Page 172 of Falling for You

I smile, taking a sip of my coffee.

This is the part where I ask Aunt Tell straight whether she can come back to New York, say how Mom isn’t doing so good and that she misses her. How seeing her will do Mom the world of good. But when I look up at Aunt Tell’s hopeful face, something stops me.

‘My goodness,’ she sighs. ‘I haven’t seen you since you were yay high.’ She holds up an arm. ‘I can’t believe this handsome man sat in front of me is my little Nathaniel. I say all of your names, you know. Right before I go on stage each night, I bless each of you.’

I pause, unsure of what to say.

‘At the theatre!’ she continues, reading my silence. ‘When I have a show! Before I go on I say, “God bless Linda, Paul, Nathaniel and Stevie. God bless them all.”’

‘Oh,’ I say, realising that I couldn’t stay silent a second time. ‘That’s nice.’

‘It helps keep me calm, thinking of all of your faces.’ She smiles, picking up her coffee cup. ‘I’ve got a show tonight – you should come!’

She leans forward excitedly.

‘Oh,’ I say. ‘I can’t stay. Sorry, I—’

‘I’m playing Beth inPaula’s Race Carat the Pheasant,’ she says, as if I haven’t spoken at all. ‘It’s the other side of town and it’s terrific fun. We’re halfway through a six-month run.’

‘Congratulations,’ I say. ‘I was actually hoping to speak to you about Mom.’ I look at her steadily, ready to catch a reaction, but her beaming expression stays put. ‘I was wondering if you had plans to visit her anytime soon.’

‘Visit her?’ She blinks her heavy eyelashes. ‘Back in New York?’

‘Yeah.’ I sip my coffee. ‘I know she’d love to see you.’

‘And I’d love to see her!’ she cries, her hand flinging to her chest. ‘My darling sister.’

I watch her, my mind scrambling to work out what she means.

‘Great!’ I say after a pause. ‘Well, I’m planning to go back to New York soon. I’m only here for a few months, so can I tell Mom that you’ll be in touch to arrange a visit soon?’ I try and keep my eye contact with her, but she looks away and starts busying herself with the empty coffee mugs.

‘Of course! Now, I’m sorry, Nathaniel, but I must ask you to go. I need to get ready for my show. But this was such a wonderful surprise – please come and visit me again soon.’

And before I know it, I’m shooed out of the front door back onto the streets of Epping.

‘But you’ll call Mom?’ I blurt, moments before she shuts the door.

‘Of course I will, darling! See you soon!’

And as the door slams, I’m left with three thoughts.

She must be the weirdest woman I’ve ever met.

I need to apologise to Stevie for comparing him to her.

She’s lying.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Annie

I hold up the swamp-green fabric to the light, squinting as I peer at the hem. The material has an elasticity which is perfect for the cinched-waist look of the design that I am hoping for, but it makes it pretty tricky to keep the hemline neat.

I curse under my breath and pick up my metal stitch un-picker. There is no way that the client would notice that the hem ever-so-slightly veers off to the right, but I’ll know. And I like everything I work on to be perfect.

Once I had asked Mum if we could make our own clothes, it was like we opened a door into a new world. Mum’s career as a print designer meant she was naturally creative, but she’d never even thought of making her own clothes, let alone tried it. But all it took was several Saturday afternoons poring over books in the library, rewinding clips of television shows and picking the brain of Esme, the woman who ran our local fabric shop, and we were hooked. Where most teenagers were out drinking or hiding from their parents at the weekends, I couldn’t wait to spend Sundays with Mum. We’d design the item together, whether it be trousers or a dress, whatever I fancied really, and then go out and pick thefabric and spend the rest of the day cutting out the pieces and stitching them all together.

Dad would normally be in the kitchen, cooking us up some form of roast, and the evening would end in a fashion show, where Mum and Dad would ‘rate’ the outfit. I mean, they always gave it a ten, but insisted on doing it anyway. By the time I was eighteen and getting ready to go to university, I had an entire wardrobe filled with my own clothes, and a lot of them I had made from scratch by myself.