A Work in Progress

by L. T. Smith

  Without looking upwards, I asked “Are you okay?”

  At her mumbled “Uh-huh,” I tentatively lifted my eyes to assess the situation. Gill’s hand cupped her mouth, and I knew if I could see through it I would see her grimacing.

  “Sorry?” Why I put the question in my apology was anyone’s guess, but Gill understood and nodded at me in acceptance.

  I pushed backwards, my knees scraping along the floor, and I didn’t begin to get to my feet until I knew I was out of Gill’s space. I didn’t want a repeat of me nearly knocking her front teeth down her throat. Before I could stand completely, her hand appeared in front of my face, held out in a gesture that offered assistance. I couldn’t refuse; I also couldn’t help the buzz of happiness skittering around inside me. The only problem was letting go of her hand once I was standing upright.

  Unexpected shyness enveloped me as I half faced her, my eyes flicking to her already swelling mouth. Guilt replaced all sense of my aforementioned shyness, and I had to stop my hand from touching the swelling.

  “Honestly, it probably looks worse than it is.” Gill tried moving her lips and grimaced, making me grimace with her. “Let’s sit down before we do each other further injury.”

  I nodded and took a step backwards, and then another, until I knew it would be safe for me to turn and move to the sofa without knocking her lights out.

  Settled back on the sofa, I leaned back to accommodate Gill in her usual position, but she didn’t take me up on it. This time she seated herself at the other end, her body leaning forwards as if she was ready to bolt. And once again, quiet filled the room.

  At that point I was beginning to get fucked off. That was too reminiscent of a Scooby Doo moment where the same thing was repeated, but rather than it being the scenery, it was the situation that was reoccurring.

  “So, tell me why you think Tom would have an affair because you told him your father had abused you.” My tone was cold and I inwardly cringed, but I didn’t stop there. “Is it possible you’re getting yourself upset about something you are not even sure is happening?”

  There have been times in my life where I know I should have kept my gob shut, or if not shut, definitely previewed what I was about to say before it was verbally vomited onto my listener. This was one of those times. I saw Gill’s face tighten, then go slack. Her resolve seeped away and a vulnerability, an innocence took its place.

  Gill released a sigh. “It’s stupid. Honestly, the more I think about it, the more I think I’m being a bloody drama queen about Tom.”

  My jaw loosened. How she could think she was being overly dramatic after everything her father had put her through was beyond me.

  “I mean, just because he decided to go on a night out on the same evening we were supposed to have a date night doesn’t mean anything, right?” Gill turned to me, hurt in her eyes. “It’s not as if we had anything in particular planned, just ‘us’ time. I try to make sure we always have time for us, you know, uninterrupted time where we can just be together.” She heaved a sigh, the breath coming out long and heavy.

  Ironically, I would’ve given anything to have uninterrupted time with Gillian Parker, Anything. But that was just sad little me.

  “Did he know about the date night plan?”

  Gill nodded.

  “And he had wanted the date night?”

  She nodded again.

  “So why did he decide to go on the night out with colleagues from work instead of you?”

  The growl Gill emitted told me she thought I was a total plank.

  “If I knew that, then I wouldn’t be asking you for your thoughts.”

  Touché.

  We stared at each other for a bit longer before I caved and broke our gaze.

  The silence was back, so much so that I could almost hear my brain churning everything over. Then the quiet was interrupted by the clinking sound of the penny dropping onto what could only be described as a metal floor that was inside my head.

  “Did you tell him how important it was for you that you have a date night?”

  Gill’s face swung in my direction, her eyes slightly puzzled as if she wasn’t quite with me. “Huh? What?”

  “Did you tell him that it was important, that you wanted time for just the two of you?”

  Gillian shook her head, her face contorted into something that seemed to indicate deep thought, so I asked her the next logical question.

  “Did you tell him ahead of time that the night he was going out was supposed to be a date night, or did you assume he would read your mind?”

  Her eyes flicked away from mine, and I knew by that small gesture that she had not told Tom the specifics of the evening she had planned in her head. She knew the agenda and how she would proceed with the planning, all the while hoping for a specific outcome. Whilst Tom would have only been asked whether he was doing anything Saturday evening, the rest of it kept hidden as if it was the secret to life. And there was a reason I knew this.

  “Do you remember the blind date you set up between Janet Reynolds and Martin Cleaver?”

  Gill twitched.

  I leaned closer, my face close to her cheek. “I said, do you remember the blind date you set up between Janet Reynolds and Martin Cleaver?”

  Gill nodded stiffly.

  “Which one of the two was it that you forgot to tell it was a date—Janet or Martin?”

  Gill shrugged.

  “Was it the same one that was already in a long-term relationship?”

  Gill spun to face me, anger replacing the distance of just a moment before. “It wasn’t my fault that Martin forgot to tell me that he had a boyfriend. How was I to know?”

  The laughter that burst from me made Gill’s glare icier and the situation even more hysterical. But I knew I was pushing my luck and made an effort to suppress my amusement.

  “I don’t get what’s so funny all of a sudden. I tell you I think my fiancé is having an affair, that he would rather spend our date night with her instead of me, and—”

  “He is spending Saturday night with a woman he works with?” Suddenly things were not so hilarious. “The one you believe he has a thing for?” The pitch of my voice rose. “And he has told you he is seeing her, meeting her?” The fucker! How dare he!

  “He, well, she—”

  “Is he at work now?” I surged to my feet. “Want me to go and deck him?”

  Gill grabbed at my hand, missing a couple of times before her fingers wrapped around mine. “No. Leave it. No.”

  The panic in her voice stumped me. Why would Gill worry about me confronting her fiancé? “Look, Gill, you are worth more than this, more than him fucking cheating on you with some two-bit trainee.” I stepped in front of her and leaned forwards, deliberately gentling my voice. “Whatever is or isn’t happening with Tom, it is better you find out about it now than find out after you’re married.”

  I didn’t wait for her to respond. “If, and I mean if Tom is playing the field, the fault lies with him.”

  Instead of sighing and giving me a look that begged for sympathy, Gill’s brow furrowed as she slapped my arm, making it sting from elbow to shoulder.

  I rubbed the spot vigorously and glared at her, the shock of her cracking me one inhibiting my ability to speak, lest I called her a few choice names.

  “I know it wasn’t my fault, dickhead.”

  “Dickhead?”

  “I don’t want you to rearrange his face, I just want you to come to a party at The Maids Head Hotel on Saturday night.”

  I stopped rubbing my arm and stared at Gill in disbelief. “You want me to come to a do for Tom’s work colleagues on Saturday night?”

  Gill nodded as she shifted forwards onto the edge of the sofa, her brown eyes looking up at me with pleading. “I want your take on what is going on between those two. You always could smell a rat.”

  Actually, I couldn’t. I’d always told Gill that all her boyfriends were lying, cheating bastards and not good enough for her. The r
eason? If she dumped him, or them, then maybe she would realise the folly of her ways and acknowledge her deep desire for yours truly. Yes, I had been the bearer of bad news to more than one dippy, spotty, greasy-haired teenage boy because I’d wanted Gillian Parker all for myself. Did I feel guilty about what I had done? For them, no. Not then and not now. But seeing her look up at me with eyes that reminded me of Puss in Boots in Shrek, I was like putty in her hands.

  “What time do you want me to be there?”

  Gill jumped to her feet and wrapped her arms around my neck. The squeeze she gave me was deliciously tight and eager. Her breath on my cheek was warm and enticing, and I was close enough that I could turn my face and brush my lips over hers, but I didn’t. I steeled my resolve, my eyelids fluttering wildly as if they were undecided whether to open or close. Open would mean I would have to pull out of Gill’s embrace; close would be to continue the contact, something I wanted to happen.

  “I knew you wouldn’t let me down.”

  It wasn’t just her words, the words that had bounced along my skin and into my waiting ear that led me to come to the conclusion that I was a sucker. It was the victorious tone with which they were delivered that made me agree to give up my Saturday night to play Secret Squirrel.

  At that precise moment, I realised I had been well and truly had. The epiphany I experienced at that moment was striking. Gillian Parker’s visit had not been about me or my breakup but because she’d wanted me to agree to go along to her fiancé’s work do to see if he was cheating on her with a junior doctor. This was something any best friend would do. However, it did stick in my craw slightly that she had gone all around the houses to get me to agree rather than asking me outright.

  Instead of pulling out of her embrace and addressing the way she had tricked me into helping her, I hugged her closer. It wasn’t every day I got the chance to hold her like that, and I was going to make the most of it.

  Chapter 6

  I didn’t want to go to a bloody party full of people who poked, prodded, injected and examined people for a living. And I don’t mean tax inspectors, either. It was bad enough that I had to spend the evening with people I wouldn’t usually be caught dead with—well, eventually I guess I would, as they all worked in the medical profession, but that is by-the-by. I didn’t want to go to the party, and I definitely didn’t want to go to the party undercover. Previously I had likened myself to Secret Squirrel, but now I was more like Penfold in Danger Mouse—code name, “The Jigsaw.” Like that furry hamster, I knew I would go to pieces at any hint of trouble or danger, but I definitely would not be spouting adorable epithets like “Oh crumbs” or “Crikey!” Mine would definitely be X-rated and delivered at volume.

  Too many times I’d picked up my phone to cancel. When I say “too many,” I mean twice, but that is twice as many as I should’ve felt the need to pick up the phone. Meeting my best friend should’ve been the highlight of my weekend, meeting the woman of my dreams even more so. However, I just wanted to hide inside my four walls and pretend the rest of the world didn’t exist. I had a story to write, after all, and me gallivanting around here, there, and everywhere wouldn’t help it get written. My two heroines were still flirting through mounds of sexy underwear and I still hadn’t given them decent names, never mind a purpose or an agenda. There was no backstory, no “first kiss,” no eyes meeting for the first time and “locking.” In fact, the only first that I had managed was giving the Jamie, or Jane, character a bit of a cough. Maybe she should be the one going to the party. She could get a full diagnosis of her up-and-coming chest infection without having to go through the dragon on the front desk in order to nab herself an appointment.

  Nevertheless, seven o’clock saw me taking one last look at my reflection in the bedroom mirror, the pile of tried, evaluated, and discarded clothes in a heap on the bed behind me. Other than her birthday suit and a smile, what should a woman wear when surrounded by doctors and nurses? When I’d finally stopped seething about being tricked into attending the party in the first place enough to ask Gill, even she couldn’t give me a heads-up about the etiquette and dress code of the general practitioners’ bash. Her muttered “Wear something you feel comfortable in,” followed by “but look classy” didn’t seem to fit together. Comfort meant jeans, PJs, maybe slippers or socks, the kinds of things that enable a girl to sling her legs over the back of the sofa without causing herself an injury. Classy, on the other hand, meant wearing a dress—usually tight, revealing, and distressingly short, accessorized by heeled shoes. And wearing underskirt, bra, and panties. The kind of outfit I would take great pleasure from making criminals wear if they had done bad things to kids or animals.

  The latter was the kind of ensemble I had decided to don, reluctantly, but at least Gill would see me in something halfway decent. The price tag put paid to that. And, not to blow my own trumpet, but I did look pretty good. Green always suited me, as it brought out the colour of my eyes, eyes that were actually sporting a smidgeon of uncharacteristic mascara.

  Smoothing my hands down the front of my dress, I ironed out the imaginary creases in the silken material. The bra I’d purchased did exactly what it promised to do—lifted and separated my breasts whilst defining my cleavage. If I could personify boobs, at that precise moment I would have described them as startled twins. If I’d spotted the same look on another woman, I would have thought it would be either a great spot to rest my head or, at a push, park my bike.

  At that thought, my hand dropped from my now-plumped-up chest area.

  “What the fuck am I doing?” I could feel the air of triumph hissing out as my ego deflated. “I look like a hooker.” I leaned closer to the mirror. “A fake-titted hooker with cleavage to rival the…the…whatever the fuck is wide!”

  I pulled down the straps of the dress and proceeded to slide the bra off. It had to go. There was no way I could attend a function surrounded by professionals and look like a different kind of professional myself, one that got paid by the hour or the job, although actually that could sum up the majority of the work force.

  I yanked open my dresser drawer and pulled out another bra, one that had less scaffolding and more comfort. At least one part of my anatomy would be at ease at the party, two if we counted my girls separately.

  I swiftly fastened the bra and pulled the dress back into shape. Even if the bra had seen better days, at least I wasn’t sporting an area food could be served from because my other bra had pushed my bust so high I could use the area as a serving hatch. The bra was clean and so were my panties, and that was all that mattered in the event that I was in an accident, wasn’t it? Although I should imagine the cleanliness would depend on the severity of the injury or how long I knew my oncoming fate before being hit by a bus.

  After one last look in the mirror, I picked up my handbag and left the room. It would take me at least twenty minutes to get to The Maids Head Hotel, and Gill was expecting me to be there by eight-thirty. I didn’t want to be late.

  I like to be early, even if it means waiting in the car park for a little while. At least then I could make a calm and collected entrance. Or so I thought.

  Chapter 7

  The car park for The Maids Head Hotel was reserved for guests, so I had to park at St Andrew’s multistorey car park, a five-minute walk in normal shoes but a damn sight longer whilst wearing shoes created by Beelzebub himself. It was as if I had tiny demons hiding in the lining, hitting random places with miniature hammers or gripping skin with their teensy skin grippers. Lots of “small” indicators there, but not so small in the pain department. The temptation was strong to tear the heeled heathens off and launch the shoes from hell over the walkway from the car park to St Andrews Street. Only the thought of Gill’s face when I appeared barefoot in the doorway of one of Norwich’s best hotels was enough to keep me hobbling onwards.

  Thankfully I still had about forty-five minutes before my eight-thirty deadline, and I was adamant I was going to make it, unlike making the
deadline for my writing. However, I misjudged my route and instead of continuing to make my way up Princes Street, I stupidly opted for the scenic route, the one I would have happily taken in flat shoes.

  Elm Hill, the most photographed street in Norwich—beautiful, charming, delightful. The atmosphere conjured the nostalgia of times past, and the shops were full of antiquities, oddities, and high-end craftwork. It was a very popular place, and also a good cut through to Tombland, where The Maids Head was located. One thought that had slipped my mind before I turned into the road now quickly rose to the fore—cobbles. Elm Hill’s cobbled pathway was a sight to behold, especially on this beautiful summer’s evening—so pretty, so quaint, and so fucking difficult to manoeuvre in heels, even if they were only three inches.

  But three inches are three inches, and I was not used to walking in anything with more of a heel than a Karrimor walking shoe, and even wearing that kind of shoe, I would have still had to watch my step over the cobbles and uneven surfaces of the street.

  They do say that pride goeth before a fall, and I am a prime example of how that could come to pass. If I hadn’t been checking out my reflection as I hobbled past Antiques and Interiors, I wouldn’t have misplaced my foot and lost my footing. My tiered appendage twisted sideways, taking me with it. It wasn’t so much the pain of it, but the realisation that I had nothing to grab on to in order to steady myself, or, as I was just about to find out, to stop myself from buggering over.

  If I had seen my fall on a film, I would have laughed, thrown my head back and bellowed my laughter with amusement and abandon. However, being the protagonist in my own fall from grace was a completely different scenario. As I stumbled, my arms began to grab at the air. Frantically. I can only imagine the look of sheer horror on my face as I realised that I was not going to be saved by the hand of God.

  The ground seemed to lift up to meet me, both slowly and with speed. The developing panic racing through me kept my brain from having a clear sense of direction as it tried to decide which part of my body should take the brunt of the inevitable landing. My handbag wanted to help, as it swung backwards and forwards in my hand, unsure whether it would be an excellent pillow to cushion my fall or it would do nothing. I think my subconscious kicked in at that point and opted to save my phone, which was inside my bag, rather than my knees, hands, and pride as they hurtled towards the uneven cobbled surface. At least I knew where my priorities were, and my phone, which was a miracle in itself.