A Summer Fling Read Free Page A

up in front of her future mother-in-law’s council house semi at the other end of town. She beeped the horn of her antique, but thankfully reliable Fiesta, and a minute later Muriel wobbled down the path in tired leggings, a grubby-looking fleece and flip-flops. Not that Dawn would ever have been ashamed to be seen with her. Muriel was Muriel, and Dawn loved her to bits, just as she was.
    ‘Morning, lovely,’ said Muriel with an excited little half-toothless grin. The Crookes were a rough family, but they had taken Dawn to their bosom. This was especially important to Dawn since her own parents had died in a car crash sixteen years ago and left a gaping hole in her heart. She missed them so much. She wished it was her mum sitting in the car beside her now, helping to pick out her wedding clothes. But Muriel Crooke was the next best thing.
    Their first stop was ‘Everything but the Bride’ on the out-skirts of town by the new Tesco. The tired display in the window was awful and was a perfect indication of what lay inside. A cracked, headless mannequin with no bust was wearing a white dress that was the colour of old greying knickers and would have better befitted a toilet roll doll of the 1970s. The accompanying bridesmaid mannequin did have a head, and a face that had been painted on by someone with a very shaky hand and no artistic talent: she wore the pained expression of a kid being given a wedgie. She looked uncomfortable in her lilac satin dress that had long faded in the sun. Yellowing confetti was sprinkled around their feet, resembling bird poo.
    Dawn went in but knew instantly that she wouldn’t find her dress in here. The buyer wanted a slap. There wasn’t a lot of choice because the owner was obviously phasing the wedding dresses out and prom dresses in. Each one seemed the same as the rest but in a different colour. It was as if there was only one standard pattern for all the frocks – big wide skirt and puffy sleeves – with slight variations of neckline or ribbon/sequin detail. They weren’t harassed by the sales assistant whose ear was stuck on the phone.
    ‘. . . it can’t be too short, you were there when we measured you. I asked you if that length felt comfortable and you said yes. Well, maybe you should have had on the shoes you’d be wearing for your wedding. If you come in here in flats to be measured up and you’re wearing heels on the day, how can that be our fault?’
    Dawn reckoned the gold stars for customer service might be thin on the ground in this place.
    Muriel pulled a face at her, making Dawn chuckle. They slid out of the shop and Dawn took a big gulp of air.
    ‘If that were me on the other end of that phone, I’d have slammed it down, got a taxi over here and smashed her cocky bleeding face in,’ said Muriel.
    Dawn was laughing so hard it took her four attempts to open her car door. She knew Muriel would tell the others how the day went, adding her funny embellishments. She hoped she would save it until Dawn was present to hear it.
    They drove through Penistone and to stop number two, ‘Love and Marriage’, a far superior site on the Holmfirth Road. The window display was gorgeous: an ivory dress around a wire frame that represented an exaggerated hourglass figure. It was surrounded by handbags and shoes with expensive designer names. This was a pendulum swing to the other end of the market. A frighteningly big one if those names were anything to go by: Choo, Prada, Chloe, Louboutin . . .
    They had barely stepped foot in the shop when an assistant bore down on them offering help.
    ‘Just looking, thanks,’ said Dawn.
    ‘Are you searching for anything in particular?’ pressed the assistant, giving Muriel a sneaky look up and down, which Muriel saw and her lip instinctively curled back over her teeth.
    ‘I don’t know,’ said Dawn, wishing she could just wander around for a bit, unharassed.
    ‘This is nice, Dawn,’ said Muriel, picking out a long, cream dress.