Page 47 of Kiss Me Like You Mean It

With a sigh, I take the seat next to my daughter, and Lee sits in the one beside me, carefully shaking out her coat before folding it over the back of her chair. This, I feel, is incredibly trusting. It’s a cream coat, clearly expensive and not the same one as earlier. (Who in the world has one immaculate cream coat, let alone two?) And now she’s leaving it vulnerable to anyone with grabby little jam hands. I eye the row behind us, checking for oil-stained mechanics or small, chocolate-covered children but it seems we’re safe.

‘Are you okay?’ Lee whispers, her lips dangerously close to my ear.

‘Yep,’ I reply quickly. ‘Are you?’

‘I’m fine,’ she says, and her expression gives nothing away. There’s not a trace of anxiety on her face and I’m starting to think maybe that’s her tell. Lee always looks so unruffled, but the more time I spend with her the more I’m convinced that when that calm mask comes down, it means she’s jittering with nerves. I have the overwhelming urge to reach for her hand, to tangle her fingers with mine and reassure her somehow, but I am very aware that I shouldn’t.

I don’t know what the fuck is going on with me, but I do know that I was about five seconds away from kissing her in my bedroom before we left and, honestly, I’m still waiting for the resulting adrenaline kick to die down.

‘We’ll be getting started in a minute,’ Magda says from her place beside Lee where she is waving hello to various people. ‘I have to say it’s a great turnout… we haven’t had a meeting this well attended since the last time DeeDee Brady’s goose was on the loose.’

‘A goose on the loose?’ Lee echoes, a quiver in her voice.

‘That goose is a fucking menace,’ I grumble. ‘Any time he gets out he destroys so much property, and squares off with all the dogs. Taco’s absolutely terrified of him.’

Lee lets out a strangled ‘Mmm.’

‘He’s a delinquent.’ Magda purses her lips. ‘I didn’t agree with the people calling for the town to build some sort of animal jail, but it’s hard to know what to do with him. Then of course there’s Russell…’

‘Who’s Russell?’ Lee asks.

‘I believe he’s on the docket tonight,’ Rita says, leaning across. ‘Been bothering that young waitress at the diner again, the old pervert.’

‘You have a town pervert?’ A line forms between Lee’s eyes.

‘Certainly we do,’ Miss Rita says, as if to be without a pervert would somehow be insulting of our townhood.

‘He’s a bird, too,’ I explain, but clearly not well enough because Lee continues to look baffled. ‘Russell the crow,’ I carry on, and I am struck by the distressing realisation that this is just my life now. ‘He’s got this thing about peeking in people’s bedroom windows,’ I add a little desperately.

‘So you watch out, Lee,’ Rita warns. ‘He’ll have his beady eye on you, that’s for certain.’

‘Goodness,’ Lee murmurs, clearly not knowing how else to respond to this statement. Twenty seconds later she has her phone out of her pocket and she’s texting someone, her lips pressed together. When a reply flashes through almost instantly she makes a muffled snorting sound.

‘Okay, people!’ Art, the head of the town council, yells as he finally takes to the floor, and the crowd quiets. He’s a small man in his sixties with a big voice, and he struts along with his chest puffed out. His wife Annie – taller than him and pale with an elbow-length fall of white-blonde hair – drifts along behind. Despite the fact that Art has the look of an officious little twit, and Annie gives the (correct) impression of being extremely vague, they’re actually not that bad. Inept, of course, but not bad people.

‘Big meeting tonight,’ Art booms, rubbing his hands together. ‘And we’ve got a special guest here, all the way from jolly old Blighty!’ This last is said in a horrifyingly bad cockney accent. ‘Apples and pears!’ Art continues, seemingly at random. ‘Tea and crumpets!’

He looks expectantly at Lee.

‘Um. Hello?’ she says. This response is understandable, but if she thinks this is weird she needs to brace herself for what’s sure to come.

Art beams at her, and Annie lifts her hand in a gesture that might be a wave, but she seems to forget what she’s doing half way through and her arm falls limply back to her side.

Lee darts a worried glance in my direction and I try to look solid and reassuring.

‘So,’ Art picks up again, ‘thanks to last night’s emergency meeting, most of us know why we’re here, but I’m going to turn the floor over to Magda, to lay out the details.’

‘And me,’ Phoebe insists, jumping to her feet.

‘And Phoebe,’ Art agrees. ‘Miladies,’ he rolls forward into a bow, ‘me doth believe the floor is yours.’ Looks like the British thing is going to stick, although now he appears to be channelling a medieval squire with awful grammar. Perfect.

Magda and Phoebe shuffle up to the stage, and give a brief overview of the situation we find ourselves in. As this includes my father’s draconian will, his position as a member of the British nobility and the scandalising fact that Lee and I got married in Vegas and were too drunk to remember it, I expect an uproar. What I get is the sort of slightly bored silence that means every single person in this room was already well aware of these details. Someone even sucks loudly on an empty drink, the straw making those obnoxious bubbling sounds as they try to hoover up the last drops.

I should have known this gossip would be old news by now – it has been almost three whole days since Magda and Phoebe found out.

‘So,’ Magda concludes, ‘we have a week until the trustee will be coming to conduct their inspection. We must integrate Lee fully into the town and make sure, when the trustee arrives, that he or she—’

‘Or they,’ Annie murmurs.