Free Talk to Me by Jules Wake

the lounge. ‘Something must have struck a chord.’
    Emily’s feet padded down the hall. ‘Knitting,’ she said, spitting the word out with disgust as she came into the room.
    ‘Right,’ I said, before asking with a puzzled frown, ‘Why?’
    She rolled her eyes as if it was obvious. ‘His home knitted tank top was so vile, I couldn’t think of a single thing to say … then I had a brainwave. Last month’s
Marie Claire
had an article about knitting being back in vogue.’
    ‘Do you want a glass?’ I interrupted, waving a bottle of wine at her.
    ‘Do you need to ask?’ She carried on, ‘I just regurgitated everything the article said about Fair Isle patterns. He lapped it up. I was taking the piss. Surely he didn’t believe me. I told him he was dead trendy and retro.’
    ‘You didn’t?’ I exclaimed, turning to face her.
    ‘For God’s sake, Olivia, he was awful. He was never hand-picked by your cousin. As if any of us would look twice at him.’
    ‘Emily,’ I remonstrated, pulling the cork out with a satisfying plop.
    She was right but at least I’d tried to give him the benefit of the doubt. Those three minutes were hard work. When my penguin buzzed, all I knew was that he worked with computers.
    ‘What?’
    ‘Nothing.’ She wouldn’t have felt a grain of remorse.
    ‘So what shall I do?’
    I was dying to say, ‘Tell him he’s got you all wrong’ but I decided against it. ‘He sounds intense but harmless. You should be flattered you made such an impression.’
    ‘Hardly, his comments about my hair weren’t great. Talk about weeeirrd.’
    ‘Emily, it’s just an email.’ I shrugged. ‘It’s not as if we signed a contract. Just ignore it, although it seems a bit rude. Why not send him a nice chatty reply? Nice to meet him but you don’t feel ready for a relationship at the moment.’
    Emily looked blank. Gentle let-downs weren’t her style.
    ‘It’s very irritating,’ she said grumpily. ‘I wanted to meet the film guy again. I hope there hasn’t been a mix-up.’
    I glanced at her sharply. She knew my feelings on fidelity.
    ‘Not as a date,’ she blustered. ‘He has great contacts. You know for work. By the way, your mum phoned. You need to phone her back before eight o’clock.’
    ‘I’d better call her now then,’ I said looking at my watch, grabbing my wine glass and scurrying up the hall.
    ‘Have you spoken to your sister recently?’ Mum was a great one for caller ID. It did away with any of that boring old ‘being polite’ preamble.
    I tucked my glass of wine conveniently between my knees.
    ‘Hi, Mum,’ I said sarcastically. ‘I’m fine. How are you?’
    ‘Sorry, dear. I was waiting for you to call. When did you last speak to Kate?’
    ‘I saw her last night. Why?’
    There was a pause before Mum spoke. ‘Did she seem all right to you?’
    ‘Fine. Possibly even more bossy than usual.’
    ‘I’m not sure she’s quite herself at the moment.’ Mum sounded distracted, as if she was thinking of something else. ‘I did try to talk to her, but she bit my head off. Can you give her a call? Make sure she’s OK.’
    ‘Sure, Mum. It could be that she’s just missing Greg.’
    ‘I don’t think so, darling. I don’t think it’s all that serious. She never mentions him and I’ve never heard her call him.’
    Mum had no idea about Facebook, MSN or Twitter and was no doubt oblivious to Kate using any or all of them to contact Greg. No point trying to even explain, she had enough trouble with texting.
    ‘Now, Olivia, darling, I need to talk to you about …’
    The rest of the conversation was taken up by who was doing what at the Old Bodgers’ match. It was agreed that I would do teas – as I did every year – which involved making copious amounts of sandwiches and buttering a scone mountain while Mum would be in charge of the evening barbecue. Apparently Dad was getting very excited about the forthcoming match and thanks to some sneaky recruiting had