Her Melting Point

Down to the Wire

She knew it was a dream, but it didn't make it any less sweet: soft kisses on her shoulders; tender, unhurried strokes of his warm firm palm on her bare back; his hair, brushing at her neck, just as when he would lean down to her, to trail his lips on her throat.

Jackie opened her eyes and instantly realised she was alone - in her bed, in the room, in her cottage. She flipped her pillow and pressed her face into the cool cotton. There wasn't a thought in her head; she just lay until her alarm started shrilling. After a shower she moved around the kitchen on autopilot. Coffee had no taste.

She must have snoozed the alarm instead of turning it off, when she'd blindly battered her mobile on the bedside table; so she hadn't noticed a text from Alexander sitting in her inbox. Momentarily, she had a funny thought that if she was slipping out of the bed of her paramour of an ambiguous status, she'd leave a handwritten note. And then she remembered that he had been diagnosed with dyslexic dysgraphia, and relied on voice-to-text on his phone.

Please give me a call or stop by after hours. Leaving Fleckney tomorrow morning. Can't show my face in the shop for a fortnight.

***

She'd considered dialling his number a dozen times throughout the day; and every time she just didn't know what she'd say.

She was re-reading the same email for the fifth time when Ella bounced into her office after a jolly knock.

"I've got a few papers for you," the young woman said and placed a thick stack of sheets on Jackie's desk. "And also, a reminder that this is the Educational Visit month. Local community members and parents are doing presentations. For example, a local dentist," Ella sing-songed and deftly placed a sticky note on Jackie's monitor.

Under the words Dr. Bernila Amorsolo and Bernie's phone number and email, the note stated the date of the dentist's visit to school. The post-it was bright chartreuse colour - and shaped like a lemon. Or would it make it a lime?

"We've got Dr. Holyoake; Will Holyoake from the volunteer fire brigade; Mr. Sarin, the pharmacist; and Ikmeet from the bookshop," Ella continued, "Dr. Nenadovich, the archeologist, had to unfortunately cancel her visit; so I was thinking we needed something less stuffy. And more attractive for the pupils. How about Alexander Fergusson? From Sugar Cloud? Oliver Pemberton mentioned that Fergusson's your former pupil. Should we send him an invitation?"

"Yes, yes, he is," Jackie confirmed, fisting her left hand on her lap, hidden under her desk. "Oliver went to school with him, actually. They must have a site or an Instagram page."

"They do. Here, look at that!" Ella took her mobile out of her pocket and turned it, screen to Jackie.

Jackie glanced at the grid of square photos. She'd followed the shop's page ages ago, from her personal account that had no photos and couldn't be linked to her job in any way.

"I was there last week with my girlfriend," Ella said and tapped the screen with her magenta nail. "They've got a new line of vegan ice creams! Look!" Ella poked a photo of six tubs arranged like petals of a flower. "Chocolate; pineapple; there's coconut. Raspberry ripple is the best!"

Another photo opened, and Jackie stared at a waffle cone with a scoop of the ice cream, decorated with a raspberry and a mint twig - and a sharp pain jabbed between her ribs. She knew that hand: the massive palm; long knobby fingers; wide, square nails, neat and clean.

"There's their general email." Ella was once again scrolling. "We can send a request, I reckon. Or do you want to just ring him up?"

There was a pause; and Ella finally lifted her face and gave Jackie a confused look. Jackie told herself to woman up. Witches weren't real, she reminded herself; while cold reading very much was; as were the Barnum effect and confirmation biases.