‘Sshhh, you don’t want the whole town to know,’ Maggie said as people resumed their conversations.

‘I think the whole town does know. Did a message get put out on the town’s emergency text system?’

‘Look, everyone cares, this is the first date that you’ve had in eight years, we all want it to go well.’

‘Can I not just screw it up on my own? Whether it does or doesn’t go well is not going to depend on my hair or whether I have smooth legs or sexy underwear.’

‘But those things will certainly help.’

‘Maggie, I love you, but butt out.’

‘Nonsense. If you loved me, you’d let me help you. Now eat up, your hair appointment is in fifteen minutes.’

‘I’m not having my hair done.’

Why was Penny arguing against having her hair done? She’d been meaning to have it cut for ages.

‘Come on, just a little trim. A cut and blow-dry. It’s free,’ Maggie wheedled.

‘Fine, but I’m not having a wax or buying sexy underwear.’

‘Well, see how you feel after your hair appointment.’

Penny sighed as she finished off her sandwich and then Maggie bustled her out the door, almost frogmarching her along the high street.

‘I need to stop at the chemist first, I need a new toothbrush. I won’t be a minute,’ Penny said, abandoning Maggie outside.

‘Don’t think you can escape out the back door, Penny Meadows,’ Maggie called after her as she sat down on the bench. ‘I have spies everywhere.’

Penny didn’t doubt it. She hurried along the aisles until she found the toothbrushes and was just trying to decide which one to buy when a lady came running up and perused the shelves next to her.

‘It’s so hard to know what to get, isn’t it,’ the lady said.

‘I know,’ Penny smiled politely. A firm toothbrush seemed a bit scary but soft probably wouldn’t do the job properly.

‘I like the ribbed ones though.’ The lady winked at her and grabbed a box off the nearby shelf and ran off towards the tills.

Penny glanced at the shelf next to the toothbrushes in confusion and realised she was staring at a huge range of condoms. Words like Excite, Tickle, Pleasure, Extra Safe, Mutual Pleasure, Ultra Thin, Latex Free, Extra Large and Intimate Feel leapt out at her from the shelves in an array of multi-coloured boxes. There were also different lubricants that were flavoured, warming or tingling and one that promised to be orgasm-enhancing. Sex had moved on a long way since the quick shags she’d had with Chris. He always handled the contraception side of things, until that one drunken night when he obviously hadn’t.

Suzanna, the old lady who ran the pharmacy, came bustling over and Penny quickly tried to look away from the condoms before Suzanna saw her, but she was too late.

‘It’s tricky, isn’t it, dear, but if I were you I’d get the extra-large, that Henry looks like he’s hung like a horse.’

Penny felt her cheeks flush blood red. ‘I was looking at toothbrushes.’

‘Of course you were, dear.’ Suzanna picked a big box of extra-large condoms off the shelf and pressed them into Penny’s hands, then escorted her to the tills. ‘I have a load of free condoms from the family planning clinic we’re supposed to give to the teenagers if they come asking for advice or any of that sort of thing. Why don’t I give you a few of those too?’

Suzanna opened a drawer near the till and grabbed a huge handful of different condoms, shoving them into a paper bag. ‘There’s the extra safe ones in there and some of the thinner ones, plus some flavoured ones too. The strawberry isn’t very nice but the chocolate is lovely, tastes almost like the real thing. These are all in date, dear, so you don’t need to worry about that.’

She grabbed another huge handful and that went into the bag too.

Penny looked around at the other shoppers who were watching the exchange in interest. She couldn’t find any words at all to get out of this situation or laugh it away.

‘Here, you put those extra-large ones in here, they’re on the house,’ Suzanna said, taking the box off her and putting it into the now bulging paper bag.

‘I… it’s only our first date, I wasn’t planning on…’

‘Of course not, dear, but you know, maybe the second date or the third. Don’t keep him waiting too long though, dear, poor love will have testicles the size of watermelons otherwise.’

Penny grabbed her bag and ran out. Maggie hauled herself off the bench and waddled over.

‘Took you long enough, what did you get?’ Maggie eyed the bulging bag.

‘Suzanna made me get some condoms and if you say one word about that I swear I’ll pin you down and shave your eyebrows, pregnant or not, Maggie Stone.’

Maggie made a zipping her lips shut gesture, but Penny could see she was trying really hard not to laugh.

‘Come on, Natalie will be waiting,’ Maggie said, nobly.

Still dying with embarrassment, Penny thought it couldn’t possibly get worse than that.

Chapter Twelve

Henry strode around the back of the house, whistling to himself. He had never looked forward to a date before as much as he was looking forward to his night with Penny. And it came with an almost guarantee of no sex, unlike his other dates which were almost always guaranteed to end there. Bizarrely, he didn’t care. He wanted to make love to Penny, he couldn’t deny that, but it wasn’t the end goal as it had been with other women. With Penny he wanted to get to know her more than anything, he wanted to spend time with her and make her laugh like she’d laughed that morning. He wanted to share himself with her, the good stuff and the bad, the small and the big. He’d bumped into an old man in town and had an interesting chat with him and Henry wanted to tell her about that too.

He peered through her back door to see if she was around and was surprised to see her pacing nervously around the kitchen. Maybe she was just nervous about the date. She had really big hair too, as if she had been in a wind tunnel but on closer inspection it appeared it had been specifically styled that way.

He opened the door and let himself in. She looked at him with a terrified expression on her face. Was she having second thoughts about their date? He decided to ignore the big hair, as he certainly didn’t want her to feel self-conscious about it, and just start a casual conversation with her to try to distract her from her nerves.

‘I had an interesting conversation with someone in town…’

Penny groaned. ‘I’m so so sorry. I don’t know how it all started. It just snowballed out of control. They all know, everyone does. Apparently it’s the most exciting thing that’s happened in White Cliff Bay for years. I was the subject of a book club meeting for Christ’s sake. There was a plan hatched. I had no idea. And then I went to buy a toothbrush and they just happened to be next to the condom section. And I did look at them, but not for us, just because I was intrigued to see there were so many different types. The next thing Suzanna comes over and she starts talking to me about them and said that you needed extra-large and that it was best to have a range for our first time. I was mortified, but she wouldn’t let me leave without taking some. Then Maggie took me to have my hair done and look at it, I look like an eighties porn star, it’s huge and all I wanted was a trim. Before I could escape, Christine from the beauty place turns up and escorted me back to the salon, I told her that I didn’t want anything but she wouldn’t listen to my rebuttals and quite frankly she scares me, the next thing she is ripping hair from almost every single part of my body, my eyebrows, my legs, my bikini line, honestly I’m as bald as a coot down there now and it’s chilly, believe me. And as I left, Monica from Silk & Lace was already waiting for me and whisked me off to her shop and persuaded me to buy some sexy lingerie. I’ve never bought sexy lingerie in my life and I now have two pairs of lacy pants with matching bras and tiny little rosebuds on them and a pair of black satin shorts that barely cover my bum embroidered with silver snowflakes and some kind of matching camisole top. Look.’