Becky came to the door. She had her hair wrapped in a towel turban and was wearing a dressing gown.
“Have I come at a bad time?” I asked.
“I don’t think there will ever be a good time,” she told me. “Not after what you did.”
“I’ve come to make amends for that. With this cake.”
“Nice touch.” She raised her eyebrows.
“Can I come in?” I asked. “Only Clyde here is supposed to be on his way to meet his girlfriend.”
Becky frowned but gave in. Clyde dutifully wiped his feet as we shuffled into the hallway with the cake.
“Put it there,” said Becky, pointing at the table where Henry threw his bobble hat on his way in from work.
“Thanks, Clyde.” I went to find him a quid or something but he said it was Christmas and it was his pleasure and skipped away.
Becky still looked angry. When she wanted to, she could find an expression that would silence forty teenagers at once. No wonder Clyde didn’t want to hang around.
“What is this supposed to be?”
Becky looked at the cake as though it were made out of dog mess and dusted with chalk.
“It’s a new wedding cake,” I told her.
“I can see that.”
“I made it … I made it because I was wrong. And I’m glad about that. Take a proper look.”
Becky leaned in close. “I dread to think what surprise you have in store for me this time.”
She need not have worried. Where I had iced I GIVE IT SIX MONTHS on the cake that I made for her wedding, I had written something that I hoped might go some way toward making up for it.
HERE’S TO THE NEXT SIX MONTHS, I had iced. AND THE NEXT AND THE NEXT AND THE NEXT.
“It refers to the fact that I was wrong about you not lasting six months.”
“I know what it refers to.”
I sensed no thaw but still I persisted. “And to the fact that it’s your six-month anniversary today.”
“Is it?” Becky looked surprised.
“Yes. Twelfth of December.”
“Oh, my God,” said Becky. “So it is. Twelfth of June. Twelfth of December! Henry!” she yelled back toward the kitchen. “Do you realize that we’ve been married for six months today? What on earth are we doing staying in and having a Chinese takeaway? I can’t believe you didn’t remember!”
“You forgot, too,” said Henry.
“Well, what do you expect!” said Becky. “Some of us have been very busy at work this week.”
I took a step backward. It seemed like there might be a domestic. But when Henry dared poke his head into the corridor, Becky threw her arms around his neck and kissed him soundly.
“Happy six-month anniversary, sweetheart.”
Domestic averted.
“And to you, my little honey bunny.”
They started getting soppy, indulging in the kind of behavior that might have prompted me to say Get a room were I not asking for forgiveness.
“I should go,” I said, when they still hadn’t stopped kissing after what seemed like a full five minutes.
“No, don’t.” Becky broke away from Henry at last. She put her hand on my arm, and I saw that the softness that had come over her face while she embraced her husband stayed in place for me. “Stay and have some Chinese with us. I’m sure Henry’s over-ordered like he always does.”
“I never over-order,” said Henry.
“You always do,” his wife replied. “But we’ll get through it together. And then we can have some of this. Henry, look, Ashleigh has made us a cake for our six-month anniversary.”
“I’ve got some marzipan holly leaves in the back of my car,” I added. “So you could change the decoration on the bottom tier and have it for Christmas, too.”
“Brilliant idea,” said Becky. “Because God knows I don’t have time to cook and somehow we’ve ended up with all of Henry’s family and mine coming here for Christmas lunch. They seem to think that it’s our turn! As if being married has somehow magically imbued me with the ability to cook a three-course meal for twelve … Will you tell me how to do a turkey?”
I assured her that it was really very easy.
Henry carried the cake into the kitchen and found another plate, while Becky poured me a glass of champagne from a bottle left over from the wedding that had been in the fridge ever since. Then the guy from the Chinese takeaway arrived, carrying enough noodles to sink a junk. Becky was right. Henry had over-ordered, even now that there were three of us to get through it.
After we’d toasted Henry and Becky’s half anniversary and broken into the cake, Henry tactfully left Becky and me alone in the kitchen again, claiming that he needed to get back to his computer.
“I think he’s doing his Christmas shopping online,” Becky whispered. “It’ll never arrive in time.”
“He might be lucky,” I said.
“I’m just praying he found my wishlist at Net-a-Porter. He got me the most frightful bag-shaped dress you have ever seen from L.K. Bennett for my birthday. I told him that we’d have to have a family before I could start dressing like the mother of the bride.”
I laughed. Becky poured me some more champagne, and then she poured herself some more, too, which made me raise my eyebrows in surprise. After all, the last time I’d really spent any time with her—not including her hen night—she’d been on the wedding-dress diet, which precluded all alcohol. All fun, if she was honest. Which she was.
“I can let it all hang out now I’m married,” she said, as she clocked the amusement on my face.
“I have missed you,” I told her.
“I have missed you, too,” said Becky. “I have thought about calling you up a hundred times but … Well, if I’m honest I decided there was no point. It was clear you just hated me. Why else would you have done what you did?”
“I think I might have been out of my mind,” I said. “Looking back now, I really do think I wasn’t quite in control of myself back then. I honestly thought that what I did was justified. I thought that everyone was laughing at me. I had to walk down the aisle in front of all those snooty women from the hen night. I’d just had a lecture from your mum. I didn’t think anyone was taking me seriously. They were all belittling my pain. Now I know how hard everyone tried to support me by telling me I had to let Michael go.”
Becky nodded. “You weren’t the only one who was a bit unhinged. It wasn’t until a month or so after the wedding that Henry pointed out to me just how crazed I’d been throughout all the preparations. A real Bridezilla. It was when we were lying in bed one Sunday morning, reading the papers like we used to when we first got together. Henry turned to me and said, ‘This is really wonderful. A Sunday all to ourselves again. No wedding fairs. No wedding planning. No bloody wedding diet. And at last I’ve got back the woman that I wanted to marry in the first place.’ Of course, I tore a few strips off him for implying that I’d been a nightmare, but I knew that he was right. I was so wrapped up in the whole thing I was even neglecting my fiancé.”
“It was a big event,” I reminded her.
“Yes. But not even having a wedding to plan should have kept me from being a better friend to you, instead of getting impatient and hurrying you on with your recovery so that I had one less thing to think about in the run-up to the wedding. We’ve been really silly, haven’t we? Letting it go on for this long.”
I agreed.
“Let’s promise never to fall out like that again. You and I have been friends since we were children. It doesn’t matter what happens between us; nothing is so dreadful that our friendship won’t be able to weather it.”
“I’ll drink to that,” I said.
Becky stood up and held out her arms to me. “Come here.” She gave me a hug.
After that we did something we hadn’t done since we were in our early teens. We joined hands and chanted, “Make friends, make friends, never, never break friends. If you do, you’ll catch the flu and that will be the en
d of you!”
“Are you girls all right?” shouted Henry, hearing the noisy hilarity from the living room.
“Never better,” I said.
“Best friends forever,” said Becky. “And I don’t mean that in a Paris Hilton kind of way.”
I slept really well that night. I think I had underestimated how much it bothered me to be estranged from my best friend. I had forgotten just how nice it was to spend time with someone who knew me so well. We soon slipped back into that comfortable way old friends have with each other. But it wasn’t just reconciling with Becky that made me feel better that week.
The following day I was in Starbucks buying a special festive gingerbread latte for my elevenses when it struck me. The thought popped into my head that Michael loved a gingerbread latte from Starbucks. But that wasn’t the remarkable thing. The remarkable thing was that it was the first time I had thought about Michael that day, and it was eleven o’clock. He genuinely had not crossed my mind all morning.
It was like having practiced yoga for years and discovering, all of a sudden, that you can go straight from up-dog to down-dog without having to rest your tummy on the floor like a basset hound. It was a small achievement but a significant one. The barista handed me my change. I dropped a pound into the tip jar and wished the barista a very merry Christmas indeed. I practically skipped out of the coffee shop, and, as I did so, I caught the eye of an attractive man, who stepped to one side and held the door for me with a smile. When I looked back, he was very definitely checking me out! That hadn’t happened in ages. In mourning for Michael I had become all but invisible to the opposite sex. Something must have shifted.
I was finally on the road to recovery. When I called Becky to let her know, she agreed.
“Thank God,” she added. “And you see,” she said, referring to the chap who had held the door, “now that door has finally closed, another one will open!”
Michael was on his way out of my head at last. It seemed like the best Christmas present ever.
That evening I went to Maximal Media’s Christmas dinner, which was being held at a very swanky venue indeed. It was quite different from the previous year, when Barry took us all to the pub for lunch in anticipation of being hammered by the economic downturn that was preoccupying most of the world. Contrary to Barry’s expectations the previous December, Maximal Media had sailed through the year. Its fabulous results were in no small part due to me, my brother, and Mini-Michael. It was a fact that Barry recognized when he toasted us all.
“You know,” said Ellie, “I don’t think you’ll believe it but I always looked up to you. I was in awe of your creativity.”
“There’s no need to suck up to me now,” I told her.
“I’m not. I wouldn’t have worked for you at all if I didn’t think you were someone I could learn from.” I knew, coming from Ellie, that this was no small praise. “I’m glad you’re back,” she said.
Then it was Christmas. From having dreaded every bank holiday, birthday, or anniversary that loomed up on me that year, I could honestly say I was looking forward to it. My first Christmas without Michael. Bring it on!
Not only was it my first Christmas without Michael since he’d crashed into my life, that year for the first time ever I was going to host Christmas dinner at my house. My parents were astonished to get the invitation. Lucas asked if he could bring a new girlfriend. I told him I’d be delighted. I also invited Auntie Joyce and asked her to bring me some more wool so that I could help her out with her latest knitted-critter commission. She said that she would have loved to be there but she was having Christmas lunch with Frank Farmer, the feckless church caretaker who had two-timed her with her friend.
“Are you sure that’s a good idea?” I asked.
“I’m only going along to torment him,” Auntie Joyce told me. “I shall wear my best dress and refuse even to kiss him under the mistletoe.”
“You go, girl,” I said.
Christmas Day was wonderful. I greeted my guests with Buck’s Fizzes and smoked-salmon canapés. I had even made some special canapés without sour cream for the new family dog, a big black spaniel who was the spitting image of dear Ben. Mum was determined, however, that this new dog, Bill, would not have Ben’s weight problem. He was on a strict “no-tidbits” diet from the start. No matter that it was Christmas. No matter how sad his chocolate-brown eyes.
Lucas’s new girlfriend, Chloe, was an instant hit, arriving as she did with a poinsettia for my mother and a bottle of champagne for me. As I peeled the brussels sprouts, Mum sidled up to me and gave her verdict on her only son’s new squeeze.
“No piercings,” she said. “I’m happy with this one.”
Chloe gained even more kudos by popping her head around the kitchen door to ask if she could help in any way.
Lunch went brilliantly, with everyone asking for seconds. Mum told me that she had been thrilled to see how well I pulled it off, even if she did spend the whole day hovering by the kitchen door telling me that every ingredient I pulled out of the refrigerator would give my father heartburn.
The only slightly cringe-worthy moment was when Lucas revealed that he had met Chloe through Jack Green, who was Chloe’s brother.
“You know Jack, don’t you?” Chloe said brightly.
“Biblically,” my brother quipped. I was grateful that Mum and Dad were concentrating on the queen’s speech.
“He’s mentioned you,” Chloe revealed then. “In a good way.”
“Don’t start,” I warned my brother, as I caught him pulling a face. But I would be lying if I said that my mind didn’t wander to the memory of Jack’s eyes. His broad chest in that fluffy cashmere sweater. And the six-pack that was hidden beneath.
Anyway, I finally got rid of my guests at half past eleven. The clearing up wasn’t quite done, but I was just glad to have my flat to myself again. I pottered around the kitchen, collecting up corks and cracker parts in a bin bag. Any leftover chocolates or nuts went straight into my mouth. On the television, a choir of angel-faced children sang “Silent Night.” I joined in when I could, feeling utterly full of the Christmas spirit. I’d had a Christmas just like I always dreamed I could. A happy family. A triumphant roast and vegetables that weren’t remotely school-dinnerish in appearance or flavor. And a game of Monopoly that didn’t end in tears.
It could not have been a more perfect day. Except …
Beep, beep, beep, beep, beep … My iPhone required my attention. I looked at the screen. There were five messages: Christmas wishes from friends and former colleagues. Who knew that Ellie had such a big heart! And there … I almost missed it. A text message from Michael Parker.
“Merry Christmas, Ashleigh!” it said. “Hope you are having a warm and wonderful Noel. Michael.”
I stared at those thirteen words in astonishment. I had not heard a thing from Michael since I received that fateful letter threatening lawyers, and yet here he was wishing me a Merry Christmas. It was clear, too, from the fact that the text contained my name—my whole name—that it wasn’t a text he had sent to everyone in his contacts list. Even the fact that he still had my number in his phone was a source of no little amazement to me.
I read the text again and again and again, until I knew it by heart. That didn’t take long. But finding the meaning in those thirteen small words would take much longer. Why had he texted me? Out of politeness? Out of habit? Out of loneliness?
My heart thumped, betraying my excitement. I sat down on the sofa, discovering as I did so what had become of Bill the dog’s squeaky chicken toy. I threw the chicken to the floor and sank back into the cushions. I held my iPhone in two hands and read Michael’s message one more time. Then I looked at the message status to find out when exactly he had sent it. According to the message log, he had sent the text at around nine o’clock that evening, when I was busy trying to wrestle Mayfair and the utilities from the evil clutches of my younger brother.
I got a little thrill from the thought that I
had not read Michael’s text until almost three hours after he sent it. It was quite a change from the days I spent glued to my iPhone just in case Michael should deign to send me so much as a question mark.
But what to do about it now?
I suppose I should have deleted that text. After everything he had put me through, Michael Parker should have been the very last person on my Christmas list. But it wasn’t long before I convinced myself that to respond was the better thing to do. Christmas is, after all, a time for love and forgiveness. The big thing to do would be to send Michael my very best wishes in return. And perhaps fondest regards for a happy new year, too. Yes, if I responded like that, he would see me at my very best: as an adult, respecting social niceties and showing that I was capable of wishing the best even for my worst enemy.
It took me almost an hour to craft my response.
“Merry Christmas to you too. I hope you’re well. x”
That “x” alone took half an hour to decide upon. Was it too affectionate to add a kiss to the end of my message? After all, prior to this text, our last exchange had been on the subject of restraining orders. In the end, I decided to leave the kiss in. I signed off all my texts with a kiss. Even the ones I sent to my smelly little brother. It didn’t mean anything significant. It was merely friendly. Surely Michael would understand that. If I left the kiss off, however, it might look as though I was making a point.
Still, when I pressed SEND, I felt as though I was jumping into the abyss. Not just jumping in but making a swan dive with a triple somersault into certain oblivion. As soon as I sent that text, I wanted to claw it back. And of course it was the little kiss that bothered me most. I was convinced that with that “x” I had nudged the first domino in a train of dominoes that would end only when the final tile fell on to a nuclear button.
I was an idiot. I had just blown my cover. I had responded. In all probability, that was what Michael had wanted from me. Just a little sign that I still thought about him so that he could go back to resting in Miss Well-Sprung’s cleavage, safe in the knowledge that somewhere out there I was forever hoping and pining, waiting for his call.
Getting Over Mr. Right Page 22
