A Moral Dilemma: A Romantic Comedy Chick Lit Story

by Zara Kingsley

  “He never actually said that,” I offered sulkily, stewing for reasons of my own.

  “Well he may as bloody well have!”

  “So,” said Julia, refusing to let me off the hook, “you were drunk?”

  “I was NOT drunk!!” I snapped. “That’s just a rotten assumption made by that obnoxious bastard Charles bloody Coombs.”

  “Here here!” agreed Abby.

  Julia looked at us both in amazement. “But you just heard what Bradley said. Charles Coombs is a decent man!”

  “And who the hell is Bradley to give an objective opinion? The man’s his boss for chrissakes.”

  “Exactly!” I encored. “And what was that he said; ‘it’s all about the bonio’,” I mimicked.

  “My point exactly darling. Just because he pays good bonuses does not make him a decent man. No, he’s a lying cheating bastard, if you ask me. And Becky here will find him out.”

  “Here, here!” I agreed. Though, not quite feeling the same conviction. And feeling even less so, when I spotted Jeremy, a confirmed lying cheating bastard, fixing himself a drink at the bar, chatting easily with Dianna, Julia’s neighbour. Jeremy had a natural easy way with women, so one could almost understand how someone like him could so easily cross that deceptive line. But Charles Coombs…Charles Coombs is moody and insolent. He can’t just be being that way with me…he probably doesn’t even like any woman! I watched Jeremy effortlessly making Dianna laugh, and wondered why on earth Isabella would suspect her husband of ever being the cheating kind.

  “Earth to Becky,” Abigail said, having caught me hypnotically watching Jeremy. She must’ve mistook my pensive look as longing and added, ignoring Julia’s protests: “He’ll never change darling. You really do have to cut him loose.”

  “I will,” I said still deep in thought. “I will.”

  I said I would. I knew I had to. And I wanted to do it as quickly as possible. Three days of living like a squatter in my own apartment; having to screen all my calls and peep silently through the spy-hole whenever anyone buzzed, for fear that it was Jeremy, was enough to remind me that I really did have to ‘cut him loose’. In his defence, he had only called three times and popped around once – uninvited – and was easy enough to get rid of with the promise: We’ll fix something up soon, OK? But knowing Jeremy’s interpretation of the word ‘soon’ was ‘immediately’, and knowing how much Gwendolyn would not appreciate my ex-boyfriend turning up at work, which was probably his next move, I decided to take matters firmly in hand and gave him a call this morning. He was pleased, too pleased, to hear from me. And even more thrilled when I suggested I met up with him in the City somewhere after he finished work.

  “Pumpkin,” he said, “you don’t need to come all the way down here. Now don’t you worry your pretty little head about meeting me in the City. I’ll tell you what. I will pick you up from work and we can go and have dinner at The Oriental, and,” he said sounding like: If you’re a really good girl, “…if you bring an overnight with you…I’ll book a room at the Ritz.” I could imagine him smiling, feeling extremely pleased with himself. I almost felt sorry for him and resolved to be gentle.

  “No Jeremy,” I said softly. “I want to meet you from work.”

  “Hmm,” he pondered, not sounding too comfortable with this present role-reversal but probably not wanting to say or do anything that would make me change my mind added: “OK sweetie. That’ll be lovely,” and grasping back the reigns of control, added, “…there’s an amazing sexy new brassiere, Finnegan’s, on Wood Street. I can meet you there at…let’s say 7pm?” I closed my eyes and sighed silently. I was going to ‘cut him loose’ and ‘an amazing sexy new brassiere’, just because it satisfied his insatiable need for control, did not at all seem like the ideal environment in which to do that. But I felt guilty enough at what I was planning to do, that allowing him the reigns one last time didn’t seem such a big deal.

  “Sure,” I said. “Sounds great. See you then.”

  Finnegan’s turned out to be a far more upscale venue than I had imagined it would. Jeremy had a tendency to lean toward hip, trendy, chic (sometimes downright trashy, perfect-for-a-tryst) kind of places, but Finnegan’s, despite its name, was surprisingly none of those things. With its cream-coloured leather chairs, sleek Italian marble floors and grand white piano, Finnegan’s had such a distinctive air of sophistication that it made me wonder if Jeremy had actually ever been here before. I sat waiting for him in the reception area, appraising the immaculately dressed women as they walked past, thankful that I had decided to make some effort and wear one of my many new stylish outfits, courtesy of Isabella Coombs.

  Jeremy arrived just a few minutes later and stood anxiously in the foyer scanning the restaurant, looking to see if he recognised anyone, the way he always did whenever we went out. Then with a disapproving, aka worried, look on his face, turned to me and said, “It’s a bit stuffy in here isn’t it. Let’s go somewhere else.” He’d probably spotted one of his many Friday night conquests, and to be quite honest I really didn’t care.

  “No. I like it here,” I said simply.

  “Well, I don’t,” he said abruptly and turned to leave. I smiled apologetically at the maître d’ and followed Jeremy out onto the street.

  “Now, where to go,” he said to himself, surveying the vast selection of bars and restaurants littered across Wood Street.

  “Nowhere,” I said, standing purposefully, right outside Finnegan’s canopied entrance.

  “Sorry?”

  “I don’t want to go anywhere with you Jeremy,” I said kindly. Hoping he would just get my drift and that would be that.

  He didn’t get it. “Oh,” he smiled, “you just want to take me straight home do you. You naughty girl.”

  I wanted to say: Not if you were the last male species left on planet earth, but that would not have been letting him down gently, now would it. “Jeremy, I don’t want to go anywhere with you. Ever again. It’s over between us.”

  “Becky what are you talking about?” sounding a little irritated.

  “The trust has gone Jeremy,” I explained. “There’s no hope for us. No future.”

  “Of course there’s hope for us! For Pete’s sake Rebecca!” His voice was getting louder with each syllable and the unwanted attention we were attracting didn’t seem to deter him. “People do make mistakes! Granted. It’s going to take some time, but you will learn to trust me again.”

  “The amount of time that will take, I really don’t want to waste spending it with you,” I said as calmly as possible.

  “You don’t want to waste…” he repeated incredulously. Then, he half smiled and shook his head as if I were deluding myself. “Do you really think you’ll ever find anyone better than me Rebecca?”

  I desperately wanted to say: Hah! You mean someone who doesn’t think life is one big fuckathon! Someone who can actually open their mouth without lying? Someone who doesn’t spend more time in the bathroom than I do and believe that the sole reason of my existence is to lick his arse and kiss his feet?! Like I said; that’s what I had wanted to say. Instead I forced myself to inhale deeply and silently chanted: I am a woman of peace and tranquillity. I am a woman of peace and tranquillity, and said, “That’s not the point Jeremy.”

  Jeremy, however, was oblivious to the words ‘peace’ or ‘tranquillity’, or even the word ‘discretion’ so it seemed, as he completely ignored the little group of sniggering city spectators gathered outside Finnegan’s, and shouted: “THEN WHAT IS THE BLOODY POINT REBECCA?!!”

  Sniggering spectators all turned their heads accusingly toward me, as if I were the one at fault here! “Jeremy, I am not the one at fault here!” I said in my defence, loud enough so sniggering spectators could hear.

  “Oh no?! Because YOU are the one Rebecca Hardy, who is, for some goddamn absurd reason, hell-bent on ending our relationship!”

  I could almost hear the sniggering spectators tutting at me. At me! I could feel my blood
boiling. I am a woman of peace and tranquillity. I am a woman… OH Sod that!! “JEREMY!” I screamed back at him like a slap right across his hysteric face. Then I looked him right in the eye. “YOU Jeremy are a bloody lying cheating toe-rag!” Jeremy, now suddenly very much aware of the sniggering spectators, narrowed his eyes at me as if to warn me to shut it. “You Jeremy are, and now I come to think about it, have always been, an absolutely SHIT boyfriend!” I hurled at him. “And, just for the record…these,” pointing at my nipples, “these…look,” I encouraged as he turned away in embarrassment, “…these Jeremy ARE NOT radio dials. You will NEVER be able to tune into KISS FM no matter how much you twist and turn them!” He looked as if I’d winded him. With the sniggering spectators evolving into hyena-like spectators, I had kneed him right where it hurt the most. His pride. He looked at me with sheer loathing. I ignored it. “And just so we are absolutely clear…this ‘relationship’ ended when YOU DECIDED TO SNEAK AROUND AND FUCK SOME TART!!”

  “Well,” he said sounding like pure evil, “…she may have been a tart Rebecca, but at least she had a decent pair of tits!” And with that he turned and walked off down the street, leaving me standing on the pavement like some cheap street entertainer, as the cheeky hyena-like spectators started to roar, repeating Jeremy’s hateful punchline. I wanted to walk away. In fact I wanted to run. But for some inane reason my feet just would not move. So I just stood there, wide-stanced, rooted to the spot, holding onto my handbag, feeling about as attractive as Nora Batty, grateful that I’d insisted on meeting Jeremy here in the City. Imagine if he had met me from work and we’d had this slanging match on Sheridan Place! Portia would’ve found the whole scene unforgettably hilarious and Gwendolyn would’ve probably fired me on the spot for being so pathetic! At least here, in the City, it wouldn’t matter that I had completely lost all self-control and made a complete and utter arse of myself. I didn’t know these people. I didn’t care what they thought. At least I would be able to lock this serenity-relapse deep away in the vaults of my mind and pretend that I had never been so weak. That this whole embarrassing episode had never even happened. The spectators, content to have something more amusing than work to talk about over their evening boozing session, started filing into Finnegan’s, slapping each other on the back. I glared at them. I hated them for having watched. For having laughed. For having heard Jeremy admit that I was basically inadequate and that’s why he’d cheated. I looked down at my chest. OK. So it’s flat. Big deal! Jeremy’s a dip-stick! Most men know and appreciate that there’s far more to a woman than tits and arse. Don’t they?

  I was still standing there like a nomad, scrutinising my chest, when suddenly, out of nowhere, he appeared in front of me:

  “Are you OK?” Charles bloody Coombs asked quietly.

  I felt like the stockings I wasn’t even wearing, had fallen down around my ankles and a whole flock of birds had just defecated my hair and face. I looked at him defiantly and snapped off: “I’m Fine!”

  “Look,” he sighed, as if going against his better judgement, “…I overheard your argument.”

  “Hah! You and everyone else in the square mile!” I sulked, discreetly trying to cover-up my non-existent chest, realising that he too must have heard Jeremy’s punchline.

  He looked at me and…strange…but in the daylight, his eyes didn’t seem quite as steely or his face quite as evil like before. “I’m sorry,” he said. Then he hesitated and looked away at nothing in particular. “It’s not very nice when someone you care about cheats on you.”

  “No. It’s not,” I moped, thinking what the hell he could have possibly known about it! No one but no one could ever understand the wretchedness of having the once supposed future father of my children resorting to having sex with common trollop, just because I have small tits! OK, NO tits. I hugged my chest tighter…trying to hide it.

  “You mustn’t take it to heart, you know. What he said.” Then with a reticent nod at my chest, “That’s his short-coming. Not yours. Some men actually…ahem…have a penchant for more…ahem…unassuming…women.” I looked up at him furiously, thinking he was messing with me, but my scathing reply got stuck in my throat when faced with his coy boyish smile and eyebrows raised as if to say: I’m really putting myself all out here. Please don’t hurt me. I opened my mouth to say something. Anything. Make a sound even! But my voice was pure Judas. “I’m sorry. I don’t think we’ve ever actually met properly.” Extending his hand, “Charles. Charles Coombs. But please, call me Charlie,” then added with a twinkle in his eye, “…just so long as no one’s within earshot,” and laughed lightly.

  I gave him my winning dimpled smile and shook his hand. “Rebecca Hardy. My friends call me Becky.”

  “Well Rebecca Hardy, I do hope you will come to count me as a friend,” and smiled at me with soft eyes. “I think you’ve had quite an eventful evening so far. So, come on,” taking me by the arm, “let’s go and get you a coffee. See if we can neutralise things a bit.” My stubborn feet undeservedly dressed in Louboutin mules, started clacking along beside him, as though they had never been momentarily paralysed. As though they were waiting for this exact pair, of hand-crafted, Cleverley shoes, to come rescue them. I followed where he led, feeling as though I were in a Salvador Dali painting. This was Charles Martin Coombs. The target. Taking ME out – unprompted – for a coffee. Computer…please compute?! Hmmm. He did seem to be genuinely concerned about me. But. But maybe it wasn’t concern. Maybe Isabella really did know her husband better than he knew his own self, and this…this was just him finally taking the bait?

  C hapter Twelve

  I studied my reflection in the bathroom mirror, scrutinising the arc of my brows. Hmm. One was definitely a couple millimetres higher than the other. I would have to work on that. Amazing how my skipping facial exercises for one week could make such a difference. I really just cannot afford to slack off like this again. My face will shrivel up in a month at this rate! Then, remembering the reason for my ‘slacking off’, my face softened with an impish smile. Though not quite sure why I was smiling at the memory, or if indeed I should even be smiling! After all, it was for all sense and purposes, just a job. And maybe I was just doing it very well. Or…maybe, just maybe…it was possible that someone as established and notable as Charles Martin Coombs, could actually really like me…for me. Hence the reason why he’s called me every day this past week, for “just a quick hello”, which lasted until the wee hours of the morning. Interesting. Humph. Nah. Not possible. Someone like him could never have any genuine interest in someone like me. Isabella probably had good cause for concern. He probably just saw me as one of his potential Friday night conquests!

  I used the palm of my hands to apply tension to my forehead and tried bunching my brows in an attempt at erasing the frown that was crossing them. Of course I knew that Charles Coombs’s interest in me was most likely completely sordid, but it was interesting how when he took me out for coffee last week, he seemed…well…awkward, and quite uncomfortable to be frank. Plus he made a repeated point of telling me that he was married and even showed me photos of his two sons. Isabella had dismissed this when I’d told her about it. “Oh, that’s probably just his way of letting you know off the bat that he’s not looking for anything serious. But he obviously is looking for something!” I told her I wasn’t quite so sure. Especially as he hadn’t done, or said anything, that could be even slightly misconstrued as a pass. Even his phone conversations had been wholly respectable and amusingly friendly. It seems we’d innocently spoken about everything, and hadn’t actually talked about anything that could be considered at all borderline. And his invitation to take me out to dinner tonight was just…just…a polite response to my mentioning that I’d never actually been to a ‘proper’ dinner dance. That really was all it was. Nothing more. Isabella of course didn’t agree, and she felt sure that her husband’s intentions tonight were far less than honourable.

  I tied my hair back, located my keys, threw my mobil
e into my bucket bag and was just about to throw the BlackBerry in there too when I decided to place that one in my jeans pocket. Just so I could feel the vibration if it rang. Not that I was expecting Charles Coombs…or Isabella…to call. But just in case.

  The underground was heaving as per usual, and as per usual I lost the race of scrambling for the one free seat which was usually available, and had to stand for the entire four stop journey to Knightsbridge. I held on as best I could with one hand, as the carriage threw me around, and used the other hand to check if the BlackBerry had a reception signal. It didn’t. Not at all sure why I thought it would, as my mobile never has a signal on the tube. But no harm in checking. The train arrived in Knightsbridge but failed to open its doors for some inane ‘technical difficulty’. I huffed and puffed impatiently silently cursing London Underground for threatening to make me late yet again. I didn’t care that this ‘technical difficulty’ had lasted less than ten seconds – it was ten seconds of my time, where I should have been racing down Sheridan Avenue. Or checking my BlackBerry for messages. The doors finally opened and I, amongst hundreds of other frustrated, suddenly claustrophobic commuters, rushed toward the escalators. I legged it up the left hand side, barged through the barriers – holding up the BlackBerry like a beacon, so it could catch the slightest whiff of a signal – and for some totally unknown reason, my heart leapt in my chest when the device started to vibrate in my hand. I slowed my pace and checked the screen. I had one new message. I stood still in the middle of rush-hour manic Knightsbridge station, biting my bottom lip and grinning like a buffoon at the same time, as I read his message: Are we still on for dinner tonight? C.

  “You look rather happy today,” Lauren teased as I stepped into the reception area, having changed into my salon tunic. I raised my eyebrows at her as if to say: Oh well. “So, are you and Jeremy back together?”