A Girl's Guide to Fairy Tales

Chapter Five (part 1)

Chapter Five - Clare

My shopping trolley was a completely different entity since Sophie had moved out. In fact, it looked quite pathetic. Sauces for one, a bag of hand selected apples, another of pears, just two pints of skimmed milk, low fat soups, low fat hummus and a pack of six eggs. That was it so far and I’d been in the store for fifteen minutes – except three minutes had been spent trying to find a clean enough trolley.

Not only was I on auto pilot and kept going down the aisles where Sophie’s favourite treats and nibbles could be found, I couldn’t get that message out of my mind. I couldn’t tell the girls about the online dating hit as I would be bombarded with advice on how to respond and would have been forced to endure that huge ‘I told you so’ from Sophie.

So instead I was determined to do it my way and had set aside an hour this afternoon to reply to Mr Rob Fuller.

Anyway back to the task in hand. I needed rice crackers and although aisle nine might have only been five aisles away, getting there on a Saturday morning was like Homer’s Odyssey, except with pensioners as opposed to angry Greek gods.

I passed at least four men guarding half-loaded trolleys, undoubtedly under the strict instruction to stay where they were while their better halves were out foraging for other items. I was seriously considering getting up at midnight in future and going to the twenty-four-hour store. There would be none of this faffing and...how do I reply to Rob?

I naively thought the hardest part of this online dating thing was the signing up. I forgot I actually had to make conversation with people. Rob had answered my ‘what’s your story’ question and told me his ‘was one we should read together sometime’. Simple but cute.

I hadn’t responded at all. For a start I didn’t know how to flirt and then if I kept talking to him, it would mean we would have to meet up eventually and I would make a fool of myself as always.

Crash.

‘Are you blind?’ spat the woman, her eyes widening to such an extent, there was more white than colour. Her toddler began to wail incessantly. ‘There there, shhhh shhhh,’ she soothed.

‘I really am sorry,’ I said reversing my trolley.

‘It helps if you open your eyes you know,’ she said, deepening her scowl.

‘She said she was sorry,’ said a new voice. I whipped my head around trying to find the source of my defender. I saw a chest first and had to crane my head to see his face. It was a long face with a soft stubbled jaw framed by a mop of dirty blonde hair.

‘Yeah well it was a good job it wasn’t a person she rammed into,’ the woman said, her tone softer.

‘I’m sure it wasn’t done on purpose,’ the man said calmly, his words wrapping around me like a protective shield.

‘No, no it wasn’t,’ I piped up turning my attention back to the hissy woman. It was only when she adjusted her screaming son on her hip that I noticed her swollen stomach and suddenly understood the source of her frustrations. Hormones. She was probably dreading making this trip in a few months with both a toddler and a newborn to contend with.