The Nearly-Weds Read online

  No, no. That’s not right. To call it a smile doesn’t cover it. This is the sort of grin you’d expect from a woman who’d just lost a stone in weight, won the lottery and found the most glorious pair of shoes she’s ever set eyes on . . . in a sale.

  ‘Going anywhere nice, ma’am?’ She beams.

  ‘Oh, Boston. For work,’ I reply, keeping it vague enough for the others in the queue to imagine me an off-duty human-rights lawyer on her way to reverse a miscarriage of justice or two.

  ‘Boston, huh? Well, you be sure to have a good time.’

  ‘I will. Thank you.’

  I take the bottle from her and attempt to put it into my rucksack before I move away. But the cord at the top isn’t budging. I free my hands by shoving my purse into my mouth, then try stuffing the bottle into the front pocket. But it just isn’t happening. Not easily, anyway.

  Pushing, pulling and scrambling, I’m no nearer to getting the bottle into my bag, and painfully conscious now of the growing queue.

  With the woman behind me tutting and rolling her eyes, I rip open the back pocket, stuff in the bottle and straighten my back indignantly.

  It is at this point that the clasp on my purse, still squashed between my teeth, takes on a life of its own. It bursts open, coins projecting out as if I’m vomiting two-pence pieces. The woman behind looks as if she has lost the will to live. Others rush forward offering help as I scrabble around, clumsily trying to pick up my money. My cheeks redden violently.

  ‘Um, thanks, ooh, sorry, I, em, thanks a lot, sorry, um . . .’ I babble. Wanting to escape, I shove my empty purse between my knees and hobble out, my arms full of coins, plastic bank cards and my rucksack, forcing myself to ignore the suppressed giggles.

  ‘Have a nice day, ma’am!’ the assistant calls after me, as I disappear round a corner, hoping she’ll understand why I don’t reply.

  Chapter 4

  Having taken the monorail to Grand Central Station I settle down to wait for my train to Boston and dig out my magazine. As I flick through it, I sense somebody sitting next to me and catch a waft of aftershave that immediately pricks my senses.

  Calvin Klein Truth. I’d know it anywhere. It’s the aftershave Jason would splash on religiously every morning, just after he’d checked his hair and straightened his tie in the uniquely meticulous way I came to know so well. Forgetting where I am, I glance upwards, pulse racing.

  But it’s not Jason. Of course it isn’t. I haven’t seen him for nearly two months, so why would I think he’d be here in the States?

  My neighbour – a heavy-set guy in his late thirties with a wonky fringe – flashes me a shy smile. I smile back and return to my magazine, even though I’ve been through all its pages at least three times now.

  Jason and I met when I was twenty and he was twenty-three – a small age difference, really, but at the time it felt like one of Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta-Jones proportions.

  By then, I’d dropped the law degree I hated and was a trainee at Bumblebees; he’d already left college, had spent a gap year bumming around Europe and had just been accepted on to a graduate-trainee scheme for one of the UK’s biggest firms of accountants.

  The first thing I should point out about Jason is that he’s the least likely accountant you could ever meet. Not that I’ve got anything against accountants, but public perception of the profession doesn’t put them up there in the excitement stakes with your average NASA scientist.

  Jason dispels that myth comprehensively. The life and soul of any party, he’s one of those people who gels so instantly with everyone he meets he’s like a human tube of Vidal Sassoon Shockwaves. I found him charming, engaging and utterly gorgeous. He turned heads everywhere we went. Admittedly, that had something to do with the fact that, in the year we met, Gareth Gates had recently been named runner-up in Pop Idol and it’s fair to say that there’s more than a passing resemblance between him and my ex.

  Jason had classic boy-band good looks and, at thirty now, he retains them. He’s slightly skinny and only a few inches taller than me, but his face and smile are to die for. He was my own personal heart-throb and I was smitten.

  My feelings blossomed into what I became sure – no, I knew – was deep, everlasting love. By that I don’t mean that, seven years on, we were still gazing into each other’s eyes like lovelorn puppies. But we knew each other’s flaws and continued to love each other despite them. After that length of time together, our love wasn’t as all-consuming as it had been in the early days. But it was solid. A real love. The basis for a lifetime together. At least, that was what I’d thought.

  How wrong could I have been?

  Chapter 5

  I have been on the train for more than three hours and have spent approximately 95 per cent of that time talking. This, like anything that stops me thinking about Jason (albeit temporarily), can only be a positive thing. Even if my jaw feels as if it might seize up.

  The first person to sit next to me was George Garfield II, a big old bear of a man who retired eighteen years ago after a career as a fire-fighter. He’d been in the Big Apple to see his grandchildren and was so impressed that I was from Liverpool (because that was where the Beatles were from) you’d think I’d just won an Olympic medal.

  Then there was Janice Weisberger, a former model in her fifties with a chignon so perfect I’m convinced it must have been sprayed with Superglue. She was on her way back from a two-day beauty convention and was kind enough to present me with a facial wash for problem skin. She lived next door but one to someone who had a cousin who’d been to Liverpool in the mid-eighties. As she put it, she and I had so much in common.

  Next came Earl, the struggling artist, who talked so fast I only managed to catch every fifth word, and Kate, the library assistant, who’d just dumped her boyfriend after walking in on him trying on her mom’s flannel nightgown.

  When Kate has gone, it strikes me how much I’m getting into the spirit of this lone-traveller lark. In fact, what on earth was I worried about?

  At the next stop, an elderly lady with candyfloss hair, a smart buttoned-up coat and a gingham shopping trolley scuttles over and sits next to me.

  ‘Hello!’ I offer, smiling in the warm, American manner to which I am now becoming accustomed.

  She doesn’t respond.

  Not too concerned – and ready for a break from talking – I dig out the copy of OK! I bought at Manchester airport, enticed by the prospect of studying such matters as the type of wallpaper Jordan and Peter André have on their loo walls. I’m engrossed for about five minutes when I can’t help noticing what my neighbour is up to.

  With my head fixed forward – so that to anyone else it would appear that I’m focusing intently on Jordan’s nose – my eyes swivel sideways.

  The little old lady is reaching into her shopping trolley and producing a bottle, covered with a paper bag. Which would be fine except that I suspect it does not contain a litre of Appletize. It smells like a 70 per cent proof home-brew that has been fermenting in someone’s basement for the last two millennia.

  As she proceeds to down mouthfuls of this noxious substance, I wonder whether I should sneak away to another seat or simply continue to watch in fascination. But the train is packed and I’m stuck.

  I spend the next twenty minutes of the journey studying my magazine and pretending to be enthralled. Eventually I stuff it back into my bag, only then noticing an envelope that has been hidden at the bottom. I pick it up and examine the front, where ‘Zoe’ is written in my mum’s handwriting.

  At forty-four, my mum is relatively young – at least, compared with the parents of most of my peer group. And despite the wild-child tag she must have acquired after falling pregnant with me at just sixteen, the reality – as far as I’ve ever seen – is that she’s anything but.

  She and Dad dashed up the aisle before they were old enough to buy shandy legally, and have spent the last twenty-eight years in domestic circumstances that are happy, unremarkable and
as traditional as they come.

  And Mum, although she’s young enough to shop at River Island still and attend a step class four times a week with Desy (her gay best friend), is in lots of ways no different from anyone else’s mother. She’s certainly no less over-protective, as I discovered when I announced I was going on this trip. She made it no secret that she’d prefer me not to go. And when my mother has an opinion about something, she doesn’t hesitate to let it be known . . .

  15th June

  Dear Zoe,

  Well, if you’re reading this letter, it means you’ve gone through with it and are now on your way to America. You already know what I think about this, so we won’t rehearse the arguments again.

  If this is what you feel you’ve got to do then, obviously, you’ve got to do it. Personally, I think you’d be sticking two fingers up to That Bloody Swine far more effectively if you stayed here. What better way to show him that life goes on without him?

  Desy agrees with me, by the way. And his love life makes Gone with the Wind look short on drama, so he should know. This morning we went for a latte after step and he admitted Jason always reminded him of that bloke he brought home from his holiday in Sunny Beach in Bolivia a couple of years back (or was it Bulgaria?). You remember him, don’t you? Good-looking fellow with only one leg. He was talking about opening a bar with Desy, then buggered off with a newsagent from South Shields. Desy was devastated. And while it might not compare with what you’ve just been through, the point is, you’re not alone. There are plenty of us around you who know what it’s like.

  Oh, there’s no point in me going over old ground.

  The only thing I would ask is that you heed a few pieces of advice from someone who’s been around a lot longer than you have.

  First, watch out for terrorists. If you see anyone acting suspiciously, then phone me immediately (or the police). Second, if you’re thinking of taking the opportunity of this travelling business to get a tattoo, then at least make sure it’s one of those tasteful Arabic type ones, like Angelina Jolie has. I mention this only after what happened to Mandy at work (the one in Accounts who went on Who Wants to Be A Millionaire?, not the one in Marketing who’s got alopecia). She’s still distraught after her Brian came back from his trip to Australia with a tattoo of a koala bear on his bottom. If you’re even slightly tempted by this, then please, Zoe, just close your eyes and imagine it on your backside when you’re ninety.

  Also – and don’t take this the wrong way – you need to watch your weight. You used to have lovely legs. And I know dieting might be the last thing on your mind at the moment, but that was probably what Britney Spears once thought.

  Anyway, I’ve said my piece now. Which means the only thing left to say – for one final time – is goodbye. Goodbye, my sweetheart, my little girl. I’ll miss you.

  Love and kisses,

  Mum

  XXX

  As I finish reading it, I look up and realize we’re minutes away from Boston. I start to pack away my belongings, when something unexpected happens.

  The train jolts. The lady next to me – the one with the bottle of moonshine – clearly isn’t the steadiest on her feet at the best of times and now shunts forward, nearly falling off her seat. I lean down to help her up, but the train jolts again and this time she flies backwards into the seat.

  Unfortunately, it isn’t just she who flies backwards. The second jolt is enough to propel the bottle out of her hand and straight towards me, in a movement remarkably similar to something Tom Cruise did in Cocktail.

  As its contents spill over my hair, my face, my clothes, they seem to seep into my every pore. I’m stunned and unable to comprehend anything more than that I now smell as if I’ve been washing my armpits with Glenfiddich for most of my adult life.

  ‘I – uh, wha—’ I’m dumbfounded.

  ‘BASTARD DRIVER!’ she howls, ignoring me and shaking her fist in the air. She looks like a cross between Miss Marple and Linda Blair in The Exorcist.

  I fight my way past her with my luggage in tow and squeeze myself – and it – into the toilet at the end of the carriage. I have just minutes before the train draws into the station. The cubicle is desperately small, but I know that my only hope is to push my hand through the suitcase zip to get out a change of clothes.

  As I force my hand in, though, almost drawing blood, to root around inside, I know that the only thing I’ll be able to get my hands on is whatever’s closest to the top. Panicking, I brush my alcohol-soaked hair out of my face and eventually pull out some things.

  ‘Oh, God,’ I mutter, as I examine them. ‘Oh, God, oh, God, oh, God.’

  But the train is pulling into the station and I have two options. The first is to stay as I am: soaked, so that my top is now see-through and emitting the sort of stench that can only be described as eau-de-bail-hostel. The second is to change into the only outfit I’ve been able to reach, no matter how unsuited to the occasion.

  It’s close. It’s bloody close. Even as I wrestle my way into my clean clothes, aware of the train emptying, I wonder whether the second option really was preferable. The only positive thought that runs through my mind is that at least Jason can’t see me. It would only confirm to him that leaving me had been the right thing to do.

  Oh, God, Mrs R. Miller, I hope you’re an understanding woman, I really do.

  Chapter 6

  It is immediately obvious that the person holding a sign with my name on it isn’t Mrs R. Miller. It’s not that the sign doesn’t say ‘Zoe Moore’ in such huge black letters I suspect it’s probably visible from space. Or that this person is not waiting directly under the clock, which was where the agency told me to go. Or even that the two children leaping about in the background couldn’t feasibly fit the description of Ruby and Samuel. It’s something else. The person holding a sign with my name on it is a man.

  Clearly, I can’t let on that this has fazed me – first impressions and all that – so I stride across the concourse attempting to seem enthusiastic, confident and, above all, so utterly professional I’d intimidate Hillary Clinton.

  He fixes his eyes on me. His expression is stern, but he’s not unattractive. Not by any means. In fact, he’s . . . oh, God . . . he’s stunning. Scarily handsome.

  He has dark blond hair, penetrating blue eyes and, although he’s a few years older than I am, a physique that would make anyone go weak at the knees: tall and toned, broad-shouldered, with just the right amount of muscle. It’s a physique that’s far more obvious than Jason’s, far more in-your-face, but no less attractive.

  On the other hand, this beautiful stranger isn’t exactly what my mother would refer to as ‘well turned-out’. He clearly hasn’t shaved in a week, and his T-shirt and Levi’s might have been laundered on the banks of the Ganges. But somehow he carries off the look spectacularly well. He’s very good-looking, but wild and dishevelled too. His brand of gorgeousness is rough and raw, dirty almost. Very different from . . . Oh, God, why do I compare every man I meet with Jason?

  ‘Hi!’ I find myself mouthing involuntarily as I approach.

  But he doesn’t move and he doesn’t smile.

  There is no doubt that the children belong to him. Both have the same striking eyes and distinctive hair, the little girl’s falling in wavy tresses down her back, her brother’s shorter, but overgrown and unruly.

  I continue towards them. It’s only when I’m within a couple of feet that I realize their father’s expression reveals his alarm.

  ‘You must be . . . Zoe?’ he says, almost reluctantly.

  ‘I am!’ I reply, rather more loudly than I’d intended. I drop my suitcase and hold out my hand. ‘Really pleased to meet you,’ I continue, shaking his vigorously. ‘How did you know I was Zoe? I guess you’d heard about the famous British sense of style, hey?’ I glance down at my clothes. It’s no wonder he’s unimpressed.

  My trousers are the bottom half of a pair of pyjamas that Great Auntie Iris bought me as a going-away pres
ent. Aside from the obvious problem, they are not even nice pyjamas – although I feel terrible for saying it. I’m convinced they’re made of 140 per cent polyester and I know they were purchased from one of Iris’s favourite stalls at St John’s Market, the ones that specialize in bras the size of a decent two-man tent. Then there’s the pattern: fluorescent pink tartan.

  I only wish I could say my top half made up for them. But while my silver boob tube was fabulous at Garlands nightclub when I was a size ten, right now I look as if I’ve dressed for my first day at work in a roll of Bacofoil.

  I pull my denim jacket closed as my mind whirs with possible excuses for this attire: I’m experimenting with the new look Vogue have dubbed ‘lunatic chic’; in the UK everyone catches a train wearing fancy dress; I’ve lost my mind.

  ‘Follow me,’ he instructs, grabbing my suitcase and marching off, with the children galloping behind.

  ‘Oh, that’s – that’s really kind of you,’ I mutter, and try to keep up.

  He beats me to the car, has the suitcase in the boot, both children strapped in and the engine running before I’ve disentangled myself from my rucksack and hauled myself into the passenger seat.

  As we pull out of the car park, my heart is hammering with a combination of excitement and nerves – and, although I can barely believe it, because it’s been so long since it’s put in an appearance, a flicker of lust.

  Partly to take my mind off the contours of his arms, I decide now might be a good time to clear something up. ‘Sooo . . . where is Mrs Miller?’

  His eyes narrow and for a second he looks very much like the Terminator considering whether or not to tear someone’s legs off. ‘Is that supposed to be funny?’ he says.

  ‘No.’ I frown. ‘I mean, I just had a conversation with the agency who told me I’d be working for Mrs R. Miller.’

  ‘Sorry, honey. I’m R. Miller. Ryan Miller. And, as you can see, I ain’t no Mrs.’