The New Girl Read Online Free PDF Page A

together in groups. Lila’s stomach clenched again.
    â€œYou would tell me if I smelled, wouldn’t you?” she muttered.
    Polly sighed. “Eve’s word is law around here. Ignore them. I’ll take you to the beach to take your mind off things. I often go to the sea when I’m feeling down. It’s really soothing.”
    The walk to the beach took Lila’s mind off her problems. The houses by the sea were all different sizes and shapes, with several old fisherman’s cottages that had been turned into boutique bed and breakfasts and cute holiday cottages for couples who came to Heartside Bay to get married and enjoy themselves in Britain’s most romantic town.
    â€œThe Old Town is cute,” Polly said, noticing Lila’s gaze, “but no one really lives here full time. It can flood during bad winter storms. You live up by the cliffs, right?”
    â€œHow did you know?” said Lila in surprise.
    Polly shrugged. “Everyone lives up here. Let’s take these steps. They go down to the beach.”
    Seaside towns in winter felt a little sad, Lila thought. Even tourist traps like Heartside Bay had a February melancholy about them. It matched her mood. Most of the ice-cream parlours and arcades along the front were closed for the winter. The pier was shuttered up as well. The Grand Hotel loomed over everything, its Regency walls and windows as pink and white as a frosted cupcake.
    Lila’s eyes were drawn to the fine white sand stretching out into the grey sea, gently ruffled by the outgoing tide. Gulls wheeled overhead in the chilly air.
    â€œWelcome to Bottom Bay,” Polly joked.
    Lila laughed. “You think it looks like a bum too? I felt bad for thinking that!”
    â€œYou have to be blind not to see the similarity,” Polly grinned.
    Lila noticed someone perched on a wall by the foot of the pier. Josh Taylor’s chestnut-coloured head was bent over a sketchbook, his chin tucked into a scarf that he wore tightly wound round his neck to keep out the cold. He was alone.
    â€œDoesn’t that guy ever stop drawing?” she asked a little waspishly.
    Polly followed Lila’s gaze. “Josh Taylor is our local mystery. He’s perfectly nice, and clever too, as you’ve probably figured out. But he’s really private. No one knows much about him. He lives with his grandfather somewhere in the Old Town. He’s always down here by himself, sketching.”
    Lila felt a reluctant glimmer of kinship with Josh Taylor. It sounded like he was as much of an outsider as she was.
    â€œI thought you said no one lived in the Old Town,” she said.
    â€œThat’s typical of Josh. Doing stuff no one else does.”
    Lila remembered Ollie’s remarks in the corridor earlier. “Ollie thinks he’s pompous.”
    â€œDon’t take anything Ollie says too seriously,” said Polly. “Now I’m going to show you something to cheer you up.”
    She pointed out of the curving harbour, to a tiny island. Lila stared at it.
    â€œWhat’s so special about a lump of rock?” she asked curiously.
    â€œThat lump of rock is called Kissing Island. You can only walk to it when the tides are just right. It’s Heartside legend that if you kiss your true love on Kissing Island at midnight of a full moon, you will be together for ever.”
    How romantic , Lila thought, jolted out of herself.
    She had loved Santiago, or thought she had, but he had never felt like a true love – not like the kind that Polly was describing. She gazed at the little island with fresh eyes, and imagined a full moon, the light shining on the sea, and a gorgeous guy’s lips coming in for the ultimate kiss. Ollie’s, maybe. She put her hand into her pocket, feeling the mystery note lying snuggled up against the lining.
    â€œImagine,” Polly sighed.
    â€œI am,” Lila sighed back.
    A shaft of sunlight broke through the