The Nearly-Weds

by Jane Costello

  I don’t know whether it’s our brilliant dancing, or simply that he’s the boss of one of the biggest companies in Boston, but before long the eyes of everyone in the place are on us as we spin round the room.

  I spot Ryan standing at the side with some of his colleagues and wave as I swirl past, hoping he’s as impressed as I feel sure everyone else is. Admittedly, Gerald is doing the leading, but nevertheless, I’m good. Bloody good. We must be because as I glance up I realize we couldn’t be receiving more attention if Gerald was perfecting an advanced break-dancing routine.

  ‘You’re a great dancer.’ Gerald grins.

  ‘Oh! Do you think so?’ I reply modestly, bouncing around like a spring lamb who has just discovered what her feet are for. Feeling on top of the world, I prepare to do a snappy little manoeuvre Ginger Rogers would have been proud of, which involves pinging away from my partner, then straight back into his arms.

  However, something comes to my attention. Something that is immediately alarming. No, strike that. Potentially catastrophic.

  One of the safety-pins keeping the side of my dress together has latched on to the lining of Gerald’s dinner jacket. I can’t work out how it’s happened. All I know is that I’m stuck.

  Ohmigod, ohmigod, ohmigod.

  The first vision to flash into my head is that of a gaping hole in Barbara King’s outfit if I attempt to part from Gerald. But I’m being optimistic: the dress is so flimsy that, with one false move, the whole thing will be whipped off faster than Barbara Windsor’s bra in Carry On Camping.

  Panicking, I stumble across the dance-floor, glued to Gerald’s torso, as the music gets faster and faster. I look down at the safety-pin, my pulse approaching the point of cardiac failure, beads of sweat pricking my forehead.

  ‘Oooh, ah, Gerald . . .’ I pant, pressing my torso to his.

  ‘How’s about something a bit more fancy, eh?’ He winks, oblivious to my plight as he swings me round to the rapturous applause of our growing audience.

  ‘Whoooa!’ I cry, as I realize our bodies have parted slightly, his jacket and my dress pulling away from their respective owners in a, frankly, terrifying fashion.

  I grab Gerald’s back and pull myself into him, attempting simultaneously to concentrate on my feet, which have been treading on his toes so much in the last two minutes I’ll be surprised if he doesn’t end up in plaster.

  ‘Gerald, whoooooa – I—’ I begin, but now he has us doing the quickstep, with the whole room gathered round the dance-floor, clapping and cheering so loudly he can barely hear me.

  He swings me round as I gasp, the room spinning, the safety-pin digging into my skin, echoes of the applause whirling through my head.

  ‘Now, honey,’ Gerald whispers gleefully, ‘we’re coming to the end here. I’ll bring you in tight, then spin you away from me.’

  Suddenly I find it difficult to breathe. Because I know exactly what he’s talking about. I also know exactly what pirouetting away from Gerald at the speed he has in mind may result in. And I’m afraid my new-found confidence doesn’t stretch to doing the full monty in front of five hundred of Ryan’s most important business contacts.

  ‘Gerald, I – nooo!’ I pant, blood pumping, face on fire.

  ‘Don’t worry, honey, the crowd’ll go wild for it,’ he assures me.

  ‘No, I mean—’

  As he pulls me in, I reach, fumbling, into his jacket like an extremely poor pickpocket on her first practice run.

  ‘Here we go, honey!’ he cries.

  As Gerald propels me away from him I realize that the safety-pin is still stuck. I tug as he propels. He propels as I tug. And finally, to the whoops of the onlooking crowd, I feel my dress rip, just a little, enough to release me from Gerald’s jacket.

  Which should be good. Except I’m tugging so hard that when it happens, instead of twirling gracefully away from him, I’m catapulted backwards with the force of an Apollo space-shuttle launch.

  As I slide on my backside across the dance-floor, I seem to go on for ever – past the feet of several guests . . . past the waiters . . . past Ryan . . . past his colleagues.

  When I finally come to a stop, in a crumpled heap with my legs akimbo, at the feet of Jack the Westmorland terrier, I wonder for a split second whether I’ve got away with it. Maybe, just maybe, I looked like Jayne Torvill, when Christopher Dean pushed her elegantly across the ice during their Olympic medal-winning routine to Ravel’s ‘Bolero’. I look up into Jack the Westmorland terrier’s eyes.

  ‘Nice pants.’ He sniggers, as Wonder Woman grins up at me. Fumbling, I pull my dress down to cover myself and scan the room. The band has stopped playing. The crowd is stunned into silence.

  And Ryan looks ready to throttle me.

  Chapter 41

  When I wake up the next morning and look at my clock, it’s gone ten. I sit up and rub my eyes.

  The swift change in my head’s centre of gravity makes it feel as if it has been smashed repeatedly against a breeze block. But that’s not the worst of it. As last night’s events wash over me, I feel physically sick. Again.

  I’m sure I read somewhere that one of the definitions of an alcoholic is someone who regrets behaviour that has occurred while they’ve been drinking. The thought is so depressing that I want to curl back into my bed and never get up. I’m already an emotionally befuddled runaway, a biceps-obsessed neurotic and a failed dieter. I can’t cope with being an alcoholic as well.

  I dress as quickly as I can, but it still seems to take me twenty minutes just to pull my jeans on. As I traipse down the stairs, I’m hit by continual flashbacks of the night before. Of my godawful dress. Of Jack the Westmorland terrier. Of Ryan’s smile during what was probably the most successful conversation we’ve ever had. Then of Wonder Woman’s to anyone who cared to look.

  I’m dreading seeing Ryan so much that part of me is tempted to run back upstairs, pack my bags and leave immediately. But that would be the wimp’s option. And I’ve disgraced myself so much already, I know I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if I did that.

  I have little recollection of the car journey home last night, except that Ryan and I were largely silent and it took every bit of willpower I could summon not to throw up every time we went round a corner.

  As I push open the kitchen door, Ryan is sitting in front of his laptop while the kids are glued to the television. He doesn’t look up.

  ‘Morning,’ I attempt, but it comes out as little more than a croak.

  ‘Zoe! Zoe!’ Ruby cries, as she leaps up and hugs me. ‘How was your date?’

  I glance at Ryan, who stiffens visibly.

  ‘It wasn’t a date, sweetie,’ I manage, through raw vocal cords. ‘But it was . . . interesting. Thanks.’

  ‘Can we do some drawing? I’ll do a picture of you in your pretty dress.’

  ‘Okay,’ I mutter, sliding into one of the kitchen chairs and shielding my eyes from the sunlight streaming through the windows. ‘Why don’t you go and get your crayons?’

  As Ruby scuttles away, I turn to Ryan – head down, silent. ‘Thank you for picking up the children from Barbara’s,’ I say.

  ‘Uh-huh,’ he replies.

  I look down at my hands and pick off a loose sliver of nail polish.

  ‘I’m sorry, Ryan,’ I say quietly, my heart heavy with dread.

  He takes a second to respond. ‘Don’t worry about it,’ he says flatly, his eyes not moving from the screen.

  ‘I feel terrible if I’ve, you know . . . embarrassed you. Or let you down . . . or anything,’ I continue. ‘I mean, I know I have. And I feel dreadful about it. I really do.’

  He doesn’t reply at all this time. The silence is excruciating.

  I take another deep breath. ‘If you want to sack me, I’ll understand. It won’t take me long to book a flight and—’

  ‘Zoe,’ he interrupts, finally looking up from his computer, ‘if I’d wanted to sack you I’d have done it long before now. I don’t.’


  I feel a wave of happiness, closely followed by a wave of nausea. ‘Thank you,’ I mumble.

  ‘I just won’t be taking you to one of those dinners again,’ he continues.

  I drop my eyes in shame.

  ‘At least, not without sending you out first to buy you some better underwear.’

  Chapter 42

  My darling Ryan,

  You always, have been a little on the naughty side – you know that’s partly what I like about you. But now you’re being just a bit too naughty. My last few letters were intended as an olive branch, an opportunity for you to realize the error of your ways. They were not meant to be ignored. I am therefore deeply disappointed that you appear to have done just that.

  Let me remind you of something, Ryan, something that is very relevant to me, if not to you. You and I slept together Several times. I am not the sort of person to go around sleeping with people – several times – then moving on to someone else. What we had meant something. Something big. And just giving up on it is not an option – not for me anyway.

  But aside from the way I feel, let’s look at you, Ryan. I brought some light into your life – I know I did – in a way that you hadn’t experienced since before Amy’s death. I am your salvation, Ryan. You only have to wake up and realize it. Give me a chance. You and I could have a real future together. Deep down, you know it makes sense.

  Finally, most importantly, Ryan, don’t ignore me. Not again.

  Yours for ever,

  Juliet

  XXX

  This time, I didn’t open the letter. It was among Ryan’s washing, stuffed into the pocket of his Levi’s. Which is not particularly clever on his part because anyone could have found it. Well, anyone rifling through his trousers, that is. But, hey, it’s not like I want to rifle through his trousers.

  It’s now a week since the most humiliating incident of my adult life and things still aren’t back to normal – whatever that is. If Denise Robertson of This Morning was advising on the situation I just know she’d say that Ryan and I need to work hard at putting this unfortunate incident behind us. Which I am trying to do. But it isn’t easy, given that Ryan has gone into one of his smouldering moods.

  Then there’s the laundry. Even though Ryan finds plenty of time to run, work and womanize, he still can’t fit washing his socks into his schedule. After the dinner last week, though, I don’t feel as though I’m in a position to complain.

  ‘How’s life in the Miller household?’ asks Trudie. We’re on our fortnightly trip to what has become our favourite bar in Hope Falls, waiting for the others to join us.

  ‘It would be more fun working for Vlad the Impaler,’ I tell her.

  Tonight, Trudie is wearing a pair of Dukes of Hazzard shorts and a stylish turquoise top, both of which are small enough to be part of Mothercare’s spring collection for four-year-olds.

  ‘He’s not up to his old tricks, is he?’ she asks, fiddling with her Wonderbra to plump up her boobs. ‘Go on, spill the beans.’

  ‘Oh, it’s nothing in particular.’ I sigh. ‘I just managed to make his permanently bad mood even worse.’

  ‘I’m sure he doesn’t mean it, love,’ she says, in what I assume is an attempt to reassure me.

  ‘I know,’ I concede. ‘But, selfish as this may sound, part of me doesn’t particularly care whether he means it or not. The point is that he’s a nightmare to live with.’

  ‘Maybe he’s just trying to hide the fact that he likes you.’

  I laugh incredulously. ‘Please explain the twisted logic behind that statement.’

  ‘I never claimed to be logical, love,’ she grins, ‘but that woman at the dinner said he liked you, didn’t she? Well, I agree with her – I get that feeling, too, every time I see him with you.’

  ‘You’re obviously both barking mad,’ I insist.

  Nevertheless, part of me feels glad to hear this. At its most basic level, this is because I don’t want Ryan to replace me with a more effective, sophisticated nanny and send me back to the UK.

  But I know it’s more than that. There remains a stupidly primitive part of me that can’t help fancying him, no matter how badly behaved he is. And while I know this is my warped way of trying to get over Jason, I don’t want to fancy someone who can’t stand me.

  Okay, so the little fantasies I occasionally have about Ryan will never become reality. But I’d like to think that if they did he wouldn’t immediately regret it. And, yes, I’d like Ryan to think of me as attractive. There are times when he looks at me, in a way that sets my heart racing. I have no idea what the true meaning of those looks is, but it would be nice to think that a fraction of the sexual frisson I feel every time he’s in the room is reciprocated.

  ‘Ryan will have said some positive things about me to Matilda Levin so he could save face,’ I tell Trudie.

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘I wasn’t his first choice of date for that night,’ I explain. ‘I was probably the zillionth. But there’s no way he’ll have wanted his colleagues to think he’d been lumbered with some sad act wearing a dress not fit to clean the windows with. So he obviously talked me up a bit.’

  ‘You’re paranoid. That dress was great. I didn’t think it was too revealing at all.’

  ‘Trudie, I could have gone to that do in a see-through basque and hung on to more of my modesty.’

  ‘Fair enough. But I was talking about before you flashed your knickers. I hope you’d had your bikini line done.’ She reaches over her shoulder and scratches her back so violently you’d think she had fleas.

  ‘What’s up with your skin?’ I ask.

  ‘Oh, it’s these things.’ She pulls off her anti-smoking patch and flicks it into an ashtray. ‘They’re so annoying. And not just because I’m still dying for a fag every time I come out for a drink. It’s been months now since I gave up and beer still doesn’t taste right without a Benson & Hedges.’

  ‘You’ll get used to it,’ I tell her.

  ‘Anyway, stop changing the subject,’ she says. ‘I can’t believe Ryan’s that bad.’

  ‘He has his moments, believe me,’ I insist.

  ‘Well, if he’s that bad, why are you still here?’

  Suddenly I’m lost for words. The answer is so straightforward, yet so complicated. I’m here because I was jilted. I’m here because I’m trying to get over a broken heart. I’m here because being back in the UK represents nothing but grief.

  I haven’t told Trudie about my wedding day, even though we’ve grown so close. From the outset I was determined not to let anyone out here know about it, not because I wanted to be mysterious, but because I needed a break from talking about it. And I know I could never reveal to anyone that I’d recently been jilted and expect them not to ask questions.

  Yet as I sit next to Trudie tonight, I feel differently about it. I don’t know why but I do. ‘Can I tell you something, Trudie?’

  ‘Course, love. What?’

  ‘I’ve not talked about this since I left home . . .’

  She frowns. ‘You can talk to me, you know you can.’

  I smile. For the first time in months, I know I have got someone to talk to – someone to really talk to. Someone who’ll understand. And there aren’t many people like that. I take a deep breath. ‘Well, something happened that—’

  I’ve barely started when a voice from the other side of the bar stops me in my tracks: ‘Where’s my girl?’

  It’s Ritchie. And as Trudie leaps to her feet, her face is so lit up with happiness she could have had her own float at the Blackpool illuminations.

  ‘Hiya, gorgeous!’ she cries, throwing herself into his arms so he can swing her round, not caring how precariously close her wedges come to knocking over everyone’s stools. Then they kiss – so passionately I barely know where to look – before Ritchie pulls away from her.

  ‘Hey, kid,’ he says to me. ‘How’s it going?’

  ‘Good.’ I smile. ‘Fine.’

  ‘Sorry, love
,’ says Trudie, straightening her hair, which now looks like she’s spent several hours rolling round a haystack. ‘What were you saying?’

  ‘Oh, nothing. Really. Ritchie, let me get you a beer.’

  Chapter 43

  Ritchie can’t get his head round Felicity. It might be because while most men focus on her looks – as opposed to her endearing but undeniable eccentricity – he is so loved-up with Trudie that they don’t have any effect on him. The result is that every so often you catch him staring at her as if she’s got more screws loose than a reject wardrobe.

  ‘You see, Ritchie,’ Felicity declares, with her usual joviality, ‘I’m not saying that the American accent necessarily equals incorrect pronunciation. Lots of Americans speak perfectly good English. Such as . . . hmm . . . Well, the point is, it’s not about one’s accent. It’s so much more than that.’

  ‘Uh-huh,’ smiles Ritchie, tolerantly. ‘You guys wanna get another beer?’

  ‘Why not?’ says Amber, who is wearing a big Paisley skirt and so much ethnic jewellery she looks like Mr T. at Woodstock. ‘I’ll have a Budweiser.’

  ‘Are Scientologists allowed to drink?’ asks Trudie.

  ‘Um, I think so,’ mutters Amber, glaring at the bottle she’s just seen off. ‘Although, now you mention it, I’m not sure. Oh, never mind, it wasn’t going very well anyway.’

  ‘Why not?’ I ask. ‘Don’t tell me, Tom Cruise hasn’t made an appearance at church yet.’

  ‘That’d piss me off too,’ adds Trudie.

  ‘I wasn’t just jumping on some celebrity bandwagon, you two,’ says Amber, innocently. ‘I was searching for spiritual fulfilment.’

  ‘We’re only teasing you, love,’ says Trudie, putting her arm round her affectionately. ‘Anyway, it’s funny you should mention spiritual fulfilment because I know someone who specializes in that very thing – and he’s just walked through the door.’