Eva Mallory’s Husband Hunt, page 12
Eva smiled, but there was a tug in her chest at the idea. Apparently, there was a lot she hadn’t known about Orson Myrtle. She’d always thought of him as a quiet character, grey and dull. But that wasn’t true at all.
They’d worked together longer than their pupils had been alive. Why had she never taken the time to get to know him better?
‘Why don’t you?’ she asked, a caution in her voice. She was not ordinarily one to ask something so intrusive. ‘Retire, I mean. If that isn’t a rude question.’
His eyes changed then, peering at her over the rims of those gold-framed glasses, and for a moment she feared that he wasn’t going to answer, that she had completely overstepped.
But then he nodded once, his shoulders hitching up into a shrug. ‘I’m happy here.’ His eyes darted around the classroom, catching on colourful artwork displays and the full-height bookcases. ‘The children make me feel like I’m still young.’
Eva’s lips tightened. She’d been on the wrong side of a year five child more than once. ‘They don’t make fun of you?’
‘Oh constantly.’ His face folded again, back into that huge, deep-creased grin. ‘I wouldn’t have it any other way.’
She laughed at that; she couldn’t help it. Orson’s laid-back joy was infectious. In truth she felt a little annoyed with herself that she hadn’t discovered it earlier.
‘So,’ he said. ‘Tell me a little more about your choir situation. How are things going?’
How were things going? For a moment she fought the urge to sugar-coat it—the automatic need to try and hide her latest catastrophe. But she’d never thought of Orson as particularly judgemental, and, more importantly than that, she needed his help.
So instead she shrugged, lightly, as if it wasn’t a big deal.
‘Imagine a bit like Sister Act,’ she said, ‘except they’re kids, not nuns, and we haven’t gone through the montage where we discover they’re actually good. Mainly because they’re not.’
Orson nodded, his face breaking into an even wider smile, if that were possible. ‘Not yet.’
Eva beamed in response. He had buckets of optimism, misguided though it may be. He was exactly what the choir needed, and she left him then with a song list, practice timetable and a veritable spring in her step.
Which lasted somewhere in the region of two minutes, just around the amount of time it took for her to run into Neeta on her way back to her classroom.
‘Eva,’ Neeta said, by way of greeting. Eva nodded in reply.
‘Neeta.’
The older woman smiled, straightening the collar of her silk blouse as she looked back down the corridor towards the year one door. It was a door with which Eva was very well acquainted. She spent a great deal of time fixing her attention on the peeling brown gloss rather than on the man beyond it.
The mere act of thinking about him made her skin flush with heat, which in turn caused her to flush again, this time with annoyance. She’d replayed their last encounter in her head more times than she cared to admit, and each time the wound dug a little deeper
‘I passed the library earlier,’ Neeta said, her perfectly painted lips pulling into a smile. ‘Sounds like band practice is going well.’
For a moment, Eva froze. Neeta couldn’t have found out that they’d ignored her instructions.
Could she?
Panic rose like bile in Eva’s throat, her pulse thundering in her ears. She tried to study Neeta’s facial expression, but she gave little away. Knowing Eva’s luck, Luke had probably thrown her under the bus and Neeta was trying to catch her in a lie.
Urgh, Luke.
There she was, thinking about him again. Even with the potential threat of Neeta’s gaze on her, she made a sound, muffled and indistinct – a sound which fell somewhere between urgh, I hate him and I’m not sure I can live without him.
In that moment both and neither felt true.
‘I knew I was right to team the two of you up,’ Neeta continued, her voice pleasant, and for a moment Eva almost forgot to breathe, such was her relief. That was, until Neeta spoke again, her face erupting into a wide smile as she did.
‘Team Mallory is going places.’
‘Thanks,’ Eva muttered, through the stab of guilt hitting under her ribcage. Because despite Neeta’s obvious excitement about their project, Team Mallory had made her stomach tighten into a hard knot.
She didn’t want them to be going places. Not together, anyway, unless that place was the surface of the sun. Knowing the curse, it probably wasn’t outside the realm of possibility.
Before Eva had a chance to dwell on it too much, Neeta turned back to her, beautifully lined eyes widened. ‘Ooh, Eva, before I forget, I’ve been meaning to ask you a favour.’
Eva braced herself. She’d had quite enough of Neeta’s favours for this term. But there it was again, the debt of gratitude she owed to her boss. They both knew it.
‘Of course.’
Neeta beamed. ‘Years three and four are going on their trip to the leisure centre water park tomorrow, and Juniper’s one-to-one has just been diagnosed with impetigo. Horribly infectious. She’s not allowed in the water.’
Eva smiled, but it was strained. She already knew what was coming next.
‘You had such a great rapport with Juniper when she was in your class,’ Neeta continued, that magical persuasive tone slipping into her voice, ‘and I know you understand her needs. I really hoped you might—’
‘I’ll go,’ Eva said, quickly. She had a real soft spot for Juniper, a sweet autistic girl who was profoundly anxious and mostly nonspeaking. It had been challenging to connect with her initially, but the two had bonded deeply over the year Juniper had spent in Eva’s class, and it was fair to say that Eva adored her.
Not to mention that it wouldn’t hurt to stay in Neeta’s good books in case she ever did catch wind of their deception, and a full day out of school with key stage two would give her a day off from the stifling presence of one Mr Mallory.
‘Excellent!’ Neeta chirped, her hands clapping together in relief. ‘You are a lifesaver, Eva. I’ll ask Marion to cover your class if you want to leave her any specific tasks.’
Eva barely had time to mutter no problem before Neeta was off again, gliding down the corridor on her lush cobalt wedges. ‘Coach leaves at 8am,’ she called over her shoulder. ‘Bring an old T-shirt!’
It was quiet down Eva’s end of the corridor when she got there, and she chanced a look at the door of the year one classroom, though she was cross with herself for it. But Luke was nowhere to be seen, and she breathed away some of the tension which always seemed to grip at her ribcage when she was in his vicinity.
She checked her watch: 4:30 He was probably gone by now, but—
‘Arghh!’ A rip of heat through her foot, followed by the unmistakeable throb of her big toe. ‘Holy smokes,’ she gritted out, clutching the wall a moment to collect herself. She was no stranger to a stubbed toe, but it never failed to suck the wind out of her. She hadn’t even seen the doorframe she’d kicked, such had been her relief at Luke’s absence.
But then, as she hobbled to the door of her own classroom, there he was, perched on one of the tables, his eyes boring into her through the gridded glass.
At once, that grip on her ribcage was back, tighter than ever, her pulse roaring to life like an old car as she fought to retain control over herself.
‘Luke,’ she said, by way of greeting, her feathers ruffled by the weight of it on her lips. But he just nodded, his expression neutral.
‘I was looking for you.’
It was so matter-of-fact that it almost made her catch her breath. She wondered for a moment if she had imagined his warmth back at the start. If her brain had filled in all the gaps which wishful thinking had left.
‘You found me,’ she said eventually. ‘I was just talking to Orson.’
There was a flicker of something in his expression, some infinitesimal change to the way he was looking at her that she couldn’t quite quantify.
‘Orson?’ he asked, with a drag to his voice that hadn’t been there before.
Her eyes narrowed a little, involuntarily. ‘Myrtle?’
Surely he hadn’t been—
‘Ah yes.’ And his expression reverted at once, back to that neutral which had seemed so foreign at first but which now seemed to be his default state.
Jealous?
The audacity.
There was more of a snip to her tone than she had intended when she said, ‘How can I help you?’
One hand went to his hair, a muscle ticking at his temple. ‘We had an incident today, with Daniel Summers.’ He took a breath, as if bracing himself. ‘He put Cornflakes the hamster down his pants. I need to log it, of course, but it seemed out of character for him and I wanted to check if you’d seen any signs of it when he was in your class.’
Oh Daniel. She almost laughed out loud, though that seemed very inappropriate. She’d had endless problems with him hiding things in his underwear. They’d never been alive before, but she wasn’t at all surprised.
‘Yeah, he’s got previous,’ she said, mercifully managing to keep all of the mirth out of her voice. ‘Sorry, I probably should have mentioned that.’
She felt the change in his stance like a shockwave – the way he straightened, vertebrae stacking on top of each other as he tipped his chin up, his eyes not leaving hers for a split second.
‘Yes,’ he said, the scratch of his voice stopping every atom in the room in its tracks. ‘There are a lot of things which you should have mentioned.’
Perhaps it was the audacity of his fleeting jealousy which riled her in that moment. Or his tone, maybe. Maybe just the residual thump of pain in her big toe. Whatever it was, it bypassed every single one of her usual filters, and her rage, unbidden, spilled straight out of her mouth.
‘What is your problem?’ she demanded, hands finding her hips. ‘I know it’s a bit awkward, after … you know.’ She couldn’t even bring herself to say it. ‘But it happened and now it’s over and I’m trying my best to just get along with you, but you’re making it so hard.’
His eyes flared, widening a moment before they narrowed, the burn of his glare making her skin prickle. She should have stopped herself talking at that point, but she didn’t.
‘You need to get over it.’ She huffed out a breath and the smallest of laughs, but without the slightest trace of humour. ‘It was twenty-four hours, that’s all. It didn’t even mean anything.’
As soon as the words left her mouth, she regretted them. She wasn’t a habitual liar, but this one was a whopper. If anything, those twenty-four hours had meant too much. She’d tried repeatedly to scrub them from her mind, but she’d failed. They were permanent now – a raised scar on the very foundations of her consciousness. She didn’t even know why she’d said it.
Actually, that wasn’t true at all. She knew exactly why she’d said it. She’d wanted to try to minimise things, to get him to forget, so that the two of them could finally get on with their lives. She’d wanted to quieten the roar of fire in her chest whenever he was around so that she could focus on her plan, to finally get rid of her damn curse.
But, as was usual for Eva, things hadn’t quite gone to plan. Instead of the truce she’d misguidedly assumed might come about, she actually seemed to have stoked the fires of war. That did seem obvious, now that she stopped to think about it.
But it was too late.
She saw the moment her words registered, how they made Luke’s perfect lips flatten, his hands drawing into fists by his sides. Something like hurt flashed in his eyes before he coughed it away, his eyes darting down to the floor.
‘Well,’ he said, his expression a perfect balance of pain and fury, ‘If that’s how it felt to you, we should probably never talk about it again.’
‘Wait,’ she said, as he stood and strode to the door. ‘I didn’t mean—’
But he didn’t stop, didn’t even turn to look at her as he bit out three words and left the room.
‘Goodbye, Miss Mallory.’
Chapter Fourteen
Gerard the art director, as it turned out, was a nice guy. Eva had been right to trust her sister on that. He was punctual and polite and funny and quite handsome and she didn’t consider jumping out of a window even once.
Unfortunately, it didn’t take much longer than an hour for Eva to deduce Gerard’s one critical flaw: he was absolutely in love with her sister.
She asked him outright, in the end, after he’d said Hanna’s name somewhere in the region of fifty times in the first half hour of their date.
‘Don’t tell her,’ he replied, in a panic. ‘I know she’s married now; I don’t want to mess anything up.’
Eva scanned the room for Hanna and Owen, who had ventured as far as the pool table this time, obviously feeling relatively confident with how the date was going. Either that or Owen had also noticed that Gerard was in love with his wife and was trying to keep her as far away as possible. That was a definite possibility.
‘Voice down,’ Eva said, quietly and calmly, as if she were trying to placate one of the children in her class. ‘She’s over there.’
Gerard nearly hit the roof. ‘What?’
‘She always comes along on my dates,’ Eva said, through a chuckle. ‘It’s a safety thing, you know? In case I need an out.’
‘I can’t see her.’ Gerard was looking vaguely in the direction that Eva had pointed, his eyes straining into the crowd, and that made Eva laugh too.
‘She’s in disguise.’
He looked as if he wasn’t sure whether to be terrified or impressed. ‘Why?’
‘Who knows?’ She looked back at her sister, her huge curly wig glowing almost fluorescent orange against the burn of the bar’s lights. ‘It makes her stand out more, if anything.’
She felt Gerard’s sigh to her bones. A sigh a lot like that had escaped her on more than one occasion recently.
Luke.
There he was again, invading her thoughts when he had absolutely no right to. Sometimes it seemed like her brain just liked to whisper his name now and again. Just that single syllable over and over, like a heartbeat: Luke, Luke, Luke.
She tried to shake it away, turning her attention back to the man sitting opposite her, who was now smiling a very apologetic smile in her direction.
‘I’m so sorry to have wasted your time,’ he said, that lilt of a Dublin accent warming his words like fingers around a steaming mug. ‘I don’t think I should have agreed to come.’
Eva smiled gently at him. ‘Why did you, if you don’t mind me asking?’
He laughed at that, softly, and his eyes found Hanna again through the buzz of the bar. ‘I’d do anything for her.’ He huffed a small breath out, and when he turned back to look at Eva, he looked almost embarrassed. ‘I suppose you’ll tell me there are plenty more fish in the sea.’
There wasn’t a sadness to his words, so much as a quiet resignation, and something about it caught at Eva’s chest.
She shook her head. ‘I mean there are.’ Her shoulders hitched into a shrug. ‘But I’m guessing you know that.’
‘Don’t I just,’ he said, fingertips tracing a lattice across the tabletop, dipping high and low along the grain of the wood as he thought. ‘Hey, can I ask you a question?’
Eva nodded.
‘Do you believe there’s only one person for us?’
She thought for a moment. She had used to think that. Young Eva had believed in all of it: in destiny and soulmates; in The One; in love at first sight. She’d assumed that she’d know when it happened, that it would hit her like a thunderbolt, an undeniable connection between them that was impossible to shy away from. But the only time she’d ever felt anything close to that was when she was with Luke, and she’d managed to walk away from him.
In body, anyway. The spirit was a little more stubborn. But none of that mattered because if Luke was her soulmate. then that would mean either giving up on her one true love or taking the very real risk of losing him forever anyway.
‘I do and I don’t,’ she said, eventually. ‘I mean, I believe in The One, but I don’t think there’s only one One, if that makes sense?’
At least, she hoped not.
Gerard smiled at her, then, broad and genuine. ‘Has anyone ever told you you’re nothing at all like your sister?’
‘Constantly,’ she said, grinning in return, and she lifted her glass in the air. ‘Cheers to that.’
‘Cheers,’ he singsonged, raising his glass to clink hers. ‘And cheers to finding The One. The Other One.’
How Eva longed to do just that.
‘Told you he was nice,’ Hanna said smugly, picking pieces of chicken kebab out of her pitta and stuffing them into her mouth like a woman starved, even as she strode full-speed through the streets of Leeds.
Eva nibbled at her falafel. She wasn’t so bold as to try to walk and eat at the same time. With her luck, she’d definitely choke. ‘He was nice.’ She thumbed a smear of garlic sauce off her lower lip. ‘But he’s in love with someone else.’
Hanna nearly inhaled a piece of tomato. ‘He’s what?’
‘I don’t think it’s requited.’ Eva shrugged, careful to keep Gerard’s confidence. ‘He was probably too embarrassed to tell you.’
‘Maybe,’ Hanna replied, with an edge of something more in her voice, and Eva was glad when she didn’t ask anything else. ‘We’re not doing very well with this husband hunt, are we, Eevs?’
Eva couldn’t help but laugh. ‘Welcome to my life.’
Hanna snorted and shoved more food in her mouth. When she spoke again it was around a mouthful of kebab. ‘ God, this is good. I’m not used to eating these so early in the night. I’m normally so drunk I can barely taste them.’
Owen said nothing, just took steady bites of his doner as he strived to keep up with the velocity of his wife.
They turned off the neon glow of Albion Street, cutting across towards Briggate, the rise and fall of doorways stretching out as far as Eva could see. There was a figure leaning against a doorway in the middle distance, his contours picked out by the streetlights. A small thump of recognition hit her in the pit of the stomach, something familiar about the man’s silhouette, about the way he leaned against the stone.
