Nothing New for Sophie Drew: a heart-warming romantic comedy

by Katey Lovell

  Tawna hurried over to the man, and from the way he looked at her, taking in the freckles on her shoulders where her strappy sundress didn’t cover her skin, I knew he thought she was flirting. He salivated as she flicked her hair over her shoulder as she spoke, Tawna unaware of the spell she was casting over him.

  When she skipped back, telling us to go inside and to expect a queue upstairs for the lifts to take us to the 86th or 102nd floor viewing areas, I mentioned how he’d looked like he wanted to ravish her.

  “Don’t be daft! I was only asking him about the opening hours. Anyway,” she added, proudly waving the rock on the third finger of her left hand at me, “he must have seen that I’m engaged.”

  “That diamond is pretty hard to miss,” Eve deadpanned. I smothered a laugh because she was right, the stone was especially dazzling in the city sunlight.

  “You don’t really think he thought I was coming on to him, do you?” Tawna asked, a worried expression on her face. “I know I said ‘what goes on tour stays on tour’ but I was only joking.”

  “We know,” I assured her. “You’re so in love with Johnny you don’t even look at anyone else.”

  That’s the difference. If I cared for Max as much as I professed to, surely I wouldn’t have kissed Darius in the first place. The thought of Max gave me butterflies, the potent mix of lust and regret fizzing like a soluble vitamin tablet in a glass of water. Then Summer’s angelic face took over, and the way Darius’s kiss had brought back memories of the good times, and I was left as confused as ever.

  “Maybe Eve will find a wealthy American over here.” Tawna grinned. It was the same as when the two of them discussed my love life in my presence as though I couldn’t hear what they were saying. “I should have got that businessman’s number for you. He was all right looking, if you go in for the briefcase and braces type.”

  “Let’s join the queue,” I said in an attempt to kill the conversation. I sensed Eve’s discomfort from the way she shifted from one foot to the other. “We don’t know how long we might be waiting for a lift.”

  We stepped into the lobby, cooing over the gleaming walls. The air conditioning was a welcome contrast to the claustrophobic heat of the city on the street.

  Conversations of love were long forgotten as we joined the queue, chattering about the iconic building’s place in film history in movies such as King Kong and Sleepless in Seattle. However, Max remained very much at the forefront of my mind.

  I checked my phone.

  We were flagging by the time we made our way back to the hotel, adrenaline only able to keep us awake for so long. Our trip to the top of the Empire State Building had taken up more of the day than we’d anticipated, the winding queue inside slow-moving; but it had been worth it for the views out over Manhattan and beyond, the cloudless aquamarine skies the perfect backdrop for the cityscape below. We’d posed for photos on the deck, laughing and smiling despite our exhaustion, because that’s what three Geordie girls in New York City do.

  When our feet were back on solid ground, we found a bar which served extortionately priced fruity cocktails in sugar-rimmed glasses, glad of the alcohol soaking into our weary bodies. Tawna was still on the lookout for a man for Eve, eyeing up every male who walked through the door as a possible future husband for our friend. Unfortunately for Tawna (but fortunately for Eve) most of them came in with girlfriends, or didn’t pass Tawna’s stringent quality testing, so it remained just us three, laughing and chatting and reminiscing like in the old days, as we enjoyed our cocktails.

  By the time we made our way back through the crowds in Times Square we were tipsy, and tipsy and tired wasn’t a good combination for me. In fact, it was right up there on a par with hungry and tired for making me short-tempered and foul-mouthed, which was how the argument started.

  Tawna’s opening gambit was probably innocuous in her mind, a “joke” about how me and Eve were lightweights for needing to go back to the hotel after a few cocktails.

  “You never used to be like this, Sophie,” she slurred, teetering on her heels like a toddler taking her first steps. “You used to party as hard as the rest of us.”

  “Pacing myself,” I mumbled back.

  “It’s my hen do.” Her lips protruded. “Stop being so boring. You’ve been checking your phone all night long and your face is like a slapped backside. We’re supposed to be having fun.”

  “We are having fun,” Eve replied, ever the mediator, “but it’s been a long day. If we go back to the hotel, we can have a cheeky disco nap and a freshen up and then go out again later.”

  None of the crowds were walking in a straight line, they darted in and out of the oncoming human traffic, zigzagging across the wide pavements and clashing shoulders without so much as a glance back to check the person they’d bumped into was okay. The enormous neon signs flashing up colourful advertisements caused me to blink until I could barely focus.

  “It’s you two who don’t have the stamina. I’m doing fine,” Tawna retorted. To prove her point she grabbed the arm of a tourist wielding a long-lens camera. He jumped back, probably fearing attack. “I don’t look drunk, do I?” she screamed in his face. “I look like I could party all night.”

  The man shook his head, then nodded, unsure of the correct response.

  “See!” she exclaimed, turning back to us. “Maybe I should find another bar and go there on my own, as my two best friends, my two bridesmaids, aren’t up for making a proper night of it.” Her pout was so furious that she looked like Donald Duck.

  “Don’t be like that, Tawna.” Eve sighed, as the man Tawna had approached looked warily in our direction as he backed away. “How about we have a drink in the hotel bar? It’ll be more chilled out in there.”

  “I don’t want chilled out,” she flounced, but she still turned left into the bar rather than right towards the elevators as we stumbled into the hotel lobby.

  “Go on then. I’m sure I can manage another one or two.” It was an attempt to show willing, even though my whole body ached with utter exhaustion. What I really wanted was a long soak in the bath and a good night’s sleep, but my boundless loyalty to Tawna wouldn’t let me retreat to my room. “It is your hen do, after all.”

  “My first hen do,” Tawna corrected, grabbing a cocktail menu from the bar. “There’s the ‘Dirty Dancing’ night, of course. I’ve not forgotten you sorted that, the date’s in my phone.” The comment came across as patronising and her sickly-sweet smile grated on me. She was making out we should be grateful she’d remembered our efforts. “And then I’m arranging a bigger event, so everyone who wants to can join.”

  Eve and I shared a look as she studied the drinks list. A “what the fuck is she on about” look.

  “I’ve hired out one of the bars back in Newcastle,” Tawna continued after she’d ordered the drinks, as though Eve and I were the weird ones. “The one you had your birthday party at actually, Soph. So many people were asking what I was doing for a hen do, and I couldn’t expect everyone to fly out to New York at the drop of a hat, could I?” She laughed at the absurdity, totally missing how she’d expected exactly that of me and Eve.

  I was so tired, so achy, and a little bit drunk, and these three factors combined caused me to snap. Biting my tongue was no longer on the agenda, I was well and truly riled. “Why would you do that? What kind of megalomaniac needs three hen dos?”

  Tawna looked at me as though she’d been slapped, before angrily slamming the menu down against the wooden bar. “I don’t think it’s being a mema… megla… melogamaniac.” The long word foiled her in her tipsy state. “I thought my friends would want to celebrate my last days as a free woman.”

  I threw back my head and a cruel laugh escaped my lips. “It’s hardly like you’re going to be a slave in a third world country. You’re going to be living in your flawless house with your flawless husband who earns enough money that you don’t have to work in a dead-end job. You haven’t got a clue what it’s like in the real world.
You’d be nothing without Johnny and his money. It wouldn’t surprise me if that’s the only reason you’re marrying him.”

  I knew I’d taken it too far when Eve shook her head at me, but even so I couldn’t bring myself to apologise. Tawna was so detached from reality, and she needed to know it. Everything spilled out in anger. My debts. Eve’s mum’s decline. I condensed a no-holds-barred account of the past six months into five emotion-riddled minutes, and I was on such a roll, such a cathartic roll, there was no chance of either of my friends breaking my stride.

  By the time I’d finished ranting, calling Tawna selfish, oblivious, and self-centred, my throat hurt and my cheeks were soaked from my tears. I’d let everything loose, from the huge things like the red letters from the credit card company right through to the smaller things like how her obsession with whether using real crystals as table confetti was old-hat is a first-world privilege. (I’d also told her I had no idea whether or not it was old-hat, but that if she put semi-precious jewels on the tables, I’d be collecting them up and selling them to pay off my debts.)

  Eve stared at the polished table, as though examining the grain of the wood for flaws. Tawna, unusually for her, was stunned into silence, and when I finally came to a halt, flat out of both breath and home truths to reveal, her lips remained clamped together.

  The kindly barman subtly placed what I presumed to be a glass of water in front of me, which I guessed was to help me calm down and cool down. I winced as I took a sip. It was vodka, neat and without even a solitary cube of ice. The element of surprise brought everything into sharper focus, and I noticed I wasn’t the only one with a tear-stained face. Eve had been crying too.

  “If I’d known how much you were struggling I would have helped,” Tawna said, which was just so like her to think she’d have all the solutions.

  “As if,” I said derisively, inelegantly rubbing the back of my hand underneath my snotty nose. “You don’t give a damn about us anymore. All you care about is your wedding.”

  “That’s not true!” Tawna’s mouth gaped.

  “Really?” A drunken laugh escaped my lips, a twisted sarcastic cough of disbelief. “Every time we see you it’s because you want us to get fitted for dresses or show us the shoes you’re wearing. It’s always got to be about you and your ‘big day’.” I punctuated the final two words with air quotes and an eye-roll.

  “When I did invite you over you blew me off for Max.” Tawna’s tone was indignant and defensive, “So don’t you tell me that I’ve not tried.”

  “You were interfering!” I bellowed, pushing myself up from the stool I’d been sitting on. I obviously used more force than I’d intended to as the stool crashed, with a sharp ear-splitting clatter, against the dark-wood floor of the bar. “You weren’t bothered about seeing me, all you were bothered about was trying to get me and Darius back together so there’d be no bad feeling on your wedding day! If it wasn’t for you being so hell-bent on pushing us together I might be with Max now.”

  People stared, watching cautiously over the salted rims of their margarita glasses, but I was too angry and too drunk to care that I was causing a scene.

  “You’ve got it all wrong,” Tawna replied, her eyes glistening with tears which threatened to fall. “I was doing it for you. I want you to be happy.”

  “Really, Tawna? Really?” I stared her down, or at least, I attempted to. It’s hard to eyeball someone when you can see two of them. “Because lately it seems like you’re not interested in me or Eve unless there’s something you can get out of it.”

  Tawna picked up her cocktail, removed the straw and, drinking straight from the glass, knocked back the drink, including the sprig of mint which I’m sure she’d forgotten had been used as a garnish.

  “If that’s what you really think, then I don’t know why you’re here,” she replied, before deliberately turning her back on me and clicking her fingers to get the attention of the barman.

  I faced Eve, who was examining her nail varnish in a bid to remain impartial. That annoyed me too, because I knew she’d been as pissed off by Tawna’s behaviour as I had. Surely she could back me up, rather than sitting so firmly on the fence that she might as well be nailed on?

  “I’m going to bed,” I said, nodding in the direction of the lobby. Shooting stars flashed before my eyes at the sudden movement. “Come on, Eve.”

  I strode out of the bar, head held high even though I was fully aware of the punters cautiously watching me, the reason for the commotion. I tried to sashay like a catwalk queen, but my heel skidded on the slippery surface of the floor, and I went over on my ankle. It hurt.

  Only when I limped to the lifts, pressing the “call elevator” button so hard that I almost snapped my finger in two, did I realise I was still alone. So much for Eve not taking sides.

  Five minutes later as I climbed into bed, the Times Square billboards shining brightly through the crack in the curtains, my chest tightened with dread. What would happen next? Tawna and Eve were the only people I knew in the whole of America, and they hated me. As I sobbed into my super-plump pillow all I could think was that there really was nowhere to run.

  Chapter 24

  Eve and Tawna came to bed not long after I’d stormed out of the bar, and although I wasn’t asleep I screwed my eyes shut and pretended to be dead to the world. I lay still as the pair of them pottered around me talking nonsense as Eve took out her contact lenses and Tawna followed her nightly skin care rituals.

  They carried on chatting long after they switched out the light, reminding me of summer sleepovers where the three of us would share our deepest secrets in the safety of the darkness. This time though, I remained silent, holding my breath as I waited for them to discuss the night’s events. They didn’t, instead making up daft lyrics to an Ed Sheeran song and debating whether orange Smarties tasted different to the other colours since they replaced the delicious E numbers with natural flavourings.

  When the telltale snoring from either side of me confirmed Tawna and Eve were asleep, I swung my legs out of the bed, slung my cardigan on over the top of my pyjamas (plain black, more loungewear than nightwear) and pulled on my trainers. I needed fresh air, but most of all I needed space to think.

  Turning left out of the hotel, I headed towards downtown Manhattan. It was quieter than it had been during the day, but sunshine yellow taxis were still ferrying people about and revellers were spilling out of the bars. New York might be the city that never sleeps but, even along the main drag, it wasn’t a place where I wanted to be alone at night. I felt sadness for the homeless men huddled in doorways wrapped in grubby coverless duvets; and the skyscrapers that had seemed so ambitious during the day – reaching symbolically upwards to the heavens – were now oppressive, looming over me like monsters.

  I didn’t stray from Broadway, well lit and well populated, and I thought and walked, thought and walked. Although I was both mentally and physically exhausted, the sensation of my feet pounding against the concrete was grounding, but as the cushioned soles of my trainers pushed me further south, I made a decision. It wasn’t the one I’d set out to make, how to mend the fractured relationship with my two best friends, but as I sat on the bench on the outer edge of a large landscaped square (the open space making me feel far less oppressed), I took my phone from my pocket, logged into my PayPal account and, seeing I’d received more payments for clothes I’d sold online, transferred the balance into Darius’s account.

  I felt marginally better. I fired him a text to let him know I’d made the payment. It was a day late, with it being seven in the morning in Britain, and it wasn’t the full amount he’d asked for, but it was all I had to give. Hopefully it would be enough to keep Nadia sweet in the short-term, so Darius and Summer could stay within easy travelling distance of each other. My phone beeped a response almost immediately, but where I’d expected a message of thanks from Darius, there were five words.

  We need to talk.

  Max.

  There
were no kisses, no “I miss you”s. Nothing to suggest anything he had to say was positive. Unsure of how to respond, I ignored the message and switched my phone off.

  I sat for a while, squinting past the street lights towards the foreign, starless sky. People milled around, but I didn’t feel threatened, and although my head was sore I no longer felt drunk. The rage that had consumed me had dissipated too and I wanted, more than anything, to be back in the hotel room with Tawna and Eve. But would Tawna hate me after my bitchy comments? And would Eve mind that I’d told Tawna about her own private business? I only hoped they’d be able to find it in their hearts to forgive me.

  I started walking, heading north.

  “Where have you been?” Tawna fired. “We’ve been worried sick.”

  She looked haggard, which was rare. Her eyes were slits, the whites a bloodshot red.

  “Walking,” I mumbled, sitting down on the edge of my bed to pull off my trainers.

  “At this time of night? In New York City? Are you crazy?” Eve’s eyes were the polar opposite of Tawna’s, wide cartoon-like circles. “I woke up and you were gone. I was frantic.”

  “You should have phoned.”

  “We tried eight times,” Tawna replied bluntly. “It went to answerphone every time.”

  “I thought you’d been mugged or worse…” Eve’s voice tailed off and she lay back on her bed. “You’ve no idea how worried we were. I’ll tell you something, that’s one way to sober up sharpish.”

  “I went for a walk, that’s all. I wanted to clear my head.”

  “I’d have walked with you,” Eve wailed. “Don’t you ever scare me like that again, Soph. Promise?”

  Guilt flooded through me. “I promise. And I’m sorry for what I said earlier.” My eyes connected with Tawna’s zombie eyes. “I was angry, but I shouldn’t have let my mouth run away with me.”