Page 16 of The Inn on Bluebell Lane
“Jess!” her mom called up the stairs. “The bus is coming in ten minutes from the village green. We should get going.”
Jess gave her reflection one last unhappy look. She really did look like a nerd. Was this how everyone else was going to look? What if it wasn’t? She had no idea of the styles and fashion in Wales. During the summer back home, everyone she knew wore sports tops and shorts, but Mairi had shown up at dinner in flared jeans, which no one wore back home, and a sparkly top. Jess had felt sloppy and underdressed in her sporty clothing, and she was afraid she was going to stick out today, which was the last thing she wanted starting a new school.
With a sigh, she grabbed her backpack and headed downstairs, resigned to her fate… at least for today.
“You look amazing!” her mom enthused as Jess came into the kitchen and she rolled her eyes.
“I do not,” she stated flatly.
“I think the uniform suits you. It’s like something out of Enid Blyton.”
Jess stared at her, nonplussed. “Who?” Whoever she was, she sounded lame. Who was named Enid anymore?
“I’ll explain later,” her mom said with a laugh. “They’re stories for children. British children read them, but I did too, actually. That’s one cultural reference I can make.” She let out another laugh, this one with a little bit of an edge, and then grabbed her travel mug of coffee. “Come on, I’ll walk you to the bus stop.”
Ava and Josh were sitting at the kitchen table, still in their pajamas, while her grandmother leaned against the counter, sipping tea and looking kind of spaced out, like she wasn’t even aware anyone else was there. Ava and Josh didn’t have to leave at ridiculous o’clock to get the bus. Their school day at the local elementary school started a whole half-hour later and was only a five-minute walk away. Why did her school have to be a whole half an hour away? Back in Connecticut, it had been a ten-minute bus ride, tops.
“Ben!” her mom called up the stairs, clearly trying not to sound aggravated and, Jess thought, failing. “Come on! I don’t want you and Jess to miss the bus!”
Her brother thundered down the stairs, and a few minutes later they were walking toward the bus stop, Jess dragging her feet, even though her mom kept telling her they’d be late, and it was twenty minutes to Abergavenny, so she wouldn’t be able to drive them, what with Ava and Josh needing to get to school, too. Her mom sounded seriously hassled, and Jess felt like snapping, try starting a new school, in a frigging new country. That will make you stressed.
She didn’t, though. She just sighed, quite a few times, heavily enough that her mom would know how she felt, as Ben loped ahead totally unaware. Boys. Her brother didn’t look stupid in his uniform, and he would probably make friends with the first kid he played soccer with, because that’s what he always did. He was oblivious to the social strata of school, while Jess already knew she was going to struggle to fit in. Girls just didn’t welcome a new person in, the way boys seemed to. Even worse, everyone else in her grade had already been in the school for two whole years; every girl in her class was going to have a best friend already, and they were not going to be interested in making another one.
As they approached the bus stop, Jess saw with an awful sinking sensation just how absolutely wrong she’d got everything. No one’s parents were there, for one. She was entering year nine and she was being treated like a little kid, her mom marching her to the bus stop. Plus, she realized, with a swirl of dread in her stomach, no girl was wearing navy blue knee socks, despite the uniform guidelines; it was all tights or little white ankle socks that barely covered their heels, and slip-on shoes, not these clunky brogues. No one—absolutely no one—had their stupid socks hiked up to their knees like she did. Everyone’s tie was knotted so it was half the length of Jess and Ben’s, and the girls all had leather shoulder bags for their books rather than stupid sporty backpacks like she did, because that was what everyone had back in Connecticut. Back home.
Jess felt as if she were shrinking inside herself with every step she took toward the bus stop, with many pairs of prying eyes trained on her for an excruciating second before they all looked away, utterly indifferent, or worse, smirking. She saw two girls exchange looks and roll their eyes, and everything in her both burned and cringed with shame, with awful, awful humiliation. She hadn’t even started school yet, and she’d completely messed up.
“Bye, darling,” her mom began, and Jess jerked away from the actual hug her mom had been about to give her, furious with her mother for getting it all so wrong, even though she knew it wasn’t really her fault. It felt like it was, though.
“Bye,” she snapped, and stalked off to the other side of the stop, away from her mother and Ben, who had joined a group of boys with easy obliviousness.
As Jess stood there alone, she willed with every fiber of her being for the bus to come so she could slide into a seat and do her best to disappear.
CHAPTER 9
ELLIE
Half an hour after dropping Jess and Ben off at the bus, Ellie watched Ava trot happily into her reception class after getting a little cuddle from the teacher, Mrs. Baggins. Llandrigg Primary seemed like a lovely little school, with less than thirty pupils in each year, far smaller and friendlier than the large elementary school Josh and Ben had gone to back in Connecticut, with three classes in each grade.
Even so, Ellie had to swallow past the sizable lump in her throat as she watched Ava go inside. If they’d stayed in Connecticut, Ava wouldn’t have gone to school for another year. She would have had her at home for lazy mornings and afternoons of crafts or playdates, for midday snuggles and a companion in the grocery store. She hadn’t been ready to let go of her youngest, to have the house empty—although, of course, it wasn’t. Matthew and Gwen would be home with her all day, although she suspected her husband would be consumed with DIY and as for her mother-in-law? Ellie had no idea.
Across the schoolyard, Josh was standing by himself, observing the happy chaos around him with a quiet, studied air, as boys in year four chased each other and girls huddled in gossipy little knots. He’d always eschewed rowdy groups for the company of one good friend, and Ellie prayed he’d find one here. She hoped they all would, herself included.
She’d smiled at several mothers who had met her eye as she’d come through the school gates, and they’d smiled back, but no one had made one of those overwhelmingly friendly overtures that Ellie desperately craved, asking her if she was new and telling her they’d have to go for a coffee, get to know each other.
She felt too tired and fragile to make the first move this morning, but, judging by the way parents were greeting each other with easy familiarity, laughing as they exchanged summer stories, she’d most likely have to. Nobody was taking any notice of her, but all the same Ellie didn’t think she had it in her to manage a simple conversation without bursting into tears, and that was not a good start to any potential friendship. Waving a clearly miserable Jess and an indifferent Ben off on the school bus this morning before taking Josh and Ava had just about finished her off. Everything was so new, so strange, and she had a horrible feeling Jess was going to have a bad day—simply because part of her contrary daughter seemed as if she wanted to have one—and there was nothing she could do about it, no way to help smooth the way. Ben, she felt, would probably be okay, but Josh was already looking a little lost, and Ava was so little. How could she let them all go?
Matthew would no doubt tell her she was being silly; Sarah, too, and probably even Gwen. They wouldn’t be all weepy and emotional, the way she was, at seeing her youngest child off to school.
Josh was heading into his class now, and parents were drifting away in groups, their laughter floating on the air, glad to have their time back to themselves. Ellie struggled not to feel desperately alone.
Now she had to go back to Bluebell Inn and face Matthew, who was ripping up old carpets with gleeful abandon, and Gwen, who was still stepping around Ellie with the stiff formality she hated, even as she reciprocated it, without really knowing why.
She’d told Matthew last night, when they’d been getting ready for bed, that she needed to have a talk with Gwen about divvying up housework and meals. For the last week, she’d been feeling like a somewhat unwanted guest, and she didn’t think she could take Gwen cooking and cleaning for her and her family. Besides, it wasn’t fair on Gwen. Matthew, however, had looked boyishly nonplussed.
“Why? Hasn’t she been managing all right?”
“Ye-es, but I need to do something, Matt,” Ellie had said, trying to be patient. Why did men revert to little boys when they went back home? After fifteen years of training, to make him put his dirty socks in the hamper and his dishes into the dishwasher and not just on top of the counter, her husband had started leaving socks on the floor again, dishes for his mother to clear up. “It’s not fair on Gwen to cook for seven people every evening,” she’d told him, “Or pick up after us.” Yet when Ellie had hesitantly offered to cook last night, Gwen had looked both surprised and a bit appalled. She was not a woman ready to relinquish her kitchen.