The Art of Starting Over

Chapter 1 - Coffee, Anisette and Lipstick

Four years later...

I groaned and pulled the sheets higher over my head to block the vicious sunrays penetrating the curtains. My retro alarm clock was going off again, and I knew I couldn't possibly get away with hitting snooze for the third time.

Ugh. I hated mornings.

Grudgingly, I hauled myself out of bed and dragged my feet to the bathroom, my eyes squeezed shut against the morning light. As I turned on the water and waited for it to become lukewarm, I scoffed at the sound of the happy babble of pedestrians coming from the alleyway below. Birds chirped flamboyantly and, with more than a smidgen of irritation, I wondered what it would take for me to reach that level of happiness this early in the day.

"Ally! Ally, hurry up! Your coffee's getting cold!"

I smiled at the sound of Nanna Millie's voice and told her I'll be down soon. Then, I turned my face up towards the showerhead and let the patter of water soak my skin.

I stepped out of the shower, dripping onto the fluffy pink carpet. I wrapped myself in a large towel and pulled my hair up into a messy bun, tying a fancy scarf around it in a feeble attempt to look stylish. I put on the black trousers and pink blouse that Millie had left folded on the chair for me and slapped on some red lipstick before grabbing my bag and heading downstairs.

"Bonġu," I called out, reaching straight for the mug on the table. I downed the contents desperately. "Mm, your kafè is lifesaving, Nann," I sighed over the dreary newscaster's voice coming from the DAB radio on the refrigerator.

"Bil-mod! You'll spill it all over your shirt," Millie warned, wiping the counter top scrupulously.

The quaint kitchen was drenched in sunlight and the yellow curtains hung completely still despite the open window. It looked like it was going to be another hot day in sunny Malta.

I noticed the draining tray beside the sink sagging under the weight of countless pots and pans. A dish covered with a cloth sat perched on the cupboard and freshly diced vegetables gleamed on the chopping board, no doubt waiting to be transformed into some godly meal by Millie's magical hands. Glancing at the old wooden clock on the wall, I saw it was already twenty past eight.

"Well, I'm off. I have to pick up Sosa."

Millie's lips pursed with disdain. "You know, I get that the girl needed to be taught a lesson, but really..." She rested her hands on her hips and tutted disapprovingly. "It's been a month! And you're the one being punished, not her. Driving her all over the island... I'll have a word with Manwel if I see him."

"U ejja, Nann," I said, waving her off as I placed my empty mug in the sink. "It's fine. Their house is on the way to work and I'm sure it's only a matter of time before he lets her have the car back."

Secretly, I agreed with Nanna that this had gone on for too long. But I didn't like the idea of Millie confronting Sosa's dad in public, and it wasn't Millie I was worried about. My grandmother might be small, but there was a fire within that little body of hers that would make the knees of mighty giants tremble with fear.

I could just picture her 'having a word' with Mr Macho Mifsud in the middle of the all-seeing, all-telling streets of Bormla. More likely, she'd give him a piece of her mind and leave him cowering like a little boy.

"Don't you think he's being too hard on her?" Millie persisted. "So, she got a speeding ticket. So what? It's not like he's been crowned Safest Driver of the Year."

I pressed my lips together to suppress a laugh. "She was going over a hundred and thirty kilometres per hour on Saint Paul's bypass at three o'clock in the morning. In his car! You know how much he loves that BMW."

"More than he loves his youngest daughter?" she challenged.

"Exactly!" I sighed, kissing her on the cheek and slinging my bag over my shoulder. "I'll see you at around eight o'clock tonight, okay?"

She walked me to the front door. "Is fish soup okay for dinner? Carmen brought over some beautiful snappers this morning. Apparently, Pawlu and Silvio had a good catch."

Ah, that explained the dish. And the smell, now that she'd mentioned it. "Fish soup is great, Nann. Thanks."

I gave her a small wave and made my way down the alley steps to the narrow street below, where my battered blue Opel was loyally waiting for me.

Ten minutes later, I pulled up in front of Sosa's house and blared the horn. Out she came, bright and cheerful and looking amazing as always. A thin layer of make-up covered her face just enough to enhance a God-given beauty that was evident to anyone with at least one half-functioning eye. A wild mass of black curls framed her pretty features. Sosa had olive-toned skin and big brown eyes with long, lush lashes. She was quite tall for a Maltese girl, and much taller than me, yet people still found it hard to believe she was three years older. Mainly because she acted three years younger.

"Bonġu, Sanxajn," she greeted, plopping herself into the front seat and flinging her fake Louis Vuitton bag behind her. She pulled a face at Donna Summer's voice coming from my stereo and immediately started to flip through the stations as I drove off.

"I was listening to that you know. Singing to it, in fact. I was having my own personal concert," I added when she completely ignored me.

"Qow. Maj. Godd!" she exclaimed with an exaggerated Maltese accent that made everything sound rude. "You? Singing? This early in the morning? What happened? Did you get laid last night?" she mused, dusting my filthy dashboard with her hand and scowling at her fluff-covered fingers. "Jesus, you really need to clean your car."

I tossed a stray sweet wrapper at her in response. "Haha! Good morning, Ms Brightside. You okay?"

She looked at her phone. Her smile faltered. "Yeah, I guess so," she replied in a small voice. "I... uh... Derek and I broke up last night."

I slammed on the brakes, spotting a perfectly good parking space. The car behind me stopped with a screech. Looking in the rear-view mirror, I could almost hear the sweet old man inside his white Starlet swearing at me. He gave me the finger and overtook me aggressively.

"Why? What happened?" I asked as I squeezed my car into the tight space.

Sosa had a tendency of falling madly in love hard and fast. Then, when things start to get real, she'd get bored and ditch the poor bloke faster than a speeding bullet. Somehow, she'd managed to stick with Derek for over four months. So this was, you know, big.

"Well, actually... he broke up with me," she confessed.

Uh-oh. This changed things. Not a lot of men could say they'd walked away willingly from Stephanie Mifsud, a.k.a. Sosa. I saw tears well up in her eyes, even though she held her face down to hide it from me.

"He said he's not looking for a relationship and that I'm rushing things. Can you believe it?" she huffed in frustration. "I mean, I like him. A lot. But it's not like I'm pushing to get engaged, you know?"

She took her pocket mirror from my glove compartment and checked that her mascara was still intact - which, of course, it was. She blinked away her tears, smacked her lips together to fix her pink lip gloss, and then shoved the mirror back into the compartment with an air of finality.

Her dashing smile was back on her doll-like face as she chanted her favourite mantra. "No matter. Lip gloss on, worries gone."