Kelli hissed, violently nodding her head towards my handbag placed under the table, which I now realised was the source of the repetitive ringing.
Crap. If it’s Erin, I’ll bloody kill her. She’d been messing about with my phone to make sure my calls transferred to her and must not have done it correctly.
‘Oh!’ I flustered. ‘I am sorry! I was sure I’d put it on silent, I …’ I leant down and fumbled in my handbag, feeling my cheeks flush and heartbeat quicken. I muted the call, without checking who it was, and stood up, brushing my hair from my face and trying to compose myself.
‘So sorry.’ I cleared my throat. ‘So, as I was saying, at Lonely Hearts Travels we pride ourselves on offering unique trips to fabulous destinations that will get even the most broken-hearted guests back on top form.’
I paused to check that I still had a captive audience. Kelli had a slightly manic smile fixed on her pale face. The only other woman in the room, bar Kelli and me, had her piercing green eyes narrowed into a pinched frown. She’d been the only one to shake my hand limply and fail to raise a smile during the introductions. So much for sisterhood solidarity, I thought, nodding at Kelli to press play on the short video she’d created. It was a montage of clips filmed by various tour guides showing our guests having the time of their lives. From a woman laughing and waving in the back of a colourful tuk-tuk in Bangkok to groups of smiling tour-goers trekking in the lush rainforest of Brazil, from guests practising yoga poses on a beach in India to dancing at a festival in Berlin, all set to a Florence + the Machine song, that uplifting one with lots of clapping; it never failed to give me goosebumps. This sense of pride that I’d started a business that meant something, that these people were getting on with their lives and, often, changing their lives because of being on one of our tours really was incredible. With my life being so fast paced, I didn’t stop to take in what we’d achieved as often as I probably should. I made a mental note to take a step back before rushing on to the next project in the future.
Just as the crescendo hit and my throat felt clogged with emotion, my phone rang again.
Green-eyed woman coughed loudly and purposefully as the gentleman next to her shifted in his seat in embarrassment for me. I avoided Kelli’s eye but sensed her bristle. If the shoe had been on the other foot, I’d be livid too; we’d worked too hard to look unprofessional like this. I scrabbled to the floor and delved my hand in my bag to shut it up. I thought I’d turned the bastard thing onto silent, so why was it still ringing!
My finger was pressing on the off button when I noticed that the persistent caller was Shelley, my best friend and current Australian bridezilla. Why was she calling me? We always pre-arranged our Skype sessions because of the time difference. It must have been the middle of the night there. I pressed decline and was just about to turn my phone off when a text pinged through from her.
‘Call me ASAP! Everything ruined!!! Jimmy’s gone.’
Jimmy, her fiancé and Ben’s best friend, had gone? Gone where?
I stood up and brushed some fluff from my skirt. My bold purple skirt that in a sea of neutrals they’d fail to forget. Stupid Cosmo. Stupid skirt. I apologised once more and thanked Kelli for jumping in where I’d left off. I cleared my throat and continued with my pre-rehearsed speech, except I was struggling to concentrate. What did she mean, Jimmy had gone? I knew we’d been chatting before about how stressed she was over the wedding and how some of her ideas were a little – well, a lot – farcical, but this was serious. Super serious. I felt this scratching at the back of my mind as what I refused to believe wouldn’t stay restrained. It had happened again. I knew only too well the pain, humiliation and heartache of being jilted, and now it was happening to my best friend.
‘Excuse me, do you mind if I just …’ I picked up a glass of water from the table in front of me and gulped it back in one, feeling Kelli’s confused eyes trained on me. ‘Something in my throat,’ I laughed lightly, and tried to get back on track with what I was saying.
The rest of the pitch went by without a problem or interruption, and thankfully Kelli took centre stage, doing an excellent job in wrapping it up. I felt like I was going through the motions as I was desperate to get out of this stuffy room and speak to Shelley. It had taken all my concentration to stick to our script, answer their questions and keep my head in the game, when all I could think was how heartbroken and sick I’d felt when my ex-fiancé, Alex, had left me. She must be beside herself.
‘Excellent, well, I think we have everything we need for now. We are very keen to get things up and running as soon as possible, so we’ll call you tomorrow afternoon with our decision.’ The deep, monotone voice of the man opposite pulled me from my thoughts.
‘Thank you so much for your time, and apologies again for my phone.’ I blushed and shook their hands, giving the green-eyed lady an overly officious smile as Kelli quickly passed out our business cards. I kept that smile fixed rigidly to my face until we were back in the plush corridor waiting to be escorted to reception.
‘I’ll be two minutes, just nipping to the loo!’ I hurriedly told Kelli, before rushing into the bathroom.
I clocked my face in the brightly lit mirrors; all the colour had been washed from my skin and the lipstick that I’d patiently applied, matching lip liner and all, had been absent-mindedly chewed off. I shut the door of one of the stalls, sat on the closed toilet seat and pressed FaceTime; within seconds, Shelley’s face filled most of the screen.
‘Hey! What’s happened?’ I garbled, taking in her appearance and feeling that familiar sinking sensation in the pit of my stomach. Dark, heavy bags sagged underneath her bloodshot eyes, stringy strands of dull blonde hair were stuck to her frowning forehead, and a cluster of angry spots lined her chin. Shelley shook her head. That’s when I realised that in her sleep-deprived-looking eyes were tears threatening to spill.
Oh God, it was true, Jimmy had left her. The wedding was off. She’d been jilted before her big day, just like I had.
She started to sob loudly.
‘Shelley! Oh hun, please stop crying. Tell me what’s going on.’
She looked like she hadn’t slept in weeks, judging from her ghostly pale skin and the trembling hands that wiped at the snot from the tip of her nose.
‘It’s … it’s …’ She grabbed a tissue from somewhere off screen and loudly blew into it. ‘It’s Jimmy. He’s gone.’
A cold chill ran up my spine. ‘But why? What’s happened? How could he do this to you?’
Shelley shook her head and grabbed another tissue to dab at her eyes, leaving white flakes of Kleenex on her sallow cheeks. ‘We’ve had a row. A huge row!’
They never rowed.
‘A row about what?’
‘The wedding, yet again.’ She tried to catch her breath. ‘He told me that he hates the table centres I’ve picked out and that he really doesn’t want us to have a photo booth, even though I told him that this was the one thing I wanted.’ With that, she was off again, sniffing and wiping her snotty nose.
‘Wait.’ I paused, trying to understand correctly. ‘Table centres and photo booths?’ I repeated slowly, just to make sure I’d heard her. These two innocent things were the reason that her patient and loving fiancé had dumped her and called off their wedding? I didn’t get it.
‘Yes!
