That Girl From Nowhere by Dorothy Koomson Read Free Book Online Page A

resting on the metal handle. I don’t want to leave. I’d like to sit here, experience the world through the picture windows, and to carry on chatting to this person.
    ‘It’s a cappuccino,’ he states. ‘I know you asked for a coffee, but you look like you’re going to have a cappuccino kind of day.’ He makes no move to open the door. Maybe he doesn’t want me to leave either. Maybe I’ve fascinated him enough for him to let me stay a while longer.
    ‘I’m not sure what a cappuccino type of day is, but I’m looking forward to finding out.’
    His gaze drifts casually to my left hand, the one not holding the cup. ‘That’s an impressive number of rings,’ he says.
    I am a walking advert for my work: I always have on at least my butterfly pendant, a necklace which holds a couple of rings, earrings, and at least one ring on every finger. Each ring shows off a different technique I have tested out, gives clients something solid and real to examine. My hands feel naked, vulnerable and incomplete without my rings; my neck feels bare and unfinished without my necklaces.
    ‘Thank you,’ I say to him.
    ‘Any of them …’ he stops, embarrassment suddenly crawling across his features like an army of ants out looking for cake crumbs. ‘Erm … any of them, real?’
    That wasn’t what you were going to ask
, I think.
I’m surprised you were going to ask the other thing, but that wasn’t what you were going to ask
. ‘If you mean are any of them made from precious metals, then they all are.’
    ‘Right, right. Of course.’ His hand jerks open the door. ‘I’ll see you then?’
    ‘I might drop by again.’
    ‘Well, you do that. What’s your name, out of interest?’
    ‘I told you, I’m That Girl From Nowhere.’
    ‘Cool. I’m Tyler. No way near as exotic as yours, but I thought I’d tell you. In case you wanted to know.’
    ‘Bye, Tyler,’ I reply.
    ‘Bye, TGFN,’ he says.

7
     
Abi
     
    To: Jonas Zebila
    From: Abi Zebila
    Subject: Just a quickie
    Tuesday, 2 June 2015
     
    Jonas,
    Gran is coming home today. Mummy actually told me that she’d rather Gran went to somewhere people could take better care of her but Daddy wouldn’t hear of it.
    Mummy seems so sad, so burdened. She loves looking after Lily-Rose, she told me that, but everything else seems too much for her at the moment.
    The other day I was in the loft looking for my old dolls’ house that Ivor has been promising to bring down for Lily-Rose for months. In one of the boxes I found Mummy’s drawings, paintings and sketches, like the ones she made on the boxes we used to sleep in as babies. She’s so talented. She could teach art or even sell some of her stuff. Over the years she’s drawn and sketched and painted a lot of butterflies. They’re breathtaking. No two butterflies are the same, but the patterns on the wings are so perfectly symmetrical, you’d think they were done on a computer. I sat there going through them and completely forgot the time.
    When I’d finished going through the artwork, I felt almost bereft that it was over. I couldn’t help wondering why she stopped drawing and painting except for the stuff on our boxes.
    Is that what’s going to happen to me? Am I going to become so consumed by being a mother and wife that I end up giving up my passions? That’s what scares me about being with Declan properly. The idea that I’ll lose myself; I’ll simply become an extension of him and Lily-Rose, and I’ll disappear.
    When I was cleaning up the dolls’ house with Mummy and Lily-Rose, I asked Mummy why she never decorated any of our boxes with butterflies since she’d practised them so many times. She looked alarmed and said, ‘What do you mean?’
    ‘I saw your artwork in the loft. That was why I was so long. I liked the butterfly drawings the most. I was wondering why you didn’t decorate any of our boxes with butterflies. And actually, why did you stop drawing?’
    ‘I only decorate the baby boxes, you