mortadella. I’m talking the cheap and nasty supermarket kind of baloney.’
‘My sentiments exactly.’
‘Men and women shouldn’t even be on the same planet.’
‘Not even the same universe,’ Susy had replied, reaching for the bowl of luxury candies her mother had sent over for her recent birthday. She’d still been suffering from post-break-up sugar cravings. ‘I think the entire male race should be banished. Except for your dad, though, Phoebs—John’s a real sweetie, so he can stay. Mine hasn’t called since my birthday, so he can take a jet to another planet for a while with the rest of them.’
Not long after their decision to relocate the earth’s male population Phoebe had felt her eyes getting heavy and had said goodnight to her friend. She was glad she had such a wonderful friend, but very sad that they had both been hurt by callous men. She had no clue why they had both been dealt bad men cards, but she was resolute that it would never happen again.
Because neither of them would ever date again.
From that day forward it would be all about their careers.
The plane dropped altitude to land. The sun was up and Phoebe looked from the window to see varied-sized squares of brown and green crops making a patchwork quilt of the undulating landscape. It was nothing like landing in Washington, where she lived, or New York, where she had undertaken her medical studies. Australia couldn’t be further from either, in distance or in landscape, and for that reason she couldn’t be more relieved.
She was a little anxious, but she was a big girl, she kept reminding herself. It would be a healing adventure. A time to bury the past and focus on furthering her career in podiatric surgery. And time away from her mother. As much as Phoebe loved her, she doubted she would miss her while she was still clearly on Team Giles.
Phoebe did, however, have a strong bond with her father John, and would miss him and their long chats about local and world politics, theology, and to which particular rat species Giles belonged. Susy was right—her father was one of the last good men. Over the years he had taught Phoebe to seek out answers, to find her path and not to be afraid to experience life and the joys the world had to offer. He had told her always to demand in return the same good manners and consideration that she gave to others, and most importantly to smile … even if her heart was breaking. There were always others far worse off.
And, much to the chagrin of his wife, John had agreed that time away from Washington and the wedding debacle was the best idea for Phoebe.
‘We are now commencing our descent into Adelaide. Please ensure your tray table is secured and your seat is in the upright position. We will be landing in fifteen minutes and you will be disembarking at gate twenty-three. The current time in Adelaide is eleven-thirty. Your luggage will be available for collection on Carousel Five. Adelaide is experiencing a heatwave and expecting an extremely hot forty-three degrees for the fifth day in a row. For our overseas passengers, that’s a hundred and nine degrees Fahrenheit—so shorts and T-shirts would be the order of the week, since the hot spell is not ending for another few days! We hope you enjoyed your flight and will choose to fly with us in the future.’
Phoebe rested back in her seat and her mind drifted back to the snow-covered streets of Washington that she had left behind. And to her cheating fiancé and quite possibly the world’s worst bridesmaids … She thought of her position at the university hospital … and of how, after the flight attendant’s announcement, she might quite possibly die of heat stroke on her first day in a new country …
Fifteen minutes later, a disembarked and ever so slightly dishevelled Phoebe looked around the sea of strangers waiting with her in line at Customs and questioned herself for heading to a country where she didn’t know a soul. But then reason reminded her that the alternative would be crazier.
Staying with the very charismatic but totally insincere Giles. Accepting his pathetic ‘last fling’ excuse and her mother’s unrelenting need to defend his abominable behaviour due to his impressive family tree … Giles’s womanising would have his notable ancestors with their seventeenth-century Pilgrim morals turning in their graves.
She shook her head as she moved one step closer to the booth where a stern-looking official was scrutinising the passports of the very weary long-haul travellers wanting to enter the country.
Despite her stomach churning with nerves at the prospect of being so far from home, particularly at Christmas, she knew she had done the right thing. Remaining in her home town wasn’t an option as the two families were joined at the hip, and that closeness wasn’t allowing her to heal and move on. Thanksgiving had gone a long way to proving her right, with both families and a supposedly contrite Giles gathering and expecting her to join them. She’d refused, but she had known immediately that Christmas gatherings would be no different.
If she’d stayed it would have given her mother a glimmer of hope that she would rekindle her relationship with Giles. That an ensuing wedding of the year in Washington might be on the cards again, and that the wedding planner would once again ask Phoebe’s father to check the diary of the Vice-President to ensure he could attend.
In Phoebe’s mind there was absolutely no chance that she would wed a man who had been unfaithful. She couldn’t turn the other cheek and ignore his indiscretions. It was the twenty-first century and she had choices. She wanted to be a man’s equal partner in life. That was what she needed and if she never found it then she would not take second best. She would rather spend her life alone.
For better or worse with Giles would mean Phoebe always hoping his behaviour would get better, but knowing he’d more than likely get worse. The further away she stepped from her ex-fiancé the more she suspected he had done her a huge favour by showing his true nature before the wedding. No doubt, she surmised, having a wife who wouldn’t ruffle feathers but would instead add value to his reputation by having her own medical career, and whose father was a Presidential advisor, had all been part of Giles’ political game plan.
It had become painfully clear once she’d broken up with him that Giles had manipulated her for his own benefit. She thought she had fallen in love, but now she wasn’t so sure. Perhaps it had been a little rushed, and she’d been caught up in the idea of happily-ever-after once the wedding momentum had started. All of her friends except for Susy were engaged or married and it had seemed a natural progression.
The wedding had been set up so quickly by her mother who, along with Washington’s most popular wedding planner, had had everything moving at the speed of light.
Susy had accepted the role of her maid of honour, and the two young women had been excited about seeing each other after so long, but the day before she’d been due to fly out Susy had called and broken disappointing news. She was unable to leave London as the jury had not returned the verdict on a very prolonged case. In her own words, she’d said she’d have to miss the wedding of her best friend in the world in order to see some bad guys locked away for a very long time in an English prison.
Deflated and disappointed, Phoebe had understood, but it had left her with only two distant cousins in her bridal party. She had agreed to include the young women, who were both twice removed on her mother’s side of the family, because she had been secure in the knowledge that Susy would be beside her for the days leading up to her wedding and with her at the altar of the Cathedral Church of Saint Peter and Saint Paul.
She barely knew the girls. She hadn’t seen them in over five years and from what she had heard they were party girls who were living on the west coast and their antics in social media were a constant source of embarrassment to their respective families.
It
