Chapter 44
3 October 2020 – Sydney, Australia
Right foot, left foot. My heels ascended the sandstone stairs towards the restaurant and away from the wedding guests behind me. In less than two hours’ time Sam would be married and I would have had my first meeting with a real-life agent. A meeting about my work. Not Lady Devon Atwood’s, not CreateSpace’s, but mine. Of course, she’d made no promises as to whether she’d represent me but the fact she’d managed to bring our meeting forward at such short notice surely had to be a good sign. If I’d have paid any attention in the response to my press release I would have realised that she wasn’t based in Sydney. Thank God she happened to be in town for the weekend before heading home to…
‘Melbourne,’ Tina Conrad said authoritatively, sitting before me. ‘It’s really where you need to be if you want to have a shot at becoming a professional artist. You’re not married to Sydney, are you?’
I took a large sip of wine. I shook my head and smiled. ‘I’m actually ready for a change.’
When I left Sam behind yesterday it had dawned on me that saying no to the wedding or to Joshua wasn’t enough. Everything I had built for myself in this city still involved him. My housemate, my friends, Tim; you didn’t have to scratch far beyond the surface to trace the links back to him. They had helped grow me and shape me like good friends do, but our moments didn’t need to last forever to mean something. I had never had anything of my own when Sam and I were together; I sure as hell wasn’t going to let that happen now that it was just me. And he was getting married, starting a new chapter. We both needed a fresh page.
‘You’ll have to work really hard,’ Tina continued, pushing her hair behind her ears and pausing to order from the waiter. I followed suit, silently hoping that agents were the ones to foot the bill.
‘I will,’ I said, nodding furiously, knowing it was the truth. I was prepared to fight for what I believed in, regardless of where it might lead.
‘In that case,’ Tina said, closing my portfolio and passing it back to me with care. ‘I’d love to represent you and see what we can do.’ She raised her drink as a toast and I lifted mine to meet it, the chime of the glasses not waking me up from this daydream. This was real; I had an agent, and I was moving to a new city. I knew it wasn’t as big a transition as moving from London to Sydney, but somehow it felt like an even fresher start.
I looked out of the windows to a stretch of beach I hadn’t seen before, imagining myself walking along the streets of Melbourne. New beaches, new streets, new sights. For once it didn’t feel like running away. As if reading my mind, Tina said, ‘You’ll love it. The art, the food, the music, the dating.’ She grinned tellingly before pausing. ‘You don’t have a partner, do you?’
I thought of Joshua, and smiled, thankful for a well-timed reminder that I could develop some kind of feelings for someone other than Sam. Maybe one day our paths would cross again. But it wasn’t a ‘maybe one day’ I would hold onto too tightly. It was a ‘maybe one day’ that I’d blow like a dandelion into the wind on a wing and a prayer, letting it go and embracing the day, today.
‘No, it’s just me.’ I smiled.
Just me. I savoured the way the words tasted. I knew some days they’d be harder to swallow than others; that some days would feel like a struggle. But today, I felt like a boss, like I’d got it all made. Why would I let the weight of the past or the fragility of the future take that away?
Somewhere, right this second, Sam was putting a ring on Jamie’s finger, a ring that I’d thought one day would be meant for me. Their new adventure was about to begin. And now I had my own. It wasn’t what I had imagined, not what I had planned. But it was real, and it was mine. Just me: free to explore, and grow, and learn and change. Just me – and I was enough.
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A Letter from Elizabeth
Dear Reader,
Thank you so much for reading The Spare Bedroom. Writing to you (and for you) is literally a dream come true… I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it.
If you did enjoy it, and want to keep up to date with all my latest releases, just sign up at the following link. Your email address will never be shared and you can unsubscribe at any time.
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Not only have I loved telling stories since I was a little girl, but the idea for Jess’s journey was sparked by an actual dream I had – and then dissected with one of my best friends. In it, I moved back to Sydney, a city I had lived and studied in for a year. Imagining what it would look like to go back, we laughed about how I’d probably bump into my (now married) ex and be so overcompensatingly* friendly that I’d end up shacking up with him and his new wife. ‘That would be a good idea for a book,’ I said. It was a sentence I’d said a thousand times before, but this time – it kind of stuck.
Little did I know then that I was about to feel pretty stuck myself. As I began writing it, I soon slipped into what felt like the hardest year of my life to date. Outwardly, there was nothing majorly wrong. I had a job I enjoyed, friends I loved, a roof over my head (and a central London roof at that). Inwardly, I was sinking. Everywhere I looked people were moving forwards: promotions, engagements, marriages and babies surrounding me on all sides. Everyone was setting sail somewhere new and – forget missing the boat, I felt like I hadn’t even been invited onboard. I tried so hard to fight it, but jealousy, discontentment and immobilising indecision took root until I became anxious about nothing and everything all at the same time.
Into that place, Jess’s voice started to speak. Of opportunities missed, sacrifices made, and a whole life lived in the waiting room, just longing for that life she had planned for herself way back when to finally fall into place.
Since then, I have spent over two years working on her story with some incredible women; I have not got engaged, married, bought a house or had a baby but I am learning every day to rest in my messy middle, embracing the gift life is and realising maybe it’s not all about me.
This book is for everyone who feels like they are trying (and failing!) to force their life back into the ‘plan’ or waiting for something to qualify them: a new job, a new partner, a milestone just out of reach. It is for those who feel like life isn’t working out how they imagined but don’t know how to fix it or even begin to let go of our so-called control.
I do not have the answers (nor, for that matter, does Jess) but I’m starting to have fun trying to figure them out and I really hope you have enjoyed reading Jess’s journey of doing the same.
Like Jess, I hope you know you are enough – but not in an ‘I am an island, I don’t need anyone’ kind of way. I fully believe we were all built for community, for relationships – but that perhaps along the way we have defined ‘in a relationship’ far too narrowly. Being single does not mean you are not ‘in a relationship’. Jess ends this journey single but not alone: hers is a story of letting old friends help her, new friends lift her, community build her and the universe (or God or something or someone) make her feel that wonderful weight of the size of the world and the littleness but significance of her life within it – all at the same time.
Thank you so much for giving the book in your hands a read. It really does mean so much to me.
I hope you loved The Spare Bedroom and if you did I would be very grateful if you could write a review. I’d love to hear what you think, and it makes such a difference helping new readers to discover one of my books for the first time.
I’d love to connect with as many of you as I can so do find me on Instagram, Twitter or on my website.
All my love,
Elizabeth x
*not a word – had to check it though, ha…
www.elizabethneep.com
Acknowledgements
This book was born out of crazy hour: an overtired time where my first ‘work wife’ and I would decompress from a day of pretending to be grown-ups. Thanks, Bex Nelson, for being that crazy one – and for countless reasons beside. It was then shaped by those who shaped my twenties, of which there are far too many to name. If I’ve laughed with you, cried with you or drunk great wine with you over the past decade, thank you. A special mention must be made to Grace Beecroft – I wouldn’t be me without you. To Lindsey Armstrong and Hannah Chambers, for bringing all the love and laughter of Sydney back to London. To the cheerleaders who read along, chapter by chapter, as I wrote them: Audrey Schneider and the incredible Nick Stevenson-Steels. To my second (and current) ‘work wife’, Juliet Trickey – you inspire me every day. To Grace Carter for being my first editor – and teaching me how to use track changes. And to Steve Mitchell, my mentor, my sponsor and my friend.
You would not have this story in your hands were it not for Sallyanne Sweeney of MMB Creative. Thank you for taking a chance on three unfinished chapters of Jess’s story and shaping them with your encouragement, sensitivity and smarts. You have made and continue to make this journey a joy. Thanks to my wonderful editor, Cara Chimirri, for your wise insights and unwavering enthusiasm and to the entire team at Bookouture – from the designers to the sales reps to the administrative angels behind the scenes. Publishing doesn’t happen unless everyone plays their part and you all play yours beautifully – thank you.
First and (second to) last thanks are always to the Neeple People – whether by name or nurture, marriage or madness. And finally, ‘to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine’, thank-you for smashing my dreams with the sheer size of yours.
We – both author and publisher – hope you enjoyed this book. We believe that you can become a reader at any time in your life, but we’d love your help to give the next generation a head start.
Did you know that 9% of children don’t have a book of their own in their home, rising to 13% in disadvantaged families*? We’d like to try to change that by asking you to consider the role you could play in helping to build readers of the future.
We’d love you to get involved by sharing, borrowing, reading, buying or talking about a book with a child in your life and spreading the love of reading. We want to make sure the next generation continues to have access to books, wherever they come from.
Click HERE for a list of brilliant books to share with a child – as voted by Goodreads readers.
Thank you.
*As reported by the National Literacy Trust
Published by Bookouture in 2020
An imprint of Storyfire Ltd.
Carmelite House
50 Victoria Embankment
London EC4Y 0DZ
www.bookouture.com
Copyright © Elizabeth Neep, 2020
Elizabeth Neep has asserted her right to be identified
as the author of this work.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in any retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publishers.
eBook ISBN: 978-1-83888-638-7
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places and events other than those clearly in the public domain, are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
The Spare Bedroom: A totally heartwarming, funny and feel good romantic comedy Page 31