A Pretty Beach Wish by Polly Babbington (scary books to read TXT) 📗

bit easier, and she loved the brainpower that had released. Loved that she had one less thing to worry about. She went back into the living room and put the huge, old vintage shutters back on their latches. The room looked beautiful in the dappled morning sunlight, and with the gorgeous old fireplace, stripped floors, and ornate ceiling rose in the centre, the room itself didn’t need much at all in terms of decor. However, in the vastness of the room with its high ceilings and big windows, her two linen sofas had looked somewhat lost, and Juliette had known exactly what was needed to make it all cosy.

Juliette had been stalking the sofas being delivered for a good few years. In fact, she’d been eyeing them up since she’d left Jeremy. Jeremy had liked retro-modern grey modular sofas and their house together had been full of them. It had been even worse in other parts of the house and Juliette shuddered at the thought of the black leather sofas in the cinema room - they made her cringe.

In those days, in the house with Jeremy, Juliette had secretly lusted after beautiful down-filled sofas she could sink into and binge watch a box set on Netflix at the end of the day. Those days with black leather sofas and lit-up cinema rooms were long gone now though, and Luke couldn’t care less what he sat on or how anything looked. Except possibly his abs, she liked that he cared about those.

As she pushed her linen sofas back to allow for the new ones, that old life with Jeremy, the constant dieting to keep herself to his tastes and the enormous pressure to look good seemed so very far away.

Luke was about as different from Jeremy as chalk to cheese. The only time he ever commented on how she looked was to tell her how much he loved her. When she’d once mentioned that she’d felt uncomfortable because her jeans wouldn’t do up, he’d nonchalantly mentioned that one of the first things he’d loved about her when they’d got together was the soft plumpness of her skin.

How to make a woman feel good, she’d thought. Turn around all the notions we are fed by the media to be slim, to look a certain way and give it a different perspective, at least a Luke perspective - that he loved her softness. She’d clung to his words and hugged them to herself.

Juliette looked out the window, and when she couldn’t see any signs of the lorry, she made a cup of tea, and went and sat out on the front step in the sunshine. White hydrangeas she’d discovered under the weeds were now thriving all the way down the right-hand side of the tiny front garden. The old black railings which had been crumbling in places and peeling all over had been repaired. She’d spent a few weekends with a can of undercoat and then a can of black paint and as she sat there now admiring them, they gleamed in the sunshine.

Juliette sat on the step with her tea and observed the comings and goings of Mermaid Lane. She watched as Roy Johnson from the council opened his gate, gave a cheery wave, and got into his car to go to work, and the ginger cat from a few doors up walked along the top of the railings and meowed hello.

A couple of school children walked past on the way to Pretty Beach Primary, and Juliette thought to herself how nice it would have been if Maggie could walk to school. There was no way that was going to happen - Jeremy was insistent that Waterlock Prep was the only school for his daughter, and as long as he was paying for it, Juliette fell in line.

She walked back into the house, through the hallway and put her mug in the dishwasher when the doorbell went.

‘Good morning!’ A voice called out as she walked back through the hallway and opened the door.

‘Helloooo!’ Juliette said.

‘Oh, it’s you, Jools!’ Juliette’s friend Harry said as he saw it was Juliette who had opened the door. ‘Of course, it is, I haven't got my brain in gear this morning. Sparkles on the delivery address and all that, duh...’

‘Hello Harry, wow, not on the boat?’

‘Ah, unfortunately not - Nathan’s been let down three times in the last month by staff and a full load today so he called me up. You know what it’s like, blood is thicker than water and all that. So, I’m delivering furniture for most of the day, in fact most of the week.’

‘Sounds like hard work. It’s good to see you.’

‘And the same to you. We need a catch-up, a pint in the Smugglers.’

‘We do indeed.’

‘Right, my lovely, can’t stop and chat. If I get behind on this first drop I’ll be chasing my tail all day.’

‘Okay. Shouldn’t take you long - it’s just in here in the living room at the front.’

Juliette watched as Harry half jogged back to the van parked a few spaces down the lane, and she propped open the gate. A few minutes later, Harry and two helpers were carrying the first of the two huge, plastic wrapped sofas along the road.

Juliette looked at the sofa as they started to carry it up the path. ‘Oh dear, it looks much, much bigger than I anticipated. I hope I’ve got my measurements right.’ Juliette shook her head and thought that there was no way that the sofas were going to fit.

The delivery men lifted the sofa over the front railings, turned it onto its side to get it through the front door, and as they slowly moved into the house, they all stopped and rested the sofa onto the hallway floor.

‘Woah! This is unreal Jools. You’ve done old Mr Jenkin proud. Blimey, you must have spent a fortune. I remember this place was filthy and falling down almost when it went up for sale.’

‘On the contrary, Harry.