Letting out a shriek of pain she clutched her left leg as melted ice soaked into her jeans. What kind of psychopath would sneak up like that and kick a complete stranger so hard? Ow, God, she couldn’t breathe, she could barely think straight, it hurt so much .. .
‘Are you OK?’ Nick and Lola slithered up to her, having somehow managed to weave their way through the crowds of skaters. For heaven’s sake, did she look OK?
Did you see who kicked me?’ Sally felt perspiration breaking out on her forehead.
‘Nobody kicked you.’
‘They did! I felt it!’
‘There was no one near you.’ Lola pulled an apologetic face. ‘If it felt like being kicked by a donkey, you’ve probably snapped an Achilles tendon.’
Damn, she was right. ‘Noon!’ Sally sank down in despair and rested her face against the ice, because this was a nightmare. ‘I don’t want it to be my Achilles tendon!’
Lola, valiantly attempting to help her into a sitting position, promptly lost her balance and gasped, ‘Oof!’ as she tumbled back like an upturned beetle on to the ice.
’What’s going on?’ Puzzled by the commotion on the stairs, Gabe emerged with dripping wet hair and a dark blue towel draped around his hips.
‘What does it look like?’ Sitting on her bottom, inelegantly hauling herself up one stair at a time, Sally was huffing and puffing and looking fraught.
‘Ice skating went well, then.’ Gabe looked at Lola and her father, who were following her up the stairs carrying a pair of crutches.
‘It’s not funny,’ Sally wailed. ‘We’ve just spent three hours in casualty. When they told me I’d torn my calf muscle I thought I’d just be limping a bit for a few days. I was actually relieved because I thought it was better than snapping an Achilles tendon, but it’s not better at all, it’s going to be a complete nightmare.’ Finally, laboriously, she reached the top step, raised both arms and demanded imperiously, ‘Don’t just stand there. Help me up.’
Gabe’s heart sank. Was his luck ever going to change? ‘Sorry, who’s going to be a complete nightmare?’
Nick, struggling to keep a straight face, said, ‘She has to rest the muscle completely, keep the leg elevated at all times. She’s going to need some serious looking after.’
Oh God.
Lola said helpfully, ‘You’ll have to lift her in and out of the bath.’
Fat chance of that.
‘No you won’t,’ Sally hurriedly chipped in before he could say anything about cranes. ‘I can still manage a shower.’
‘So long as you don’t fall over.’ Lola winked as she held open the door for Sally to go through.
Gabe winced as one of the aluminium crutches clunked against the door frame. ‘Look, wouldn’t it be easier to go and stay with your mother? Then she could look after you.’
Crash went the other crutch against the skirting board as Sally lurched inside. ‘Whoops, these are tricky things to get the hang of.’
Gabe took a deep breath. ‘The thing is, I’m going to be out working a lot of the time.’
‘But if I went to my mother’s house I’d be on my own all the time.’ Over her shoulder Sally said,
‘Because she and Philip are off on holiday tomorrow. So that wouldn’t be very good, would it?’
There was a crash as she stumbled into the coffee table, sending flying the cups and plates she hadn’t cleared away earlier. With a sigh of relief she lowered herself onto the sofa and stretched out across it, propping her leg up on a couple of cushions. ‘There, that’s better. All comfy now.
Ooh, I’d love a cup of tea.’
Chapter 32.
Sometimes a name simply didn’t register on your personal radar but it turned out that everyone else knew at once who it belonged to. Such was the case with EJ Mack, whom Lola had never heard of. But when his publishers had announced that he’d be available during the third week of January for signing sessions, everyone else at Kingsley’s had got as over- excited as if Al Pacino had offered to turn up.
‘But how can you know who he is?’ Bemused, Lola had studied the publisher’s press release.
‘He’s only a music producer.’
Cheryl,Tim and Darren had exchanged despairing looks. ‘He’s huge: said Darren. ‘He’s worked with everyone who’s anyone.’
‘And he’s so brilliant, all his female artists get crushes on him,’ Cheryl chimed in with relish.
‘He’s very discreet but I bet he’s slept with loads of them.’
‘Fine, we’ll let him come here then.’ Still unconvinced, Lola said, ‘But it’ll still be your fault if nobody turns up.’
It was always embarrassing when that happened. Watching the poor authors’ faces fall as they sat there behind their teetering piles of books, gradually realising that not one single person was going to come along and buy one. Their smiles faltered;sometimes they pretended they’d never wanted to sell any copies of their book anyway. Other times they feigned illness and escaped early. On one memorable occasion an author had reacted particularly badly, launching into a major temper tantrum and flinging his greatest rival’s books all across the shop.
Anyhow, it didn’t seem as if this was a problem they were likely to encounter tonight with EJ
Mack. Loads of customers had been thrilled to discover he was coming to Kingsley’s. As Lola unloaded boxes of his books and arranged them in spiral towers around the signing table, people were already starting to gather in the shop. Too cool to form an orderly queue but not cool enough to turn up at seven thirty, which was when EJ Mack was scheduled to arrive.
