The Break Up: The perfect heartwarming romantic comedy

by Tilly Tennant

Lara gave her reflection a sad shake of her head. She’d lost twice over tonight, because there was no way she could be friends with Siobhan again. She couldn’t decide if that might hurt more than what Lucien had done, but she thought that maybe it did. His departure had cost her a year of her life, but Siobhan’s meant almost all of Lara’s adult life was now tainted with memories that she could never look on fondly again.

  With a final sigh, she went to the bedroom to get her towelling bathrobe.

  Feeling at least a little warmer and dryer, if not more optimistic, Lara went to the kitchen and switched the kettle on. She needed a good strong coffee to clear the last of the alcohol from her system; maybe then she might be able to focus a little more clearly on the situation. She wasn’t about to fall apart over that prat, no matter how she might want to sit and cry. What she was going to do was exactly the opposite of what he and his stuck-up parents would expect.

  She’d talked about starting her own business ever since she’d met him and he’d always just laughed, or told her ‘Good for you’ in a patronising tone. He’d been derogatory about her job at the call centre and his parents had almost spluttered out their Earl Grey when they’d found out what she did for a living, but still he had hardly been encouraging in any bid she might have made to change.

  Lara suspected now that although he’d looked down on her job, he hadn’t been keen for her to better herself because then he would have had no reason to look down on her and he rather liked to – it was just another reason to feel superior. She wondered if that might even be why he’d gone out with her for so long. Maybe it was a power thing, a way to keep her in line. So, was that what was happening with Siobhan too? Her job as a secretary in a builders’ merchant’s was hardly more glamorous than Lara’s and she couldn’t imagine his parents looking any more kindly on it than they had on hers.

  Whatever – none of it mattered now. Now he was out of the picture and Lara needed something to think about other than him and her best friend. What else was she supposed to do with her time? What better way to get over a rough break-up than to get her life back on track as soon as she could? Not only back on track but bigger, more spectacular and more successful than it had ever been. Why not show the world that there was more to Lara Nightingale than her boyfriend? If she got it right, Lucien dumping her for Siobhan might just turn out to be the biggest favour he could ever have done for her. As for Siobhan… well, Lara tried not to think about that. Boyfriends might not matter but best friends did, and they weren’t so easy to come by – at least in Lara’s experience.

  As she stood and stared out at the darkness beyond her kitchen window waiting for the kettle to boil and planning her future, she heard a faint sound. Distant, sort of plaintive… coming from outside maybe? A cat?

  She switched off the bubbling kettle to quieten it while she listened again. There it was once more, clearer now – definitely a cat.

  Cupping her hands around her eyes, she peered out of the window to see if she could see anything but the garden was too dark. So she rushed to open the back door and it almost tumbled in. It must have been sitting on the step, and Lara couldn’t decide which of the two of them looked more surprised to be face to face – her or the cat.

  One thing was certain: it was as bedraggled as she’d been when she’d returned from her walk in the rain. It was bold too, because if it had been startled by suddenly finding itself in her kitchen, it didn’t show any sign of wanting to run away. In fact, it simply looked up at her expectantly with huge green eyes. It looked very hungry to Lara.

  ‘I wonder where you’ve been,’ she said thoughtfully as she ran a hand down the cat’s bony spine. Its coat was sodden but that didn’t bother her. The cat began to purr and rub up against her leg, prompting her to tickle behind its ears. ‘I bet you wouldn’t say no to a nice bowl of tuna, would you?’

  It took a moment to find the tin in the cupboard. As soon as the smell was released into the air, the cat started to weave in and out, round and round Lara’s ankles as she tipped it into a saucer.

  ‘There you go.’

  The cat fell upon the meal, purring all the while.

  ‘You’d be a handsome devil with a bit of weight on you and a good groom,’ Lara continued as the cat ate. It was a grey tabby with hair a little longer and shaggier than the usual street cat but not quite as long as some of the posher breeds she’d come across.

  Now that she looked closer she could see that it was more of a kitten really, barely into adulthood. She had to wonder if someone had lost it. As a girl, her family had owned a Russian Blue, a beautiful but temperamental little blighter, and Lara thought that perhaps there was a bit of Russian Blue in this one. It was far friendlier than her childhood pet, though, which she’d later learned was quite uncharacteristic of a usually affectionate breed. Trust her family to get the one diva amongst them.

  It didn’t take long for the cat to clear the plate and look up at her again.

  ‘No more tuna, I’m afraid,’ Lara said, stroking it again. ‘I can do milk…’

  Going to the fridge now, the cat following, she took the milk out and poured some into another shallow dish. This went almost as quickly as the tuna, and so Lara filled the bowl again, smiling as it went in for seconds.

  ‘Maybe all I need to make a new friend is a never-ending supply of milk.’

  The cat looked up and then walked over, weaving around her legs again. She bent to fuss it. ‘Will you be my new friend?’ she asked. The cat’s purr seemed to get louder, echoing around the tiny kitchen.

  She was hurting, of course, about the whole Lucien and Siobhan thing, more than she’d admit even to herself. But here was this lost little soul with far bigger problems than hers.

  She scrubbed behind its ear, sending it into raptures of pleasure. Her own childhood cat, Bluey (imaginative name, she recalled dryly), had always loved that; in fact, it was the only sort of affection he would tolerate for more than a minute before getting bored and stalking off.

  ‘Well,’ she said, glancing up at the window as a flash of lightning lit up the sky, ‘you can’t go back out in this – you’ll drown. You’re more than welcome to stay and snuggle down with me until the rain stops. I suppose we’ll have to ask around in the morning too, see if you belong to anyone.’

  The cat looked up now, almost as if it was taking in every word. And as she stood up and made her way into the living room, it followed, leaping onto her lap as she got comfortable on the sofa and curling up there to sleep.

  Reaching over carefully so as not to disturb her new guest, Lara pulled a notebook from a little side table next to the sofa. She opened it up to a page covered in doodles and notes and looked them over. They were plans for nothing in particular, schemes she’d thought would probably never become real, dreamt up on countless idle Sundays. At the top of the page she’d drawn a heart surrounded by flowers and birds and she’d written the name of the business she’d always longed to start up: Songbird Wedding Services. What was that old saying: When life gives you lemons, make lemonade?

  In her lap, the little cat stretched long before curling to settle again. Lara smiled fondly and ran a hand down fur that she quickly decided she might have a go at cleaning up later – if the cat would let her, of course. She hoped so. She was beginning to hope that it wouldn’t want to leave after the rain had stopped and that she wouldn’t find a rightful owner. Love at first sight might not be something she’d ever experienced with a man, but Lara was beginning to think that cats might be a very different matter.

  Two

  ‘If she doesn’t like any of these venues then there’s no hope!’

  Betsy frowned at her computer screen, and Lara looked up from some notes she was making at the opposite desk. A year had gone by since the night Lucien had dropped his bombshell, a year during which she’d been single, heartbroken and minus one best friend. But it hadn’t all been bad. It was also a year since a certain handsome blue tabby had come into her life and a year since sh
e’d quit her call-centre job, cleared out her savings (such as they were) and sold practically anything of value she could find – old heirlooms, pieces of jewellery, collectible pottery that her mother had given to her – to raise funds to start the business she’d dreamt of – Songbird Wedding Services.

  Even on days when the memories of what Lucien and Siobhan had done to her hurt, she counted her blessings, and every day she gave everything she had to this new life. And as time went by, the hurt became a little less raw, a little more manageable, though she had to admit that she was still some way off being completely healed.

  ‘Maybe we’ll have to look further afield,’ she said vaguely.

  ‘Further afield? We live in Chester! Everywhere you look is history and gorgeousness! It’s a fussy cow who can’t find a building here to like!’

  ‘Maybe she wants something much more non-traditional,’ Lara continued serenely. She was getting used to Betsy’s impatient outbursts – and they never lasted very long anyway.

  For the most part, her assistant was a sweet and cheerful girl, fresh out of a travel and tourism course at college. Apart from role playing in class, she hadn’t had very much experience of the world of customer service yet. She’d learn soon enough that there was often no rhyme or reason why a client wanted this or that thing; you only had to know that they did, and it was your job to try and make their dreams come true.

  Despite her impatience, she was proving to be a very promising trainee and Lara was becoming increasingly comfortable trusting her with more and more responsibility. She was quick to learn and engaging with clients, and patience would come with practice, as would the standard-issue coat hanger you had to shove in your mouth to keep your smile in place.

  ‘Did you ask her about that?’

  ‘Of course I did – full profile and everything!’ Betsy looked as if she might explode with frustration, but then appeared to get a grip on herself, as Lara had predicted she would. ‘Apparently she doesn’t take any notice of her own taste because everything she said she liked is right here in the list of venues I made for her and she’s stuck her nose up at every one.’

  Lara gave a vague shrug. ‘It’s a bride’s prerogative. You can’t apply logic in this situation – it’ll feel right for her when it feels right. Throw some curveballs in there.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘I don’t know… Try her with a river barge or the amphitheatre or something; see how she reacts to something like that. You might get some surprising responses. And if she doesn’t like any of them then getting suggestions that really turn her off might help her focus on what she does want a little better. She’s probably just overwhelmed with choice – it often happens. What’s her fiancé got to say about it, or is he just keeping out of things?’

  ‘He pretty much sits in silence – probably too scared to voice an opinion on anything.’

  Lara looked up with a small smile. ‘She can’t be that bad.’

  ‘She’s nice enough, just…’

  ‘Hard to please?’ Lara arched an eyebrow.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well, I suppose it’s her day and she’s entitled to be as choosy as she likes.’

  ‘I bet you wouldn’t make all this fuss,’ Betsy said, starting to rifle through a pile of magazine clippings spread over her desk. ‘Being in the business and everything, you know what it’s like from the other side – how hard it is to give couples their dream wedding.’

  ‘Well,’ Lara replied, a sudden feeling of irritation sweeping over her, ‘I’m not likely to find out any time soon.’

  Betsy, seeming to sense that she’d said the wrong thing, bent her head over the clippings and pursed her mouth shut. Of course, Betsy couldn’t know what she’d said wrong, and perhaps Lara should have tried harder to keep her personal life away from the office, but it was proving difficult. It was only that morning that the grapevine’s sprawling tendrils of news had dropped the bombshell that Lucien and Siobhan were engaged. A Facebook post by a friend of a friend to be exact.

  Lara didn’t even know why she ought to care. She had no love left for Lucien and even less for her ex-best friend. Perhaps it was the niggling sense of humiliation that she’d never really been able to shake, the idea that mutual friends and acquaintances gossiped and pitied her behind her back.

  If anyone asked her about it she’d tell them that she wished Lucien and Siobhan all the best and she’d mean it – truly she would. They probably wouldn’t believe her though, and she wouldn’t blame them.

  Not that she’d be able to tell Siobhan or Lucien that she wished them well. Since the big reveal they’d – perhaps predictably and sensibly – steered clear of any contact with Lara. Lucien wouldn’t have cared less about how Lara was taking it, but Siobhan, Lara guessed, would have been too deeply ashamed to see her. Perhaps it was just as well, because Lara couldn’t honestly say how she would have reacted had they been faced with each other – certainly not in the early days when it was still raw.

  It was likely that Siobhan had done her best to keep Lucien from thinking about any of it too much and had probably asked him to steer clear – if not to spare Lara’s feelings, then to make certain he didn’t suddenly come to the conclusion that he’d chosen wrongly after all.

  Lara liked to think that she’d be calmer now, but she couldn’t be certain. Lucien and Siobhan had set a wedding date six months away, and Lara’s mother, in a tactless moment, had mused on the possibility of Siobhan being pregnant. Why else would they marry so hastily? she questioned. If Lara knew anything about that particular couple, though, it was more likely that Siobhan didn’t want to give Lucien too much time to change his mind.

  ‘Lara…?’

  Lara looked up to see Betsy throw her a puzzled look. How long had she been talking to her, completely ignored, while Lara had been lost in thought?

  ‘Sorry… what was that?’

  ‘I was saying I don’t know how you’ve done this job for so long without throttling someone.’

  ‘I only set up a year ago,’ Lara said, and even that simple statement reminded her of Lucien.

  ‘I know, but that would be enough time for me to have throttled at least five brides.’

  Despite everything, Lara couldn’t help a fleeting grin. ‘The grooms can be just as bad, you know.’

  ‘Really?’ Betsy looked sceptical but then seemed to decide a fussy groom was perhaps a more convincing prospect than she’d first thought. ‘I didn’t think blokes cared all that much about things like that.’

  ‘Believe me, they do. And wait until the parents get involved too, and you’re going through every tiny expense with them and finding ways you can shave a penny off the welcome champagne for the wedding breakfast.’

  ‘Are you actually trying to put me off this job?’ Betsy asked, wrinkling her pert, freckled nose.

  When Lara had first met Betsy, she was convinced that she’d once owned a doll that looked just like her. Charlotte, her doll, had had glossy chestnut hair in a high ballet bun, huge brown eyes and perfectly distributed freckles across her rosy cheeks. Betsy was like that, only living and breathing, sometimes complaining and definitely eating a lot more; though looking at her tiny frame, it was hard to know where she put it.

  Lara’s smile broadened.

  ‘Honestly, I’m already lost when you’re not here, so no, definitely not. I love having you on board – saves me talking to Fluffy all the time.’

  Betsy grinned. ‘I bet you get more sense from your cat than me.’

  ‘I get less tolerance though. When Fluffy thinks I’ve said something stupid he lets me know alright. He hasn’t learned what a white lie is yet and I think it might be too late to train him.’

  ‘Can you train cats?’

  Lara laughed. ‘God no!’

  ‘It’s funny; I didn’t like cats much before I came to work for you – they made me nervous. I think I’d be alright if I had one of my own now.’

  ‘I’m sure you would.’ Lara frowne
d as a faint gurgling sound reached her ears. ‘Was that your stomach?’

  It was Betsy’s turn to grin. ‘Sorry… didn’t get much time for breakfast this morning.’

  ‘I can’t have you fainting all over the place. It’s a bit early but why don’t you grab your lunch? I’ll have a look at the Millington account while you’re gone and see what I can come up with. We can go over it all when you get back.’

  Betsy wasted no time getting up from her desk. ‘I thought you’d never ask! I’m going to the deli in the next street – do you want me to get anything for you?’

  ‘Don’t worry about me – I’ll probably grab something a bit later.’

  With a brief nod, Betsy let the door of the summer house swing closed behind her as she stepped out onto the decking. Lara watched for a moment as she made her way through the garden and out of the side gate. Not only did she look like a ballerina, but she walked like one too, all pert and perky, though when Lara had once asked Betsy whether she danced, Betsy had said that she’d never had a single dance lesson in her entire life. Lara had told her how nice it must be to have been born with natural grace and beauty, and Betsy had blushed and almost dropped the custard tart she’d been eating all over her laptop.

  Running her business from her own garden was one of the things Lara loved most about working for herself. She’d wanted a pretty and romantic place to work, somewhere to inspire her as she put together the perfect wedding packages for her clients, and somewhere like the crumbling, dowdy office block she’d worked in before she’d set up on her own just wasn’t going to cut it. It was fine for the customer-service department of a well-known vacuum-cleaner manufacturer, if a little uninspiring and often very depressing. But wedding planning needed something else entirely.

  She’d searched high and low for the perfect premises, and then, one day, she’d realised that they were right in front of her face. Or rather, outside her kitchen window. While her house was small – bijou, the estate agent had called it – the garden was actually a disproportionately decent size, big enough to allow a summer house to be tucked away in a corner. Against the advice of just about everyone she knew, Lara began the hunt for the perfect building at the right price and eventually she found it: an ex-display one languishing at the back of a garden-centre lot.