Prior Engagements

by Sarah Goodwin

  Yvonne was already sitting at the wonky table, wearing her uniform and glaring at her own puffy eyes in a little gold compact mirror. In front of her was her arsenal, concealer, highlighter, powder, shadow, eyeliner and a packet of Marlborough cigarettes. Her long dark hair was freshly braided, and she still had gold glitter on her face from the previous evening.

  “Hey,” she greeted me, dabbing a penny sized blob of mahogany concealer under one eye, “there’s coffee.”

  There was indeed coffee in the coffee maker, and I poured myself a cup before sitting down. Yvonne took out a cigarette and ran it under her nose with a sigh.

  “I thought you quit smoking.”

  “I did,” she put the cigarette away, “never hurts to remind myself what I’m missing.”

  I was itching for her to ask me about Dorian, I knew Yvonne would be excited for me. She loved anything to do with dating, and the possibility of me having sex. Which made her an excellent confidant, in a way Will was not.

  But Yvonne didn’t ask me about Dorian, she just went about her usual routine, fixing her face for the day and downing enough black coffee to charge up even the most brain-dead of cocaine addicts.

  Soon it was time to get out onto the shop floor and do the work that dragged in minimum wage. I still hadn’t had a chance to bring it up, but I’d try again on my lunch break. I headed over to Homewares and tried to look at saucepans as if they contained the meaning of life itself.

  I finally got the chance to speak to Yvonne after four hours on the shop floor and fourteen identical conversations;

  “Are these saucepans non-stick?”

  “Yes.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes.”

  One day I’d find out what ‘non-stick’ actually meant. Along with ‘burnished’ ‘teak’ and ‘dye cast’. Until that day the only weapons I had at my disposal were a professional smile and a reassuring nod.

  I grabbed a coffee with plenty of sugar from the café on the way to the staff room, along with a packaged sandwich. Yvonne was already in the staffroom eating chips and downing a Relentless energy drink. The secret of working in retail; carbs, sugar and caffeine.

  “If I have to explain slipcovers again, I will whip out a stainless steel no-need-to-sharpen cleaver and make middle-aged chum of some poor confused husband,” Yvonne said by way of greeting.

  “They’re still asking me about saucepans.”

  “Ugh, when I was covering your section last Saturday, some arse came in and started moaning about the risotto that those bloody pans’d ruined.”

  “What is non-stick?” I asked.

  “It’s sort of teflony...” her eyes went wide, “oh my God! Saturday! How’d the wedding go?

  “Good,” I said, relishing the secret that was warm in my gut like expensive wine or inexpensive vodka).

  “So, did he pay you? Was he a loony?”

  “He was lovely...”

  “Really? Because he kind of had crazy eyes.”

  “He took me to Vegas.”

  “Why?”

  “Well, after the wedding we went to dinner, and we had some wine...”

  “Oh my God! He seduced you? You’ve spent the weekend with him, bonking in an American motel.”

  “The Bellagio, actually,” I said, feeling slightly smug, and a little offended that she thought I’d just bed someone in a crummy motel.

  Yvonne gawped at me. “Where?”

  “The Bellagio Hotel, a suite. With room service.”

  “Lucky bitch! Tell me you at least stole me a shower cap and some slippers?”

  “I got you some mini shampoos.”

  “Cheers.”

  “Von?”

  “What?”

  “There’s more...I got married.”

  In terms of eye boggling, Yvonne was in ‘Wiley Coyote sees a bomb’ territory.

  “Von?”

  “Married?”

  “Yes, in Vegas.”

  She slumped in her seat. “Oh Annie, you idiot!”

  I jumped, surprised. “What?”

  “You’re supposed to sleep with the rebound, go to a fancy hotel with the hot rich guy, shag him and dump him...not just jump out of the game and into a semi-detached in an area with excellent schools and a frigging... maypole.”

  There was a long pause.

  “Have you ever been out of the city?” I rolled my eyes. “And it’s not like I’m inundated with offers. Let’s face it, I’m not playing the game. I’m that kid at the back of the field, balancing my hockey stick on my head.”

  “I’m just saying, you should have some bloody fun. Remember fun? What do you even know about this guy anyway, he could be as boring as a cagoule.”

  “I like him.”

  “But do you like him enough to wake up next to him every day for the rest of your life? These are the free-and-single years Annie.”

  “For you,” I pointed out, “for me they’re the watching telly, wash-up every plate as soon as I use it, wearing Pooh bear pyjama years.”

  Yvonne looked at me witheringly. “You never wash-up. I’ve seen you eat a full dinner off a Marie Claire.”

  “Like I can afford Marie Claire.”

  “Back to my point,” Yvonne said, fittingly unrelenting now that she was full of Relentless caffeine and dubious chips.

  “I like him enough,” I told her, “people get married every day as strangers and they get on just fine.”

  “So you’ve always dreamt of an arranged marriage?” Yvonne challenged me.

  “Well, no...but then, I did choose him. I want a marriage. Not a wedding, not one amazing rugby player shag, I want someone to be there for me, to support me and care about me. Someone I can love.”

  Yvonne’s eyes softened. “You soppy cow.”

  I glared at her.

  “What does Will think?” she asked me suddenly.

  “He’s not exactly drowning me in warmth and support.”

  “Uh-huh,” Yvonne said, looking at me strangely.

  “What?” I asked, taking a sip of my coffee.

  “It’s just...you know he has the hots for you, right?”

  I almost choked, the bitter coffee catching in my throat and hovering there, as if debating making a bid for freedom, before it finally subsided and scorched its way down to my stomach.

  “Are you high, still?” I spluttered.

  “No, I was just making an observation. Honestly, I thought you’d noticed, come on, you must’ve.”

  “I haven’t noticed, because there’s nothing to notice,” I snapped. Yvonne was constantly doing this, creating little theories about the guys we worked with, the baristas at the nearby Costa Coffee, or even the guy who sold the Big Issue outside of BHS. She was convinced that I was a man magnet, as opposed to a sad-sack caught in her glittering orbit.

  But Will? Will was like my brother. We had CSI and Chianti nights, Monopoly and Merlot; we’d invented the Poirot drinking game. We had sleepovers.

  Yvonne raised a perfectly plucked eyebrow. “Think what you want, but I know what I see when I’m with the two of you. Will’s into you. Personally I always...” She shrugged, standing so she could get back to work.

  “Always what?”

  “I always thought that you’d get over Stephen and notice what was right in front of you.”

  “Well you were wrong, clearly.”

  Yvonne gave me a knowing look. “Introduce him to Dorian, I’m not admitting defeat just yet.”

  She left me alone with my half-a-sandwich and a faded poster on the first aid treatment for first degree burns. (Just how one would get burns in a staffroom with only a lukewarm coffee pot and a cold tap escaped me, but I suppose they had to cover their asses. That was why they had the leaflet about nuclear attack above the radio).

  Yvonne was wrong, always. Especially now. Wrong about wet-look leggings being exactly my thing, wrong about pole dancing being the new Pilates and she was definitely wrong about Will fancying me. She’d barely met Will, t
he last time they’d even been in the same room had been at my birthday party, back in April. Yvonne had gotten smashed and hooked up with a barman, and Will and I had played air hockey for four hours. Hardly an evening of simmering passion.

  Still, as I returned to the ‘teflony’ and problematic saucepans, I couldn’t shake the feeling that maybe, this time, Yvonne wasn’t just shooting in the dark. I mean, it was ridiculous...but part of me kept jumping back to Will telling me that he knew exactly what he was looking for...and wondering what exactly that was.

  Chapter Eight

  With my weekend shift at BHS over and done with, I collapsed come Sunday night on my saggy sofa and prised my low-heeled pumps off of my swollen, aching feet. Ten hour shifts always left me feeling like a middle-aged working woman in an 80s film. I was done with work until Monday, when I had a late start at Raspberry Bs. I celebrated with a glass of strawberry cider and a dinner of chipotle mushroom burgers (a must for the cash strapped and ardently carnivorous of nature). There was an episode of the Great British Bake Off on telly, but I knew Will would want to watch it with me come Monday. I checked my email, and found Dorian’s daily message in my inbox.

  Oh yes, the week had not been completely without contact, Dorian and I had exchanged daily emails since we’d parted, as well as small showers of tweets and a few texts. I settled in to read.

  Dear Annie,

  Today I phoned my mother, and informed her that I’d finally found myself a wife...

  Oh God. Was I about to read a tale of how a divorce lawyer had been summoned, that Dorian was being forced to enlist, and that all his elderly relatives had committed suicide at the thought of their blood mixing with that of a commoner?

  ...Once she’d become used to the idea, she seemed quite taken with it, and excited to meet you. I had a chance to talk to my sister, who is similarly delighted with me for finally marrying a woman as lovely as yourself. She’s looking forward to meeting you next weekend, as indeed am I.

  He said things like that in each email, and it always made me smile. It was as if he really wanted to compliment me, but was worried about offending me or sounding like an idiot. It was refreshing after my failed attempts at dating since Stephen, to find someone who acted like a gentleman. My online dating profile (yes, I had one, and some appalling anecdotes to prove that I’d actually used the bloody thing) had gotten more messages of ‘he1l-0 GoRgeuzz’ than you’d believe.

  Hold on a second.

  Next weekend.

  I was meeting Dorian’s parents, his immediate family...in a week?

  The first thing that occurred to me, just ahead of a wave of blinding panic, was ‘I’ll have to shave my legs’. Then my brain went nuclear, the doomsday clock struck midnight, and I actually felt the blissful alcohol induced relaxation depart my body at light speed.

  How could I meet his parents? I’d only met one potential set of in-laws in my life, and Stephen’s parents had put me off, permanently. Carl the chain smoking cabbie who talked about ‘birds’, ‘tits’ and ‘fucking bankers’ almost exclusively, and Cathy, who looked like she was drying up like a fossilised sea sponge, despite the sherry she had swilled continuously in front of Bargain Hunt. They had been friendly, but had seemed almost puzzled by my presence, like I was a visiting missionary, or an estranged aunt.

  Dorian’s parents however, were an altogether different kettle of organic salmon fillets. I remembered Opal’s horrible aunt from the wedding, she wasn’t Dorian’s relative, that was true, but definitely of the same pedigree. And that was just it, wasn’t it? Dorian had pedigree, and I was basically chum.

  I had a week, one single, solitary week, to prepare myself to meet Dorian’s family. I’d have to dig out something decent to wear, try and have my hair cut by someone other than me, with something other than kitchen shears. I’d have to take care of the physical minutia that usually passed me by (eyebrow plucking, facial exfoliating, ironing my clothes etc etc).

  I sipped my cider. It was going to be a tough week, not least because tomorrow I was going back to work at the café. It had seemed ridiculous when Yvonne had first told me that she thought Will liked me. Now, though, it was really starting to bug me. I was actually nervous, which was stupid, Will was my friend, nothing more, and he’d probably laugh himself sick at the very notion of us being anything more.

  The idea of Will guffawing at Yvonne’s theory stung a little, surprisingly. Hard to believe, but, way back in our Bath Spa University days, I’d had the teeniest crush on him. Nothing major, I never stole his pants or copied all the songs off of his iPod, but I was a little smitten.

  The night of the summer ball, I’d actually gone to the ruddy thing, hoping to get with Will. In the end, it was Stephen I’d gone home with, after five poorly mixed piña coladas. Stephen was Will’s friend, a sports psychology student and a militant vegan. He was funny(ish), attractive(ish), and he told me he’d wanted to ask me out for ages.

  It was in first year, practically ancient history now. Will had never given any hint that he’d noticed my wide eyed and infatuated routine, and when my relationship with Stephen had imploded, Will had taken my side without question. He’d even driven me home from the church, tactfully ignoring the weirdness that the day had ended in.

  I looked up from my seat on the little carpeted step that led up to the altar. Will’s shoes scuffed up the aisle carpet (yellow silk with white petals) and stopped in front of me.

  “You’re wearing blue socks,” I told him, “blue socks and black shoes.”

  “I know,” Will said.

  And I started to cry.

  I’d been standing in the vestibule for forty minutes and then I‘d gone to sit at the altar. Stephen’s guests had left around then, possibly out of embarrassment. My guests had been ushered out by Will.

  Will sat down next to me. “Your Mum’s waiting back at the flat,” he told me, putting an arm around me. “You should get plastered and have a lie in, get her to make you chicken fingers and garlic mayo.”

  “That’s what you make me.”

  “Well, then I’ll come over and do it.” Will kissed the top of my head (expensively styled with white rosebuds – Will had the matching white Mohawk).

  “Why didn’t he come?”

  “Because he’s a knob,” Will sighed, “and he doesn’t deserve you.”

  I looked down at my knees, swathed in ivory silk, my feet peeping out in my leaf embroidered slippers. It would have been quite romantic to think of myself as a princess of a conquered city, but really I felt like an overdressed idiot, hosting a party that no one had shown up to.

  Stephen had asked me to marry him, he’d helped me to plan the wedding, only last night he’d sent me a text ‘Can’t wait for tomorrow <3.’ What had happened?

  “Hey,” Will murmured, “don’t go thinking like that.”

  I turned my face up towards his, wondering how he always knew what I was thinking. Our lips were very close, and Will looked down, doing this thing that had always driven me wild in those pre-Stephen days –slyly to wet his top lip, in a quick, smooth movement.

  And I kissed him. Just like that. I still have no idea why. But, in that moment it had felt like exactly the right thing to do, like hopping into a hot bath after getting soaked in the rain, or smoking a cigarette when you’re plastered and waiting for the last bus of the night.

  It would of course have become the joke that took the sting out of my failed wedding. The anecdote that Will would whip out at Christmas, my birthday and Kwanza, just to embarrass me.

  It would have, if Will hadn’t kissed me back.

  It wasn’t just a soft kiss, one of those bashful, English, ‘Oh dear, our lips seem to be touching, we must do something, or this will get frightfully awkward’ type of kisses. It was like being electrocuted, and having my heart in a blood pressure cuff. Will had pulled me so close that I could smell the smoke that clung to his clothes from the quick fag he’d had outside the church. I could feel his perennial stubble agains
t my face, the pressure of his teeth lightly landing on my bottom lip. When the kiss had ended, he’d pulled away, almost reluctantly.

  He’d looked at me, catching his breath, his lips damp, parted. Then he’d climbed to his feet, and shoved his hands into his pockets.

  “I’ll bring the car around,” he said, and then walked quickly back down the aisle.

  That was it. Will had fetched the car, taken me out to it, and driven me to the flat, to deposit me into my mother’s care. Two days later he had brought me my chicken fingers and garlic mayo, plus a whole red velvet cake.

  We’ve never talked about it, joked about it even. It was just a thing that had happened. I must have been such a state, crying in all that bridal make-up. Probably kinder of him not to bring it up.

  As Sunday night drew to a close, and I set about renewing my cider buzz with a fresh bottle, I chanced upon a period drama on ITV. It was only the last half hour and I had no idea what it was about. Maybe Queen Victoria, but it might have been Henry the Eighth (tons of shagging and ruffs whatever it was). When it ended I went to bed, and found that my bedroom was so frigidly cold that I had to get up again just to put on an ear-flap hat, mittens and a parka.

  I didn’t actually get much sleep that night (mostly because I couldn’t feel my nose, toes or fingers), I ended up getting up again at four o’clock for a cup of tea and several episodes of MasterChef, which Will hated. I got a bit of knitting done, a lumpy purple bed-scarf (patent pending, just as soon as I can work on the whole ‘possible strangulation’ problem). The time crawled until I decided to clean my room. Somehow, I lost hours in amongst piles of clothes and shoes, which I had tossed out of my way during the hectic week. Then it was time to go to work.

  I worried the whole way to the station, wolfed down a pasty on the train to Bath, and tripped out of the carriage and into the throng of lunchtime tourists on the platform.

  Raspberry Bs was on the other side of Bath to the station. I had to walk up a busy street, past the police station, many other little cafés, and some hotels, towards Cheap Street, which was anything but since Banana Republic had moved in. About the only cheap thing on the street was the Burger King that I had taken Dorian to. It bustled with Big Issue sellers, shoppers, buskers and religious fanatics brandishing leaflets.