Every time you make a move

The Luck of the Irish

Denise, from the lingerie stint she wished that she could forget from only a few months before, had now locked eyes with Monica across the supermarket aisle.

The Hitchcock Blonde had two fair-haired young children standing next to her: a little boy that looked around Johnny and Roshni's age who was lolling behind her, and her doppelgänger of a daugher standing by her side.

"So that's the school bully who locked my child in a shed... and Denise is her mother," she thought in stunned silence, "What a satisfying coincidence. The apple doesn't fall far from the tree after all"

Thoughts of racing through her head about what could happen. More than likely, Denise either remembered her or she knew who was behind her daughter Sarah's suspenion three months before.

"Mum, please can we go?" Roshni repeated, desperately tugging her mother's sleeve.

"Listen to your daughter and move, you idiot! Just move along and pretend not to notice her!" her head screamed, but she was numbly glued in place to her trolley as the anger from that stressful day seeped through her veins again.

It was too late to escape, for Denise was fast approaching with a basket propped in her elbow as her children followed like cattle. She was done up the same way as she remembered with the cloud of blonde, dark-rooted hair surrounding her head that only Bonnie Tyler could get away with and her orange, cakey makeup and pink contouring on her face of grimace. The only difference was that this time she was wearing a green tartan trench coat that seemed to be the odd part out of her appearance. Monica knew because she'd seen Princess Diana wearing an exact copy only week's before in one of Freddie's copies of Vogue, and Denise was anything but as classy and elegant as a princess.

But somehow, she managed to snap herself out of it and push her trolley away, essentially breaking eye contact whilst her son and daugher timidly lingered behind and out of view.

"Look ahead... look at the bakery up ahead" she swerved the trolley past the three Aldreds as she kept her head held up straight, holding her breath at the clickety click sound of Denise's heels hitting the ground with each step and the feel of the green-eyed stare following her, the headache-inducing smell of Opium by Yves Saint Laurent invading her nostrils again.

"Oh no, Sarah saw me!" Roshni whispered.

"Don't look back, you'll only make it worse" Monica instructed quietly.

She thought she'd gotten away with it, until a child's scream stopped her:

"Mummy, it's Johnny and Roshni, they used to be in my class!"

Denise's son was now pointing in her direction.

"Her son knows them?" Monica watched as Johnny snapped out of his strop and ran to thim as they greeted eachother.

Sarah then interjected, "Mum, that's the little girl who got me-"

"Sarah, not now!" Denise reprimanded, then turned to Monica apologetically, "Sorry, you'll have to excuse my daughter's tales"

Nonetheless, Monica looked straight ahead at the bakery at the top of the aisle, pretending to ignore them as she felt her skin crawl.

"Lord give me strength,"  thinking up a distraction, she turned to Roshni, "Go and grab me a few sticks of baugettes from the bakery"

Roshni peered behind her, "But mum, what about-"

"Do it now before we leave" she heard her voice harden.

Roshni nodded and fled away, meanwhile Johnny was chatting away to Denise's son.

"Come on, Johnny, say your goodbyes to your old friend" Monica ordered, hand grasped back onto the trolly handlebar and started pushing.