A Beginner's Guide To Christmas

Bonus Extract: A Beginner's Guide To Salad

PROLOGUE

Ten years ago

Ruth's hand shook as she applied a coat of the lipstick she'd swiped from her mother's dressing table. She should have asked to borrow it, really but she never wore make-up and didn't want anyone to know why she needed to tonight. Vera would have been thrilled her eighteen-year-old daughter was finally going on a date - and that was the problem. It was Ruth's first date and she wasn't entirely sure he would show up. 

Imagine the humiliation of being stood up and everybody knowing about it! 

How did the date go, love? It didn't. I sat in the restaurant with your too-bright pink lipstick zigzagged across my gob and waited on my own until closing time. Thanks for asking, Mum. Goodnight. 

Ruth paused, lipstick hovering in front of her face while she gave her reflection a good talking to. Zack would show up. They had a connection, a real connection, and it didn't matter that he'd been cruel towards her throughout their school lives. It wasn't Zack's fault - everyone had been cruel to her. It was what happened when you were the fat kid. People teased you, they called you names - and inventive ones like Fat Twat (rhyming), The Jelly Green Giant (word play) and Mrs Blobby (Noel Edmonds had a lot to answer for) - and they excluded you from absolutely everything. School had been hell for Ruth. She'd never been physically bullied, but the name-calling had been relentless. She didn't have any friends, unless you counted her older brother, Stephen and his best friend. Stephen and Billy had always stuck up for Ruth as best as they could, but they were older than Ruth and had moved away to the other side of Manchester for university so she didn't see them very often anymore. 

And they didn't really count as friends. Ruth knew that deep down. 

She wished she had a friend more than anything, even more than she wanted a boyfriend. A real friend to share secrets with, to joke with and to swap make-up tips with. She could use a friend right now, judging by the mess she'd made of her lips. Lipstick was smeared beyond her lip line and was it... yes, it was on her teeth. Panic bubbled from her gut and spread throughout her body. She lifted her wrist to check the time. Relax, relax, relax. Deep breaths. She wasn't due to meet Zack at the restaurant for another twenty minutes and, as she was already camped out in the restaurant's loo, she had plenty of time to sort her face out. 

After removing the lipstick with a damp tissue, Ruth took a chest-achingly deep breath and tried again, this time smoothing the lipstick over her puckered lips almost perfectly. It needed a touch up here and there, but all in all it was a vast improvement. Shame about the colour, but beggars couldn't be choosers and all that. 

Ruth blew her reflection a kiss before she headed back into the restaurant and to the table the waitress had already seated her at. The restaurant was quiet, with only three other tables occupied but that could have been down to a number of factors: the restaurant being way out of town, the questionable d\u00e9cor and mismatched furniture, or the unidentifiable whiff about the place, which was somewhere between cat piss and BO. But to Ruth it was perfect. This was the setting of her first date and with Zack O'Connell too. Zack had been the most popular boy in her year and she'd always had an (obviously unrequited) crush on him. Zack had mostly ignored her during their fourteen-year acquaintance and when he had spoken to her, it was only to throw jibes her way. It had been only a few weeks ago that he'd snarled 'fuck off, fatso' when she'd asked him to sign her shirt on their last day of school, but here she was, waiting for him to wine and dine her. 

Wasn't it funny how life worked out? How a simple walk through the park with your elderly neighbour's dog could change your life. Ruth hadn't expected to run into Zack and his friends in the park and when she had, she'd turned and stumbled away in the opposite direction. But Zack had caught up with her and asked if they could talk.