No. He couldn’t have, surely?
I flash back to Seb’s tight, strained face. His expression today when he asked how the “unconditional love” was going. And now I feel almost faint. It’s obvious. Seb thinks I went back to Ryan. He thinks I love Ryan. I can hear my own blithe voice in his office: “If you really love someone, you don’t just shove cash at them. You help them become the person they’re meant to be.” Seb had no idea I meant Jake. I’d never told him Jake was in debt. So he thought—
But how could he ever believe I’d go back to Ryan? How?
“Fixie, are you OK?” Hannah is peering at me.
“I … Maybe I need a cup of tea,” I falter.
“You look shocking,” says Jake bluntly. “I’d have a whiskey.”
“OK, come on.” Hannah grasps my arm and leads me to the back room. Nicole is in there, unpacking a box of Christmas decorations, and she looks up in surprise to see us. Hannah shuts the door and flips on the kettle, then says, “Fixie, I know you’re in a state, and you don’t have to tell us everything, but—”
“The coffee sleeve,” I interrupt her in a despairing gasp, because it’s come to me, in a final, horrible burst of comprehension. That’s how.
I remember registering the coffee sleeve in Seb’s office that awful day and not quite understanding why it was there. I’d thought it was in my tote bag. It seemed a bit weird.
I brushed it away at the time; it felt like an unimportant detail. But it’s the key to everything. Ryan must have taken it. Used it. Brandished it at Seb. God alone knows what lies he told—but whatever he said, it convinced Seb that we were together again.
Blood is pulsing though my ears as I imagine Ryan, the practiced pathological liar, spinning some vile story. I recall his easy voice that morning: “Oh, I took some chewing gum out of your bag. You don’t mind, do you?” But chewing gum wasn’t the only thing he took.
He is a toxic, terrible, bad, bad man. I’m shaking all over, with rage at Ryan, rage at myself.…
“Fixie?” Hannah has knelt down before me and taken my hands. “Fixie, we’re getting worried here. What’s happened?”
I look at her kind, familiar face and I can’t be strong anymore. I know we’re busy on the shop floor. I know it’s five days till Christmas. I know I should put this aside for now. But it’s too big. It’s burning a hole in me.
So I take a deep breath and I tell her and Nicole everything. I start right from the beginning, right from that first meeting in the coffee shop, although they already know some of it. Because that way I feel like I’m in control of something, even if it’s just my own story.
It takes a while and they listen in pin-drop silence. When I get to my new theory about Ryan, they both exclaim, “No!” in simultaneous horror, and I half-smile, despite everything.
“So what do you do now?” says Hannah, who is always practical and forward-looking and has already got a pen out of her bag.
“Tell him,” says Nicole.
“You have to tell him,” agrees Hannah.
“Go and see him—”
“Explain there’s been a misunderstanding—”
“But he’s taken!” I say despairingly. “He’s with someone! I don’t take other women’s men, I just don’t. It’s the rule. It’s the sisterhood.”
There’s silence and I sip my cup of tea, which has gone lukewarm but is still comforting.
“I mean, what if the other woman is a total bitch?” says Hannah at last, casually. “Because then I think that rule doesn’t apply.”
“She’s not a bitch.” I can’t believe I’m coming to the defense of Whiny, but there you go. “At least, she’s not terrible. She’s bright and she makes him laugh and they go skiing together.…”
“Oh, well, skiing,” says Hannah sardonically. “Fixie, anyone can ski with someone! You and Seb, you have something amazing. And you can’t let it slip away.”
“I don’t know.” I try to imagine calling up Seb, broaching the subject … and I quail. What if I’m wrong? What if there’s a million other reasons he doesn’t want to be with me?
“I need to get back to work.” I change the subject. “It’s not fair on the others. Friday afternoons always get frantic.”
“OK,” says Hannah, rising to her feet. “But you have to do something.”
“Maybe.” I bite my lip. “I dunno. I need to think. Really think.”
“All right, go home tonight,” says Hannah firmly. “Have a long, peaceful bath. Really think about it.” She pauses. “And then call him.”
I put my cup down and get to my feet. As I do so, my phone bleeps with a text, and my chest stiffens in hope.
“Is that him?” says Nicole at once.
“Have a look!” says Hannah. “I bet you anything it’s him.”
“I had a psychic feeling he was going to text.” Nicole nods. “I just had this feeling.”
“I’m sure it’s not him,” I say, pulling my phone out of my pocket with trembling fingers. “I’m sure it’s not— There, you see, it’s from Mum.”
I click on the text—and stop dead. For a brief moment, Seb has been swept from my mind. I’m staring at the words in disbelief. I’m not sure I can take this in.
“What?” demands Nicole. “What does she say?”
In silence, I hold out the phone so everyone can see the words:
Coming home for Christmas after all! Can’t wait to see you! Arriving Sunday morning in time for lunch! All my love, Mum xxx
“The house,” whispers Nicole in horror.
“The kitchen.” I gulp.
“The shop.” And now both our eyes are widening as the full scope of the situation hits us.
“Christmas.”
Twenty-seven
By ten on Sunday morning I’ve had approximately two and a half hours’ sleep and I’m wired, but I’m on it. I’m so on it.
We got back on Friday night and tackled the house, all of us—me, Nicole, Jake, and Leila, who insisted on bringing her Dustbuster over. Jake was on bathrooms, and I take my hat off to him—he volunteered for it. I was on the kitchen. Nicole was on dusting and Hoovering and not saying, “I don’t understand the vacuum cleaner.” (She did open her mouth when I said, “Can you do the stairs with the nozzle attachment?” Then she closed it again and I saw her looking up nozzle attachment on Google.)
Saturday was a massive day in the shop, with two events and customers streaming in constantly. We didn’t shut till ten, after which I insisted we stay and go over the place, checking there weren’t any bare spots or clumsy displays or signs not looking their best.
We’ll need to be in again this afternoon, but meanwhile Morag’s opening up and we’re getting lunch ready. I’ve organized the menu, and Nicole popped to the shops yesterday, and now she’s chopping broccoli while Jake crushes biscuits for the cheesecake and Leila lays the table. We’re all in my green Farr’s Food aprons, which was Jake’s idea. We look like a team. We feel like a team.
“OK.” I put my lamb casserole back into the oven. “It’s all on track. The table looks great, Leila,” I call into the dining room through the serving hatch.
“The Cava’s cold,” says Jake, looking in the fridge, and I shoot an affectionate glance at his back, because not so long ago he wouldn’t have been seen dead drinking Cava.
It’s weird: I’m getting on with Jake better and better. I never really knew him before, but we’re both quite similar. We’re punchy when it comes to the shop. We have the same kinds of ideas. We think big.
Which I suppose was always the case, but Jake was only thinking big for himself before.
“So, where are we?” I say, consulting my to-do list. (I’m not Hannah’s best friend for nothing.) “Nibbles, tick. Lamb, tick; broccoli’s nearly there; potatoes are in …” I check my phone. “Mum says forty minutes. OK, what else?”
“Fixie.” Leila comes into the kitchen and surveys me anxiously. “Why don’t you sit down for a moment?”
“I don’t need to sit down!”
“How are you feeling?” she adds delicately.
Nicole has filled in the entire family on the situation with Seb. Which means about every five minutes someone asks me if I’m OK or what I’m going to do or whether I want to “talk.” Even Jake asked last night if I wanted to “talk.” And when I said no, thanks, he proceeded to tell me, for about an hour, what a bastard Ryan was. Which didn’t particularly help me. Although it might have helped Jake.
So, no, I don’t want to “talk” and I don’t know what I’m going to do now. Break up Seb and Briony? Put him on the spot and wait to see if he wants me? Make all sort of assumptions about him that might be wrong?
Just thinking about it gives me an achy head and an achy heart and an achy all-over. So I’m not going to, at least not today. I’m going to make Mum’s homecoming perfect, that’s what I’m going to do.
“The only thing is the coffee,” says Nicole, looking up from the machine. “We’re out of beans.”
“Out?” I stare at her. “How can we be out? It was half full yesterday.”
“Dunno.” Nicole gives one of her trademark vague shrugs. “But it’s saying Refill bean tray.”
For God’s sake.