Chapter 8 - the new girl in town: part 1

21.
"Have you seen that strange girl yet? You know, the redhead staying at the bakery."

The woman asking was in her early fifties. Short, with a pair of cat eye glasses perched on the bridge of her nose and a dollop of auburn dye painted into her hair. She was talking to another slightly younger, slightly taller, and far more impressive woman. One Niall immediately recognised as Caroline Kincaid

"Oh yes," answered Mrs. Kincaid. "Faye, wasn't it? A strange one that. You don't see her about much. I wonder where she might have come from. She doesn't look to be related to either Oscar or Maggie."

Having been sent in a hurry to the grocery store in order buy some urgently needed breakfast supplies for Mrs. Kendrick Niall, to his surprise, had gotten himself stuck in a queue on his way to the checkout. With little else to do he'd ended up listening in as a few feet behind him the aforementioned middle aged odd couple carried on a casual conversation. He hadn't meant to eavesdrop, but once Faye had been mentioned he couldn't help but perk up his ears.

"I heard they just found her out in the fields and took her in," giggled the older woman with the glasses.

"Don't be absurd," said Mrs. Kincaid, a wry smile on her thin lips. "Though, come to think of it, when I first saw her she did look to be wearing one of Annie's hand me downs, hopelessly huge on her of course, so I imagine she mustn't have had many clothes of her own. Still, say what you want, she certainly is a pretty little thing isn't she? I don't know that I've ever seen a girl so slender."

"Let's hope she doesn't start taking after Maggie too much then," grinned the woman with the glasses, holding her hand out over her midriff in a gesture meant to indicate a bulging belly.

"Don't be silly," said Mrs. Kincaid. "Though-" she paused "-every time you see her she does seem to be munching on something, doesn't she? Mind you, I suppose it'll take more than a couple of snacks for a girl like that to pile on the pounds."

"She's not the one I'd be worrying about anyways," the woman with the glasses grinned; "Little Annie's been getting pretty pudgy lately, don't you think?"

Considering the bespectacled older woman's statement Mrs. Kincaid nodded sagely.

"You've got a point there. It wouldn't surprise me at all if that girl ended up every bit as round as her mother."

Having at last paid for his groceries Niall, a smirk raising the corner of his mouth, hurried back towards the bakery. In the last few weeks he'd heard plenty of conversations just like the one between the two women at the grocery store. In a town as small and uneventful as Caulbury the arrival out of nowhere of a girl as beautiful and mysterious as Faye was bound to set some tongues wagging.

Back at the bakery Niall and Mrs. Kendrick both wasted little time putting their newly bought groceries to good use. A quarter of an hour later the scent of fresh pancakes wafted all through the upper floors of the tall house of yellow stone, carrying with it the message that breakfast was served.

First down was Faye. Recently out of bed, still draped in Annie's oversized nightgown, she bounded down the stairs. Having settled her slight, shapely bottom into her seat she grinned as Niall set a tall stack of pancakes down before her. Drawing a deep breath she let out an excited sigh as the scent of her unhealthy breakfast, drowned in a sticky ocean of syrup and crowned with a tall mountain of whipped cream, filled her nostrils.

When Annie arrived a few minutes later she did not react with quite the same enthusiasm to the calorie laden feast.

"Pancakes," she sighed, still sleepy, her hair a mess as she sluggishly walked into the kitchen; "are you trying to make me burst out of my pants or something?"

Rolling her eyes as she settled her juicy bottom onto the seat opposite her mother's the chunky girl nonetheless loaded a hefty helping onto her plate.

Everybody else already at the table Niall grabbed the chair beside Annie's, sitting himself down right across from Faye. As he munched slowly through his own moderate stack of pancakes he found himself silently scrutinizing the slender figure of the girl before him. Cheerfully smearing her lips with syrup and cream as she ate Faye didn't notice as Niall rested his gaze on her. Was it just his imagination, or was the girl looking a little fleshier than when he'd first found her?

Though still thin she no longer seemed quite as light and ethereal as she had then. Her loose gown made it hard to tell for sure, but her curves did look to have rounded out a little. Her face did look to have gotten a little fuller. It wasn't a big change. Had he not spent the last few weeks intently studying her Niall might well not have noticed. Still, it was undeniably real. The girl had, undeniably, put on weight.

A smile raising the corners of his mouth Niall's gaze drifted to the woman seated beside Faye. Maggie Kendrick, though a little slower and more dignified, was gobbling her pancakes down with the same obvious enthusiasm as the slender girl. Her second chin wobbling as she chewed, each bite brought a smile to her face. Looking at the two side by side Niall remembered the conversation he'd overheard earlier at the grocery store.

What might Faye look like at Maggie's size? What might she look like with a drooping belly and a wobbling second chin? It was a strange thing to imagine. The tiny, light footed girl was hardly even half as huge as the obese older woman seated beside her. The very notion that she might end up so wide and weighed down with fat seemed on the face of it absurd.

"Here," said Niall, heaping another helping onto the girl's still far from empty plate; "have some more."

Leaning back to watch as Faye stuffed more pancakes into her increasingly tightly packed tummy Niall failed to notice that he was not the only one at the table secretly studying the girl.