‘I think I liked the old you better. The miserable and bitter one.’ Maggie sighed painfully. ‘He kissed me, Sarah, because he was a bit drunk and he felt like it. Because he was a man, and that’s what men do, don’t they? Or don’t you remember any of those lectures you used to give me now that you’re in lurve?
Sarah shook her head, but she was laughing like her teenage daughter did on the phone.
‘I’m not in love! I’m just having a nice time, which makes a flipping change, I can tell you.’
She paused and composed her features.
‘What if you invited Pete and Stella to the party?’
Maggie started to protest, but Sarah cut her off.
‘Think about it – if he comes alone, well, then, you’re in. If he comes with her, it gives you a chance to see them together – study the form, so to speak. If he doesn’t come at all, then you’ll sort of be back to square one, but the first two options could work, couldn’t they?’
Maggie looked into the bottom of her coffee cup and thought about it.
‘I’m too old for all this planning and wondering and worry. Next you’ll be asking him out for me. Or passing him a note.’
‘Could do,’ Sarah said, only half joking.
‘Don’t you dare!’ Maggie had been unable to prevent herself acting appalled at the idea, even though she knew it would never happen. ‘OK, I will invite him. I’ll ask Falcon to invite the whole lot of them as regulars. After all, I’ve invited Mrs Kim and a couple of other old customers. But you wait and see. I bet Pete and Stella are all over each other … What?’ Maggie noticed that Sarah was frowning.
‘I’d forgotten about Falcon. He’s not the sort of bloke to go up to Marcus and say, “Oh, by the way, I had your date in the ladies”, is he?’
Maggie shook her head. Over the last few weeks she’d got to know Falcon quite well, at first as a way of trying to glean any snippet of information about Pete she could (there had been little), but gradually because he was quite a sound bloke and strangely philosophical.
‘No, no he won’t. I think your little encounter gave him something to think about for a while, but from what he says there’s someone else he’s into now. Really into as well, I think.’
Sarah nodded gratefully. ‘So invite them all. And when you get a chance to talk to Pete alone, Stella or no Stella, just take a chance – OK?’
Maggie had no intention of doing any such thing, but she wanted Sarah to stop talking long enough for her to eat her double chocolate muffin without distraction.
‘OK,’ she’d said. And Sarah had looked triumphant.
‘And then, I thought, we bring round the mini dark chocolate and strawberry cheesecake as a sort of dessert before offering coffee. Is that OK?’ Keisha was speaking directly to Maggie.
‘Fantastic!’ Maggie said, unable to ask her to repeat everything. ‘Fabulous. Well done.’ She looked at her watch, wondering if she had enough time to go upstairs, sit on her bed and be a gibbering wreck for half an hour.
‘So,’ Louise said with a slow smile. ‘What are you wearing tonight, Maggie? Got your outfit planned?’
Maggie looked down at her somewhat creased and shiny trouser suit.
‘Oh, um …’ She’d actually thought about just wearing this.
‘You’re not thinking of wearing that old thing, are you?’ Louise seemed genuinely horrified. ‘You need something glamorous, something the photographer will want to get a pic of you in.’
Maggie mentally ran through the contents of her wardrobe. She instinctively looked at Christian as she panicked.
‘Oh God, I haven’t got anything to wear!’ she moaned.
Louise took her arm and, unnervingly, gave her a little hug.
‘Don’t worry, there’s plenty of time! I’ll tell you what – we’ll go out now and find something dazzling. Christian and Jim can keep things ticking over here for an hour or so – can’t you, boys?’
Christian and Jim looked fairly alarmed: one at the prospect of his ex and new partner being alone together, and the other at the added responsibility, but Louise’s smile was like a charm and they both nodded, mesmerised.
‘I’ll never find anything good in an hour!’ Maggie said anxiously. ‘Not in St Albans!’
‘Don’t worry, you will. I know you will,’ Louise told her reassuringly.
‘How do you know?’ Jim asked Louise’s breasts with barely concealed admiration.
Louise giggled and fluttered her lashes.
‘Because all clothes look good on flat-chested women. Now come on, let’s get going, we’re wasting time!’
Chapter Thirty-three
Pete looked at Stella curled up on the bed as she ate the toast he’d brought her and carried on watching the TV.
‘So anything you want to do today?’ he said. ‘I thought as I had a day off maybe we could go out or something?’
Stella glanced at him. ‘I don’t know, babe, I’m really tired. I might have a cold coming on. I might just stay here.’
Pete sat down on the edge of the bed. ‘Um, there’s this thing on tonight, this party at a pub in town – did Angie tell you?’
Stella shook her head, her eyes fixed on the TV.
‘Oh well, she said she did but never mind. Anyway, it’s tonight, and I thought I might go. You could come too if you wanted to get out a bit?’
Pete was torn between wanting to go alone and wanting to see Stella in a different environment, anywhere where she might be a little more like her old self again. Stella stretched and pushed her empty plate away from her.
‘No, I’ll just stay in. You go, babe, if you want to.’
Pete bowed his head. It looked as if she had just forgotten that Angie had told her after all. He struggled with a dilemma, finally deciding that he should give Stella every chance to change her mind.
‘Are you sure? It’s Maggie’s place – remember the girl I told you about? The one I was friends with while you were away? Are you sure you don’t mind me going?’
Stella’s head snapped up and she looked at him.
‘No, I don’t mind you going, but … well, maybe I could come too.’ She pulled herself up into a sitting position. ‘Maybe we could go out now and I could get something to wear and we could go together?’
Pete nodded stiffly. ‘Great!’ he said. He picked up a pair of trousers and found his cash card. ‘Here, we’ll get some money out and get something nice.’
Stella smiled at him and pulled on her dressing gown. She rose up on to her knees and put her arms around his neck.
‘Are you OK?’ she asked him.
Pete thought about LA. He thought about Maggie. He thought about the stalemate that he and Stella were caught in. He knew that time was running out for him to be able to do something about it. He knew that if he didn’t act soon, there was a good chance he just wouldn’t go to LA, that he’d stay here with Stella, waiting for her to come back just like he always had. Only waiting for her to come back to herself, this time. He looked at her.
‘Stella, I think … there are things we need to talk about. I think that …’
Stella got up off the bed and went to the door.
‘OK. I’m going to shower first, though, and then we can go out. We can talk later. OK?’ She looked at Pete.
‘We have to, Stella. We can’t go on like this …’
But Stella had already shut the door.
‘I think you should wear red,’ Louise said as she ran her finger along a rack of dresses. ‘I think you’d carry red off really well with your hair and your eyes. What are you – an eight?’ She held up a knee-length red halter-neck dress. ‘What about this? Try it on!’
Maggie looked at it; it wasn’t something she would have chosen for herself in a million years – altogether too flashy.
‘Oh, I don’t really think that’s me, to be honest. It looks a bit tight!’
Louise put the dress in her hand and propelled her towards the dressing room.
‘Just t
ry it on! The whole point of being tiny is that you can wear tight things – you don’t have bulges to worry about.’
Maggie glanced over her shoulder as she went.
‘I do have bulges!’ she protested.
‘Not real ones, your bulges are my idea of perfectly toned muscles. Now go on!’
Maggie pulled and pushed and squeezed her way into the dress and then looked at herself in the mirror. Her hair needed a wash and her face looked pale and shiny. She squinted and tried to imagine herself with make-up on.
‘It’s sort of hard to tell,’ she called, ‘without …’
‘The right shoes. Here you go.’ Louise’s arm thrust a pair of red spiked heels through the curtain. ‘I got you a five – you look a five.’
Maggie’s eyes widened at the heels.
‘I don’t know about those! I mean, I have to be able to walk around,’ she said, but she put them on anyway, sensing that she wasn’t going anywhere until she had. Did Christian know, she wondered, that he was living with a control freak? Another one?
‘Mmmmm.’ Louise said as she pulled back the curtain. ‘It’s hard to tell in here. Come out into the shop – the light’s much better.’
Maggie resisted growling at her; after all, she was the only person either available or willing to come with her, and she really was trying. She obediently tottered in the shop.
‘Very nice,’ the shop assistant said. ‘Really stunning. Those shoes are a must!’
Maggie looked at herself in the mirror. She had to admit that the overall effect was a pretty good, if slightly slutty, one. It made her legs look great, and the dress wasn’t embarrassingly tight, more sort of readers’ wives tight. With the right underwear, maybe … Maggie pinged the material away from where it clung to her body. No, it was the sort of thing you’d only wear to a Vicars and Tarts party.
‘I look like a high class – no, strike that – low class hooker,’ she said, turning to speak to Louise and coming face to face with Pete. And Stella.
‘Oh!’ she said, trying not to fall off her heels. ‘Hello. Pete.’
Pete swallowed, and Stella watched his jaw muscles tighten.
‘Hi, Maggie, it’s, er, nice to see you again.’
Pete kicked himself. The shock and surprise of finding Maggie here looking so well, so practically naked, had made him sound utterly insincere.
‘Are you going to wear that tonight?’ he said, trying not to sound as shocked as he felt. ‘You look … um, really … well, I mean.’
‘I might do,’ Maggie said, looking anywhere but at Pete’s face. She had to get out of this dress and out of his sight within the next five seconds or she was going to kill herself by a spontaneous implosion of embarrassment and dismay. ‘Anyway, better get on. Lots to do. But glad that you’re coming, glad that you’re both coming.’
Maggie glanced quickly at where Stella had been standing, afraid of her being too beautiful, but she seemed to have gone.
‘Bye then!’ she squeaked.
Maggie pointed herself in the direction of the changing room and launched herself forward, praying that there was some law of physics that would keep her going long enough to get her there, because what little ability she had to walk convincingly in spiked heels had disintegrated the moment she had seen Pete’s face.
It was only when she’d gone that Pete realised he hadn’t introduced Maggie to Stella. In actual fact he’d forgotten that she was there.
‘Hi again,’ Louise said, giving him a sympathetic look.
‘Hi. See you tonight,’ Pete said. But when he looked round, Stella had already gone.
He found her walking at speed up the busy high street, weaving through the shoppers as she made her way back home.
‘Stella, wait!’ Pete called after her. ‘Stella!’ At last she stopped and waited, stock-still, her back still turned on him until he caught her up.
‘Stella!’ Pete said, slightly out of breath. ‘What’s wrong?’ Pete was aware that it was a facile question, but he thought that if he asked it there was a chance she might tell him.
‘What’s wrong?’ Stella turned on him. ‘What’s wrong? You couldn’t stop looking at her!’
Pete put his hand on her shoulder.
‘I didn’t, I … Stella, I’m sorry. I don’t know what to say.’
Stella shook him off angrily and started walking.
‘You can tell me exactly what happened when I was away. You said nothing happened. You said you were just friends and that nothing happened, but it didn’t look like nothing in there in that shop. It looked like you were more than “friends”. A lot more!’ Stella was shouting and tears streamed down her face.
Pete looked around at the faces of passers-by as they watched the ten-second drama on the pavement.
‘Nothing happened, nothing except for one kiss. That was all – just that one kiss and …’
‘And what?’ Stella said sarcastically, stopping abruptly. ‘And it meant nothing, I suppose?’
Pete looked at her, her upturned face full of defiant anger. This was it, he realised. This was the beginning of their ending.
‘Actually it did,’ he said finally. ‘It did mean something, I think. To me at least. I don’t know about Maggie. I haven’t seen her since, not until just now. But yes, it meant something.’
Stella stared up at him, her face perfectly still, her eyes brimming with tears.
‘What do you mean, Pete?’ she said. ‘What do you mean it meant something? Did it mean more than us? Did it mean more than everything we’ve been through? Is that what you’re saying?’
Pete shook his head. ‘No. I don’t know, because nothing came of it, but I wanted to find out, Stella. That’s what I tried to tell you when you came back. I wanted to find out if it could go anywhere. I wanted the chance to find out without … well, without you.’
Stella crumpled suddenly in front of him, sinking down on to the pavement. Pete quickly scooped her up and held her to him as she sobbed against his chest.
‘You can’t do this, Pete, you can’t do this to me now! I need you!’ she cried helplessly. ‘Please, please don’t.’
Pete put his arm around her and started walking her the last few yards home. When he finally got her into the hallway and shut the door, he’d never felt more grateful to be home in his life.
‘Do you want a drink? A cup of tea?’ he said, aware that he wasn’t feeling this nearly as much as Stella wanted him to. As he wanted to. Now that it was happening it felt unreal somehow, as if it were happening a little distance away from where the real him was actually standing.
Incredibly Stella nodded and, pushing him away, went into the kitchen, taking a seat at the table. Pete examined her closely as she wiped the cuffs of her sweater across her eyes. He set a cup in front of her and, taking a deep breath, began.
‘I’m sorry, Stella, all this … just took me by surprise. I didn’t expect it to happen. And I didn’t just stop thinking about you. That’s why I emailed you. That’s why I told you what was going on, because I wanted to give us every chance to get it right. I’d been so certain that after everything you put me through, what we went through, we’d end up together eventually. I wanted us to, Stella. I wanted that neat, happy ending but … I think you and I both know that it was never going to happen. You were never going to be happy with me, not really. If I wasn’t good enough for you five years ago, why should I be now? What was going to change that? I don’t want to be the man you settle for, Stella. And knowing Maggie gave me this glimpse of how it could be, what it could be like to just be with someone and be happy.’
Pete paused, looking at Stella’s tear-streaked face. It was impossible to tell what she was thinking.
‘And, well, I asked you to marry me, Stella, and you went to the other side of the world. Both of us should have realised then that what we had between us wasn’t enough. It isn’t enough for you, and in the end … well, it isn’t enough for me.’
Stella looked up at last, her light e
yes thrown into relief by the swollen red of her lids.
‘But I really meant it this time, Pete,’ she said quietly. ‘I’d really made up my mind to mean it and to be with you and just you. I really had!’
Pete bit his lip. ‘Maybe you did. Maybe this time you did mean it, but I’m sorry, Stella, I really am. I think you were too late. I don’t think there’s anything left for us in the future. I … I care about you so much, I can’t bear to see you like this, but …’
Stella hugged her cup of tea into her body. ‘But you want to be with Maggie,’ she said.
‘No! I mean, I do, but that’s not why this is happening. Not the only reason why.’
Pete struggled to say what he had to.
‘You are like a firefly, Stella. No, you’re like your name, like a star. You burn so brightly. I can’t stand to see you so jaded, and I think – no, I know – that it’s me that’s doing it to you. And that’s wrong. Think really hard about it; think about the future we’d have together. Do you really see yourself shining brightly once you’d settled down with me and only me?’
Stella said nothing, only looked at him for a while.
‘Are you giving me a choice?’ she asked him at last.
Pete shook his head.
‘No. I don’t think I’m the right man for you, Stella, even if I still loved you like I did once. I’m sorry, but that’s the truth.’
Stella nodded and let out a long breath.
‘I knew this was coming,’ she said. ‘I knew it would happen, but I just wasn’t ready for it. Not today. I … don’t want to think of you walking in there tonight and going into someone else’s arms, Pete. I can’t actually bear that.’
Pete stared at her, knowing what she was asking of him and hating the fact that he had to turn her down, for his own sake. He couldn’t pretend for her any longer, he knew that. He didn’t want to hurt her any more than he had, but he wouldn’t lie.
River Deep Page 36