AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I hear more giggles from Mary in the gym, but I can’t tear my eyes away from the photo smack in the middle of the row.
It’s me.
I mean, it is me but… it isn’t? The woman smiling in the full-color eight by twelve photo, with eyes twinkling as if she just finished laughing, is much too beautiful to be me.
I don’t think it’s low self-esteem, but rather healthy realism, when I say that beautiful is not a word I’d ever considered using regarding my own appearance. And yet, in this photograph, I am.
In it I’m wearing the baby blue bridesmaid dress, so there’s a lot of skin showing. However, instead of looking how I felt – like a scrawny kid playing dress up, the woman looks like a model in a Vogue layout.
I vaguely register the door spinning open behind me.
‘Wow.’ Mary skips to my side. ‘You look like a princess, Aunt Alice.’
It isn’t until she threads her fingers in mine that I can look away. ‘Thank you, Mary.’
‘It might be a bit petty of me—’ Emily moves around to my other side ‘—but I must say, I’m quite pleased that I’m not the last to know about Thomas’s hobby.’
Mary frowns at Mrs Moore. ‘Mr Thomas took the pictures?’ She sounds as confused as I feel.
We haven’t been back from Vegas very long and yet the pictures from that weekend and others are all freshly developed. Thomas isn’t just working out when he wakes up before the sunrise.
Mary releases my hand to move around the room and study each picture, stopping at a close-up of Mike in a Teddy Bear costume. ‘But why does he take pictures of Prince Michael when he doesn’t like him?’
‘Good question,’ I murmur, stepping forward to look at another row of photos.
Though not having believed Emily about Thomas having feelings for me, a small seed of doubt is sowed when I count how many photographs of his I’m in.
One of me at work, talking with co-workers in the shoe department. Setting up a display in the women’s department. Even one of me focused on my work tablet while drinking coffee in Moore’s in-store café.
I’m not dressed up, or even wearing make-up in the photos but somehow Thomas managed to make me appear radiant, even in the ones where I’m standing next to his vivacious sister-in-law or the always put-together Susan.
‘Because—’ Emily arches a brow ‘—despite what my son says, Thomas doesn’t dislike Mike.’
For the first time since they met, Mary looks at Emily in disbelief. ‘You think he likes Prince Michael?’
Emily laughs and pulls Mary toward her into a side hug, squeezing her tight before leading her back toward the door. ‘Yes, believe it or not, Thomas only takes pictures of things he likes.’ She gives me satisfied grin. ‘Of people he likes.’
Finding it hard to swallow, I look back at the photographs. Besides the pictures of New York the people are all his family members. Liz, Chase, Mrs Moore, even Raymond, Susan and George – employees that have been with Thomas most, if not all, of his life. And me.
‘Let’s go upstairs.’ Emily shields her face from the overhead bulb. ‘This red light hurts my eyes. Besides, something just arrived for you both.’
Reluctantly, I follow Emily and Mary through the rotating door and up the basement stairs. It isn’t until we reach the foyer that Emily finally stops and picks up one of the many bags on the floor – but this one full. ‘Brian just dropped this off.’ She hands it to Mary then looks at me. ‘With a message that he won’t be back until late tonight.’
‘Ah.’ I’m not sure if him working late is a normal occurrence or if he’s avoiding me. And if he is avoiding me, is it because of what happened in the dressing room? Or something else?
Mary pulls out a rectangular package wrapped in Moore’s signature green and gold wrapping paper. Tearing into it, Mary’s palms slap her cheeks when the presents revealed. ‘No way!’
I push aside the crumpled paper with my foot. ‘What is it?’
‘It’s the Moon Landing set!’ Mary holds up the box to show me. ‘Look!’
Something slides out of the overturned bag.
Mary peers over the box in her hands. ‘What’s that?’ She sets down her Lego set and plucks what looks like a purple belt off the floor. ‘It’s a collar.’ She frowns at the gold, heart-shaped tag dangling from it, reading the inscription. ‘Prince Michael’. Her face lights up. ‘It’s for Mike!’
She races off, presumably to find Mike and officially bestow on him his new royal moniker.
Emily looks after her and sighs, suddenly looking much older than usual. ‘Due to the many faults of his father, and quite a few of my own, Thomas is not well versed when it comes to properly communicating his feelings.’ She picks up another bag out of the pile. ‘Even now, without his father breathing down his neck, or harassing him if he cares about anything that doesn’t have to do with the store’s bottom line, my son still struggles.’
