“do he still luv me”
“u gota make him pay”
“my boyfren cum back to me when I put voodoo curse on his big titty girl”
By two in the morning I was tired and frustrated, heartbroken and dehydrated, which probably explains why I fell like a starving woman upon a piece of banana cream pie when I read the following response to a reader’s letter on a somewhat reputable advice site:
It turned out that my ex simply didn’t believe that I loved him. Breaking up with me was a test. All it took was one grand gesture to turn everything around. I turned up at his office and told him that I loved him in front of all his coworkers at the body shop. We got back together and now we’ve been married for seven years.
What if that was it? What if, despite my protestations the previous night, Michael was as insecure in my love as that woman’s ex had been in hers? What if he just wanted me to prove my love in public? He’d broken up with me in a public forum, after all. What if I just had to declare my love for him in a public forum, too? What if it was that simple?
I Googled the phrase “grand gesture” and found a dozen similar stories.
“She said she never wanted to see me again, but I turned up at her office with some flowers and a ring and now we’re having our second child.”
“We were on the point of divorcing but my brave step pulled us back. He said what he wanted all along was real proof of my love.”
If proof was what Michael wanted, then proof was what I would give him.
Waking up the following morning, having managed just a couple of hours’ sleep, I suppose I wasn’t exactly thinking like a genius. I had that final scene from An Officer and a Gentleman running through my head. The one where Richard Gere goes into his lover’s workplace and sweeps her off her feet. I was going to do something like that for Michael.
I took a taxi to the building where he worked, stopping en route to pick up three dozen red roses from a stand on the street. I got past the security guards at Michael’s company with ease. I persuaded them against calling him up to announce my arrival by telling them that I was on my way to deliver a singing telegram for Michael’s birthday and that to call him first would spoil the surprise.
One of the guards looked lasciviously down the front of my shirt. “Like a stripping policewoman?” he asked.
“I just sing,” I told him sharply.
So, I got to the floor where Michael had his office, but I knew I wouldn’t be able to get past Tina, his assistant. Unless she was on a cigarette break. I prayed she would be on a cigarette break. She wasn’t on a cigarette break.
“W-what?” she stuttered when she saw me. “Ashleigh. You’re … er … you’re in the office. And you … you’ve brought flowers. Nobody called to say you were coming up.”
“I know,” I said breezily. “I told them not to. I wanted it to be a surprise.”
“It’s certainly that,” said Tina. “But, anyway, Michael is in a meeting …”
“I know you’re lying,” I said. “I know he’s told you not to let me anywhere near him.”
“That’s not true,” Tina swore. “He really is in a meeting. But I promise I’ll tell him you dropped by.”
Well, if he had been in a meeting, he was out of it now. My attention was attracted by movement at the end of the corridor and I turned to see the man himself, coming out of the staff kitchen with a steaming mug in his hand. Tea. Milk. One sugar. I knew the way he liked it so well. He was dipping a biscuit as he walked. He looked as though he didn’t have a care in the world. He certainly didn’t look as though he had just broken up with the love of his life.
“Michael,” I called out to him. “I have to speak to you.”
Michael froze with the chocolate HobNob halfway between the mug and his mouth. In the time it took him to register who had called his name from behind all those flowers, half the biscuit had dropped back into the tea with a plop. Michael swore as the tea splashed on his tie.
“Ashleigh, what are you doing here?” he hissed. He remained at the other end of the corridor. He would not walk toward me, and Tina had come out from behind her desk and was preventing me from heading toward him like a goal defense marking goal attack on the netball court.
“You won’t return my calls,” I shouted to him. “You won’t answer my emails or texts. What am I supposed to do?”
“Get the message?” said the bright spark who had the desk opposite Tina. I gave her the benefit of a glare.
“You should go,” said Michael. “And take those flowers with you. This is not the right time for this.”
“But when will there be a right time?” I implored him. “When will you listen to what I have to say?”
“There really isn’t anything left to say, is there?”
“You’re wrong,” I said. “You’re so wrong.”
Tina was still bobbing about in front of me.
“I’ve got so much left to say. I’ve got a whole novel’s worth to tell you.” I tapped my hand against my heart. “In here.”
Michael grimaced. “Not now,” he hissed again.
“I’m not leaving until you hear me out,” I warned him. I growled at Tina, who took a step back.
By now a small crowd was beginning to gather, but Michael was standing his ground. He was determined not to bridge the gap between us, physically or metaphorically. He looked down at his tea somewhat mournfully.
“For heaven’s sake, Ashleigh. You’re making a fool of yourself.”
“Just let me say what I’ve got to say,” I persisted. “And afterward, if you still think you want me out of your life, then I will walk away forever. I promise you. It’s not too much to ask, is it?”
“I don’t think so,” said a bespectacled chap who had perched himself on the edge of the reception desk. He was settling in for the show. “Let’s hear what you’ve got to say.”
“I’m not going to talk to you here,” said Michael. He started to walk away. In that moment I dodged past Tina, chased him down the gray-carpeted hall, and made a grab for his elbow. I jogged the tea mug, sending more of the milky-brown liquid over what I knew to be Michael’s favorite suit. One of the single-breasted bespoke suits he had been wearing since his big image change.
“For heaven’s sake.” He tried to jump backward to avoid the splash. He turned to snarl at me. I had never seen him look quite so mad. I have to admit I was a little bit scared.
But this is it, said the little voice inside my head. It’s now or never. Give him the speech. I took a deep breath and spewed out the speech. Quickly. After all, at any moment someone might call a security guard.
“Michael, from the moment I saw you, I knew that you would play an important part in my life. When my eyes met yours, it was as if the final piece of the jigsaw had been fit into place. If you still feel that we should be apart, then I understand that I will have to accept your decision, but if you have the slightest doubt, then I want you to know that we can work it out. And if you feel the same way as me, then let’s spend the rest of our lives together. Michael …” It was time for my grand gesture. I got down on one knee. “Will you marry me?”
“Oh, no,” said Tina.
“Jesus Christ,” said the man who was perching on the reception desk.
Someone actually applauded, but their exuberance was quickly cut short as Michael glared at his colleagues. He grabbed me by the arm, pulled me to my feet, and hustled me into his office.
“Are you out of your fucking mind?” he asked.
That wasn’t exactly the response I had been hoping for.
Michael’s office was windowed on three sides. He shut the blinds abruptly.
Even in the shadow I could see that his face was as bright red as the roses that he dumped in the wastebasket with a dangerous mixture of embarrassment and anger. Though I had been awake for much of the night, I was only just beginning to wake up.
“I’m sorry,” I said preemptively. “I didn’t mean to embarrass you.”
“I was trying to speak to you in your own language,” I said, remembering what the Break-Up Babe had said about talking in man-speak.
“You could try speaking to me in bloody English for a start.”
“Then let me start again,” I pleaded. “I wanted to be sure you understood how much you mean to me.”
“I don’t have time for this.”
“I just don’t think you know what you’re throwing away,” I continued, long after all reasonable hope was gone. “I thought that my grand gesture might bring you to your senses. If you let me walk out of the office right now, you’ll regret it. I know you will. You’ll regret it for the rest of your life.”
“Ashleigh, what I always liked about you was that you seemed to be reasonably sane. For a woman. All this nonsense is just making me more certain than ever that I was right to call it a day. In fact I should have done it quite some time ago.”
“Oh, Michael,” I wailed. “For God’s sake, give me another chance. Let me come around and talk about this in your flat. I just want to see you.”
“You can’t,” he told me then. “Because I’m seeing someone else.”
Is it possible that hearts really do break? Because I thought I felt mine tear in two right in that moment. And as the song goes, when hearts break, they don’t break even. I knew that I could no longer comfort myself with the idea that Michael was somehow hurting, too. He had already moved on.
“Who is she?” I wailed. “Who?”
“You don’t really want to know that,” said Michael. “What possible good could it do you to know?”
“It’s Tina.”
“Of course it’s not Tina.”
“Then it’s one of my friends” was the obvious conclusion.
“It is not one of your freaky, boring friends,” said Michael. “I would never do that to you. What kind of man do you think I am?”
“The kind of man who would have sex with a woman moments after telling her he wants to break up,” I reminded him. “Does your new woman know about that? You should tell her. See how excited she is about dating you then.” My voice got higher and higher as I berated him for his faithlessness.
“I don’t have to listen to this,” said Michael. “And I’m not going to. Get some help, Ashleigh. Get a life. You’ve got to start getting over this. Because we’re finished. It’s over. We’re D-O-N-E. Done.”
I left Michael’s building in a state of shock. As I passed Tina’s desk, my legs almost buckled beneath me. Despite having guarded Michael like a pit bull, Tina very kindly offered to walk me to the Tube station, but I waved her help away. I just wanted to be out of there and on my own. I sat on the Tube in a daze. If I closed my eyes, all I could see was Michael’s face as he snarled at me in his office. All I could hear was our last conversation and that terrible bombshell. He had someone else!
I called Becky at school. She was teaching a class, of course, but I had the school secretary drag her out, this time by pretending I had just been involved in a car accident. I told myself that I had been in some sort of mental car wreck and if I didn’t speak to her right then, I didn’t know what I’d do.
“For heaven’s sake,” Becky said when she found out that I hadn’t been in an accident after all. “You said you’d had a car crash! Ashleigh, that is one sick joke.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “But I had to talk to you right away. If I’d said anything else, you might not have come out of your lesson.”
“Too right. I’ve left eighteen A-level students with an exam next Monday to talk to you. What do you have to say about that?”
I said, “I think I’m going to die.”
“What have you done?” Becky sounded suddenly panicked. “Have you tried to kill yourself? Have you taken something?”
“Not yet,” I said.
“Right. That’s it. I’m coming over,” Becky told me. “I’ll be there as soon as I can. Just promise that you won’t do anything stupid while I’m on my way.”
I swore that I wouldn’t do anything more than sit and stare into space. And that was all I managed. That and a bit of rocking backward and forward with my knees pulled to my chest. Oh, and a spot of lying on my side on the carpet in the fetal position, full of primeval pain.
“Jesus, Ashleigh,” said Becky when she saw me. “You look like you’ve got shell shock.”
“Michael has a new girlfriend.”
“Ah.” Becky nodded grimly. She sat down on the sofa while I remained on the floor. She leaned over and stroked my hair. “I see,” she said. “I guessed as much. Well.” She adopted her teaching voice, the no point crying over spilled milk demeanor that she used for her final-year students when they didn’t get into the university of their choice. “It’s a horrible thing to hear but at least now you know exactly where you stand.”
“But what should I do?”
“Do? You should do nothing except do your best to get over him as quickly as you can. I had hoped that Michael was just having a bit of a wobble about commitment and would come to his senses, but it’s clear now that there’s more to this breakup than that. There’s no point wasting another second on him now. If he’s telling you that he’s gotten someone else this quickly, then you can bet she was on the scene long before he got rid of you. It sounds as though he was trying to make sure that things were working out with this new girl before he gave up on the comfort of having you in his life. Talk about having your cake …”
“But … but there must be something I can do?”
Becky just shook her head. “Forget him. He’s got someone else. That’s all you need to know. Now come here.”
She pulled me up to sit on the sofa beside her and enfolded me in her arms.
Concerned that I wouldn’t be safe on my own, Becky insisted on taking me back to the house she shared with Henry. There she tucked me up in a bed in her spare room and fed me soup and Ben & Jerry’s from Henry’s secret supply. She sent Henry down to the pub for the evening (he couldn’t believe his luck) while she listened to me repeat the tale of my terrible day again and again and again.
“You think I’m an idiot,” I said when I’d told her about my proposal for the twentieth time.
“I think you were naïve,” she said. “But I’m glad that Michael showed his true colors so quickly. It will make it easier to move on. More ice cream?”
I refused another spoonful of Phish Food.
“I shouldn’t, either,” said Becky. “I’ll never get into my wedding dress.”
I’d almost forgotten that Becky and Henry were going to be married in less than three months. I felt tears well up at the thought of it.
“You’re getting married and I’ve just been dumped,” I wailed.
“Oh, hey,” said Becky, placing her hand on mine. “My wedding’s ages away. You’ll be so over Michael Parker by then. You’ll have a good time.”
I nodded bravely in agreement.
At the sound of Henry’s key in the door, Becky’s face lit up. “I’d better go and see how drunk he is. Do you have everything you need? You can stay here for as long as you want, you know. I don’t want you to be on your own a moment before you feel you’re ready for it.”
I believed it. Becky gave me a heartfelt hug. She truly was my best friend.
I stayed at Becky and Henry’s house for the whole weekend. Becky even canceled a visit to a wedding fair near Croydon to spend Sunday afternoon with me.
“I think I know what a sugared almond looks like,” she said.
I really don’t know how I could have gotten through that first weekend sans Michael without my best friend’s support. She made sure that I was fed and drinking enough water. She ensured that I got out of bed and showered. She reminded me to brush my teeth. She confiscated my iPhone to make sure I didn’t buckle and give Mi
chael a call. She cut short the viewing of half a dozen romantic comedies on DVD whenever they came to a happy part I couldn’t quite stomach. She even spoke to my mother to reassure her that I was going to be just fine.
“I know you’d do the same for me,” she said.
Becky listened to me endlessly, nodding with empathy and declaring that Michael was an idiot at exactly the right time every time. But she took a hard line when I insisted that I wanted to know who Michael had replaced me with.
“You can’t expect ever to know what really went on in his mind. You have to tell yourself that you’ll never hear from him again. You don’t need to. You know all there is to know. He doesn’t want to be with you because he’s met someone else. You don’t need her name. You don’t need to know how old she is. You don’t need to know what she looks like. All you need to know is that Michael Parker is a rat.”
I had to repeat that phrase a dozen times, with gusto, before Becky would agree that it was safe to let me go home.
So, I’d convinced Becky that I was going to be fine without round-the-clock surveillance, but back home my resolve to forget about Michael Parker soon crumbled. As did my promise not to call him. I left another fifteen messages on his voicemail in the hour after Becky dropped me off. I also sent him three emails and started drafting a poem.
I’m sure a more sensible woman would have agreed with Becky that she didn’t need to know who had replaced her in someone’s affections and obviously overlapped in them, too. It was almost certain that Michael had met and started seeing someone new before we officially parted. Did his new girl know that Michael and I had been an item so very recently? I doubted it. He had probably told her that he was free and single. If she knew that he had two-timed her, then perhaps she wouldn’t be quite so pleased she’d gotten her claws into him … But how could she know unless I told her? And I didn’t even know who she was.
I had to know.
Getting Over Mr. Right Page 5
