29) Ginger Snaps I
Myra hadn't really met any men since she'd got rid of Ricky, but that all changed when she started pulling pints. Just standing behind the bar seemed to make her all the more attractive to most male punters, single or married, and just the first week on the job, she had more offers for casual encounters of the sexual kind than she could count on both hands and feet. She enjoyed the attention and the banter, but if truth should be told, she wasn't vaguely interested in any of them. Experience had also taught her what one night stands were likely to bring with them, so she wisely never accepted any of the offers.
That is, until a Tuesday afternoon, two weeks into the new year, when she was alone in the bar. She was changing an empty vodka bottle when she heard someone come in. She finished putting the new bottle in place before she turned and when she finally was done she was startled by the sight of an extremely strong-looking chest directly in her eye level. She slowly tilted back her head to look up and was immediately charmed by the tall ginger haired man smiling down at her.
It was a quiet afternoon in the pub and during the next hour, Myra found out that his name was Andrew, he was a divorced thirty-three year old banker who'd just started working in the local bank. He didn't stay long that day, but then he was back the following day and two days later, and then again, the next Monday.
After Andrew had been coming down the pub almost every day for over a month, he finally asked her to join him for dinner one night. The following Thursday was Myra's day off so she took her kids down to the local high street where she looked into a few shops. In one of them, she tried on a simple black dress that became her perfectly, but she sadly had to give it back when she saw the price tag. Dispirited, she went home and looked at her old dresses, the last of which she'd bought just after John Paul was born. She tried on a few of them, and ended up settling on the only one that didn't feel far too tight, an out-of-style bottle green number, which still showed off her boobs quite nicely.
While Myra was in her room trying on her old dresses, Jacqui ran out, leaving Tina in charge of Carmel, John Paul and Michaela. Just as Myra was reluctantly making up her mind on which dress she'd wear, John Paul had fallen head first off a chair in the kitchen and was howling for his mum. Myra ran to the kitchen right away and tried to console her only son. She was still sitting with him in her lap, her dress all stained from his tears, when Jacqui quietly entered the flat half an hour later.
Seeing the angry expression on her mum's face, Jacqui tried to explain why she'd run out like that but Myra was having none of it. She'd told her eldest daughter that she needed to be able to trust her with the younger ones and she couldn't just go AWOL, leaving Tina in charge.
Jacqui knew her mum well enough to know that she would never get a word in when she was angry like that. She also knew that Myra's anger would evaporate as quickly as it appeared, so she just calmly sat down at the kitchen table and waited for her mum to finish mouthing off. When Myra'd finally quieted down, Jacqui calmly picked up her bag from the floor, and she smiled softly at her mum as she opened it to reveal the black dress Myra'd wanted so much.
