The Summer of Second Chances by Maddie Please

Author:Maddie Please
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780008257125
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Published: 2017-05-25T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 11

Cherry blossom – kindness

Two days later I was back in the canyon-like aisles of Ram Builders looking for Trudy. Even at 9.30 a.m. on a Wednesday morning it was quite busy.

Customers seemed to fall into two camps. The ditherers wandered around with vacant expressions, picking up leaflets on kitchen design or handfuls of paint colours. The others knew exactly what they needed and had written lists and had a determined glint in their eyes. I found Trudy skulking at the back of the shop in the paint aisles, trying to get away from a couple of ditherers. I stood at a reasonable distance to make sure she could see me, and waited.

Mr and Mrs Ditherer wanted some paint to make their hallway lighter, but wanted it to be a colour somewhere between Plum and Damson. They were about to find out they had picked the wrong girl to help them.

‘I don’t know. I just stack shelves,’ Trudy said, lower lip stuck out.

‘But is there a light-reflecting paint that’s quite dark?’ Mr Ditherer hadn’t assessed the situation very well; he wasn’t about to give up.

‘I shouldn’t think so.’ Trudy flicked me a sour look. ‘How can purple be a light-reflecting paint? You’d better ask—’

‘Oh not purple! Maybe not quite Damson, more a—’

‘I don’t know,’ she said, ‘and I don’t fricking—’

‘Light plum? Is there such a thing?’ Mrs Ditherer flicked through her colour chart.

Trudy dropped her head back and rolled her eyes. ‘Bloody Norah!’

‘That’s a strange name for a paint. Oh.’ Mr Ditherer realised his helper wasn’t going to help. ‘Well with your attitude, young lady…’

Hands limp by her sides, mouth hanging open, Trudy listened to him voicing his disappointment and threatening to write to Mr Ram, whom he claimed was a neighbour and personal friend.

‘You’ll have a bloody job,’ she fired back with a spray of spittle. ‘He lived in Beverly Hills and he’s been dead for twelve years.’

‘I’ve been coming to this place since it opened and this is the first time I’ve been treated like this!’

Trudy pulled off her orange baseball cap and flung it at him. ‘Well count yourself lucky you got away with it this long, you bloody nitwit!’

Mrs Ditherer tugged at his sleeve. ‘Come on, Arthur, she’s drunk or worse. We’ll go to Homebase.’

They scurried off and Trudy turned her Medusa stare onto me, full beam. I returned the knowing-but-inscrutable look I had practised with my sister. Chin up, mouth turned down. I hoped I didn’t look too much like Marlon Brando in The Godfather.

‘What?’ she said.

‘Don’t “what” me. You know why I’m here.’ I pulled my mobile out of my pocket and waggled it at her.

‘Oh for fuck’s sake.’ Trudy picked her baseball cap off the floor with an ungainly side swipe and jammed it back over her eyes.

‘Have you got the stuff?’

She flicked a glance at the CCTV cameras. ‘I might have.’

‘Hand it over then.’

She stood dumbly, looking at me, and unexpectedly Ken slithered out from behind a rack of masking tape. He

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