Let's Call the Whole Thing Off

by Jill Steeples

  ‘Anna?’

  I jumped and my hand flung out involuntarily, knocking my mug of coffee and spilling the entire contents over my desk. The huge heap of papers I’d been aimlessly shuffling around were now drenched.

  ‘Oh, Christ! What is it? Look what you made me do! If you’ve come to make small talk about my wedding that’s very nice of you, but I really don’t have the time. I do have a job to do, you know, and if I don’t get this lot cleared by Friday, then there’s every chance I won’t have a job to come back to.’ I picked up the soggy mass of papers and held them up in the air over my bin, watching the brown water drip out. They were past saving, I knew. I slumped down into my seat and finally looked up with a scowl at the person who was frankly the cause of my current damp predicament.

  ‘Oh shit! Helloo!’ I said, sitting up straight again in my chair. My boss, the official holder of the title ‘Office Bitch Numero Uno’ was looking at me darkly.

  ‘Everything okay, Anna?’

  ‘Yes, yes, absolutely fine. Sorry! Just spilt my coffee.’ As if that really needed explaining.

  ‘Yes. I can see. Well, I’m glad to hear you’re attempting to clear your desk, but had you forgotten about our meeting?’

  ‘Oh shit!’ My three-month review with Nina Palmer, how the hell could I have forgotten? The meeting I’d been dreading for weeks, it had been uppermost in my mind until yesterday when it had been trumped in spectacular style by the discovery that my boyfriend was a complete shit. It was the meeting where she would tell me how I’d been getting on in the company and whether I had any future with them. Judging by her tight-lipped expression, I guessed I already knew the answer to that one.

  ‘I am so sorry,’ I said, apologising in my head for the over-use of the shit word, which was the only one that seemed to want to come into my head at the moment and then apologising for completely forgetting about our meeting. I glanced at my watch. It was 9.25 a.m. and from the recesses of my memory our meeting was set for 9.00 a.m. I was clearly not in the line-up for the ‘most punctual employee of the month award’.

  ‘Get yourself cleaned up and then come into my office, would you?’

  ‘Yes, yes, of course,’ I said, feeling my skin turning a bright shade of pink as Nina waltzed off.

  Oh well, this is just bloody marvellous, I thought, when I returned to my desk armed with a wad of kitchen towels, making a half-hearted attempt at mopping up the mess. Somehow not only had I managed to alienate my fiancé and send him running into the arms of my best friend, it looked as though there was every chance I could lose my job as well and all in the space of a couple of days. Everything was Ed’s fault. I looked down at the warm soggy patch on my jeans and sighed again. Had I got dressed in the dark this morning? Jeans and T-shirt, what had I been thinking? I never dressed so casually for work. If I’d been looking to make a good impression, I’d clearly failed.

  ‘So,’ Nina said, when I stumbled in to her office and she beckoned me to sit down opposite her, ‘how do you feel your first three months at Purcells has gone?’ She sat back in her chair, and crossed one stockinged leg over the other.

  ‘Okay, I think.’

  ‘Just okay?’

  What the hell did she expect me to say? I’d been stuck in the corner of the office entering invoices and manipulating spread sheets for three months. It was hardly very taxing. I could quite easily have done it standing on my head, but it was a job and I needed a job after being made redundant from my dream job only four months earlier. This was never meant as a long-term career move, just as something to pay the bills, a stop-gap until something better came along, only nothing better had come along.

  ‘Well, you know, good-ish, I think.’ I had lost the capacity to construct a coherent sentence. It didn’t help that I felt like a completely disorganised and inefficient slouch in my old clothes, especially when Nina was dressed in a grey silk slub suit that oozed authority and class.

  She nodded and looked at me intently.

  ‘Is there something wrong, Anna?’

  ‘No, no, nothing wrong at all.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Yes, absolutely!’ I said, trying to look and sound like someone who was perfectly employable.

  ‘And do you enjoy working here, Anna?’

  ‘Yes!’ I gave a little leap in my seat and banged my hand on her desk. ‘Sorry … I love my job,’ I said, not entirely convincingly.

  Please don’t sack me. Please don’t sack me. Please don’t sack me.

  ‘Good. It’s just that I couldn’t help noticing you’ve been a bit short with everyone this morning. Poor Adam couldn’t get away from your desk fast enough. There was the incident with the coffee. You completely forgot our meeting and I’ve just had an email from you that I think was intended for one of our suppliers.’ She turned her computer screen around so I could see for myself the incriminating evidence. ‘Is the stress of the wedding getting to you?’

  ‘Oh God. I am so sorry.’ I cringed in my seat. That was definitely the email I’d sent but no way had it been meant for Nina. Of all the people I could have mistakenly sent it to, it had to be my boss and on the day she was doing my appraisal too. ‘That email …’ The words trailed away. What words were there? Apart from disorganised, inefficient and ‘what job?’

  Nina widened her eyes, looking at me expectantly.

  ‘Right, well, let’s not worry about that for the moment, shall we?’ she said with an imperceptible sigh. ‘If I’m being honest with you, Anna, I think you’ve done a reasonable job within the department, although I’m pretty certain this wouldn’t be your ideal choice of career?’

  ‘No, but—’

  ‘I wonder if it wouldn’t be better if …’

  Oh God no. Please don’t sack me. I was pleading with my power of thought, but my subliminal suggestions were clearly not reaching the other side of the desk. Obviously there was some wonky celestial alignment at work, Mercury was in retrograde or Pluto was at odds with Neptune or Uranus was having an off day. It was the only explanation for everything going wrong in my life at the moment.

  ‘Nina, sorry to interrupt you but if you’re going to sack me I would much rather you come straight out and say so. Don’t worry about sparing my feelings. I’m really getting quite good at dealing with bad news right now.’

  Nina put down her pen and sat back in her chair, chewing on the inside of her lip.

  ‘Ah, so there is something wrong. I knew it.’ She gave a supercilious smile, the smug bitch. ‘Why don’t you tell me what’s been going on, Anna?’

  I looked at her, feeling all the energy slump out of me. What did it matter now? People were bound to find out sooner or later and if I was about to lose my job it wasn’t as if I’d have to come back and face everyone. I could disappear into the sunset with my pride hanging precariously in place.

  ‘Oh, it’s nothing really. Just the wedding, my wedding, this Saturday, it’s, um, well, it’s all a bit iffy now.’

  Nina’s perfectly sculptured eyebrows shot up her forehead.

  ‘That’s hardly nothing. I’m sorry to hear it. But if you were having second thoughts about the marriage then maybe it’s for the best.’

  ‘Oh, I wasn’t having second thoughts. I just found out Ed was doing a bit of last-minute sampling of other models currently available on the market, that’s all.’

  ‘I see.’ She put down her pen and pulled down the lid on her laptop, nodding sagely, as if she knew everything about being dropped from a great height. Which was highly unlikely. Nina was definitely the type of person to be doing all the dropping. Boyfriends. And now employees, by the look of things. ‘Look, Anna, why don’t you go home?’

  ‘Home?’ Oh God, my worst nightmares were coming true, but surely she’d have to give me some kind of warning, let me work my notice period. I know I’d been cocking up left, right and centre today, but nothing that warranted being sacked on the spot.

  ‘Take the rest of the week off. Your mind is clearly not
here, which is perfectly understandable in the circumstances. We can do this meeting when you get back.’

  ‘So you’re not sacking me, then?’

  She gave a wry smile.

  ‘I never had any intention of sacking you, Anna. I actually wanted to discuss a new opportunity within the company that I think might better suit your skill set, but it can wait until another day. You need to go home and get things sorted out.’

  ‘Thanks, Nina,’ I said, feeling totally wrong-footed by her uncharacteristic show of kindness, ‘but I haven’t got any holiday left. I’ve used it all up for my honeymoon. Well, exotic holiday for one now, I suspect!’ I said brightly, trying to inject a note of humour into the whole sorry saga.

  ‘I know. Don’t worry about it. Just take it as compassionate leave.’

  ‘Really?’ I felt a huge lump rise in the back of my throat and tears gather in my eyes. Nina was showing me compassion. I wasn’t sure I could handle it. I’d never really liked her, considering her uppity, hard-edged and tight-lipped, but for the first time I was seeing a softer side to her character. ‘Thanks, Nina. I really appreciate it,’ I said, feeling bad at having misjudged her.

  I wondered for the first time if we could actually be friends. As I turned to walk out of her office, I wanted to say, Hey, Nina, if you’re not doing anything on Saturday, why don’t you come along to the evening reception for a few drinks, but I didn’t even know if there would be a wedding ceremony, let alone an evening ‘do’ now. I quashed the pang of guilt I felt for not having previously invited her.

  ‘Absolutely. You go and try to enjoy yourself. We can talk when you get back.’

  ‘Thanks.’ My hand grabbed the edge of the door, emotion threatening to overwhelm me. ‘You know, what everyone says about you, all that rubbishy stuff, it isn’t true. You’re absolutely lovely, you really are?’

  I don’t know what my mouth was thinking of. It was working totally independently of my brain. I saw the look of incredulity spread across Nina’s face.

  ‘Not that anybody says anything too—’

  ‘You have a great time, Anna,’ she interrupted.

  I walked out of her office with my dignity somewhere around my nether regions.

  Obviously Nina didn’t bear grudges. Obviously I was a rotten judge of character. Sophie, Ed and, most surprisingly, Nina had taught me that these last couple of days.

  Chapter 5

  Ben was a complete sweetheart and rushed down to pick me up from work as soon as he received my call.

  ‘I said you should never have gone in the first place,’ he said, after I detailed the morning’s disastrous catalogue of events on our journey back to the cottage. ‘Look at it this way: you certainly made an impression on your appraisal day. Your boss will never be able to forget who you are now.’

  ‘That’s true,’ I said, smiling. ‘She was so lovely to me, though, Ben. Talked about offering me another job in the company. I wanted to jump across the desk and throw my arms around her for a girly hug, but I think that may have been too much even for her.’

  Ben shook his head, laughing wryly.

  ‘No, well, this is definitely for the best. You won’t be bothered at the cottage. I can field any telephone calls and I’m there to feed you and provide this to cry on.’ He tapped on his shoulder with a smile. ‘But otherwise you can just relax and decide what it is you want to do.’

  ‘Oh Ben, thanks so much.’ It sounded so very tempting being holed up with this lovely man for a few days, but I knew I had to get away. Too many memories, too many distractions. ‘You’ve been a complete sweetheart, but I won’t be staying. I need to get away, from everybody and everything. A complete change of scene will do me the power of good.’

  ‘Are you sure? Where will you go?’

  ‘I don’t know. The seaside, maybe. I love the coast.’

  ‘Hmmm. Will you be all right on your own?’

  I looked up into Ben’s dark brown eyes, seeing the concern flickering there.

  ‘Of course I’ll be all right. I’m not going to the other side of the world. You don’t need to worry about me, honestly. I’m only going for a couple of days. I’ve got to come back at some stage and sort out all this mess.’ I gave him a resigned smile. ‘Besides, some sea air will do me the world of good.’

  ‘Okay,’ he said, sighing resignedly. ‘As long as you promise to phone me every day. And not to do anything stupid while you’re away.’

  ‘I promise. Well, nothing as stupid as anything I’ve done in the last day or so, at least.’

  ***

  Ben dropped me off at the station and no sooner had I settled into my seat on the train and was gazing out of the window marvelling at how spontaneous I was being, then a huge sense of abandonment enveloped me. Thinking about Ed and Sophie, then leaving behind my job for a couple of weeks and finally watching Ben as he waved goodbye from the platform edge made me feel soppily nostalgic. It was like everything and everybody that I knew and loved was being ripped from my soul.

  I could feel the tears forming in my eyes, but I was determined not to let them fall, not until Ben was out of sight at least, or else I knew he’d be on that train in a jiffy insisting I went home with him. Right at that moment he wouldn’t have to insist too hard.

  I’d secretly hoped that he might beg me to stay, even just a little bit, although if he had I knew I’d have been sitting at his kitchen table right now finishing off his supplies of chocolate biscuits.

  Just thinking about Ben’s kindness, the warmth in his eyes when he looked at me, the affection in his voice when he reassured me and the memory of his strong, defiant body when he confronted me with that shotgun, it was all too disturbing for words. Everything could have changed between us in that moment if he’d acted as recklessly as I’d been feeling last night.

  And I didn’t mean shooting me in the heart either. Ed and Sophie had already done that to me earlier. I meant giving into my mad, ill-thought-through attempt at seduction.

  Thank goodness Ben had seen it for what it was! I couldn’t believe I’d actually thought about jeopardising all those years of friendship for the sake of a sympathy shag.

  Of course I loved Ben. I’d loved him since I was a kid. I loved him in the way you love your best friend, but last night, in my wrought and vulnerable condition, I’d mistaken that affection for something much much stronger.

  Our friendship would have been blown to smithereens and that would have been awful because I valued Ben’s friendship above all else and at the moment I needed all the friends I could get. I wondered what he was thinking. Was he skipping back to his car, kicking his heels together in relief, knowing he’d narrowly escaped the clutches of a mad, unhinged woman who was as likely to burst into tears at any moment as she was to drop her knickers given half the chance? Would I ever recover from the shame?

  Definitely, once this awful episode in my life was over and things had returned to some kind of normality, if that was possible, then one of the first things I would do was make it up to Ben. I would take him out for a slap-up meal. Who knew, I might be living in a different place then, a place of my own, and I might even have a new and proper boyfriend, one that wouldn’t cheat on me. And Ben and I would go to a swanky restaurant and I’d tell him all about my wonderful new life and my wonderful new boyfriend and we would look back at this time and laugh. We’d laugh about our lucky escapes. Mine from making the biggest mistake of my life by marrying Ed and Ben’s from that wacky night when we both nearly made a huge mistake and ended up in bed together.

  I pulled out my phone and logged into my bank account. I had precisely £10327.65 to last me until payday. Admittedly £10K of that was money Ed had transferred across from his savings account earlier in the week to pay off some of the wedding expenses. But if it wasn’t for him and his stupid, selfish behaviour, I reasoned, then I wouldn’t be in this mess now so I was perfectly entitled to help myself to that money as … as my severance pay. That would teach him!

&nbs
p; My phone beeped. Two texts.

  Ed: Have a lovely time. Would be great to chat if you have the time. Remember, ILY xxx

  Ben: Be careful. Don’t do anything stupid. If you want to come home, just call and I’ll come and fetch you. Xx

  I switched off the phone and stuffed it to the bottom of my handbag, resolving not to look at it again. If I wanted to forget about everybody and everything at home and concentrate instead on what I was going to do with the rest of my life then I didn’t need those sorts of reminders. For a couple of days, at least. Funny thing was, it wasn’t Ed’s slightly needy and increasingly annoying texts and emails that were troubling me, but the thought of Ben back at his cottage going about his business, gently worrying about me, knowing that I would need only to say the word and he’d be at my side in an instance. My head dropped backwards on the seat and my eyes closed.

  Yes, some distance from everybody would do me the power of good.

  ***

  When I walked out of the station at Hollisea with my bag slung over my shoulder I had no idea where I was going, but it didn’t matter. I simply followed the signs to the beachfront.

  The sun was shining, and its warmth on my skin gave me a tingle of anticipation. For the first time since I’d stumbled upon that diary and found out that my life was one whopping great big lie, I felt a tiny glimmer of hope bubbling in my stomach. A guy walked past me – young and fit and gorgeous-looking in his tight black T-shirt and blue jeans. The way his gaze travelled my body appreciatively, a wide smile on his lips, did more for my confidence in that moment than playing second fiddle to Ed for five years had ever done.