ‘As it happens, my aunt is really quite ill.’
‘Duh,’ said Mike. ‘Surely you knew that before you went racing off?’
Rosie considered it. ‘I … I mean, sure, but I didn’t think it would be so long.’
‘Are you sure? Are you sure you didn’t just think it would be a convenient way of dumping Gerard?’
‘No!’ said Rosie, stung. She thought about it. ‘I thought it might be a convenient way of getting him to unload the dishwasher by himself. I think it kind of spiralled down from there.’
‘OK. Good,’ said Mike. ‘It didn’t sound like you.’
Rosie sighed. ‘How is he?’
She hoped he wasn’t moping too much. Well, maybe a bit, obviously. She didn’t want him to be dancing about, delighted to be free of her. On the other hand she hoped his natural exuberance was restored. Rosie bit her lip.
‘How does he seem?’
Mike paused. Rosie didn’t really like the pause.
‘Uhm. You are totally over him, right?’
‘Well … you know, we’ve only been broken up – what, a month?’
Standing shivering in the cold shop doorway, she found it hard to believe only a few weeks had passed since that sunny weekend.
‘Hmm,’ said Mike.
‘Tell me!’
Mike sighed. When Rosie left he’d thought she’d be back in five minutes, he’d never thought she was cut out for country life. Not only that but he didn’t think she could separate herself from that wee bloke she seemed so inexplicably keen on. The fact that she was handling both of these things he assumed was positive. Yes, she could take it.
‘Well,’ he said. ‘I did see him.’
‘Uh-huh.’
‘At the Bears.’
That was the local hospital pub.
‘With his arm round the neck of Yolande Harris.’
Rosie was so surprised she nearly tripped up. She couldn’t believe what a strong reaction she was having. After all, she’d dumped him, hadn’t she? It was she who had called it off?
But really, how had he managed to get over her that fast?
Rosie realised she wasn’t thinking about Gerard, specifically. It wasn’t him. It wasn’t him she was missing. It was the horrifying realisation that eight years, eight years, could be wiped out in a flash. And everything she had told herself – that he had loved her really, that they’d been in love and it just hadn’t worked out, instantly became meaningless in her eyes.
‘Yolande Harris?’ she managed to gasp out. ‘How does he even get up there?’
Yolande Harris was about six foot of gorgeous, imperious attitude. Rosie was amazed she’d even look at a squit like Gerard.
‘Oh, you know what he’s like,’ said Mike. ‘He’s been doing all the running. I think he just wore her down in the end.’
Rosie swallowed hard. She did know what he was like. When he turned on the charm full beam, when he brought out the romantic gestures and the love poems and the … well. It was a long time ago now.
‘She’ll eat him for breakfast,’ said Mike.
‘I hope she’ll make him breakfast,’ said Rosie, a little stutter in her voice. ‘Otherwise he’ll starve to death.’
‘Darling, I’m sorry,’ said Mike, who was in a relationship with the histrionic Italian Giuseppe and always gave the impression that if plates weren’t being thrown and people weren’t being devastatingly kissed in airports, it didn’t really count as a relationship at all.
‘No, it’s all right,’ said Rosie, meaning it. ‘It’s good that … it’s good I know. It means I can stop worrying about him.’
‘You think? You know Yolande though, right? If anything, this is just the start of his problems.’
‘Good,’ said Rosie, feeling miles away. Mike kept on talking, something about a birthday party for Giuseppe that she absolutely couldn’t miss, but she had drifted off and was barely listening, even when Mike insisted she come back and spend a weekend in London before they rescinded her Oyster card.
Rosie blinked as she hung up. It was odd how these things could affect you, quite unexpectedly. She hadn’t thought about Gerard, not really, not with Stephen’s injury and her aunt getting ill and all the work of the shop. But it was obvious that he had been not-thinking-about-her a lot more than she’d been not-thinking-about-him, and that hurt her terribly. As well as, she reflected grimly, giving her nowhere to live, no home to go back to. She gazed at her reflection in Manly’s window. Was this it now? Might she just as well give up and start dressing like a fisherman?
And she felt a stab of crossness too. It wasn’t exactly easy for her, was it? The nicest man in the village was gay, and the grumpiest one hadn’t called her or been in contact at all since she’d told him to speak to his mother. From which she could only wonder if they’d had some enormous falling out and were furious with each other, and her too.