The Wedding Date. Zara Stoneley

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СКАЧАТЬ style="font-size:15px;">      And I do not have time.

      In two months’ time, Jess will be saying ‘I do’.

      I’m halfway to work when my phone starts beeping.

       Did you get my email? Isn’t it amazing?! Can’t wait to catch up with you, it’s been ages!

      It has been ages. Five months, three days, five hours and thirty-seven minutes (give or take the odd minute). That was when I’d waved goodbye to Jess and her boyfriend Dan, just five minutes before his snake-in-the-grass wanker-banker brother Liam dumped me.

      He’d put his hands on my waist and pulled me in for what I thought was a pre rumpy-pumpy kiss. Liam liked to work to a routine which could, if I’m brutally honest, be a bit long-winded and anti-climactic (though the last bit is only true for me, he peaked as regularly as clockwork). The foreplay started at the pub, lasted the entire walk home with increasingly amorous snogs and squeezes, there’d be a brief grope as we stumbled up the stairs, then it culminated in a five-minute shag, a groan of satisfaction – his, and only occasionally mine – before he collapsed on his back and fell asleep.

      Anyway, I thought that’s why he’d grabbed me, so I puckered up and closed my eyes. And nothing happened. I opened one. Liam was giving me his spaniel look. Beseeching. So I opened the other eye, wondering what could be so earth-shatteringly important as to disrupt his foreplay routine (those two words shouldn’t really sit side by side, even I know that).

      ‘Samantha—’ he only called me Samantha in front of my parents, his parents, and his boss ‘—you’re a lovely girl—’ I could feel my body stiffen, as though it was expecting a blow, though my brain hadn’t twigged why ‘—but this has started to feel like a habit.’

      Ahh, maybe at last my subtle hints about our all the way home warm-up session had sunk in at last. ‘I know what you mean.’ At last! A chance to add a bit of spice to life. Impulsive just isn’t a word you’d breathe in the same sentence as ‘Liam’, but maybe he’d seen the fun his brother was having with Jess, and decided to go for it.

      I loved Liam with all my life, he was kind and considerate, but we were in a bit of a rut. Maybe he had realised that a rut isn’t good when you’re not yet thirty. Perhaps it was time to buy some new sexy underwear, a little black dress, some slightly higher heels. ‘Maybe we should walk back a different way? Across the park?’ A fumble in the bushes would make a change, and Mrs Tribble from number 26 wouldn’t be able to peer out and tut. Why do people insist on watching things they know they don’t approve of? Pull the curtains, love. Watch the weather forecast.

      Anyway, we could even spend a romantic moment on the bench by the pond. But I was dying for the loo, so it would only be a fleeting stop.

      ‘I don’t mean the route.’ He gave me his sad smile, the one he normally reserved for customers he was just about to turn down for a loan. I half-expected him to start his next sentence with ‘regretfully’, but he didn’t. ‘I mean our relationship. It’s not really going anywhere, is it?’

      He liked his routines. He thrived on routine. We had our own sides of the bed, his toothbrush had its own side of the mug, every second of the day had its place in his organised life, and he was saying this as though it was my fault? He was saying he was bored? But I knew I could put a positive spin on this. Maybe I had been a bit lax, not determined enough to shake us both out of our complacent little life together.

      ‘We could have a mini-break, go to Spain, or Paris? Ooh la la!’ I did a wriggle which could have been sexy French, or the start of a Spanish flamenco. ‘Spice things up?’

      ‘I didn’t mean go anywhere as in travel.’ The sad look was now turning into one of annoyance, and he was gazing straight over the top of my head – not looking me in the eye. ‘There’s no easy way to say this, and you know I like to be straight.’

      I did. Liam wasn’t one to soften the blow – he liked to say exactly what he was thinking, which could be embarrassing at times. He was the man who’d agree with the hostess that the meat was on the tough side, and told my mother that yes, her bum did look a little bit large in her new trousers, but at her age it didn’t matter. She’d laughed it off, but the next time I saw those trousers they were in the charity shop – I swear they were hers, they had the faintest of stains from where she’d slopped the coffee she’d been passing to him.

      ‘I think we’ve reached the end of the road.’

      We’d not even reached the corner shop. ‘But we’re only…’

      ‘Samantha, I’ve met somebody else.’ The blood had the decency to rush out of his face at roughly the same speed the words shot out of his mouth.

      I stared in astonishment, pretty sure that my mouth was gaping open.

      ‘I’m sorry, I do wish you well.’ And he held his hand out. Held his bloody hand out! I suppose it was habit, the bank thing.

      I hadn’t seen Jess after that. We’d swapped texts, even had brief, slightly awkward phone conversations where she’d tried not to mention Dan in every sentence, and I’d tried to ignore it when she did, and to act normal and jolly. And not ask if she’d seen Liam.

      The trouble was, we’d been a foursome. For ages. And now we were a threesome and it didn’t quite work the same. We hadn’t had separate girly dates for years. Our social life had been double dating, and though she did sympathise, and she did call Liam several nasty names (she was actually far more inventive than me), I couldn’t expect her to join in a bitch fest about her boyfriend’s brother all the time, could I?

      I’d gone on a spectacular drunken bender with Sarah from work, then I’d booked some leave and sat in my flat for a week, because going out meant putting eyeliner on, and there is no eyeliner known to woman that could cope with the rate at which my eyes were leaking.

      The only thing I didn’t do was lose weight. I hate every woman who sheds the stones like a snake sheds its skin when they break up with a boyfriend. Because I pile it on. Wine, chocolate and every carb known to woman flock to my side to comfort me – then settle on my stomach, and under my armpits.

      Anyway, so that was then and this is now, post exciting-wedding-news email.

      Fantastic news! I text back to Jess. I’m so pleased for you!! You and Dan make the perfect couple!!! I always find exclamation marks can make up for any lack of enthusiasm when you can’t think of anything to say, and all you can think about is the groom-to-be’s bastard brother who will be at the wedding. Can’t wait to see you!!!

      A text comes back straight away, as though her fingers have been poised over the send button. Just so you know, but I know it won’t bother you seeing as you’ve got a new man (I’d lied – when Jess had texted me about ‘the break-up’ I’d told her I was over Liam, so over him, I had a new man, I was happy, deliriously happy!) Liam’s new girlfriend will be with him, she’s preggers. HUGE!

      Shit. My feet have become disconnected from my brain and stopped working, and the nearest wall looms towards me.

      Pregnant? How could she be even a teeny bit pregnant, let alone huge? It had only been five months and three and a bit days since we split, and Liam never rushes into anything. Anything. It took him half an hour (minimum) to get into bed, because the sheets needed straightening and his teeth needed brushing and his clothes needed folding. I’d never yet had a hot meal with him, because СКАЧАТЬ