One Year After You, page 26
‘Don’t worry, Nancy, I can do the Heimlich manoeuvre if that grape gets stuck,’ Keli told her, as she breezed into the ward.
She saw the colour on Odette’s cheeks and knew that putting her on this ward had been the best thing she’d done all week.
Well, that and going out for dinner with Laurie and Yvie. Laurie had filled them in on the news that she’d moved out of Rex’s apartment, and she was seeing Sy now. Apparently Rex had begged her to come back to him, especially after he’d been crucified in the press after the viral video and then received the news that he’d been written out of the show until the fuss died down. The storyline was that Hugh was being hunted by police after topping off Agnes, and had gone on the run, last seen on a flight to Malaga. He’d released a statement saying he was taking time off to pursue opportunities in Hollywood, but no one was buying that, because it had been compounded by a mass of dodgy stories about his lying and cheating that had been leaked in the last week and the public backlash had been vociferous.
Laurie had protested her innocence, but Keli wasn’t convinced and she didn’t blame her one bit. The whole publicity game was still a mystery to her, though, and something she wanted no part of. Well, almost no part.
On the back of the video, she’d already had a phone call from a morning TV show asking if she’d be willing to talk about common ailments affecting the elderly. Her manager, Calvin, was still in negotiations…
‘Oh my goodness, it’s like An Audience With Odette Devine in here this morning,’ Tress said, as she came into the ward, pushing Buddy in his buggy.
Nancy immediately jumped up. ‘I’ll take my boy for a walk, and you have a seat, pet. There’s already too many visitors at this bed. Keli will chase us.’
Tress shook her head, huge grin on her face. ‘Thanks, but it’s okay. I’m just here for two seconds, to check in on Odette and give Buddy to you.’
‘We’ll come and blether to you for a minute, Freda,’ Calvin said, as he and Harry swapped their seats at Odette’s bedside for the blue plastic seats beside the patient one bed along.
Tress had visited Odette every day this week. Over the six months that she’d worked with the actress, she’d grown increasingly fond of her, so she’d been worried when Odette left the show that they’d lose contact. Now Tress knew that would never happen, because, well, now their lives were intrinsically linked. She’d sussed out that Odette didn’t have many people in her life and Tress would always welcome more people to the family that she’d built for herself. She’d never say no to a new aunt for Buddy.
‘How are you today? You’re looking smashing, you really are.’
‘It’s because I’m here,’ Nancy announced with a chuckle.
‘It’s definitely because Nancy is here,’ Odette played along.
‘I’m glad, because Nancy is taking over my visiting shifts for the next couple of days and she’ll be bringing Buddy too, because Noah and I…’ Tress felt her neck go red and chided herself. What age was she? She should be over this by now, yet she hadn’t stopped smiling in a week. ‘We’re going down to the Lake District for a couple of days, just the two of us.’
Just the two of them. Anya had gone back to the USA. Cheska had called her to say goodbye and to wish her and Buddy well.
So that just left Noah.
They’d spent every possible hour together over the last seven days and now she didn’t even want to think about a time when it wasn’t Noah and her and Buddy.
‘I’ll be back up on Tuesday, Odette, and Nancy, thank you. I’ve left everything at home ready and his day bag is under the pram. Call me if there’s anything at all…’ Tress leaned down and kissed her sleeping son, ‘Love you, Noah Walker,’ she whispered. She used his proper name more now because she liked how it sounded.
She hugged Nancy, then Odette and then blew a kiss to Yvie and Keli as she passed them on the way out. Then she got into the lift and smiled at the woman staring back at her in the mirror. The one who was totally loved up.
In the hospital car park, in the new Jeep he’d bought yesterday to replace his mangled one, Noah watched his girlfriend run towards him. He’d been here all morning because he had a few things to sort out on the ward, and then he’d dropped into the farewell lunch for Cheska. They’d hugged, said goodbye and wished each other well. And they both knew they meant it.
Tress jumped into the car, leaned over, kissed him, and it lasted way longer than was appropriate for a hospital car park. He didn’t care. He couldn’t get enough of her and she felt the same way. How did he get this lucky?
‘Ah, you’ve finally seen sense,’ his mother had said when he’d told her. ‘I thought you two would get together eventually. To be honest, in the early months after the crash, before you started seeing Cheska, I thought you and Tress might get together then. Perhaps that would have saved some heartache.’
Noah knew different. Like he told anyone who would listen, this wasn’t a movie. Or a song. Or a romcom. This was their lives. If they’d got together immediately after the accident, they’d never know if it was convenience, or grief, or the desperate need to use romantic love as a crutch.
Now they knew.
They’d made it through the worst that could happen, they’d healed, and they had built new lives together. And then they’d still chosen each other. This was who they were meant to be. Noah. Tress. Buddy. Their family.
‘Ready to go?’ he asked, when they finally came up for air.
‘Ready to go,’ she said, more beautiful than she had ever been.
And as they drove off for their first holiday together as a couple, Tress switched on the radio and laughed as a familiar voice filled the car. She was still the one…
Shania Twain was with them too.
MORE FROM SHARI LOW
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Prologue
LAS VEGAS - 19 MAY 1993
Elvis threw his arms out to the side, making the tassels that dangled from his white leather jacket quiver. The Elvis Loves Me Tender Chapel of Las Vegas was his white-walled, plastic-flower-draped stage, and the four people standing in front of him were his audience.
‘Do you, Brenda Doris Fulton,’ he sang, in a slightly less impressive voice than the man who had actually been Elvis Aaron Presley, ‘…take this man, Colin Jones…’ That set off a flurry of tambourines from the three pink-clad backing singers that the advertising billboard called the Chapelettes, standing to the left of Elvis. ‘To be your hunka hunka burning love and husband until your last day on earth?”
‘I do,’ Brenda whispered, tears falling, and not just because the fluorescent strip lights above them were bringing on a migraine.
Her response set the tambourines off again, and exclamations of ‘Praise be,’ rang out from the Chapelettes.
‘And do you, Colin Jones, take this woman, Brenda Doris Fulton, to be your wife and promise to love her tender until the day you die?’
Colin stared into her eyes and Brenda could see so many things there. Love. Fear. Uncertainty. Discomfort, because the air conditioning in the chapel was non-existent and either the heat or the occasion was making him sweat like a marathon runner. In the midday sun. Wearing a woolly jumper.
‘I do.’
‘Then, by the powers invested in me by Viva Las Vegas, Nevada and the Lord, How Great Thou Art, I now pronounce you man and wife. May you never be lonesome at night or have suspicious minds. Amen.’
The opening bars of ‘The Wonder of You’ soared from a flashing boombox in the corner and Elvis and his Chapelettes sang two verses and the chorus while Colin and Brenda walked back down the aisle.
They’d already signed all the forms and paid for the ceremony before it began – presumably in case they changed their minds and Elvis didn’t get his dosh – so they just pushed open the heavy wooden door and stumbled out into the humid, sticky Las Vegas night.
And that’s when it hit them both.
Brenda, in a white summer dress, was the first to speak. ‘Colin…’ she whispered, making eye contact and feeling an unaccustomed shyness. She’d known this man for three years and yet now they felt like strangers. ‘What have we done?’
If she was looking for a confidence boost, or an inspirational suggestion, she was searching in the wrong place.
‘I’ve no bloody idea, Brenda. And I’ve no idea what we do next.’
Chapter One
ZARA
March 2023
‘How’s it going there, Inspector Gadget? Tracked him down yet?’ Millie asked, as she floated in from the front shop, bringing three buckets of white hydrangeas for the Miller nuptials centrepieces that night. It was a 6 p.m. wedding at one of the swankiest hotels in the city, so they had to be perfect.
Glancing up from her laptop in the corner of their workroom, Zara took in the oh-so-together vision of her younger sister. Even at 9 a.m. in her standard workout wear (ironic, because she would have to be bribed with cash and wine to go anywhere near a gym), Millie oozed elegance and gorgeousness, all dark corkscrew curls, toned arse and Cheryl Tweedy dimples. Zara, on the other hand, with her blonde hair pulled back in a messy bun held in place by a pencil, her three-month roots, her denim dungarees and Doc Martens boots, was more on the low-key side of the fashion scale. Or, as Millie frequently categorised it, Joiner-Chic.
‘Still searching, but I think I’ve found a possibility.’ Zara pulled the pencil out of her hair, and her waves creaked slowly down to her shoulders, reluctantly fighting against the half a can of dry shampoo she’d fired into it that morning. Usually, it was only Monday mornings that were 5 a.m. starts at the flower market in Glasgow, stocking up for the week at Blooming Sisters, their flower shop in the West End of the city. But a pre-dawn Friday run had been necessary this morning to pick up some extra blooms for this weekend’s events, so bouncy locks were bottom of the priority list. Especially when she’d had to do the run solo because Millie hadn’t come home from wherever she had spent last night.
One of the very best things about their shop was that they also owned the two-bedroom flat above it. The flat had been a huge plus when they’d been looking for premises. For a start, it meant they were handy for late nights and early mornings at work, but also it meant they weren’t paying a separate mortgage or rent for somewhere to live.
Working together and living together might be a problem for some siblings, but the reality was that out of work hours their paths rarely crossed. Zara’s boyfriend, Kev, would come over, and the two of them would chill in front of the TV. Millie, at the other end of the genetic pool party, was a serial socialiser. If there was a shindig anywhere in this city, then her sister would find herself there, yet, infuriatingly, she still rolled home at the crack of dawn, had a quick shower, some coffee, then trotted downstairs looking like she was just home from a rejuvenating week on a beach. If Zara didn’t love her sibling so much, her self-esteem would have forced her to disown her years ago.
‘Ooooh, let me see.’ Millie gently placed the blooms down on the massive steel table that sat in the middle of their back shop, next to the boxes of lilies that Zara had already deposited there two hours before when she’d returned from the market.
The workroom slash office had concrete floors, plain white walls and floor to ceiling shelves packed with tools, trellis, chicken wire, vases and blooms. The long, steel centre table had been bought second-hand from an auction of equipment from a food-prep warehouse. The whole room was a chaotic contrast to the vintage beauty of the smaller front shop, which had been furnished with shabby-chic furniture and velvet sofas. Tilly, one of their part-time staffers, was manning the shop, which was just as well because it was going to take the next five hours to prepare the arrangements for a three o’clock delivery to the hotel, so they were in for a long day.
As always, Millie couldn’t join Zara at the desk in the corner of the room without commenting on her appearance. ‘Interesting fashion choice. House of Dungarees?’
Zara ignored her, leaning back so her sister could get full view of the screen. A Facebook page stared back at her. ‘Gary Gregg. Do you know how many Gary Greggs there are? Actually, not that many, but none of the ones in the UK were the right age. I tried Canada, Australia and New Zealand, because that’s always where Nicky Campbell finds folk on Long Lost Family. But zilch. Not even a possible match. This one though is a potential, although he lives in South Carolina.’
‘Have you been drinking?’ Millie asked. ‘Dad’s mate came from Paisley. What would he be doing in South Carolina?’
Zara scrolled down further. ‘I’ve no idea, but this guy is roughly the same age as Dad, and look…’ She pointed at the screen with all the conviction and triumph of someone who’d just tracked down a serial killer. There were only two posts on his profile. One showing a fifty something, square jawed, suit-wearing handsome bloke smiling at the camera and the other one featuring the same chap in a T-shirt, sitting in a garden.
Millie frowned. ‘What? He’s got a lawnmower? They’re not the sole preserve of Scottish people. He’s a bit of a silver fox, though, I’ll give you that. Clearly no stranger to a bench press.’
‘My talents are wasted on you. Look at his arm.’ Zara used the pencil to point at the screen and saw Millie having the same reaction she’d had. Stare. Realisation. Grin.
It was barely discernible to the naked eye, but it was there: the tiny rectangle, with the diagonal lines inked inside it.
‘A Saltire,’ Millie said, with rising excitement as she examined the Scottish flag tattooed on the gentleman’s bicep. It wasn’t huge and it looked faded, like it had been done when he was a younger man. ‘Oh, you’re good. Well done, sis. If the flower shop goes tits up there might be a future for you in private investigation.’
Zara gave a triumphant bow, then held a thirty-odd-year-old photo up next to the screen, a slightly grainy Polaroid pic that showed four people in their early twenties, two women and two men, standing under the iconic Welcome to Las Vegas sign. On the white band at the bottom of the photo, it had four names: Colin Jones, Brenda Fulton, Gary Gregg, Eileen Smith. And the comment underneath – Best friends on tour, Las Vegas, 1993!
‘I still can’t get over how young they look in this picture. So bizarre that they got married when they were younger than we are now. What were they? Twenty-four? Twenty-five?’
Millie nodded. ‘Yep. And we struggle to commit to a Netflix subscription.’
Zara chuckled, because, as always, her sister wasn’t wrong. ‘I gave up on Eileen Smith because there are a gazillion of them on social media and I figured it was a waste of time because she’s probably married and going under a different name now. But this guy… That is him, isn’t it?’ They both peered at the man on the far right of the photo, shoulder to shoulder with their dad, then took their gaze to the image on the screen. ‘It’s him,’ Zara announced, answering her own question. ‘I’m sure of it. Positive. One hundred per cent. Okay, seventy-five per cent, but I’ll go with it if you will.’
Millie puckered her perfect pout, the one that was enhanced by a tiny bit of filler but still looked natural. ‘I think maybe fifty per cent, but it’s worth a shot.’
‘Right, I’m doing it.’ Zara’s burst of decisive action was so abrupt, she almost knocked over the half-finished coffee that sat to the left of her laptop and yelped as she caught it. ‘Bollocks! That was close. Losing one laptop to a cappuccino was careless, two would just be…’
‘Totally in keeping with your general clumsiness,’ Millie finished the sentence for her.
Zara ignored her. Mostly because she was right. Sometimes working with someone who had known you your whole life had its drawbacks. The fact that her younger sister had been there to witness almost every unfortunate incident in at least twenty-seven of Zara’s twenty-eight years, and could not only recall them, but could wrap them up in a story that was hilarious to everyone except Zara, was the bane of her life. No, Mrs Bassett, who popped in for a dozen carnations every second Friday, didn’t need to know that ten-year-old Zara had fallen flat on her face at a ballet recital, fractured her wrist and had been thereafter known as Swan Break. Or that, as an underage, seventeen-year-old clubber, out for the first time in the bars of the city centre clutching a fake ID, she’d ended the night by falling off her platform shoes and face-planting in a kebab shop. Or – oh, the watery eyes – that her first attempt at losing her virginity a few weeks later had been abandoned after she had somehow managed to snag her boyfriend’s penis in the zip of his jeans. He was her ex-boyfriend about three seconds later. It went without saying that Millie hadn’t actually witnessed that incident first hand but Zara had blurted it out in a fit of mortification the next day and Millie had responded with her very own brand of sisterly compassion – she’d howled with amusement, laughed until tears streamed down her face, then suggested Zara stick to blokes with button fly jeans in the future.
Moving the coffee cup well out of the way, Zara flexed her fingers and then activated step one of Operation Vegas Reunion. She clicked the friend request button of Gary Gregg’s Facebook page, and then the ‘message’ button.
