Summer Flings and Dancing Dreams by Sue Watson Read Free Book Online Page A

for a clue, trying desperately to remember the past and discover what had happened. I sat amongst the bin bags and the tears and the taffeta – my world had tilted slightly.
    On a third reading, I could see that in spite of whatever had happened, my dad’s pain was tinged with hope. I knew about Dad’s idea to live in Spain, to learn the flamenco, but I didn’t realise it was such a serious proposition – he seemed to want that so much. He’d also wanted me to dance, had seen me as his second chance; ‘shoot for the moon,’ he’d said wanting to pass on the baton.
    Then I landed with a bump, I wasn’t that baton-carrying dancing girl. Despite my father dreaming of a life of glitter on the dance floor for me I had never got round to dancing – the closest I’d ever got was watching my parents. I had never been taught the waltz, never glided elegantly across a floor in a beautiful dress or whipped up a storm in a frenzied tango. I was a Bilton’s checkout girl who stopped dreaming at the age of ten when her world came crashing down in The Empress Ballroom, Blackpool.

3
    Detox Chocolate and Bilton’s Babes
    ‘ I knew she had eleven items in that basket,’ Carole said, ‘I said – just admit to it and we will leave it at that. I won’t take any further action.’
    I nodded as she regaled me with the story of how she’d publicly humiliated some poor woman trying to sneak into the ‘ten items or fewer’ queue with – shock horror – eleven items. Carole had been rejected when she’d applied for the police – but it didn’t stop her dishing out her own brand of police-supermarket brutality at Bilton’s. A few months before I would have loved this story, completely overreacting to the deed and declaring the shopper ‘a sneaky bitch’. This would be followed by my own sorry tales of outrageous customer behaviour in various aisles and unbidden rudeness at the checkout. But it all seemed so petty now, the daily tussles with customers had lost their drama and spark for me.
    ‘You’re not yourself, love,’ Carole said. ‘You okay, you seem a bit quiet?’ We were having lunch in the staff canteen and she was pouring something hot and brown from her flask into a mug.
    ‘Oh I’m fine, just missing Sophie and I’m worried about family stuff,’ I said and told her about Dad’s letter.
    ‘I don’t know what happened between them, and I can’t ask Mum. But it made me think – there was Dad making all these plans and it was futile, he never got to Spain, he never danced flamenco. I don’t want to suddenly be in my seventies and think, where did that go? I know my parents never did what they dreamed of, but at least they had dreams. I don’t have anything to aim for, no goals except to get through the day without verbally or physically abusing an annoying customer.. Do you know I’ve spent my life going to work, coming home, making meals and watching TV.’
    ‘Welcome to my world,’ Carole sighed, sipping at the foul-smelling brew now steaming from her mug.
    ‘Everyone needs something...’ I sighed.
    ‘Like what?’
    ‘I don’t know... I feel like I want to go to Spain... do all the stuff my parents never did. Maybe I’ll do it for them... and for me... one day.’
    ‘There you go... ‘one day.’ Do it. Do “Spain and stuff” now. Just ask your Sophie and I bet she’ll tell you to get on the next plane.’
    I wasn’t asking Sophie anything, because I had to get used to the idea myself first and I wasn’t trying it out for size during the precious ten minutes of FaceTime we managed each week.
    ‘She’s the one that told you to get a bigger life...’
    ‘I know. I just wish it didn’t bloody hurt so much.’
    It was such a big thing, and had become even bigger in my mind since she’d gone, and now Dad’s letter seemed to be warning me to make the most of life before it was too late. There was Sophie off on an adventure, telling me about amazing sunsets and scuba diving in Bali and