Right. Christmas day was the most fun it had been in years, mostly because Rose and I were on speaking terms again. It didn’t occur to us at the time how pointless a gesture it was, but we’d kept it up. That was her all over. The day after that I got two more. We’d be noticed as missing eventually. A much easier job working in the small, local shop, but also a lot more boring. Jessica was wearing a lovely little blue dress that was long enough to be decent, but still showed off her legs wonderfully. The parents always had wine while Rose, Jessica and I had some sort of fancy sparkling grape juice. It tasted nothing like the wine, but it was the same process as I’d applied there, not trying to mask the taste or wish it was something else, but just experiencing it for what it was.
