Rachel Ryan's Resolutions

by Laura Starkey

  They sipped and crunched in silence for a while until Anna turned to Rachel and said, ‘Right. There’s something we need to discuss.’

  Oh God, what was this going to be about? Was Anna going to ask her to move out of the flat early? Rachel was barely coping with the idea of leaving as it was.

  ‘It’s your birthday in two weeks,’ Anna went on. ‘And you haven’t exactly had the easiest year so far. I thought it’d be nice to make a fuss of you – have a proper party.’ She said this in her lightest voice, but Rachel could detect the unease swimming beneath it; misplaced guilt trying to surface.

  ‘Anna, it’s not your fault Jack turned up at the agency – nor that I got lumbered with him as a work partner. Shit happens.’

  ‘It does,’ Anna agreed. ‘And … things evolve. Life moves on, in loads of ways. But that isn’t always easy; it takes time to see the good in change sometimes.’

  Rachel swallowed. She knew where this was heading, and she didn’t want to go there. Firstly, she didn’t want to make Anna feel bad for getting engaged, and secondly – while marriage might be great for Anna and Will – Rachel really couldn’t see any way in which this was ‘good’ for her.

  ‘Anna, I’m okay. Really. You don’t need to be worried about me, and you don’t need to organise a big birthday bash to cheer me up.’ This second point, at least, she really meant.

  ‘The thing is,’ Anna mumbled, taking another slurp of wine as if to steel herself for what she had to say next, ‘I’ve already done it.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I’ve already sorted it. The party.’

  Rachel tried and failed to prevent a groan from escaping her lips.

  ‘It’s okay,’ Anna said soothingly. ‘It’s not like I’ve hired a big venue, invited your gran and booked a caterer to make finger sandwiches … It’s just a small gathering of people in a really cool bar. Tom knows the guy who owns it, and he owed him a favour.’

  ‘Tom knew about this?’ Damn, he was good at keeping things to himself.

  Anna was nodding. ‘Yes, he helped me sort it all out. We haven’t told Will, though – he’s terrible at secrets, he’d have spilled it within days.’

  ‘Hmm,’ Rachel said, arching one auburn eyebrow. ‘I don’t know if that’s entirely fair … He caught you off guard when he proposed.’

  ‘That’s literally the only time he’s managed to hold anything in,’ Anna huffed. ‘And it’s entirely beside the point. The point is, you are having a birthday party – and you can’t moan about it now or get edgy about not wanting to be the centre of attention because it’s all arranged. All you have to do is turn up. You need this. It’s for your own good, Rachel.’

  Rachel resisted pointing out that ‘it’s for your own good’ was the sort of thing you might say to someone about to undergo a colonoscopy. She leaned back in her chair and let out a long, resigned breath.

  ‘Fine,’ she said. ‘And … thanks? I think?’

  Anna poured more wine into their glasses, grinning with undisguised relief.

  ‘It’s going to be great,’ she said. ‘It’s at this cool piano bar where you can do karaoke with a live band!’

  ‘Whoa, okay – that does sound fun,’ Rachel conceded.

  ‘And I’ve invited everyone already so they all had plenty of notice,’ Anna went on. ‘I sent out the emails weeks ago.’

  ‘You did?’

  ‘Yep.’ Anna raised her glass, as if congratulating herself. ‘It’s not a huge crowd – us four, plus a few of the uni lot who are local, plus a few of your work friends.’

  Rachel felt the stem of her wine glass slip between her fingertips. She managed to set it down on the table before it fell.

  ‘My work friends?’

  ‘Mmm-hmm. Greg and his husband. Kemi, Ella and Theo. Isaac couldn’t come.’

  ‘Theo’s coming? I’m not sure he even likes me. I don’t know nearly enough Business Bullshit to have a whole conversation with him.’

  Anna shrugged. ‘Kemi said you were pals.’

  Rachel rolled her eyes, then noticed Anna was chewing the inside of her cheek.

  ‘Is there more?’

  ‘Well,’ Anna said, taking another sip of wine. ‘It seems Kemi also let the party plan slip to Jack. She assumed I’d be inviting him because – according to her – you two are thick as thieves at the office. She says he’s definitely going to make it. I can try and uninvite him if you like, but I guess it might be awkward …’

  ‘No, no, it’s fine,’ Rachel said, her voice reedy and thin.

  This was a disaster. A car crash. A catastrophe. What the hell was she going to do?

  Jack and Greg were about to be thrown together with Tom – who they both thought was her boyfriend – in a boozy karaoke bar. It was the sort of judgement day that, as a lapsed Catholic, she should really have seen coming. Of course if she told lies about one person to another, their paths would eventually cross.

  But how could she confess to Greg – let alone Jack – that she and Tom had never been anything more than good friends? The thought of admitting her dishonesty made her feel nauseous and sad.

  Meanwhile, Anna would be crushed if Rachel asked her to cancel the party …

  Before Rachel could come up with a strategy that might get her out of the mess she was suddenly in, Will and Tom turned up.

  ‘I’ve told her about the birthday party, Tom,’ Anna said. ‘I think she needs another drink.’

  Tom looked from Anna to Rachel, then said drily, ‘As I predicted, she looks thrilled. I’ll go to the bar.’

  Anna laughed and Rachel attempted a less horrified facial expression.

  Will threw his work bag underneath the table, kissed Anna’s forehead and then sank into the chair next to hers.

  ‘Party?’ he said, bewildered. ‘No one’s said anything to me about a party.’

  Rachel spent the rest of the evening trying not to panic – and determined not to look like she was panicking. By any sane standard, Anna and Tom had done a nice thing for her; she didn’t want to hurt their feelings.

  She was quieter than usual, but Anna more than made up for Rachel’s reticence. She exclaimed about Zahra’s beauty and the awesomeness of her shop, refused to answer any questions about her wedding dress and then regaled them with tales of the past week’s classroom disasters.

  Tom glanced at Rachel once or twice with thinly veiled concern, but she shook her head at him when he threw her a questioning look while Anna and Will were distracted.

  As the night wore on – and as she sank several more glasses of wine – Rachel relaxed a little. Yes, she was up shit creek without a paddle, but no amount of worrying would solve her problems tonight. Instead, said a sensible voice from somewhere in her mind, you’re going to have to try and sort it out tomorrow. Probably while nursing a hangover. Rachel told it to shut up.

  Anna was ranting about Romeo and Juliet – or, more specifically, about ‘Baz flippin’ Luhrmann’s Romeo + Juliet’.

  ‘Despite repeated warnings about it being only an adaptation of the play,’ she was saying, her eyes narrowed and her voice full of righteous anger, ‘I’ve LITERALLY LOST COUNT of the number of times Romeo’s Hawaiian shirt has been brought up in essays – ninety per cent of which also mention guns. Jamie De Luca handed in a piece of work this morning that referred to Mercutio “getting capped” by Tybalt. Would it have killed him to write … well. “Killed”?’

  Rachel’s eyes were streaming, and Will and Tom were shaking with laughter.

  ‘Having fun, are we? Well. Ha-fucking-ha.’

  All four friends looked up in surprise at the aggressive interruption.

  ‘Oh, no …’ Tom muttered. Anna’s blue eyes were huge, like two turquoise saucers in her face.

  ‘Laurence?’ Rachel said. ‘Laurence. What are you doing here?’

  ‘I’m here to have it out with you,’ Laurence said, standing over her and swaying.

  Tipsy as she was, Rachel could see that he was drunk – and n
ot the nice sort of drunk that buys a round for the whole bar and then leads a chorus of ‘Champagne Supernova’. Laurence was mean drunk, and he was here to cause a scene.

  ‘Have what out with me?’ Rachel hissed, exasperated.

  ‘You talked to Cass about me, didn’t you?’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Cass! My girlfriend! Ex-girlfriend now, thanks to you!’

  ‘I have no idea what you’re talking about, Laurence. I don’t know who she is. I couldn’t pick her out of a line-up, and I promise you I’ve never spoken to her.’

  ‘Of course you have! Why else would she dump me?’

  Rachel heard someone break into helpless laughter, then realised it was her. She was laughing, hysterical at the sheer absurdity of the situation.

  ‘Because of this, Laurence!’ Rachel made an all-encompassing gesture with her arms. ‘Because you do stuff like this.’

  Still unsteady on his feet, Laurence advanced a step closer towards Rachel, who was still sitting down. Within seconds, Tom had put himself between them.

  ‘Enough now. No more. Go home, calm down and sleep this off. And maybe consider making an appointment with a therapist first thing in the morning.’

  Laurence sneered at him. ‘I wondered how long it would take you to get your paws on her. Always waiting in the wings, weren’t you? Are you the reason why she finished with me?’

  Tom leaned forward, towering over Laurence by several inches. ‘I. Said. Enough.’

  He looked almost menacing, and Laurence shrank back.

  Rachel stood up and put a hand on Tom’s arm. ‘It’s okay,’ she said. ‘I’ve got this.’

  She squared up to Laurence, daring him to shout her down when her very best friends were behind her.

  ‘I finished with you because of you,’ she insisted, firm but not shouting. ‘Because you’re an overbearing, insensitive, arrogant, entitled bully.’

  Laurence opened his mouth, ready to retort.

  ‘I’m not finished!’ Rachel seethed at him. ‘You’ve bothered and harassed me for months, after I told you I didn’t want to see you any more. You continued to contact me by phone and email long after our relationship was over, even though I asked you not to. You sent flowers. You turned up at my work. And now you’ve followed me to my favourite pub to throw around insane accusations – to suggest that I might have deliberately sabotaged your relationship with some woman whose name I couldn’t even remember! None of this is okay. And actually, it’s only now that I’m realising just how NOT FUCKING OKAY it is. It’s crazy – and Tom’s right. It stops, right now.’

  Tom was still at her elbow, and Rachel stepped back towards him, thankful for his support. Laurence’s eyes were angry slits in his scowling face.

  Will, who until now had stayed silent, stood up and folded his arms. His hulking frame dwarfed Laurence’s; he was a man-mountain, built like the proverbial barn door. Will’s arms, Rachel thought, were probably almost as broad as Laurence’s thighs. He could floor him with a single well-aimed shove.

  ‘Couple of things,’ Will said, in the same friendly tone he’d have used if he were asking someone whether they knew the latest Arsenal score. ‘Number one: your behaviour sounds an awful lot like stalking. Now, I’m not a criminal lawyer, Laurence, but it seems to me that the police would take a pretty dim view of all this – as might your employer, or any future employer, should Rachel decide to prosecute. And we’ – he indicated himself, Anna and Tom – ‘are going to make sure she dials 999 immediately if she ever sees or hears from you again. Number two: despite my build, I am a very mild-mannered man. But if anything’s going to inspire me to throw a punch, it’s seeing another bloke try to intimidate a woman – especially one I love. Rather foolishly, you’ve gone one step further too: you’ve disturbed Friday Night At The Hope, which you know full well is sacrosanct.’

  ‘And you interrupted my Romeo and Juliet story, you wanker!’ Anna yelled, poking her head out from behind Will’s arm. Rachel bit back a laugh.

  Laurence’s shoulders had sagged and he’d begun slinking away – as if he wanted to leave but was frightened to turn his back in case someone lunged for him.

  ‘Go, Laurence,’ Rachel said. ‘Go for good. Don’t ever contact me again, or I will report you.’

  He tried to glare at her, but the alarm in his eyes won out. He looked like he was trying to think of some way to salvage his dignity. In the end, he just spun around and walked away – and Rachel knew that, finally, she was rid of him.

  ‘Oi, you!’ she heard a voice bellow. It was Nick, the pub landlord, and he was pointing at Laurence. ‘You don’t come in here again. YOU’RE BARRED. Now GET OUT OF MY PUB!’

  After Laurence had slipped out of the door, Nick murmured, ‘I’ve always wanted to say that.’

  Rachel, Anna, Tom and Will were all sitting down again now, laughing with relief, not quite able to believe what had just happened.

  ‘Shall I get another round?’ Tom asked.

  ‘Definitely,’ Anna said. ‘I found that whole drama very sobering. We need to counterbalance its effects immediately.’

  ‘You’ve got to give it to him, though …’ Will said, draining the last of his pint.

  ‘Give what to him?’ Anna demanded before he could finish.

  ‘Well. I always said he was boring, but crashing in here pissed and apoplectic definitely wasn’t dull, was it? I mean, he seemed like a stodgy, straight-laced actuary but it turns out he’s a borderline sociopath. Who could have seen that coming?’

  Anna shoved him and laughed again. Will stood up to help Tom with the drinks.

  Rachel smiled wanly, and answered Will’s question in her head. Maybe I could have seen it coming. Maybe I should have.

  ‘I hope you didn’t mind my intervening back there,’ Tom said to Rachel as the four of them stood outside the pub after closing time. ‘I didn’t mean to tread on your toes – he just looked really aggro.’

  ‘Honestly, it’s fine,’ Rachel said. ‘I was grateful. For all of you.’

  Anna and Will were chatting with some friend of his from the local rugby team, and she and Tom had drifted to one side, alone together.

  ‘What a psycho, though,’ Tom sighed. ‘I never did like him.’

  ‘At this point I’m not entirely sure I ever did. I think maybe nice, harmless Laurence was some sort of mirage. A figment of my imagination. I’m sorry he had a go at you, by the way.’

  ‘What? Oh. That thing he said about me “waiting in the wings”? Don’t worry about it.’

  Tom shrugged and kept his eyes down. That made what Rachel knew she needed to say next a little easier.

  This was her chance – probably her best chance, she realised – to tell the truth about her screw-up to the one person who might be able to help her. She was going to take it.

  ‘Tom … Laurence isn’t the only person recently to make that assumption about us.’

  His head jerked up. ‘How d’you mean?’

  ‘Jack saw us out together in Highgate on the night we went to see Zack play. He thought you were my boyfriend.’

  ‘Okay …?’ Tom was looking at her, puzzled, his eyebrows drawn down.

  ‘And I let him. I let him think that. He still thinks that. Which wouldn’t be a problem if it weren’t for—’

  ‘Your birthday. Right.’

  Tom had buried both hands in his hair, and was massaging his skull as though he thought it might stop his brain from exploding.

  ‘Rach … I mean … Why? Was it about making him jealous?’

  ‘Maybe. Partly, I think,’ she said, flooding with shame. ‘But it was also handy for keeping him at a distance – putting myself out of bounds.’

  ‘And how’s that working out for you?’ Tom asked, acidly.

  ‘Er. I think it’s fair to say that the fence I’ve put up between us is … rickety,’ Rachel answered. ‘He seems less and less bothered about … trying to climb over it.’

  ‘What a guy,’ Tom sighed. ‘Pursuing
a woman who seems like she’s in a perfectly happy relationship. Always a good sign.’

  He sounded harsh. Bitter. Unlike himself.

  ‘Happy relationship?’ Rachel asked, risking a raised eyebrow.

  ‘You were happy that night,’ Tom said. ‘We both were until we started bickering about the person we’re bickering about right now.’

  ‘Touché,’ Rachel admitted.

  ‘And I’m assuming you haven’t told him I’m a shit boyfriend – I mean, presumably that wouldn’t serve your carefully considered agenda.’

  ‘Of course I wouldn’t say that. You’re lovely, which is exactly what I’ve told him – and which he absolutely hates.’

  Tom shook his head at her, but his lips had loosened, no longer frozen in an angry line.

  ‘So what’s your plan, then?’ he asked. ‘How are you going to get out of this? Do you need me to dump you?’

  ‘What?’ Rachel cried.

  ‘If I dump you, you won’t need to admit to anyone that we aren’t together.’

  ‘True. I hadn’t even thought of that … But then you couldn’t come out for my birthday, which would be rubbish – you don’t turn up for the birthday party of someone you’ve just chucked. And … I want you there. It’d be shit without you. If you’re not with me, who’ll help to get Anna and Will off the karaoke stage when they want to sing the full nine-minute version of “Bat Out of Hell”?’

  ‘Fine, fine, I won’t dump you,’ Tom said, unable to resist laughing at the promise of Anna and Will’s performance – a party piece he and Rachel had seen several times before.

  ‘However, this leaves us with only two options.’

  ‘Which are?’ Rachel asked.

  ‘You confess the truth to Jack, or you and I have to pretend to be an item on the night of your birthday party.’

  ‘You’d do that?’ Rachel’s eyes were huge. Hopeful.

  ‘Apparently,’ Tom grumbled. ‘Even though it’s stupid, juvenile and bound to backfire.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yes. I mean, you’ve obviously lost the plot, but I can’t bear to think of you telling anyone – let alone him – that you’ve faked having a boyfriend, made it all up. He’d use your humiliation as a springboard for his next sexual advance.’