‘Anyway, enough of my depressing life. What’s happening with you? Made any progress with the handsome ranger yet?’
I nearly choked on my virgin mojito. Is this what village life was like? A new woman moves in and everyone assumes she’ll be getting together with the nearest available male? I had to think quickly to come up with something that would avoid having to talk about Sam.
‘I’m having a birthday party. For my thirtieth.’
‘What?’ Leanne tried to lean forwards, but decided it wasn’t worth the effort. ‘Joan never mentioned it.’
I shrugged. ‘I haven’t told Joan. Not that it’s a secret or she – and you – aren’t invited. I’ve kind of had other things on my mind lately, strange as that may sound.’
‘And? When is it?’
‘It’s not until the nineteenth of September.’
‘That’s what, three weeks away?’
I grimaced, realising that she was right. I had no idea how long it took to organise a party, but I was planning on being quite busy over the next few weeks hiding under my duvet, crying and eating ice cream straight from the tub.
‘If you’re up for travelling, I’d love it if you can come back for it.’ If Leanne and Joan were coming, that would be a reason to actually look forward to it.
‘Neither wild horses nor my parents could stop me.’ She screwed up her nose. ‘Well, given my current state, both those things could. But they couldn’t stop Joan, and she’ll need someone here to make sure she comes back to Chester again.’
That weekend was the August bank holiday. The Armitage-Browns would be relocating on the Saturday. Peter had hired a small van to transport Leanne and Joan’s things, although by the time all the junk had been sorted through, what was left would probably have balanced on the back of a bicycle. Joan had politely requested to stay with me on the Friday for one final night, and then vigorously insisted upon it when her grandparents seemed hesitant.
Prior to that, despite wanting to lie on my sofa all day contemplating how sad and lonely I was about to be, I had an afternoon of ReadUp coaching, and having rearranged so many in the past few weeks, I wasn’t about to bail on them.
To my mild surprise, I found Yasmin and Trev both waiting for me at the usual table. Initially I wondered if this was the inevitable outcome of Trev turning up earlier and earlier each week, meaning that at some point he’d overlap the whole of Yasmin’s session, but I soon discovered otherwise.
‘We thought it would be more efficient,’ Yasmin said, opening up her workbook. ‘Two hours of coaching, even if it’s shared, has to be better than one. It was Trev’s idea,’ she added, eyeing him through lowered lashes.
Trev coughed. ‘Well, yes, we got talking in the café, after the Wednesday Business Builders.’
‘You’d already left by then, but Irene insisted we go once the time was up, even though there was no one else in the library except for her!’ Yasmin tutted.
‘Yes, well, the Frea-K Three-K did keep distracting her, what with all the questions about her fashion choices and wanting to take more photos,’ I added, wincing and laughing at the memory.
‘I think it was only when they forced her to take part in their new Library Lady dance move that she got really annoyed,’ Yasmin said. ‘Anyway, we hadn’t finished discussing the Dog Mother. Ollie, did you know that Trev used to breed bulldogs? So, we decided to carry on at the café, and before we knew it we were talking about how nice it was to feel confident reading a fancy menu, and then we were talking about all the other things that we can do thanks to ReadUp like sort our bills and set up an email account, and then Trev had the idea that if we pooled our sessions, we could progress twice as fast.’
‘It seemed the logical thing to do.’ Trev shrugged.
‘And then we realised that we didn’t need to wait for Fridays; we could meet up and offer support and help during the week, too.’
‘Wow. Great idea.’
Trev was turning the colour of Jaxx’s Nomato.
‘So, you’ve been working on your reading together?’
Yasmin opened to the last page of her latest workbook, and fluently ran through the final paragraph.
‘Yasmin, that’s amazing. Well done!’
‘She’s an amazing woman, all right,’ Trev mumbled.
‘You think that’s amazing? What about Trev?’ Yasmin said eagerly. ‘He had another brilliant idea that we should set up, wait for it… a book club!’
Trev shuffled on his chair. ‘There was one in my last place. Not that I went, of course.’
Yasmin pulled out a copy of a Roald Dahl book. ‘A bad readers’ book club! For people who can’t read very well, so no shame or blame or fancy discussions. Just friendly people, encouraging each other and not being snooty about how we’ve never read Jane Austen or Charles Dickens.’
‘That is a brilliant idea!’ I felt almost embarrassed that I’d not thought of it myself. ‘How many have joined?’
‘Oh, well.’ It was Yasmin’s turn to flush. ‘For now, just the two of us. But Irene said we could set up another, larger one in the library as long as we kept to the rules, only spoke in whispers, made sure nobody enjoyed themselves, blah blah blah. Oh, and she asked if I could stop her miniature poodle from chewing up her sofa while she’s at work. I mean, that’s easy enough – try listening to an intelligent, sensitive creature when they are telling you they hate being left on their own all day! So, another client for the Dog Mother’s Day Care.’ Yasmin leant forwards, cupping her mouth with both hands. ‘Would you have believed it, though, Irene has a dog! She’s called Veronica Fluff!’
After all that, the session ended up being mostly a lot of chattering, with a smattering of coaching whenever Irene frowned in our direction.
I remembered to invite them both to my party before they left, which meant a great deal more due to us deciding that the ReadUp Coaching had served its purpose, and this would be our final session. Jaxx arrived just as they were leaving, which prompted me to invite him as well, and while I was on such a sociable, friendly roll, I also offered Irene one of the invites I’d printed off. I felt a lot less intimidated by Irene Jenkins now I knew she’d named her poodle Veronica Fluff.
‘What’s this?’ She sniffed, as though I’d offered her a used tissue.
‘An invitation to my thirtieth birthday party.’
Irene’s mouth dropped open in a silent O.
‘There won’t be loads of people, I’m keeping it fairly informal, but Jaxx and Trev and Yasmin will be there, hopefully some of the other Business Builders. We’d miss you not being there too. And you’ve done so much in making the library available for all these different activities.’
‘The directors like the upturn in footfall,’ she mumbled. ‘If it means we avoid the next round of budget cuts, it’ll be worth it, I suppose.’