After the Party, page 7
He glances towards the door and I feel like I’ve lost him.
‘What is it?’ I say, louder.
‘Oi, budge it,’ Rebecca says hitting the back of the chair with her handbag. ‘That’s my seat, get your own,’ she teases.
She stands between us and Dean looks away. He looks disappointed and for a moment I have to contain myself. I want to stand up and scream for Rebecca to leave, I want to take Dean’s hand and tell him I love him, I can almost feel it on my tongue, but instead I reach for my wine and take long deliberate gulps.
‘All right you,’ Rebecca says. ‘Pace yourself.’ She grins. ‘What were you guys chatting about?’ Dean rises and pulls the chair back for Rebecca, who lowers herself into it delicately.
‘Nothing,’ I say. ‘Dean was just trying to find his name tag.’
‘I think I saw it over there,’ Rebecca says, pointing across the table. Marie joins us and I see her mouth ‘sorry’ before she sits down.
More people start filling the ballroom, taking their seats at the tables as the music plays, and then our CEO appears on the dance floor at the front, holding a microphone. He makes a speech about the good year we’ve had, how he’s proud of us all and can’t wait for what the New Year will bring. I stare at the back of Dean’s head, as he’s facing the front. The whole room drains to a static drone, and in that moment it feels like it’s just me and him. He turns around like he feels it too and we stare at each other. The party, the people, they are busy background noise, lost on us. What did he want to say to me?
‘Do you want another?’ Rebecca says, eyeing my empty glass.
I nod appreciatively. ‘Do you want me to come?’
She shakes her head. ‘No, it’s okay, I’ve got this.’ She winks mischievously as she heads for the bar.
Marie leans towards me. ‘What happened, did you tell him?’
‘You were gone for all of five minutes, so no, it didn’t come up,’ I reply. ‘But—’ I look at Dean and he’s in conversation with Megan, who’s waving her hands frantically in front of her. He laughs.
‘But what?’ Marie urges ‘But what?’ she repeats.
‘But, he said he wants to speak to me, I don’t know what about.’
Marie claps her hands together in delight. ‘I can’t believe this is happening, finally, after three years of watching you both ignore how you feel,’ she says, holding up her glass.
‘Nothing’s happened,’ I insist.
Air seeps between Marie’s teeth and she neighs wickedly. ‘The night is still young, my friend.’
The meal that follows is lavish and beautiful and so far the evening feels perfect. Marie recounts how Robbie proposed and tells us about her wedding plans for next year. Whatever they argued about seems to be forgotten now. We scoff down roast pork and bundles of apple stuffing. When dessert arrives, we lean back and shake our heads, slowly topping up our stomachs with wine as we giggle and reminisce about other drunken nights out. As the plates are cleared away, the lights dim and low beats vibrate the table, signalling that the sit-down meal is over and the night is about to begin. Spilled drinks and bits of food cover the table. We finish open bottles and happily devour fresh ones, relishing in the richness of it. For a moment I forget about the job interview next week, I forget Dean wants to speak to me and I start to tap my feet in time with the music. I feel content, my stomach full and my lips tingly with the copious amounts of wine we’ve consumed.
‘Are you going to speak to him?’ Marie says as the music grows louder. People begin rising, the scraping of their chairs on the wooden floor just audible above the music. I look over at Dean and I feel electric.
‘No,’ I say, wanting to savour the moment just a little longer. ‘Let’s dance.’ I want him to see me. I pat down my dress, brush back my hair and discreetly apply lipstick.
‘Perfect,’ Marie says, winking, her finger and thumb forming a circle. Rebecca clutches my hand and pulls me to my feet.
‘Shot?’ she asks, slurring her words slightly. I shake my head. ‘I’m going to dance, you coming?’
Her eyes slant and she giggles. ‘What’s gotten into you? I bloody love it,’ she says.
The dance floor is sparsely covered as we link hands and strut into the middle. It changes colour as we sing and thrash our legs out. More people join us and the heat from other bodies makes my hair stick to the back of my neck. Marie bobs from one side to the other and Rebecca winds her body, taking a sip from a fresh cocktail, one arm raised in the air. I risk glancing at Dean. He’s sitting by himself, watching us. I turn my back and signal to Marie, who nods emphatically. I want to him to come over. I twist my head to look over my shoulder but he remains put. There’s a seriousness about his features as his eyes narrow. It doesn’t suit him. I turn without thinking and glide through the narrow walkway of chairs and tables until I’m standing in front of him.
He doesn’t say anything, but his features don’t change. His mouth is set in a hard line, a dark film covering his usually bright eyes.
‘What is it?’ I ask.
‘Do you want to get some air?’ He raises his voice over the music.
I nod and walk around to the other side of the table, grabbing my coat. The tension has disappeared, along with the jovial simplicity of the evening, and my expectations sink into my throat, the food, dancing and wine swirling in my stomach, threatening this moment. We walk silently outside, my head swimming in the possibility of it, but something feels off. I can’t place it.
‘What is it?’ I say, impatient now. He frowns at my tone. But I don’t care, he doesn’t know how long I’ve been waiting for this moment. Haven’t we both been so stupid for so long? I’ve been basking in the possibility of us. No, I think to myself, I’ve been hiding in case it’s not possible at all.
‘I need to talk to you too,’ I say.
‘Lizzie,’ he says, shoving his hands into his pockets. ‘Shall we walk?’
I nod, following him, I halt on the gravel pathway and stumble slightly, clumsily grabbing hold of a stone pillar. Dean laughs slightly. ‘Need a hand?’ he says, jutting out his elbow, signalling for me to hold on. I loop an arm through his and touching him, just feeling the firmness of his arm, of him, his warmth, settles me. We walk together, through arches lined with mistletoe, down the side of the building, out into the gardens. We can hear the soft murmurs of music and chatter from inside as the path turns into brick. Still, I don’t break free from Dean as we walk further into the garden, the sound now a gentle murmur. The moon is full, skimming the edge of the garden, pebbles glistening in its ethereal glow. Tall hedges tower over us on either side and Dean makes a comment about hoping we can find our way back, to which I answer, ‘It’s beautiful.’ He stops then, half his face illuminated by the distant light from the building, the other half plunged in darkness.
‘I’ve been stupid, Lizzie,’ he says.
‘Why?’ I ask, my voice a whisper.
‘I’ve fallen for someone, and I’ve just found out she’s moving away.’
My stomach tightens and I swallow the dryness in my throat. I lick my lips, trying to find a reply.
‘Maybe she doesn’t have to,’ I say. He turns until his face is completely hidden in the darkness. ‘Maybe if you asked her to stay.’
Marie must have told him, that’s why she was so sure of herself. I’ll have to thank her later.
‘I have asked her to stay.’
‘No,’ I say. ‘Properly. Tell her how you feel.’
‘Aren’t you annoyed at me?’ he says.
‘Why would I be annoyed at you?’
‘For not saying anything. We’re close, aren’t we, and I didn’t tell you. I’d be annoyed at me.’
‘Tell me how you feel,’ I say.
‘Like I can’t lose her, it would kill me.’
‘Can we stop playing this game?’ I say. ‘Look at me, tell me how you feel.’
But when he looks up, his face is contorted in the moonlight. He looks strange to me.
‘I told you,’ he says bluntly.
I step forward, closer to him, and I see that it’s not the moon at all, he’s puzzled, his expression is scrunched as if he’s trying to remember something.
‘I don’t understand,’ I say slowly.
‘Rebecca,’ he says, and, just like that, I feel a piece of myself fall away.
My stomach rises, my throat fills and I lean over, expelling all the wine and food from the evening. Dean’s shadow eclipses me and I feel his hand gently touch the small of my back. He’s saying something, but I can’t hear him, only Rebecca’s name circling the air between us.
Chapter Nine
I spend most the weekend curled up in bed. I woke up to a missed call from Rebecca, but I couldn’t respond to her. I can’t be the friend that she and Dean need right now. I’ve never experienced anything quite like a broken heart before. I’ve read about it, I’ve seen films and I’ve held my friends through numerous break-ups, but I’ve never felt it. It feels like I’m winded, but the sensation reverberates throughout my body. I want to cry. I want to drown myself in wine and sleep, but everything tastes strange and I can’t trust my mind in sleep – but can I trust my mind at all?
I left straightaway after Friday night at the Christmas party. Marie tried to call me a taxi and kept asking me the same question, ‘What happened?’, repeatedly. She offered to take me home, pleaded, but I said I’d be okay. I stumbled away from the chaos of the evening, wishing I could find that moment before I’d spoken to Dean, when it was all just a possibility.
I stood outside the gates at the end of the long gravel driveway, the Christmas party humming in the background, lighting obscured behind the trees giving them the appearance of being on fire. I hugged myself hard and fell to the ground.
When I’d stopped being sick, Dean had led me back to the party and put me on a bench outside. He’d disappeared inside saying he would get Marie, but he didn’t come back with her – why would he? I’m not his responsibility, I’m not his girlfriend, and I’m not the person he loves. I’ve been stupid, blind. How could I not see that Dean loves Rebecca? Of course he does, she’s beautiful, charismatic and funny in a way I could never be.
My mum pulled up outside the venue and as I opened the door I expected her lips to be pursed in a told-you-so manner, but instead she just looked concerned. We were silent most of the way. It was only when we pulled up outside my house that she spoke.
‘This isn’t like you,’ she said sympathetically.
I could taste sick on my tongue, which was dry and leathery. All I wanted to do was go to sleep, but I could feel Mum’s concern. For once she wasn’t pushing me for answers, she just hoped I’d offer them to her. She leant over and placed a hand on my knee.
‘Let me come in and make you a nice cup of tea.’
‘I think I just want to go to bed,’ I reply miserably.
I saw her face scrunch and there was something so childlike about her expression.
‘I’d like that, Mum,’ I said and she nodded, like she’d just checked something off a list.
She moved diligently around my house, washing up my wine glass and tipping the remainder of the bottle down the sink. She waited patiently downstairs for me to shower the night away and clean the sick from my teeth. When I padded back downstairs she was perched at the kitchen counter.
‘Are you going to tell me what happened?’ Mum said, placing a cup of tea in front of me. ‘Because I’m not buying that you just drank too much. I know you, Lizzie, and you don’t drink too much, that’s not you.’
I sat on the bar stool gazing at the picture. I was always looking at that figure playing the piano, but what are they looking at?
Mum followed my eye-line to the picture and smiled. ‘I always loved that picture. One of your best pieces.’
‘Is it?’ I said spitefully, lifting the tea.
She stared at me across the counter.
‘I’ve been an idiot, Mum.’
‘Have you?’
‘I fell in love.’
She raised her eyebrows. ‘I’m not sure that makes you an idiot.’ She frowned, the way that mums do when they want to understand.
‘He doesn’t love me back.’
She considered this. ‘Well, that makes him the idiot,’ she said.
I shook my head. ‘I’ve loved him for so long, it’s like I don’t have anything left. I would have stayed for him,’ I confessed.
‘Stayed?’ Mum questioned.
I glanced away. ‘I have an interview in London next week. I was going to tell you, I just, I needed to make sure.’
‘Make sure of what?’ she probed.
I took a sip of tea and buried my eyes in the palms of my hands. Then I lifted my head. ‘I couldn’t leave without telling him.’
She nodded. ‘Dean.’
I nodded.
‘You told him how you feel?’
I frowned. ‘Well, not exactly.’
‘Lizzie,’ she said, raising her hands and slapping her thighs. ‘Then how can you expect him to know?’
‘He told me tonight he’s in love with someone else, this other girl we work with, Rebecca.’
‘They’re together?’
‘I don’t know, Mum, he just… I, I went to tell him how I feel and he said he was in love with Rebecca, not me,’ I said. ‘Rebecca, perfect, beautiful, talented Rebecca. I’ve been so stupid. Now I can’t wait to leave, I can’t wait to pack up all my things and just escape this town that has done nothing more than hold me back.’
‘Elizabeth,’ Mum said quietly.
‘I’m sorry,’ I said, as I started to cry.
‘You know what I think?’ she said. ‘I think he’s the idiot.’
‘Thanks, Mum,’ I said, without meaning it.
‘But you need to give him a chance, let him make up his own mind.’
‘He should be with me, not Rebecca.’
‘Of course he should, honey.’ She got up and pulled me into her chest, wrapping her arms around my head and stroking my hair soothingly.
My body felt drained, and my eyelids were heavy. I pulled away reluctantly, slurped the rest of the tea and waded down the corridor. I needed to go to bed.
‘Do you want me to stay?’ Mum called but I didn’t reply.
When I woke the next day she wasn’t there. She texted me on Sunday saying she hoped I felt better, but she was uncharacteristically keeping her distance. Or maybe she just knew better.
It’s Sunday evening and I need to prepare for the interview tomorrow. I booked the day off work as holiday. I originally thought the Monday after the Christmas party wouldn’t look suspicious, but now I’m not sure I care. Dean hasn’t bothered checking if I’m okay, if I got home safely Friday night, Something new churns in my stomach: that maybe I was wrong about him, completely wrong. He had flirted with me, hadn’t he? Why? Was it to make Rebecca jealous? I think about him picking up the picture of her, the cynicism in his tone when he said I’d captured her perfectly. Rebecca is wild, we all know it, maybe that’s her allure, an animal he thinks he can tame. Whereas I’m captured, domesticated and devoted. I’m too much without being enough.
I lay out an outfit for the interview tomorrow and spend the evening showering, straightening out my hair and assembling pieces of my portfolio. I barely have room to think about going into work this week. What I’ll finally say when I see Dean. I send Marie a message saying I won’t be in tomorrow because of the interview; she reads it, but doesn’t reply. I send another saying I hope things are okay with her and Robbie now. She doesn’t read this one. Maybe she’s mad at me for leaving on Friday without explaining.
I remember it differently now, the Christmas party, the way Dean was looking at our side of the table. When he was watching us dance. It was all Rebecca. My mind races over every exchange, every glance. I analyse and then reanalyse the interactions between Rebecca and Dean when we’ve been out at group work outings. How could I not have noticed? Was I so consumed by how I felt? How could I be so misplaced in my feelings? What had Mum said – tell him how I feel – the words were so close, but they just bubbled away, evaporated into the evening, everything I’d suppressed for so long.
The world feels different now, there’s no innocence or hope. It feels like the days will just melt into each other, slope and slide, merge until there’s no end. The words, the emotions, they are still there but instead of something quietly hopeful, it feels like a disease, a burden, like I want to scrub it away … but it festers, relentless.
Next day, I travel to London for the interview. The train journey from Norwich to London soon passes and the sprawling fields transform into concrete skyscrapers and piles of detritus. It should look ugly but it doesn’t – the contrast like a jolt into another world. I haven’t been to London for years and I forgot what it was like: from the train the city looks empty, like a scene from 21 Weeks Later, but as it pulls into the station the platform is alive with the buzz of London – the sharp screeches of the train tracks, stilettos rushing across platforms, cries of happiness as embraces sweep across the station.
I’m overwhelmed for a moment. I’ve plunged into a different universe. People bump into me and don’t apologise; everyone is clutching coffee cups and people twist, knocking their backpacks into the crowds. I head to the nearest escalator and bring up my phone to type in the Shoreditch address. I looked it up on the train on the way here and I know it’s not far, but as soon as I reach the top of the escalator, I realise the station was just a small piece of the city.
I step out of Liverpool Street Station and into the throng of people, from eager tourists haphazardly wandering about snapping selfies on outstretched hands to suited men and women clutching dangling headsets and chanting into them, their eyes fixed ahead. I’m small, lost between the clutches of roaring buses and the dense air. I push through the crowd and all the excitement dissipates into apprehension and doubt. The air is full of strong aromas, redolent of a smoky bar thick with fumes. As I walk towards Shoreditch, the crowd opens up and the streets become a blend of market stalls, boutique shops and wine bars. There’s something so promising about each moment that plays out as I gaze around. From a couple walking along with large sticky doughnuts, grinning at each other with rosy faces, to the busker strumming a guitar, unassumingly playing to a small crowd swaying rhythmically.
