down afterwards I knew I’d over reacted, and was probably just feeling vulnerable after Tim.”
“Vulnerable?” Sarah asked.
She broke a pastry in half. “Yeah, I mean if it had happened before I’d met Tim I’d probably have just brushed him off as a drunken slob. But once you’ve been part of a couple for a while any intimate contact with the opposite sex is alarming. I just need to get back to being a tough city girl again.”
Lisa shook her mane of long hair. “Yep, that bloody Tim sure did a good job on you,” she snorted scathingly.
“Hmm…” Sarah mused.
They ate the pastries and drank their coffee in companionable silence and then Lisa asked, “But at least you got paid, right?”
Katie rubbed her hands together. “Oh yes. When I got up this morning he’d pushed a grovelling, please forgive me, note through the door with his cheque.”
She was desperate to ask Sarah about the blonde she’d seen with Tim because now the shock had sunk in she couldn’t stop thinking about it. Who was she and how long had he been seeing her? And, could he have been seeing her when they were still together and were all his late nights at the restaurant excuses to see this blonde? The questions spun round and round in her mind day and night but she needed to be careful and ask in a way that wouldn’t upset Sarah again. Maybe she could casually ask who she’d been with in the restaurant that night and see what she could remember.
As luck would have it she needn’t have worried because Lisa, in her own tactless but endearing manner, asked Sarah, “So, talking about tossers, have you seen Tim the love-rat out with the blonde anymore?”
“Lisa!” Sarah shouted and then looked forlornly at Katie.
“What?” Lisa retorted innocently and winked at Katie. “I’m only asking. And, Katie’s fine with it – aren’t you?”
“Yes, I am fine about it,” Katie replied. “But I’d love to know who she is, Sarah?”
Sarah gently brushed some crumbs from her lap onto the plate. “I don’t know who she is,” she pouted. “But if I did know I’d tell you, Katie - honestly, I would.”
“I know you would,” she said soothingly.
She turned to Lisa. “Come on then, Miss Marple, how are we going to find out?”
“Ok.” Lisa pondered. “Sarah, tell us exactly what she looked like.”
Sarah shifted uncomfortably scrunching around in the bean bag. “Um, she looked about twenty five, was tall, about five foot eight, I’d say,” she swallowed nervously. “Oh, and very slim, probably a size eight.”
“And the blonde hair?” Lisa probed.
“Long, down her back, and strawberry blonde,” she said.
Leaning forward Katie asked, “Natural or dyed?”
“Looked natural, but I could be wrong?” Sarah tried to sound comforting.
“Eyes?” Lisa asked. “Blue or brown?”
Sarah forgot herself and enthusiastically said, “Oh, blue. A striking bright blue. It was the first thing I noticed about her.”
Katie groaned. “Great! Young, tall, size eight, naturally blonde and striking blue eyes, I mean, how the hell do I compete with that?”
“Oh Katie,” Sarah simpered. “She was probably just a one night stand.”
Katie slumped back down into the settee and wailed, “Shit, there’s no comparison is there? I mean, I’ve got boring brown hair and eyes, bigger than normal boobs and skinny legs!”
Lisa jumped up off the settee. “Now hold-up there sweetheart. I’m not having this! You have glossy brown hair, lovely hazel eyes and I’m not the only woman around here who’d kill for boobs like yours.”
She started pacing around in front of Katie wagging her finger. “And, I won’t have you putting yourself down like this. You’re a professional, confident, woman and you could knock spots off her any day of the week!”
She chuckled at her friend’s fierce barricade and felt her cheeks blush. “Cheers, I’m that good, eh?”
“She’s right, Katie,” Sarah added. “And letting you go is probably the biggest mistake of his life. It’s his loss, honey.”
Katie thanked them both and left to go home because this was going to be her baking day. She was putting together dishes for the picnic booking and had decided to bake a large batch of saffron bread to freeze which would be economical in the long run to use for future bookings.
Pulling up outside the flat on Grafton Road she called out a greeting to her next door neighbour and he stopped to chat. He told her his name was Sam, and he ran a home grown vegetable business supplying local restaurants, cafes, and delivering vegetable boxes