The Love of My Afterlife(80)

My horn is dampened when it occurs to me that there’s someone close behind Cooper, looking around the music room, an impressed expression on a usually very unimpressed face.

“Mrs. Ernestine!” I trill, side-eyeing Cooper. “Uh, welcome.”

“Mrs. Ernestine has never met Mr. Yoon, can you believe it?” Cooper explains. “She asked what I was doing ‘all dolled up,’ so I thought I’d bring her along for the fun.”

“You’ve never met Mr. Yoon? I thought you’d lived in the building for over five years now?”

“He lives on the floor above, don’t he?” she says, as if this perfectly explains their lack of interaction. “I only ever talk to this one here.” She points to Cooper.

“Well, the more the merrier!”

“Fancy room, ain’t it? Didn’t know this was here, to be honest. Thought it was just a normal library.”

“Me too,” I say, noticing that she’s wearing a fresh pink rose behind her ear. “I only came in here for the first time last week. It looks like such a boring building from the outside. You wouldn’t have a clue.”

“I said I’d help Deli Dan carry in the barrel and the ice for the champagne,” Cooper tells me, backing away.

I throw him a Please don’t leave me alone with Mrs. Ernestine look, which I can tell from his face he totally sees but chooses to ignore, because even though I now fancy him, he still has many despicable qualities, one of which is finding my discomfort amusing.

He strides away with a chuckle. Mrs. Ernestine and I stand there in supreme awkwardness. I glance at the clock on the wall. There are now three hours until I go back to Evermore. I think about what Merritt said about not promising that Mrs. Ernestine won’t murder me.

“I…I like your tattoos,” I say, like an absolute moron, pointing down at Never Again on her knuckles.

She looks down at them and rolls her eyes. “Oh, they’re bloody daft. Got it done in the nick, to make myself look ’ard. Embarrassin’ or what?”

“The nick? Like prison?”

“Of course prison. What else does the nick mean, you thicko?”

“Were you…Did you…What was your crime?”

I just about manage to stop myself from asking if she partook in any murders.

Mrs. Ernestine turns a little pink in the cheeks. “Got caught up with the wrong people. Drugs. Dealing. It was the nineties and I was a fucking idiot.”

“Wow,” I say. “So…what does Never Again mean?”

Mrs. Ernestine looks down at her trainers. “The way my daughter looked at me, getting dragged away by the police. I was ashamed. I promised myself I’d never again have her look at me like that.”

“And did she?”

Mrs. Ernestine’s eyes meet mine. “No. I’ve turned my life around. It’s not big, it’s not flashy, but it’s honest. My daughter is a doctor now. Chloe.” She smiles proudly, and it transforms her usually scowling face into one full of love and experience.

“You can get tattoos removed now,” I say. “You know, if you’re embarrassed by them.”

Mrs. Ernestine shakes her head. “Oh never. I don’t like them, but my past is what makes me, me. And all of it, good and bad, has led me here today. On a summer’s day in August, in this fancy room, about to drink a shitload of free champagne.”

I think about my past and how it has led me here too, talking to my “scary” downstairs neighbour. If I hadn’t choked on that burger, I might have gone my whole life never realising that Mrs. Ernestine was a secret badass. Never meeting Aled or Frida or finding out for myself that sex is basically the most fun you can have on Earth.

“Speaking of which.” Mrs. Ernestine points over to the buffet table, where Deli Dan and Cooper are dunking champagne bottles into a massive barrel full of ice. Beside it there’s another desk filled with plastic flutes and cans of pop for anyone not drinking alcohol. I wouldn’t even have considered that. Deli Dan has done me such a huge favour. If I weren’t so lusty for Cooper, I would have a crush on him for sure.

I laugh as Mrs. Ernestine takes off, grabbing an entire bottle of champagne out of the barrel. She pops it open before wandering away—without a flute—to sit near Aled and Mr. Yoon, who seem to be deep into a conversation about Bach via the VOCA device.

I look around me. While I was talking to Mrs. Ernestine, the room has filled up, not only with the people I’ve invited but more than a few who I haven’t, including two of the women who were behind me in the queue at Deli Dan’s. I spot Cooper’s parents heading over to greet him, Amy immediately fluttering her eyelashes at Deli Dan. Cooper must have invited them to make up the numbers in case other people didn’t show. I grin at him, but he’s too busy nattering away to his mum to spot me. There’s Shelley from the mini-mart and someone who I take to be her sister, also making a beeline for the champagne. I see no sign of their dad, but I don’t have time to worry about it too much because there’s a tap on my shoulder.

“Frida!” I say as she gives me a huge hug. She smells like roses and lemons.

“I’m pleased as punch to be invited,” she tells me. “Aled says we’ll go on a date together, me and you and Aled and R. L. Cooper.” Her face drops for a moment. “Well, I think he meant date. We’re texting so much, but he hasn’t made a romantic move yet.”