As she came around the end of the aisle, Eve saw Jake right in front of her. He had a packet of cheddar in each hand and was peering down at them.
Shit! He was the last person she wanted to bump into right now. She turned back the way she’d come, spinning her trolley so quickly that it lurched onto two wheels and clattered against the corner of the aisle, sending a pot of double cream ricocheting into several others.
She put her head down and slunk away, mouthing Sorry at the member of staff glaring at her from behind the fish counter. She found herself back with the yoghurts. She’d already been down here – in fact she’d been up and down several times, because she was invariably dogged by indecision and forgetfulness in the supermarket – but it was too bad, she would have to lurk here for a few more minutes.
She picked up an Activia four-pack, then put it down again and wandered further along, pretending to study the small print on the back of a pot of Greek yoghurt, which was exactly the same as the one she already had in her trolley.
Why the hell did he have to be here? It was 3.30pm on Sunday afternoon – how irritating that he was as disorganised as her and had left his shopping until now. This was the first time she’d seen Jake in the flesh since the morning he’d asked her out. That was because, for the last couple of weeks she had done her utmost to avoid him.
Once she’d been on her way to work but had ducked back inside the house, when she saw him coming out of his front door; another evening she’d pretended not to notice him cycling up the road on his bike as she was parking the car. She still wished she’d reacted differently to his offer but, as the days went by, the embarrassment had begun to fade. She’d started thinking that, at some stage, she was bound to bump into him, but when it happened she would just pretend there was nothing wrong. She would be so bright and chatty that neither of them would feel the slightest bit awkward about it. ‘Hey stranger!’ she imagined herself calling out across the fence. ‘Haven’t seen you for ages. How are you?’
Except that, now the real Jake was a few feet away from her, trying to read the nutritional information on a packet of extra-mature cheddar, all her good intentions disappeared. Her stomach was jiggling and she could feel a muscle in her neck pulsing. She ought to go up and speak to him: just say hello and act as if nothing has happened. That would be the grown-up, sensible thing to do. But instead, she spent another couple of minutes lurking in front of the pots of Petit Filous that Daniel refused to eat. She was being such an idiot.
A message blasted over the loudspeaker, informed customers that the store would be closing shortly. This was ridiculous: she needed to finish the shopping and get home for when Ben dropped Daniel back.
She tentatively poked her head around the end of the cheese aisle; Jake was nowhere to be seen. Breathing a sigh of relief, she hurtled forward with the trolley, scooping up some brie and a string bag of Babybel. Five minutes later, she had everything she needed and was waiting at the checkout, bent over the trolley, rummaging around beneath the boxes, jars, cans and packets she’d carelessly thrown in there, to try and find all the reusable bags she shouldn’t have left at the bottom in the first place.
‘Hello,’ said a voice.
She leapt up, hitting her elbow on the metal bars.
‘How are you?’
Eve tried to look surprised as she turned around, so that he wouldn’t know she’d been avoiding him for the last twenty minutes. ‘Jake! What a lovely surprise.’ She tugged down her jumper, which had risen up over the waistband of her jeans.
‘Thought it was you,’ he said. ‘You ran away from me earlier when I was choosing cheese.’
She felt her cheeks flush. ‘No!’ she started to say. ‘I had no idea. I didn’t see you… was that you?’
He had that funny lopsided grin, which made him look about sixteen years old.
‘Okay, I did see you,’ she said. ‘Sorry. I was a bit embarrassed. I thought you’d probably rather not bump into me.’
‘Why?’ He looked genuinely confused.
‘Because I turned you down when you asked me to the comedy thing. I didn’t mean to be rude when you asked, I was just surprised. But I’ve felt awful about it ever since.’
He threw back his head and laughed, and she realised he’d had a haircut since she’d last seen him. The sides were shorter and neater: it suited him.
‘…But it was so kind of you to offer me a ticket, and I’m really sorry I said no,’ she said.
‘You didn’t exactly say no,’ he pointed out. ‘You didn’t say anything!’
‘I was just a bit surprised,’ she said. ‘I wasn’t expecting it and…’
‘And you couldn’t think of an excuse quickly enough?’
‘No! Well, yes. But not in that way. I like comedy, and it would have been fun. I just wasn’t sure why you were asking me – I didn’t want you to get the wrong idea.’
He put his head on one side. ‘The wrong idea about…?’
‘Well, about me. About us. I wasn’t sure if you were asking me because you just had a spare ticket. Or because… Oh, for goodness’ sake, Jake. You know what I mean!’
He laughed again. ‘Eve, you are my next-door neighbour, and – hopefully – my friend. I just thought it would be nice to spend the evening with you and, I have to admit, I would be quite happy if we did get to know each other better. I think you’re lovely, and I’m pretty sure we’d enjoy each other’s company. But I wasn’t planning to trap you in the back row of The Comedy Box and ravish you.’
She grinned back. ‘That’s probably just as well,’ she said. ‘It’s been so long since I was last ravished, I can’t remember what I’m meant to do in that kind of situation.’
‘In that case it sounds like you need the practice,’ said Jake. ‘I may have to put your name on my list for the future. I’ve got quite a lot of ravishing planned over the next few weeks, with a whole bunch of different women, but you never know, I may get a last-minute cancellation. If I do, I’ll be in touch.’
He winked at her, then turned and wheeled his trolley towards the entrance. Standing staring after him, she realised that today he was wearing relatively normal clothes: a dark blue fleece over grey combat trousers and a pair of trainers. All were clean and appeared to be a perfect fit. But as he walked away, she noticed a flash of red at his ankles. She laughed out loud, then stopped herself as the girl behind the checkout looked up and stared at her. It was actually reassuring: Jake wouldn’t be Jake if he conformed completely. At least he was wearing matching red socks, rather than one orange and one pink.
Driving away from the supermarket, she began to hum along to a song that came on the radio. Funny how her mood seemed to have lifted. She hated to admit it, but it was down to Jake. It was partly the fact that she didn’t have to worry about accidentally bumping into him anymore; she could stop leaping into doorways and burying her head in the footwell of her car when she saw him. But there was something else as well. It had been nice to see him; she didn’t know this man well at all, but he felt strangely familiar, and she loved the fact that, whenever she saw him, he made her laugh.
Back home, she had just unlocked the front door and carried the bags into the hall, when Ben’s car pulled up outside. Daniel jumped out and raced up the path, turning to wave as the Audi glided away again.
‘Mummy, guess what!’ he shouted as he followed her down the hallway into the kitchen. ‘I’ve got something exciting to tell you!’
‘What’s that?’ She smiled down at him, as she lifted the shopping bags onto the table. ‘How was your time at Daddy’s? Did you go anywhere nice?’
‘Yes, but that’s not my exciting news.’
‘Oh, okay. Tell me then.’ She pulled out a bag of apples and ripped it open, ready to tip the fruit into the bowl on the table.
‘I’m going to have a new baby brother!’
Her hand froze in mid-air.
‘It’s so brilliant!’ he yelled, jumping around the kitchen table.
Eve was staring at the label on the packet: Royal Gala Premium Apples: crisp, sweet and juicy.
‘Did you hear me, Mummy?’
There were six apples in this bag, but she probably ought to have bought more than this. They both loved apples, and went through them so quickly. Daniel sometimes had two a day.
‘Mummy, listen! Why aren’t you saying anything? Isn’t it brilliant – Daddy and Lou are having a baby!’