Ghosted: Wicked Wedding Planners Series

by Alyssa Parsons

  ‘I take it, you are referring to Caspar?’ Auntie Jo opens the oven and takes out the pasta bake.

  It looks delicious, all cheesy and golden and bubbling. I can’t wait to eat. She hands me some cutlery to lay out on the table.

  ‘Yes, I ran into him at the gym, the other week,’ I arrange the cutlery on the table.

  ‘Okay, how did that go?’

  ‘Frustrating really,’ I reach over to put the salt and pepper out too. ‘I followed your advice. I had been practicing acting cool and indifferent. So when I did see him, I was able to stay calm.’

  ‘That’s good.’ she nods in approval.

  ‘And I have been making sure that my hair and makeup has been perfect,’ I walk over to the kitchen island to bring the salad bowl over the table. ‘So the night I saw him, I was at the gym. Gemma had text me to say that he had just been for his workout and he had left.’

  ‘Right, go on,’ Auntie Jo finds a spatula to serve up the pasta bake.

  ‘So I was really tired and I just wanted to get my work out over and done with. I couldn’t be bothered so I just scraped my hair back into a ponytail and didn’t touch up my make-up or anything.’

  ‘Sammi you are stunning with or without make-up.’

  ‘That’s sweet of you to say but I wasn’t looking my best. Anyway I’m all red faced and sweaty after my run. I go over to get those wipes to clean the treadmill and I hear my name being called out. I turn around to see Caspar standing there.’

  ‘Wow, that must have caught you off guard. I thought he had already been to the gym earlier?’

  ‘So did I but it looks like he came in for a second workout. I froze for a bit when I first saw him but then I did manage to stay calm,’ I proudly tell my Aunt.

  She loads up our plates with pasta bake.

  ‘So what did you say to him?’ she brings the steaming hot plates over to the table. I cannot wait to tuck in.

  ‘I think I said hi back and he asked me how things were going. I answered politely and basically told him things were great. I could tell he wanted to get into more of a conversation but I just cut him short and told him I had to get going.’

  ‘Fantastic, you did great especially as you really weren’t expecting to see him.’

  ‘I know, I quite surprised myself but I am so annoyed that I hadn’t made more effort on my looks. I honestly didn’t think he would be there. I mean who comes back almost straight away for a second workout. I just looked like a big red sweaty beetroot.’

  ‘Nonsense, I’m sure you looked beautiful,’ Auntie Jo has always been one of my biggest admirers.

  ‘Anyway there’s more,’ I fill her in on Caspar’s visit to my workplace. Auntie Jo takes a few minutes to digest my story.

  ‘Do you think I‘ve done the right thing by agreeing to meet up. It’s just that I need to know why he left without a word.’

  ‘That makes sense,’ Auntie Jo agrees but I can feel that she is feeling concerned about my decision to meet up with him.

  ‘I need to move on and get closure. Leanna thinks the whole situation has affected my ability to hold a relationship.’

  ‘My only concern is that he might try to get you back,’ Auntie Jo warns me. ‘I know what kind of hold he has over you and I think you might still be fragile enough to go back there.’

  ‘I don’t know about that.’

  ‘Hmmm, so you don’t think he is still incredibly hot?’

  ‘Umm,’ I have to admit Auntie Jo has got me there. She knows me too well.

  ‘That’s what worries me. I mean I can hardly see what kind of situation could justify walking out on you without a word for 8 years.’

  ‘I know, that’s what concerns me too. The only thing I am clinging on to is that he said some big family issue happened that night.’

  ‘Well we’ll see, won’t we?’ she says as she pours us both another glass of wine.

  On the taxi ride back to my house, I think over all the recent conversations I have had with my friends and aunt about how to handle the situation with Caspar.

  I get through the next few days at work with relative ease as none of my clients are being particularly high maintenance. Even Honey has been pretty low key and I haven’t had as many phone calls from her.

  We got through her first dress fitting remarkably well. Debbie has done an ace job and Honey loves the cut and fit of her dress. It is a sleeveless ball gown style dress with delicate crystal beaded straps going over the shoulders. The dress will have hand-stitched crystals too make it sparkle. Even though the dress is not finished, it already looks spectacular.

  On Thursday evening, I get a text from Caspar and feel a little flutter of anticipation in my stomach. I really wish he didn’t have such power over me. How can one person have such an effect on another person? It absolutely blows my mind.

  I open the text message and read it.

  Hey Sammi,

  Hope you are having a good week.

  I’m traveling back tomorrow

  from my business trip.

  Any chance you are

  free to meet up on Sunday ?

  Thinking we could meet up

  in the afternoon x

  He wants to meet on a Sunday. Meeting at the weekend feels a bit more casual and relaxed. Not exactly the vibe I wanted. I would have preferred a lunch time in the week. It is more formal and there would have been a time limit as we would both have to get back to work. I ponder over this for a while. On one hand I want to keep things formal but meeting on Sunday would mean I could get this over and done with sooner.

  I finally decide that I will go for the Sunday option which does give us time to talk without a time restraint. If I am really upset by the meeting, I have the rest of the day to deal with things. I can always see Leanna if I need a shoulder to cry on afterwards.

  I pick up my phone and text him back.

  Sunday afternoon is fine.

  2 pm works for me.

  See you then.

  Sammi

  Good, my text is formal and to the point. I chose 2 pm because I am out with Leanna and Shana for drinks on Saturday night. It gives me time to have a lie-in and get ready so I can look good when I see him.

  Shana used to work at Sheridan’s with us when we were in college. She is the girl whose family knew Caspar’s family. She was the one who had had told me about Casper’s on/off relationship with his long-term girlfriend Alice. I hadn’t seen her since leaving Sheridan’s years ago but thanks to the power of Facebook, Leanna has recently reconnected with her.

  I am feeling a bit apprehensive about going out with Shana tonight. I don’t really know why Leanna agreed to go out with Shana as she was never that close to her. I always felt that Shana disapproved of my relationship with Caspar. I put it down to two things. Shana fancied Caspar herself and she thought that I wasn’t good enough for Caspar. I bet she was well chuffed to find out we never lasted.

  The Saturday wedding I am working goes well and runs to time. The wedding is for a lovely couple in their early fifties who were both getting married for the second time. They were old school sweethearts who had found each other again after they were both going through divorces. They totally adored each other and I was sure that they were meant to last.

  Their venue is a 45 minute drive from my house which isn’t too bad at all. When I get back home from working the wedding, I have a long hot shower and wash my hair. I straighten my hair which for once is behaving and use my curling irons to create long loose curls.

  I decide to wear a lovely sparkly silver strappy top, my new skinny jeans and a pair of stunning silver killer heels. I think it’s the perfect outfit for a girl’s night drinking posh cocktails. I call for a taxi as I am meeting Leanna and Shana in town.

  ‘Hi girls,’ I enter Luscious which is currently Roseford’s wine and cocktail bar of the moment.

  It is very popular with the female population so it is not the venue of choice if your intentions were to pull a member of the opposite
sex. Actually blokes were missing a trick here, as there is literally no competition for them.

  ‘Sammi, hi,’ Shana hugs me and looks me over. ‘You look fantastic, it’s so great to see you.’

  ‘You too,’ I hug her back.

  Leanna and Shana have ordered the Luscious Mojitos for us. It doesn’t take long for the alcohol to hit my system and make me feel tipsy. We spend the first part of the night catching up on what we have all been up to since leaving Sheridan’s. Shana was now an accountant at quite a big firm in London.

  We are on our third cocktail when Shana asks me if I ever managed to get over my Caspar obsession in the end. Anyone who knew me at Sheridan’s was fully aware of my crush on Caspar as it was all I had ever gone on about.

  ‘Ummmm yeah, totally,’ I try acting cool about the whole thing.

  This is not a topic I want to get into with Shana. I don’t really know her that well and as her family were close to Caspar’s, I didn’t think her loyalties stood with me. I certainly did not want anything getting back to Caspar.

  ‘We know he’s back in town,’ Leanna butts in. Damn her, I thought

  ‘Yes he is, he was working in London for a bit actually,’ Shana sucks on the cocktail cherry that came with her Passion Pina Colada.

  ‘Oh really, doing what?’ enquires Leanna innocently.

  ‘He was working for this marketing firm but it wasn’t really his thing,’ she pulls another cherry off her cocktail stick and began sucking it slowly.

  It was actually quite irritating to watch. I don’t know if she was purposefully trying to act seductive which is weird if she was.

  ‘It was just a stop gap. He was sharing a house with some of his mates. He needed a complete break after the whole situation with Alice,’ Shana continues telling us. She has always loved acting like she is the total authority on Casper Danes.

  ‘What situation with Alice?’ Leanna leans in closer to Shana, almost knocking over her drink in the process.

  ‘The pregnancy, but I really shouldn’t be talking about this,’ Shana suddenly backtracks and starts looking very shifty.

  ‘When was this?’ I couldn’t help asking out loud.

  I hadn’t meant to but I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Alice pregnant? What the hell was this all about?

  ‘Oh god, now let me think, it was about 8 years ago,’ Shana looks a bit uncomfortable. ‘I don’t really know that much about it and my family have kind of lost touch with his family.’

  Leanna and I both look at each other.

  Chapter 13

  S unday morning and I have a just the hint of a hangover. Who am I kidding, I feel tired, dehydrated and my head is thumping. Shana got a bit weird after she dropped the Alice pregnancy bomb on us. She wouldn’t say much else and eventually made her excuses and left because she wasn’t feeling too good. I had too many mojitos after that, not caring that I may feel too rough for my meeting with Caspar.

  I drag myself out of bed and suddenly remember what Shana told us last night. She didn’t actually say that Caspar was the dad but she hadn’t denied it either.

  Alice pregnant. The words just swim through my head. If Alice was pregnant, he must have been cheating on me with her. Or technically he was cheating on Alice with me, if Shana was to be believed. She had always banged on about this strange open relationship Caspar had with Alice. According to her, he was a bit of a player.

  Right, it was time to do what most girls in this situation do. Become a cyber stalker. I don’t know why I haven’t done this before. I start with Facebook but Caspar does not have an account. Damn. I don’t know Alice’s surname so I can’t even try looking for her on Facebook.

  I try searching for Caspar’s sister Connie. There is one massive advantage that comes with Bethany and Phil Danes penchant for picking unusual first names for their children. It is so much easier to track them down on social media than it would be if you were looking for a Dan Smith.

  Nothing comes up for Connie Danes. I try Constance Danes and her profile comes up. Great!

  I will search through her friends list and see if any Alices comes up. If Alice is the mother of Caspar’s child surely Connie will be friends with her. My search comes to a dead end. There are no Alice’s on her friends list.

  Unfortunately, Connie has privacy settings on her account so I am not able to look through her photos. It’s a shame because I wanted to see if she had posted any pictures of Caspar. I noticed that Connie is friends with her mother, Bethany Danes. Great, Bethany is on Facebook. Parents are less savvy when it comes to Facebook and generally don’t have as many privacy settings.

  Bingo! Bethany’s profile does not have any privacy settings. However, she does not post much either so there is not much information that I can glean. There are only a few pictures in her albums. Mostly holiday snaps of her and Phil.

  I do find some pictures of Connie’s graduation. I find one and Caspar is there. It was about 6 years ago and he looks great. All tanned, green eyes and looking handsome in a dark suit. My heart still beats hard at the sight of him and I find myself going all light-headed.

  Right I need to think outside the box. I google Caspar’s name but nothing much comes up apart from a Linkedin profile and a Twitter account. The last time Caspar tweeted was about 4 years ago and it was about football. No photos, no personal information. No clues as to what he is up to.

  I rack my brains and remember something about Alice being friends with Mike’s sister. I can’t remember what Mike’s surname was. I try to think back to the gym days when Caspar used to come in and train with him. What the hell was his surname?

  I go back to Connie’s profile to check if she is friends with Mike. Five different Mike’s come up so it’s a process of elimination to see if any of them are him. Finally the third Mike I check, a Mike Thompson comes up trumps. There he is. Now let’s see if I can find his sister.

  I check to see if he is friends with Alice but no luck there. I don’t have a clue what Mike’s sister’s name is. She could be married so she may not necessarily be a Thompson anymore. Plus I don’t even know what her first name is. I look through his profile information but he hasn’t listed his parents or siblings on there. That would have been too easy.

  I look through some of his photos. There is a family wedding picture. Perfect, it’s his sister’s wedding from 2 years ago. Her name is Claire. I click onto Claire’s profile and find an Alice Turner on her friends list.

  Alice Turner’s profile picture is of a sunflower. Damn, I had hoped for a clear profile pic so I could scrutinize the woman who had got Caspar. The arty sunflower pic is not helpful when I am trying to check out my competition. Well not that she is competition as I have no relationship with Caspar.

  It would have been interesting to know what she looked like. After all she seems to be the big relationship in Caspar’s life. It’s weird, although I had known about Alice, I had never given her much thought. I honestly believed that things were completely over with them after Caspar got together with me.

  I find a few photo uploads of various profile pics she has used over the years. She is one of these people that use images instead of her face as a profile pic. However I manage to find a few. Some of them are side profiles or she is using snapchat filters so it is difficult to get a clear picture of what she looks like. I find one relatively clear profile pic which I spend ages analysing.

  I had expected Alice to be a tall willowy blonde but she is pretty average. Shoulder length mousy brown hair in a bob, slightly stocky build, not at all what I had pictured. She does have quite striking bright blue eyes but she is not amazingly pretty.

  I was surprised but also secretly pleased that I was better looking than her. Like Caspar, she would also be in her mid-thirties. I know this because they were in the same year at school. In her pictures, she looks older than her age and a bit frumpy. Interesting…..

  I find a few photos in her albums and there it is. The picture I was searching for. Alice, posing
with a small girl who looks like she could be about 8 years old. Ellie is the little girl’s name according to all the comments written below picture. Ellie is quite a cute kid. She has brown curly hair and her mum’s blue eyes.

  There are only a few pictures of Ellie on Alice’s Facebook page. One shows a much younger Ellie performing in a ballet recital. There are a few pictures of Ellie on the beach and then one picture that confirms everything.

  It is of a photo taken of a certificate for winning a dance competition. The name on the certificate catches my eye….Ellie Danes.

  Danes – she must be Caspar’s daughter. It’s true. I am stunned. He was actually still seeing Alice when we were together. Why on earth would his mother try to get us together if he was with Alice? I don’t get it.

  Most likely, Bethany probably hadn’t known that they were together. I can’t imagine that she would have taken my number for him otherwise. I find pictures showing the celebrations of Ellie’s 8th birthday on June 25th. Let me do the maths. Alice would have been about 7 weeks pregnant on my 21st birthday.

  Hmmm that could have been about the time she may have just discovered she was pregnant. Suddenly things slot into place. Caspar had been living in London at that time but he used to come up to Roseford to see me. And Alice….

  Maybe she had taken the opportunity to tell Caspar she was pregnant on my 21st birthday because he was in town. He would have been so shocked and that explains why he never showed up to take me out. It would have been a pretty major bombshell. This had to be the reason for what he did. And it also explains why he never contacted me afterwards. How do you tell your girlfriend that you got your other long-term girlfriend pregnant?

  And all this time I was blaming myself for doing something wrong to turn him off. I spent years thinking I was out of his league and not good enough for him. I ring Leanna and tell her what I had just found out.

  ‘What an absolute little rat,’ Leanna sounds livid.

  I am too shocked to carry on a conversation so tell her I needed some time alone to let everything sink in. I am shaking. He has a daughter. I suppose a tiny little part of me had imagined us reconciling at some point. I have always had this strong feeling that we were soul mates and meant to be together. I can see now that this notion was completely misplaced.