Miranda's Big Mistake - Jill Mansell [112]
It was hopeless. There was nothing she could do but wait.
`What are you doing this Sunday?' Bev asked the question in loose-end fashion as they were closing up.
Miranda thought fast, keen to come up with something in which Bev would have no interest whatsoever.
`Digging up Florence's garden,' she said with enthusiasm. `Replanting shrubs, dismantling the rockery, putting in a lily pond… feel like giving me a hand?'
Bev shuddered. Earth, compost, worms and those awful scuttly things that shot out from under stones when you were least expecting it. Not, of course, that she'd ever
done any gardening herself, but she'd once accidentally watched a programme on the subject and it had happened to Alan Titchmarsh.
`Ugh, no thanks.'
By seven thirty that evening, Miranda had the house to herself. Like a well-organised bigamist, Fenn had dropped her home from work and promptly ushered Chloe on to the still-warm passenger seat she had just vacated.
`I'll be back before eleven,' Chloe promised. She eyed Miranda's pallor and fidgeting fingers with concern. `Are you okay?'
Chloe wouldn't lecture, but she might tell Fenn. Miranda said brightly, `Fine. Brilliant. Just going to have a bath.'
Out of the bath and dressed for comfort in her old pink brushed-cotton nightdress with the spaced-out baby elephant on the front, Miranda found Florence about to leave the house as well.
`We're off to the theatre.' She gave Miranda a saucy wink and patted Tom's hand as he manoeuvred her chair towards the front door. `Don't wait up.'
Not even a gripping episode of Coronation Street could hold Miranda's attention. She hated not being able to do anything but sit there helplessly and wait. And why was she even bothering, for heaven's sake? Nothing was going to happen. She'd probably never hear from Miles Harper again.
Oh God, it still felt like waiting seventy-two hours for a kettle to boil.
Eight o'clock. Daisy's plane would be landing at Heathrow now. Daisy, all glossy and groomed and ready for the photographers - flash - would throw herself into Miles'sarms - flash flash flash - and Miles would remember that this was his girlfriend, not that funny little blue-haired creature he'd been amusing himself with for the last few days, the one who swept up hair for a living and had the gall to sneer at his fridge.
Her stomach in knots, Miranda picked up her almost-empty bottle of Coke. In mid-swig when the doorbell rang, she spluttered and clunked her teeth painfully against the thick glass.
No.
Not Miles, surely?
It couldn't be.
It wasn't, of course. Having stumbled off the sofa, banged her hip on the edge of the bookcase and hurtled through to the hall, Miranda could have wept with disappointment when she yanked open the front door.
Oh great, perfect, this was all she needed. Danny Thanksbut-no-thanks Delancey, what an absolute treat.
`Miranda.' As Danny's gaze travelled swiftly over her nightie she could tell he was dying to make some smart remark about it. `Time we were friends again, don't you think?'
He was smiling at her. In that okay-you-made-a-prat-ofyourself-but-I-forgive-you kind of way that was so infuriating it made you want to spit. Miranda, who had found herself on the receiving end of this kind of smile quite often over the years, said stiffly, `I don't know what you mean. I'm fine.'
Unable to resist it - surprise surprise - Danny nodded at the chubby animal slumped across her chest.
`Unlike your elephant. I'd give the RSPCA a ring if I were you.'
Her expression bland, Miranda said, `I'd forgotten how funny you are.'
`Can I come in?'
She tried to hide one furry slipper behind the other. `Actually, I was just on my way out.'
`When I phoned earlier, Florence said you weren't doing anything this evening.'
Exasperated, Miranda recalled hearing the phone ring while she had been wallowing upstairs in the bath. When she'd asked Florence who it was - in case by some miracle it had been Miles - Florence had said `Some poor fellow with a stammer trying to sell me a c-c-c-c-conservatory.'