Who Needs Men Anyway?

by Victoria Cooke

  I think it’s time we arranged to meet up.

  He replied almost instantly.

  I’d love to. When and where? Andrew xxx

  My eyes focused on the kisses by his name. I wasn’t just in a pickle; I was in the pickle jar with the lid clamped shut.

  Chapter Fifteen

  As I approached him in the little tearoom, the steadiness of my breath started to diminish and instead came out in little bursts. I felt ridiculous, immature, and irrational. A whole mixed salad of stupidity.

  He caught my eye when I was a few metres away but glanced straight back to his phone. He didn’t recognise me, of course. We’d shared so much and knew each other well that I’d subconsciously assumed he’d know me, give me a friendly wave or a smile or something. I paused for a moment at the insistence of my heavy chest and became aware of my fingers trembling. Taking a deep breath, I switched myself onto autopilot for the last leg of the journey.

  ‘Hello,’ I said, sitting down in front of him.

  He looked a little startled, and I couldn’t help but notice that his long eyelashes framed his piercing blue eyes beautifully.

  He cocked his head to the side, just enough to allow a piece of hair to sweep over his eye. ‘Hello?’ The inflection he added made it sound like a question, which of course was valid since a seemingly random stranger had just plonked herself down uninvited. He looked over his shoulder a little nervously, like he was worried Megan would show up while he sat with this other woman.

  ‘I know you’re expecting Megan,’ I began. There was a marching band playing up a storm in my chest.

  He frowned but let his shoulders relax and sat back in his chair. It was incredibly wrong of me to notice how his T-shirt hugged his biceps, but I did.

  ‘I have some explaining to do,’ I continued. ‘I’m Megan’s friend, Charlotte.’ I paused as a flash of concern flickered across his face. ‘Megan is fine,’ I said quickly. ‘The thing is, well, it’s difficult to say.’ Sitting there, looking into those hypnotic eyes, I was struggling to find the words.

  I took a deep breath. ‘I’m the person you’ve been talking to you these past few months on the Me & You website.’ I tried to ignore how his jaw tightened slightly. ‘Megan’s fiancé cheated on her, and after she’d kicked him out, I set up the page intending to let her take the account over once she was ready. I wanted to line up a few first dates, nothing more.’

  I shook my head and let out a nervous laugh. Would he see the funny side? ‘She is the person in the photograph, but the conversation, well that was me.’ All me. His jaw clenched, and I wasn’t sure things were coming out quite the way I’d intended.

  ‘This doesn’t make any sense.’ He shook his head. ‘Why would she want you to do that?’

  I winced. It was a very good question. She wouldn’t. ‘Megan didn’t know.’ He straightened in his seat. ‘If you knew me, you’d know I like to help people. S . . . some might call me a meddler but I do these things because I care. I just wanted her to find happiness.’

  ‘Well, I feel like a prize fool.’ He shook his head and let out a hollow laugh.

  I started to panic. ‘Please don’t – this is all my fault. I’m the fool and you should lay the blame firmly with me.’

  ‘Oh, I do!’ He glared at me. ‘I feel so stupid. I’m sat here now because I thought I had a connection with someone, but I’ve no idea who! It was all a lie!’ His features darkened. ‘The things you said – were they what you thought Megan would say, or what you thought I wanted to hear?’

  My throat thickened and I swallowed hard. ‘Neither. They were just the things I thought. It was me you were talking to.’ He slumped back in his chair. ‘I was honest. Everything I said was all me: my favourite films, my words. Everything.’ I hoped he’d realise the feelings I’d confessed to were real, that they were also me.

  ‘This is crazy. I’ve heard of catfishing, but this is just weird. What were you, just bored?’ He cast an eye over me. ‘Bored little rich housewife needs a new plaything?’

  Hot tears started to burn my eyes. ‘That’s unfair. I . . .’ Of course, from his perspective, it was entirely fair and after all the awful people I’d criticised on the Me & You website, I was by far the worst. ‘I’ve been going through some things too and—’

  ‘I’d started to . . . feel things.’ He rubbed his temple. ‘For the first time since Beth died, I felt a connection with another woman. Have you any idea what a huge step that was for me to take?’

  My face tingled with heat and shame as guilt percolated through my skin, filling me up like a mug of bitter hard-to-swallow blackness. ‘I felt that too,’ I whispered, shaking.

  ‘No,’ he said flatly. ‘Those feelings I had weren’t real. You lied. You didn’t allow them to be real.’ The bitterness in his tone was cutting. ‘You need to see someone for help if this is how you get your kicks.’ The last line earned us a glance from the lady on the next table.

  I dropped my head. He had me all wrong.

  ‘I was just trying to help Megan get back into dating. I didn’t expect to like anyone. I was happily married when I started the whole thing up.

  ‘And then your husband realised you were a sociopathic liar?’ he spat. He was always so friendly, so lovely, that those words felt too sharp.

  ‘No, that’s not what happened at all. He cheated on me!’

  ‘Whatever. This is probably just all part of your fanciful web of lies. Maybe you believe them, but I don’t.’ He slid his chair back to stand up.

  ‘Please don’t go,’ I whispered pathetically.

  He looked down at me and shook his head. ‘I don’t owe you anything,’ he said before walking out of the coffee shop while I sat shackled to the chair. Hot, salty water stung my eyes.

  ‘Excuse me, but if you don’t want to order anything, I’m afraid we’re going to need the table.’ The waitress’s voice cut through my emotion; she was gesturing to a group of people by the door. The tearoom was full, and everyone was staring at me. ‘I’m sorry. So sorry,’ I said scrambling to my feet.

  The air was fresh when I stepped outside and Andrew was nowhere to be seen. I was supposed to be putting things right, but none of it felt right.

  Chapter Sixteen

  I still felt terrible as I ushered Kate through the front door as soon as she arrived. ‘Hurry up and come in.’

  ‘What’s the panic?’

  God, I wish I could have a drink. ‘I’ll put the kettle on and you sit in the lounge.’

  I sat opposite her a few minutes later, snuggling up to my decaf, and spilt the entire thing – the Andrew story, not the decaf, that is.

  ‘Dear God! What’s happening to you, woman? I think you’ve lost the plot!’ she exclaimed.

  ‘I know.’ I sunk my head into my hands.

  ‘You were always the woman putting the rest of us to shame with your superior organisational skills. Always doing everything right. A real-life Little Miss Perfect. Who’d have thought you’d be capable of emotionally ruining a poor widower, betraying your friend, and getting up the duff by accident.’

  I sighed. ‘You’re really not helping, Kate, and I feel bloody awful.’

  ‘Even I feel sorry for this Andrew bloke and I never feel sorry for anybody. It’s like you’ve lost your meddling mojo or something.’

  ‘Still not helping, Kate.’

  She shrugged. ‘Well, it’s done now: he knows, Megan knows. It’s over, just draw a line under it and move on or it will eat you up and life is too short.’ Her words registered somewhere, but my eyes were fixed on the carpet, the image of his face cast before them, so twisted and angry. Andrew probably wouldn’t be moving on any time soon.

  ‘We’ll be laughing about it over cocktails this time next year.’ Her words brought me back.

  ‘This time next year I’ll have a baby to deal with.’ It was a sobering thought. She was right; I probably wouldn’t remember the whole Andrew thing at all.

  ‘You wouldn’t think it looking aro
und the place! It’s like a feature on Houzz dot com,’ she said, gesturing at my perfectly plumped scatter cushions.

  ‘I know. James had mentioned contacting my interior designer for some ideas. She sent some bedroom brochures through a while back that also had children’s room and nursery ideas. I thought I’d have a look at those to see what I liked before getting in touch.’

  ‘Do it now!’ Kate’s eyes sparkled as she sat forward in her chair. ‘No time like the present, and it will take your mind off this whole Andrew business.’

  I thought about it, and it was nice of Kate to show an interest as she wasn’t a fan of children or anything related to them, plus I was really keen to start looking. ‘Okay. We’ll need to go up to the office to download her brochures. She sent them to James,’ I said, feeling the corners of my mouth lift into a huge smile.

  ‘You do know I suggested looking at baby crap and not an all-night session with Gerard Butler don’t you?’ Kate said, pulling herself to her feet. I gave her a stern look and made my way towards the stairs.

  ‘Okay, grab the chair from my dressing table,’ I said as I sat in James’s big leather swivel chair. Kate wandered off and came back in, heaving the wooden chair from my walk-in wardrobe. By the time she’d shuffled around and positioned herself next to me, the laptop was loaded up.

  ‘I feel a bit weird logging into James’s emails without asking,’ I said, suddenly conscious it was wrong.

  ‘Well, will he mind?’

  I shrugged. ‘I don’t think so. We’ve used each other’s emails before – he knows I have his password. Besides, it’s just his personal one – there won’t be any sensitive case data in there or anything.’

  ‘Oh, that’s a shame.’ Kate smirked.

  His email address was automatically in the username box so it was a simple case of adding the password. A slither of irritation pierced me as I keyed it in.

  F-R-A-N-C-E-S-1

  Kate clocked the keystrokes and rolled her eyes.

  I scanned the inbox. It had been sent over a year ago so I’d have to go right back through them all. Luckily, James was good at deleting out all the rubbish so there were just a few pages to scour.

  ‘Hold on.’ Kate placed a hand on my arm. I eyed her curiously and she pointed to the screen. I looked up and saw it.

  s.smith

  ‘Gardening invoices. It’s just S—’ I began, but then I noticed there were an awful lot of messages from S. Smith and the subject line was blank in each, which was odd for professional emails. I hovered my cursor over the most recent, which was dated lunchtime that day. There was a deep thudding feeling in my chest and my mouth went dry as I looked to Kate who gave me an encouraging nod.

  I’m so horny for you, James. I can’t believe Boothman had to join our meeting today and ruin our 1:1. Looks like it’s Skype-fun again – usual time? I’ll be waiting for you by my laptop. My clothes won’t ;) xxxxxxxxxx

  I glanced down at my trembling hand and back to the screen, double-checking the date. Surely I’d misinterpreted something. Some legal code?

  ‘The one-to-one, it’s what they do to thrash out ideas isn’t it?’ I said it aloud. Kate stared at me. ‘And the Skype-fun, that’s just sarcasm, because the case is really boring isn’t it?’

  ‘And the horny, and the kisses . . . and the clothes?’ Kate spoke softly. ‘That bastard.’ She shook her head.

  ‘There’s a mistake. Perhaps she’s just pursuing him still, like a Fatal Attraction type thing. Maybe that’s why she hasn’t been pursuing Sam. It’s an illness really isn’t it?’

  Kate gently slid my hand off the mouse and transferred it to her side, opening the email beneath, dated nine o’clock that morning.

  Mmm last night! Working nights has never been so good. xxxxxxx

  I slumped back in my chair. ‘It could be one-sided.’

  ‘There’s a reply.’ Kate looked at me uncertainly. My voice wouldn’t work so I waved my hand up to indicate she should open it.

  Indeed! I haven’t stopped thinking about you. Who knew that boring old office chair could be so exciting? xxxx

  I felt sick. Kate placed a protective arm around me. ‘Come on. I’ll make you some tea.’

  Kate led the way, ranting about James, but I wasn’t really listening, I was processing. It wasn’t just about me any more, it was about my baby as well. How dare he do this to my baby, to his baby, like we weren’t enough for him? He hadn’t even given our family a chance.

  I was trembling as Kate sat me down and handed me some tea. ‘I’m going to read them all,’ she said. ‘I think we need to see what’s gone on. You stay here.’

  I nodded and she traipsed back up the stairs. As soon as she’d gone, I clutched my stomach protectively. Through the anger and humiliation, love for my unborn child swelled within me. That was it for James. Betraying me once was one thing, betraying our unborn child was another. I wasn’t going to forgive him again. I couldn’t be one of those wives who just turned a blind eye to her husband’s indiscretions time and time again. We deserved better.

  The room around me suddenly seemed so insignificant. The beautiful house I’d dreaded leaving was aesthetically pleasing but nothing more than well-arranged rubble. What good was a beautiful home when such ugliness resided within? It wasn’t a home filled with love like I thought it was. Just as the glass bead wallpaper masked the imperfections in the wall, the house masked the imperfections in our marriage. Even before James cheated, people never saw past the house and the cars, the good-looking couple and the nice clothes. They didn’t see the long hours James worked and the strain it put on our marriage.

  I don’t know how much time had passed but Kate returned, a sombre expression on her face.

  She sat down and sighed. ‘Well, the good news is, he did break things off with Samantha after you found out about the two of them. And nothing happened for a while. If email is their main source of communication, then it seems like this all started back up about three weeks ago.’

  I threw my head back against the sofa.

  ‘It appeared as though he’d started confiding in her about the two of you not being . . . well, intimate. Things looked like they grew from there – there were gaps and things in the communication. I suppose they saw each other in the office.’

  I had been quite cold towards James, but what the hell did he expect? I wasn’t going to blame myself this time. Not a chance.

  ‘Well I won’t forgive him this time.’

  ***

  After reassuring Kate that I’d be okay, she finally went home to prepare dinner for Carl. It was nice to see her thinking about him and not just herself for a change. It seemed the recent breakups had hit home for her, though Kate couldn’t cook so I assumed by ‘prepare dinner’ she meant ‘pop to M & S for the three-course meal deal’. Shortly after she left, James returned home.

  ‘Your dinner is there.’ I pointed to a pre-packaged chicken Caesar salad on the table with a yellow reduced sticker on, and he looked up quizzically.

  ‘Is this a pregnancy thing? Are you feeling off today?’ I didn’t reply. ‘I’m going to take this up to the office.’ He turned to walk upstairs.

  ‘Much work to do?’ I asked, knowing full well he’d have seen the email on his phone and would know he had something up there to look forward to.

  ‘Yes, still lots on I’m afraid.’ He walked over and planted a kiss on my head and I froze. I hadn’t planned what to do or say. Kate had rambled on and on; I’d not listened. Should I let him go upstairs and get down to business before bursting in to catch him? I’d wondered. I couldn’t. What would I find? Him with his trousers around his ankles staring at the computer screen like a pubescent teen? I shuddered. I had to confront him, and I had to do it now.

  ‘I’m leaving you, James.’ I didn’t want to ask why he’d carried on with her. I already knew why. Greed. It was everything he was. If he liked it, he usually got it.

  He looked taken aback. ‘Charlotte, I thought we’d made progres
s. We have, haven’t we?’ He stretched out a hand towards me, and I took a sidestep away. ‘Would you care to explain what brought this on? Hormones?’

  I let out a dry, humourless laugh. ‘Perhaps it’s your hormones!’ I said.

  He furrowed his brow, confused.

  ‘I decided to make a start on the nursery planning today.’ I let that sink in, but he still looked puzzled. ‘The interior designer sent some brochures over last year. Do you remember them?’ I was enjoying watching him search for clues.

  ‘Not really, why?’ He was getting impatient.

  ‘Well, I had to search for them.’

  ‘Did you try the filing cabinet?’ he asked slowly.

  ‘They were emailed, James. Don’t you remember? They were emailed to you.’ I saw the flash of guilt appear on his face while his brain was still registering what I’d said.

  ‘So you accessed my email?’ He was nodding slowly, thoughtfully, now.

  ‘I accessed your email.’ I glared at him, watching as the colour drained from his face.

  ‘I can explain,’ he said, and for the first time, a hint of desperation penetrated his usually steady voice.

  ‘Save it,’ I said bitterly. ‘I’m just sorry I gave you a second chance last time. We—’ I pointed at my stomach ‘—don’t need you.’ I spat the words out and prodded at him sharply.

  I didn’t know what I was doing but I knew I had to get away. I stormed upstairs, vaguely aware of footsteps following behind me.

  ‘Charlotte, look at me,’ he said, following me into the bedroom.

  I ignored him, storming into the wardrobe. I snatched clothes from the hangers without looking at them and piled them on the chaise longue in the centre, eyes darting around as I looked for a holdall.

  ‘Charlotte,’ he said more loudly this time. ‘You’ve been so distant. I didn’t know if you were ever going to be able to come back to me.’

  ‘Well, you have an amazing way of assuring I do, James. Sleeping with the chambers’ slut. Why the hell am I not throwing myself at you?’ I placed a sarcastic hand on my heart.