Seven Days of the Week: Friends Receive an Invitation That Changes Their Lives.

By Wilma Hayes

SEVEN DAYS OF THE WEEK

Starting with the poem Monday's Child, it was easy to form characters - all with different perspectives on life, happiness and success. It was merely a matter then, of bringing them all together for a greater purpose and watching what happened. The stories all happen on one day and gently progress to the evening and the reasons why they are all there.

Monday's Child is fair of face: We meet Melanie, a fashion model who is facing time. What will happen to her when her short-lived career is finished?
Tuesday's Child is full of grace: In this chapter we get to know Tuesday, known as Tew. She has been carrying a deep love that she has never been able to express. Perhaps now...
Wednesday's Child is full of woe: There is always that one person who lives in and loves disappointment and despair whether real or imagined. Wendy is just such a woman.
Thursday's Child has far to go: Theda is the reason why they have all come to this meeting of old school chums. It is not a reunion; it is a cry for help.
Friday's Child is loving and giving: Faith would have been expected to have the greatest success in life. Instead, she got married and nothing was the same again.
Saturday's Child works hard for a living: Sadie was a deep socialist at school, but in the real world became a capitalist. She's hated every minute of it.
Sunday's Child is bonny, blithe, good and gay: Sophie is still a student. She feels safer there and facing the world outside academia is daunting and terrifying.
But Theda needs them all. They, in turn, need something to change in their lives.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Wilma Hayes
• Release date: Sep 17, 2019
• ISBN: 9780995787070

Wilma Hayes

'The Welsh Marches is an evocative place. Full of mystery, history, and tiny old houses, it leads easily into Wales - a perfect place to write and to set romantic novels with mysteries and crimes embedded in them.'This is how Wilma summarises the inspiration for her four novels in the Welsh Marches series and the forty-nine short stories which follow and make up Sevens, Stories to Commute By.Luckily for her, she was able to escape to this scenic area and begin to write. It is not a gift that many people are given, but with a tiny cottage of her own, an accompanying cottage garden and a husband who is handy with a computer and a coffee pot, the opportunity was too good to ignore.

Book preview

SEVEN DAYS OF THE WEEK

by Wilma Hayes

A short novella concerning some friends who receive an invitation that changes their lives.

SEVEN DAYS OF THE WEEK

by Wilma Hayes

Published by Wilma Hayes at Smashwords

Copyright 2019

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favourite ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

ISBN 978-0-9957870-7-0

All Kinds of Seven

Whoever thought that writing forty-nine short stories was a good idea needs to lie down in a dark room for a short while until it passes. That would be me, and I didn’t.

Seven is a lovely number and when I began these it seemed like an achievable task. The first little novella was quite good fun. I think you can see how it progressed from there and soon seven little novellas with seven chapters or stories each became the goal. It was a long slog.

The stories or chapters are all of similar length and I thought that they would make nice stories for a commute taking 10 to 15 minutes each, so 2 in a 20 or 30 minute commute and so on. Or a short or longer tea break if you prefer! Naturally everyone reads at different rates, so these times are my best guess.

Some of the stories in each set are like chapters in a book, in that one logically follows the other; some are quite individual tales but with commonality. None of them follow the Seven theme too strictly, but stories are like that; they wander off piste from time to time.

Naturally, I like some stories better than others and I am sure you will too. But I hope that they will help your commute to work or give you a few minutes for a cuppa.

See www.wilmahayes.co.uk for more information about me or other books.

Wilma Hayes

SEVEN DAYS OF THE WEEK

Starting with the poem Monday's Child, it was easy to form characters - all with different perspectives on life, happiness and success. It was just a matter then, of bringing them all together for a greater purpose and watching what happened. The stories all take place on one day and gently progress to the evening and the reasons why they are all there.

Monday's Child is fair of face: We meet Melanie, a fashion model who is facing time. What will happen to her when her short-lived career is finished?

Tuesday's Child is full of grace: In this story we get to know Tuesday, known as Tew. She has been carrying a deep love that she has never been able to express. Perhaps now...

Wednesday's Child is full of woe: There is always that one person who lives in and loves disappointment and despair whether real or imagined. Wendy is just such a woman.

Thursday's Child has far to go: Theda is the reason why they have all come to this meeting of old school chums. It is not a reunion; it is a cry for help.

Friday's Child is loving and giving: Faith would have been expected to have the greatest success in life. Instead, she got married and nothing was the same again.

Saturday's Child works hard for a living: Sadie was a deep socialist at school, but in the real world became a capitalist. She's hated every minute of it.

Sunday's Child is bonny, blithe, good and gay: Sophie is still a student. She feels safer there and facing the world outside academia is daunting and terrifying.

But Theda needs them all. They, in turn, need something to change in their lives.

Wilma Hayes

Table of Contents

Monday's Child

Tuesday's Child

Wednesday's Child

Thursday's Child

Friday's Child

Saturday's Child

Sunday's Child

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Monday’s Child is fair of face

Melanie

Seeing my own face three meters high on a billboard is startling even after all these years.

How did they ever get my hair that perfect, brown and flowing? No doubt it was some geek in the back room with a computer. But the vision was not one I want to dwell on. I've had my fill of geeky men trying to impress. I turn my face further into the train window – not in anticipation of the next three-meter high, photo-shopped advertisement, but to minimize the chances of anyone else on board connecting the fleeting vision and me together. I never expected that being the face of the French perfumery would mean seeing myself on that scale. You'd think after ten years I’d be used to it. Why didn’t I wear a hat today? I want to hide and be myself, no one else, just myself and so I settle into fear for myself and the time to come. The unknown.

People who catch my eye, give me that I-think-I-might-know-you smile as they pass by and I return my vague no-I’m-just-being-polite smile but so far no one has taken the first step of asking if they’ve met me. When the questioner is male, I try not to be ill-mannered. I do have some social graces not just catwalk smiles. But too often what starts out as simple curiosity becomes a chat up line that’s annoying beyond my ability to tolerate it. I’ll do my own picking up thank you very much.

This journey seems unending. Is this the reality of infinity? I’m dying for a fag, but this is a no smoking train. The whole damn universe is a no smoking zone these days. Anyway, it’s no good for the skin. And I gave up twelve years ago. But that doesn’t stop me wanting one. How much longer do I have to sit on this bloody train?

I doubt that any of the smiles that I receive are ever meant to go deeper. A smile to the real me. Now that would be a change. No, it would be a bloody miracle. The agent smiles because he sees the designers’ rags, he can hang on me. The modelling agency looks at how tall I am, how much I weigh and smiles. The hairdresser tuts over my hair. Maybe we can pin this part up. Or let this curl fold just here, see? Is it too long or too short or too...there’s always something not quite right. But he smiles. The make-up technician (thinking back, the best one was Herman in Munich or somewhere) looks at my eyes. Lift or darken? Concealer underneath. No, a little more darling. Cheekbones? We can improve this or cover that or highlight something else. The photographer looks at my hips and the bones in my face. None of them seem to know there’s a person behind all that – me – just me. A walking bloody clothes hanger and I'm getting older I know, I know.

God, I can depress myself if I keep this up. It’s starting to rain – smearing the glass so it is difficult to see outside. Not a huge loss; there isn’t a lot to see in foggy old Blighty this time of year and the train is going too fast to see the wild spring flowers. Why oh why am I doing this? Because I promised. Because at my age I need to. It’s too early for civilized people to be awake. It must be close to ten. The trip can't be much longer. An hour perhaps? Then I will be forced to smile again. But for real this time.

‘Mel?’ Here we go again. I look up. But this time the face is familiar. She’s slim, quite spare, dark with a high forehead, brown lustrous skin. I am trained to notice things like that.

‘Tuesday?’ She sits down beside me, pushing her case under the table so I can't get out. ‘I thought it was you. But it’s hard to be sure when you’re in mufti.’ We exchange light professional hugs.

For