Miranda Dickinson - When I Fall In Love

‘So?’ she demanded, folding her slender arms and giving Elsie a classic Older Sister Stare.

Elsie was having none of it. She had outfaced her eldest sister many times over the years and she wasn’t about to be intimidated by her today. ‘So what?’

‘You know what, Elsie Maynard. Why didn’t you mention the chap ?’

Elsie shrugged. ‘Dad didn’t need to know.’

‘How do you figure that? That handsome stranger saved you from being arrested , for heaven’s sake!’

‘ Shh! Keep your voice down … And I never said he was handsome.’

Dropping her voice to a harsh whisper, Daisy eyeballed her sister. ‘I beg to differ. Anyway, why are you so het up about this? It’s OK to admit you needed help, you know. It’s no reflection on you. It doesn’t mean you can’t cope or anything …’

Elsie had heard enough. ‘Drop it, Dais! Let’s just … talk about something else for a bit.’

Daisy relented and wrapped an arm around Elsie’s shoulder. ‘Fair enough, lovely. I’m sorry. So, was he fit?’

‘Daisy!’

‘Oh come on, Elsie, humour me!’

‘I suppose he was, in an annoying, waterproof way. I wasn’t looking too closely at the time.’

An indeterminable look passed across Daisy’s face. ‘Good. That’s good.’

Later, when the Maynards were sitting around the dining room table in the large, first-floor living room eating vegetable tagine with tabouleh and pearl couscous (a particular favourite of Jim’s), Elsie decided to announce the decision that she had been distracted by when she inadvertently became a lunchtime shoplifter. It had been on her mind all week, ever since she had decided to finally open the small, chocolate satin-covered box by her bed after eighteen months of waiting. This morning, she had made her decision: the first part of moving on …

‘Right, everyone, I’m glad you’re all here – and sitting down – because I’ve something I want to say.’ She smiled at the apprehensive looks of her nearest and dearest. ‘Don’t panic, it’s good news, I think.’ She took a breath to steady herself. ‘I’ve decided to start dating again.’

‘Oh Els …’ Guin’s face reddened and she burst into tears, much to the amusement of her sisters. Since she had discovered she was pregnant, the normally pragmatic middle Maynard sister had become an emotional wreck, sobbing uncontrollably at everything from songs on her car radio to television adverts for pet food and sofas. Laughing at her own emotional state, she accepted the box of tissues her father always kept close for such occasions and wiped her eyes. ‘Man, I am such a wuss ! I hope all this sobbing isn’t going to traumatise my baby. I’m just so – happy for you, honey.’

Jim reached across the table and took Elsie’s hand. ‘My brave girl. And you feel all right about it all?’

Elsie could feel herself shaking, but she knew she was. ‘I’m terrified – I mean I’ve no idea how to go about it, or even how it’s done now – but it feels right.’

‘We can help,’ Daisy said, nodding furiously – a suggestion which slightly alarmed Elsie. Daisy prided herself on being a bit of a matchmaker, even though several of her match-ups for friends had ended in dreadful dates and acrimonious splits. But then, as Elsie reasoned, when you were as effortlessly gorgeous as Daisy Maynard with a successful career and a wealthy property developer boyfriend, what would you really understand about the perils of dating?

‘Promise me one thing, darling: steer clear of those dreadful dating sites,’ Jim interjected, his assertion eliciting shock from his three daughters. ‘No, I’m serious. I signed up for two of them last year and they were most disappointing.’

The unexpected revelation of Jim’s secret online dating history temporarily hijacked the conversation, and Elsie allowed herself to relax a little as the incredulous reaction flowed around her. After this week’s apprehension of telling her family what she was planning, she now felt strangely peaceful. It was the right decision and it was an important one.

I love you because you’re brave and strong

and you always know what to do.

xx

It was the first message in the pile stacked neatly inside the former chocolate box the subject of Number 50 on The List:

50. Read the box messages – all of them .

It had taken Elsie eighteen months to bring herself to open it, the thought of its unread contents strangely comforting. When she made the decision last Monday to fulfil the last-but-one item on The List, it had felt like being reunited with an old friend. And as soon as she read the first message, Elsie knew it was the right time. The message made perfect sense – and instantly she knew what to do.

‘Wow,’ said Cher Pettinger, owner of Sundae & Cher, when Elsie told her the news a week after the shoplifting incident. ‘And you’re sure you’re ready to dive into the shark-infested dating waters again?’

Elsie pulled a face. ‘Well, when you put it like that , how can I resist?’

‘No, no, that’s not what I meant,’ Cher shook her head, the tall ebony beehive atop it shaking wildly. ‘It’s just, you know, when you’ve three divorces under your belt like me the whole dating scene becomes more of a moron-dodging exercise than anything else.’

Elsie smiled at her boss, noting again how at odds her lack of dating success was with the confident forty-something dressed head to toe in vintage Dior. ‘I’ll bear that in mind. How is the latest flame?’

Cher grimaced as she dropped a newly mixed tub of house speciality Apple, Cinnamon and Nutmeg ice cream into the glass-fronted display cabinet. ‘He was looking promising until I realised he still lived with his mother. Forty-two years old and still sleeping in a bedroom with He-Man wallpaper.’

‘Blimey.’

‘Believe it, sister. It’s a jungle out there. But you know me: ever the optimistic adventurer.’

Cher Pettinger’s relationship history read like a cautionary tale on the perils of dating. Married and divorced three times, she had since endured a string of hopeless beaus, from the owner of the local amusement arcade who had a strange penchant for life-sized dolls, and the toyboy estate agent who was convinced that he was being stalked by MI5, to the ageing lothario hotelier who turned out to be a serial bigamist. But Cher was nothing if not committed to her dating cause, gamely braving the ‘jungle of morons’ in pursuit of true love.

Elsie liked her boss immensely, despite Cher’s infamously dry sense of humour, which had earned her a fearsome reputation in North Laine. She was sassy and assured and undaunted by life – and in Elsie she had found a kindred spirit. Together, over the past three years, they had turned the once hippy vegan café in colourful Gardner Street that Cher inherited from her dotty aunt, Lucy ‘Skyflower’ Pettinger, into a retro-themed ice cream café that the great and good of Brighton flocked to, irrespective of the season.

Sundae & Cher was filled with 1950s and 1960s memorabilia, from the gold-framed Elvis and Frankie Valli photographs on the wall behind the green glass counter, to the black and white harlequin tiles on the floor, replica Wurlitzer jukebox, black and white checked tablecloths and red leather and chrome chairs. It had the air of being simultaneously retro and chic, and modern and cool – and Elsie loved to see people’s expressions when they walked in for the first time. Of course, the killer detail was that all the ice cream sold in the café was made onsite, in the basement kitchen with its large ice cream mixing machine and large freezer cabinet. This meant that Sundae & Cher could offer flavours nobody else in Brighton could match, changing them regularly to keep the ever-enthusiastic customers coming back for more. From Toasted Popcorn to Blue Cheese and Walnut, Maple Banana and even a Tomato, Basil and Olive combination, Sundae & Cher’s unique ice cream flavours had become a talking point in the famous seaside town. Add to this the effortlessly relaxed and fun atmosphere and it was easy to see why Sundae & Cher fitted into colourfully bohemian Gardner Street perfectly.