‘Everything all right?’ The Australian twang came from the kitchen.
‘Yes!’ they both shouted, wincing again. ‘Yess…’ they whispered, shooting each other a sympathetic look as they retreated deeper into their blankets like turtles into their shells.
‘And in other local news, Darcy Burgess – is the honeymoon truly over?’
The newscaster couldn’t have caused a larger impact if he had parachuted in through the roof. They both jumped off the sofa, commando-crawling across the cream (and slightly stained) carpet towards the dusty TV unit.
‘Turn it up, turn it up!’ Maria screamed at Cassie, who was pressing the buttons like her life depended on it.
‘Just weeks ago, a certain August wedding was heralded as the crown in Harrogate’s events calendar, with Darcy Burgess, eligible bachelor and heir to the Burgess Tea Company, set to wed local Westfield entrepreneur and wedding planner Maria Mallory. However, on the day, the wedding didn’t go to plan, and pictures emerged from the overseas press of Darcy, looking alone in St Lucia. What happened to the pair? Was Darcy jilted at the altar? The Burgess family have yet…’
‘Breakfast, girls!’ Tucker said, an apron emblazoned with the chipper slogan ‘This came with the kitchen’ the only thing covering his half-nakedness.
‘Sshh!’ They both batted him away. Shrugging, he put their plates down on the coffee table, returning to sit on the couch with one of his own.
‘Where did you get that apron?’ Cassie asked him, looking at Maria. Maria shook her head, transfixed by the screen.
‘It was in the drawer, in a wrapper. You know,’ he said, shovelling a piece of bacon into his mouth, ‘that kitchen is pretty grim, almost like no one uses it.’
‘Sshh!’ Maria waved frantically.
‘Sshh!’ Cassie added, giving him a glare from her mascara-ringed eyes. He snorted, biting off a piece of bacon aggressively at her. She grinned at him before remembering to scowl.
Maria was glued to the screen. ‘It says they have yet to release a statement. It’s ridiculous, why would they do that?’ The look she gave Cassie broke her heart. She wrapped her swaddled arm around her friend.
‘Protection, hun – they have a reputation.’
Maria sniffed, wiping away a tear. ‘So do I, and a business. I have a living to make, and Westfield is such a small, close-knit place. People talk, and after last night…’
A vision of the events of the evening before swam into focus and Maria burst into tears. Tucker stood and quietly left for the kitchen, sensing the need for privacy. Cassie hugged her tighter.
‘We can spin this, you know,’ Cassie said, her legal acumen springing into action. ‘Why don’t we talk to the local paper, see if they’ll run your story? At the end of the day, Mar, he went on honeymoon with another woman after jilting you at the altar. He deserves to be run through the press, not you.’
Maria sobbed loudly. ‘I can’t do that. It’s too petty, not to mention embarrassing. How did this happen? Them being so quiet about everything makes me look awful. How can he do this to me, Cass? And Mark last night… I mean, oh God!’
Cassie wrapped her arms around her best friend once more, crushing her under their combined blankets.
‘Hey, listen, last night was… well… it was company. You needed comfort, and everyone spins out when they have a break-up. We all do silly things and hurt people. Mark left you his number as well, so it’s not all bad. He could be Prince Charming! Darcy arseface could be the frog. This could be a funny story you and Mark tell your grandkids by the fire.’
Maria laughed, prompting a snot bubble to blow out of her left nostril. Cassie visibly shrank away from her, always disgusted by anything gross or remotely like looking after a child. She grabbed the tissue box and threw it to Maria. Maria caught it gratefully and blew her nose.
‘That, my friend, is gross. Now, come on, let’s eat breakfast before it gets cold. You have to work today, remember?’
Maria groaned. Saturday was the day she worked alone in the shop, luckily. She could get away with drinking vats of coffee in her sweatpants with Lynn not around, and there were no brides booked in, so she could concentrate on doing the alterations at the back of the shop. She made the odd dress or two for the sale racks when she had time, and they sold well to the locals and the tourists, so maybe she could run up a couple of designs to fill the shopfront a little. The display would need changing too, she thought, as she started to eat her cooling breakfast. It would soon be the party season, and the bridal display could be taken down. Thinking of her own gown, wrapped up with the other dresses in the upstairs flat of her shop, her stomach roiled once more. She would return it, she decided, and get rid of it. They’d paid for it anyway. They would just have to get rid of the burger relish stain. Darcy could jolly well spring for a dry cleaner. She needed to try to take back some semblance of control.
It was at that moment that Tucker walked back in sporting his apron and a dish-washing brush. Both having forgotten he was even there, Cassie joined Maria in a loud scream, which sent Tucker diving down the back of the sofa, suds flying, and the girls running to the medicine cabinet for more paracetamol.
‘Dude!’ Cassie said, ramming a white pill into her desert-dry mouth. ‘You need to wear a bell!’
Tucker laughed as he walked into Cassie’s room, a tattoo of a kangaroo punching a koala on a surfboard on his sculpted back the last thing they saw before the door closed.
Opening the door to Happy Ever After, Maria heaved a sigh of frustration. Her old Ford car was freezing, the heating having not worked even when it belonged to her mother years ago, but the shop was supposed to be warm, and it was so cold. She always silently thanked Lynn in her head for doing one of the many tiny but wonderful things she did around the business, like setting the heating in autumn and winter. The radiators were cold to the touch this morning, though, no hum of the heating. Wexley Street was a small row of shops linked to pretty cottages at either side, just in the heart of town, near Baker Street and jutting off Foxley Street. Westfield had been home for ever to Maria and her mother and father, and she couldn’t imagine living anywhere else. Normally, at this time of year, with the wedding season slowing and the first autumn leaves dropping, Maria would be in her element. Designing fancy-dress costumes for kids that she sold online, catering for the local dances and parties that the festive season brought with it. It was magical.
This time, however, it felt so flat. She was alone. Nothing had changed, it seemed. Nothing at all. The shop was the same, with its slightly wonky walls, peeling paint and old-fashioned features. In its previous life it had been a bookshop, and her father had brought her as a girl to wander among the shelves, delving for literary treasures about pirates and princesses, while he studied one thing or another. It reminded her of the wand shop from Harry Potter, complete with dusty shelves and strange owner. Mr Hoffman had died not long after her mum and, with no family to speak of, the business closed. Maria had been dealing with the grief of becoming an orphan, living in an empty house full of memories, and a desire for something new, linked with the familiar. She had sunk all her money from the house into the shop, saving what