Seeing RED
Mum, this is Ellie.’ Jamie flashed a wide grin.
Ellie, I knew the name. He’d avoided her for years in school. One of the popular girls, she’d led a pack of nine. They’d laughed at him, called him names and threatened to join his freckles up with a marker pen. They’re things you never forget. ‘Hello, Ellie. I’m surprised to see you here. I assume you’ve heard the news. Did you see it online or in the local paper?’
‘What news, Mrs Cromer?’
She was smart to play dumb, but I knew the reason for her sudden interest in my boy.
‘The photo shoot news?’ I stroked a hand down my own red hair. I’d always blamed genetics for the amount of teasing Jamie suffered. At last, his looks had proved an advantage.
‘The trip to the Canary Islands and Iceland,’ I went on. ‘The other ticket? The plus-one who can tag along?’
Jamie, with a little help from me, since his dad had left years ago, had sent in some photos to Simon Williams Stewart, a photographer he called it. He put a big ad in a national newspaper and online, asking for redheads to send in photos of themselves.
