LITMIR.BIZ

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      ‘What’s this about crime?’ Jim looked from one daughter to the others, trying to keep up. After their mother had removed herself from the family unit when all three girls were little. Jim had assumed the role of sole referee of the whirlwind known as the Maynard sisters and was often left bewildered by their endless energy and the breakneck speed of their conversations.

      ‘Our little sister was almost arrested for shoplifting today,’ Guin said, groaning as she lowered herself carefully onto a chair by the kitchen table. Her blue eyes flashed with mischief as she pulled a hairband from her wrist and wound her wavy blonde hair into a loose bun at the nape of her neck. ‘Who’d have thought it, eh? Goody-Two-Shoes Elsie a criminal mastermind!’

      ‘It was a misunderstanding,’ Elsie protested. ‘I handled the situation.’

      ‘Really? You handled it?’ Daisy asked, eyebrows raised.

      ‘Yes,’ Elsie replied firmly, wishing again that she hadn’t informed them so comprehensively of the event in a string of texts that afternoon. ‘I had a lot on my mind and honestly thought I’d paid. It was obvious in the end that I had made a mistake.’

      ‘Oh.’ Jim handed out mugs of tea, not really sure how to respond to this revelation. ‘Well, we live and learn, eh?’

      Filled with a rush of love for her father, Elsie squeezed his hand as she accepted a mug from him. ‘We do. So you see, Dad, everything’s good now.’

      ‘I’m glad to hear it. Now, I did a bit of baking last night. Don’t suppose I can interest any of you girls in a slice of banana and walnut bread, can I?’

      This was met by a chorus of appreciation and, delighted, Jim opened an old Roses tin to serve up his recent culinary triumph. As he and Guin began to chat, Daisy grabbed Elsie’s hand and pulled her into the small hallway at the back of the kitchen.

      ‘So?’ she demanded, folding her slender arms and giving Elsie a classic Older Sister Stare.

      Elsie was having none of it. She had outfaced her eldest sister many times over the years and she wasn’t about to be intimidated by her today. ‘So what?’

      ‘You know what, Elsie Maynard. Why didn’t you mention the chap?’

      Elsie shrugged. ‘Dad didn’t need to know.’

      ‘How do you figure that? That handsome stranger saved you from being arrested, for heaven’s sake!’

      ‘Shh! Keep your voice down … And I never said he was handsome.’

      Dropping her voice to a harsh whisper, Daisy eyeballed her sister. ‘I beg to differ. Anyway, why are you so het up about this? It’s OK to admit you needed help, you know. It’s no reflection on you. It doesn’t mean you can’t cope or anything …’

      Elsie had heard enough. ‘Drop it, Dais! Let’s just … talk about something else for a bit.’

      Daisy relented and wrapped an arm around Elsie’s shoulder. ‘Fair enough, lovely. I’m sorry. So, was he fit?’

      ‘Daisy!’

      ‘Oh come on, Elsie, humour me!’

      ‘I suppose he was, in an annoying, waterproof way. I wasn’t looking too closely at the time.’

      An indeterminable look passed across Daisy’s face. ‘Good. That’s good.’

      Later, when the Maynards were sitting around the dining room table in the large, first-floor living room eating vegetable tagine with tabouleh and pearl couscous (a particular favourite of Jim’s), Elsie decided to announce the decision that she had been distracted by when she inadvertently became a lunchtime shoplifter. It had been on her mind all week, ever since she had decided to finally open the small, chocolate satin-covered box by her bed after eighteen months of waiting. This morning, she had made her decision: the first part of moving on …

      ‘Right, everyone, I’m glad you’re all here – and sitting down – because I’ve something I want to say.’ She smiled at the apprehensive looks of her nearest and dearest. ‘Don’t panic, it’s good news, I think.’ She took a breath to steady herself. ‘I’ve decided to start dating again.’

      ‘Oh Els …’ Guin’s face reddened and she burst into tears, much to the amusement of her sisters. Since she had discovered she was pregnant, the normally pragmatic middle Maynard sister had become an emotional wreck, sobbing uncontrollably at everything from songs on her car radio to television adverts for pet food and sofas. Laughing at her own emotional state, she accepted the box of tissues her father always kept close for such occasions and wiped her eyes. ‘Man, I am such a wuss! I hope all this sobbing isn’t going to traumatise my baby. I’m just so – happy for you, honey.’

      Jim reached across the table and took Elsie’s hand. ‘My brave girl. And you feel all right about it all?’

      Elsie could feel herself shaking, but she knew she was. ‘I’m terrified – I mean I’ve no idea how to go about it, or even how it’s done now – but it feels right.’

      ‘We can help,’ Daisy said, nodding furiously – a suggestion which slightly alarmed Elsie. Daisy prided herself on being a bit of a matchmaker, even though several of her match-ups for friends had ended in dreadful dates and acrimonious splits. But then, as Elsie reasoned, when you were as effortlessly gorgeous as Daisy Maynard with a successful career and a wealthy property developer boyfriend, what would you really understand about the perils of dating?

      ‘Promise me one thing, darling: steer clear of those dreadful dating sites,’ Jim interjected, his assertion eliciting shock from his three daughters. ‘No, I’m serious. I signed up for two of them last year and they were most disappointing.’

      The unexpected revelation of Jim’s secret online dating history temporarily hijacked the conversation, and Elsie allowed herself to relax a little as the incredulous reaction flowed around her. After this week’s apprehension of telling her family what she was planning, she now felt strangely peaceful. It was the right decision and it was an important one.

       I love you because you’re brave and strong

       and you always know what to do.

       xx

      It was the first message in the pile stacked neatly inside the former chocolate box the subject of Number 50 on The List:

      50. Read the box messages – all of them.

      It had taken Elsie eighteen months to bring herself to open it, the thought of its unread contents strangely comforting. When she made the decision last Monday to fulfil the last-but-one item on The List, it had felt like being reunited with an old friend. And as soon as she read the first message, Elsie knew it was the right time. The message made perfect sense – and instantly she knew what to do.

      ‘Wow,’ said Cher Pettinger, owner of Sundae & Cher, when Elsie told her the news a week after the shoplifting incident. ‘And you’re sure you’re ready to dive into the shark-infested dating waters again?’

      Elsie pulled a face. ‘Well, when you put it like that, how can I resist?’

      ‘No, no, that’s not what I meant,’ Cher shook her head, the tall ebony beehive atop it shaking wildly. ‘It’s just, you know, when you’ve three divorces under your belt like me the whole dating scene becomes more of a moron-dodging exercise than anything else.’

      Elsie smiled at her boss, noting again how at odds her lack of dating success was with the confident forty-something dressed head to toe in vintage Dior. ‘I’ll bear that in mind. How is the latest flame?’

      Cher grimaced as she dropped a newly mixed tub of house speciality Apple, Cinnamon and Nutmeg ice cream into the glass-fronted display cabinet. ‘He was looking promising until I realised he still lived with his mother. Forty-two years old and still sleeping in

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