Not Quite Perfect

‘It is. Unfortunately,’ says Emma with a sigh. ‘Why does Joanna behave like that?’

‘Because, my dear, she is a bully and frankly we’re better off without them both.’ Her phone chirps and she glances at it, looking weary. Emma feels guilty. ‘It’s Digby. I better update him.’

Emma takes this as a signal to leave and tries to creep back to her desk unnoticed. She realises that the god of shit days has got it in for her as she turns the corner and Joel appears out of nowhere. Emma jumps. ‘Jesus, Joel!’

‘Ahh, thanks for the accolade, you can just call me Joel though. Sooo, how’d it go? Ooh. Not so good eh?’

‘I don’t know. We’ll just have to see.’

‘Ouch. That bad eh? You should have asked me to come along, Em. I would have been happy to help.’

Emma bristles at his familiar use of her name. Realising that homicide is probably not the best course of action, she tries to muster some dignity and shambles back to her desk. Almost immediately, Ella is by her side confirming that the Joel bush telegraph is fully operational.

‘Come on,’ she says, ‘we need Oreo cookie cheesecake and we need it now.’

The over-enthusiastic librarian has her hand up a surprised looking crocodile puppet as Rachel arrives hot and flustered at the library. As the highlight of pre-school entertainment in this town, the tiny space is packed with fifty or more mums and dads and their wriggly offspring. Rachel attempts to park her double buggy by the door.

‘Can’t park there, love,’ insists a red-faced man with a bunch of keys on his belt.

‘Can’t I?’ says Rachel irritated.

‘‘ealth ‘n’ safety innit?’ he insists.

‘Right. Fine.’ Rachel can’t be bothered to argue and steers the buggy round to ‘Large Print’. She turns round to see that Alfie has escaped, while is sister is still calmly disembarking. ‘Lily, where’s Alfie?’

‘I don’t know,’ says Lily with a complete lack of concern.

‘Oh shit!’

A large lady in her sixties who is dressed like a duchess tuts loudly in Rachel’s direction.

‘Sorry, it’s just that I’ve lost my –’

‘Boo!’ Alfie jumps out from behind a Catherine Cookson display.

The woman is unimpressed. ‘This isn’t a crèche, you know.’

Rachel wants to respond but Alfie is tugging at her leg,

‘Let’s go and see Joe, Mummy.’

‘All right, darling. Silly old bag,’ mutters Rachel.

Lily giggles. ‘Silly old bag!’

The woman looks around and Rachel smiles trying to look innocent. ‘Bye!’

After a row of ‘sorry’s’ and side-shuffles, she reaches Sue and Christa and their respective sons, Joe and Roger. ‘What did I miss?’ she whisper to Sue.

‘Just a couple of ‘Bobbins’ and an energetic ‘Sailor Went to Sea’.’

The librarian, a bony woman of indeterminate age, is now handing out musical instruments. Alfie shakes his sleigh bell enthusiastically resulting in a glancing blow to Roger’s bemused face.

‘Alfie! Say sorry.’

‘Sorreeee,’ sings Alfie with a grin.

Roger looks unsure, but then joins in as Joe takes this as a cue for an impromptu sword fight.

‘Boys! Stop it!’ commands Lily. ‘I can’t hear the lady.’

The boys comply and Sue smiles, impressed. ‘Got her mother’s way with men, has she?’

‘I wish. Wait until I tell you what Steve’s got lined up for us.’

‘I’m hoping it’s an all expenses paid trip to 5-star luxury beach resort with hot and cold running nannies but from your face, I’m guessing not.’

‘Ok, mums, dads, boys and girls, are we ready to be jingle-jangle scarecrows?’

‘Tell you over a latte,’ says Rachel with a rictus, ready-to-sing grin.

Emma lets Ella take her by the arm like some doddery old dear and they make the short walk to Auntie Mabel’s, the favourite haunt for any day when they’re in need of a consolation doughnut or celebratory bun. Emma has always thought it a shame that there is no Auntie Mabel: The proprietors are Simon and his partner David and they happily dispense cake and wisdom as a favourite auntie would.

‘Ohmygod. David? Look at that face. Bad news, is it sweetie?’ says Simon as the bell above the door signals their entrance.

Emma lets out an enormous sigh in response and nods, adopting the look of a dejected child.

‘Oh my darling, bring those puppy dog eyes here. Uncle Simon will make it better.’ He embraces her and guides them to a table covered with a red check cloth and tomato-shaped ketchup bottle. ‘Here, have Audrey’s table. I’m guessing it’s two caps and two cheesecake?’

‘Simon, you’re as perceptive as a girl and yet such a loss to the female race!’ says Ella.

‘Ah but gorgeous girl, I am seriously high maintenance and would spend much longer in the bathroom than you. Apart from that and the aversion to fannies, you’d turn me in a heartbeat.’

Ella giggles like a schoolgirl. When Emma brought her mother here for lunch, Simon had her eating out of his hand and Diana kept trying to hook her up with David: ‘What a catch he’d be, Em!’ Emma didn’t have the heart to tell her, but luckily Martin came along and she had another prospective son-in-law to fix her hopes on.

‘Are we in full-scale “don’t be nice to me” mode?’ inquires Ella.

Emma looks up at Audrey Hepburn gazing down at them in that ‘yes, I am more beautiful that you could ever hope to be but I won’t make you feel bad about it and could actually be your best friend if we met’ way. ‘I think we are,’ Emma replies.

‘Right,’ says Ella feeling uncomfortable at the prospect of having to insult rather than hug her friend.

David appears with their order. ‘Here we go. I’ve given you a dollop of homemade vanilla ice cream as well. All on the house today girls.’

Ella sees Emma’s lip begin to wobble and ploughs in. ‘Who wants to publish that kind of fiction anyway?’

‘I do,’ says Emma. ‘Can’t you do any better than that?’

‘OK,’ says Ella unsure. ‘Well it won’t make us any money and will just be a pain in the arse to get off the ground.’