hope it will be motivating for both of us. I have been watching you over the past two months. Suzanne, well, she is . . .’ he clears his throat. ‘I think you need more authority and freedom to really thrive. I’d like to give you total autonomy.’
‘That sounds wonderful,’ I say. And it does.
The question I should be asking myself, of course, is the question I never, ever answer: do I even want to do this job anymore? I don’t know. What do I want? Urgh. Don’t think about it . . .
Suddenly my attention is drawn by two familiar figures coming in to the restaurant, and for a second, I think I’m hallucinating. I glance quickly into the mirrors to try to see their faces and gasp.
They walk away from us, right down to the other end of the restaurant, and sit at a table almost entirely obscured from my view. But I get a good look before they sit down. And there’s no mistaking who it is.
Dave and Bella.
I feel like I’ve been kicked in the chest. I can’t breathe. What is he doing here with her? Are they friends now? I didn’t think they even got on, did you?
‘Abigail? Are you alright?’ says Andre. He puts his knife and fork down and looks over at me in concern.
‘Fine, I’m fine,’ I say, putting my hand to my forehead in an attempt to slow down my thoughts. The initial pain has turned into an icy feeling that is washing through my body. They can’t see me, but I want to run away – from them, from my thoughts, from work, from everything. I mean, what the hell are they doing here together? They’re not friends, they barely spoke to each other in France! What should I do? Confront them? That would be a bit dramatic, wouldn’t it? I mean it’s just lunch! Then Dave might think I’m overreacting, or being unnaturally jealous. He does hate jealousy, he told me that once, he finds it boring. I don’t want to spoil anything just when things are finally good between us . . .
My heart is hammering painfully, oh God, I feel sick.
Let’s be positive: they’re having lunch, not dinner, right? Lunch is nothing, right? I’m at lunch with Andre! But in that case, why didn’t Dave tell me he was meeting Bella today? Then again, he never tells me who he’s seeing for lunch. Perhaps he’s giving her advice on Ollie. No, that’s not likely either. If I walked up to them and said ‘fancy seeing you here!’, would it be awkward? It totally would. Bella was, frankly, a bit of a bitch in France. And I thought she lived in fucking Bath! God! Brain, slow down! I put both hands to my temples and take a deep breath.
‘You are very pale,’ says Andre. ‘Do you need some air?’
I meet his eyes. ‘Yes,’ I say. ‘I need to get out of here. Do you mind if we leave? I will wait for you outside.’
‘No problem,’ he says. ‘I’ll get the bill.’
I run-walk to the door, my head down so that Dave and Bella don’t notice me. Not that they’re looking around, mind you, from what I can see in nervous, flicky little glances, they’re deep in conversation. They look intensely together. Like a couple. An impossibly beautiful, sexy couple.
I think I’m going to throw up.
I get my coat and hurry outside to the street, taking deep breaths as I go.
Breathe, Abigail. Think. What would Robert say about this? Should I call him? No. Of course not. He’s all weird about Dave as it is. But if I did, he’d say I was overreacting.
And he’d be right. It’s just lunch with an old friend. A family friend! It’s nothing. Last night Dave said he wanted to be with me, that he wanted to tell everyone we were together. He said he wanted a girl like me.
Remembering this, my anxiety loosens its stranglehold on my chest just slightly. Enough so I don’t think I’m about to keel over.
Calm down. He can have lunch with an old family friend who happens to be a woman. After all, I’m having lunch with Andre, aren’t I? And Dave isn’t the kind of guy who would cheat, is he?
Actually, he’s exactly the kind of guy I’d previously have imagined as a cheater – confident, slick, flirty, with a short attention span . . . but that’s a stupid thing to think. What do I know about the kind of man who cheats? Peter – pause to spit – cheated on me! And I was absolutely fucking clueless about it. God, oh God why is this happening. Brain, please stop.
Anyway. She has a boyfriend, Ollie, and yes, they were fighting in France but I don’t think they’ve broken up, have they? So why am I jumping to conclusions?
‘Abigail, I am so sorry, perhaps it was the oy-stare?’ says Andre, coming outside. His face is all worried concern.
‘Uh, perhaps it was,’ I agree. ‘Let’s go back to the office.’
The rest of the afternoon is agony. My standard uneasy Daveticipation was nothing compared to this.
I can’t help it: I’m in hell. I can’t even distract myself: there’s nothing happening in the markets. I can’t hold a phone conversation. I can’t read to the end of a sentence without thinking about what I saw, and I’m obsessively checking my phone. I even take my phone to the toilet with me in case he calls, which is hard, as it’s one of those office loos with no cistern so there’s nowhere to balance it, so I have to put it in my mouth while I pee. That’s probably really unhygienic.
I’m desperate to call Plum or Sophie for reassurance. But their inevitable advice will be to simply ask him what he was doing. I know that’s what you’re probably thinking too. But I can’t. I can’t confront him about having lunch with his ex-fling (ex-girlfriend? No, it was just a fling, right? That’s what Robert said, wasn’t it?). It sounds like I was stalking him, and he’ll ask why I didn’t come up and say hi right then and there instead of creeping away. If I bring it up now, I’m going to look like a fool.
Oh God. I want to cry.
I head home from work at 6 pm.
I go straight upstairs. Robert’s not home. Every step is difficult, and the house feels unusually cold. I have no energy. Angst is so draining.
I lie on my bed in the dark, fully dressed, and stare at the ceiling.
Worst case scenario: it will all end. I’ll go back to being single.
That wouldn’t be so bad, right? I started this thing with Dave knowing that it could end, that I had to stay in control and not become too smitten, too fast, that I had to be bulletproof . . .
But I’m not. I took a risk. I told him I wanted to be with him last night. I have to see this out.
Anyway, everything else in my world has changed. Everyone else is in love now. Robert is single, but as he said once, he’s multiple. Being the only single person in the group would not be fun. I’d be alone every night, with no wingwomen to go out with.
And anyway, I don’t want to be single. I want Dave.
I think I must be falling in love with him. This sick, nervous feeling can’t be anything else.
My phone rings from deep in the depths of my bag. Moving faster than I ever have before, I sit up and grab the flashing light in the darkness.
It’s
