THE Guest
THE STORY SO FAR: Nora is having a hard time making ends meet since her former partner, David, vanished after borrowing her savings. When she went to his workplace, they told her that they’d never heard of him. Her younger sister, Elle, now lives with her and pays rent, and her boss, Stella, has agreed to let her work from home two days a week to save on petrol costs. Nora hears of a cleaning job and she agrees to work for Marie one day a week when she should be working from home, to make up the hours, and she’s turned her spare room into a B&B room. After having no guests all summer, a young woman, Jasmine, turns up with her little boy, Oscar. She wants to book the room for a week. But Nora has a niggling worry that letting strangers into her home might be another mistake.
Nora stood and watched Jasmine hanging up her washing to dry on the airer, thinking how lucky she was that she’d found such good guests for the room. It was only Wednesday, but Jasmine and Oscar had settled in well. If the little boy wasn’t watching Toy Story on television, he was running round the garden yelling, ‘To infinity and beyond! Look at me, Nora! I’m Buzz Lightyear!’
He made Nora laugh and there hadn’t been a lot to laugh about lately.
On Tuesday, when Nora worked from
