In the following few days, I’m consumed by the question of what to do about Joe.
When I’m thinking straight, I’m certain I’ve been so spectacularly awful to him that there’s no going back. And the idea of being brazen enough to attempt to approach him makes me cringe so much that I almost shrinkwrap myself onto the sofa.
Despite this, I clutch on to the pathetic hope that something I could say or do might make him forgive me, even if I can’t imagine what it could be. The fact that he’s a guest at Stella’s wedding, this Saturday, leaves a rather odd set of possibilities open.
The first is to do nothing and say nothing. Ever. Just keep my head down, let him think I’m a nutcase and get on with his life. Which is the option I’d ordinarily be most comfortable with, on the grounds that I feel sick every time I think about what I said. And it would work if it wasn’t for something else: I think I’m in love with him. I really think it’s happened. I’ve totally fallen for a man who now despises me.
The second option is to wait until the wedding, hope he’s drunk enough to engage in conversation, then fall to my knees and beg forgiveness, even if he might by rights ask why I’d waited until then.
Which brings me to the final possibility: to seek him out now and do everything within my power to tell him that I am, categorically, an arsehole – and that he is, categorically, the most incredible man on earth. Which doesn’t make us a match made in heaven, I admit. But it’s all I’ve got.
So, I spend the days before Stella’s wedding trying to take the third option. Trying being the operative word.
I turn up at salsa night in the vague hope that he was bluffing about calling it quits. Only, he’s not there. I end up attempting Marion’s trickiest routine – the cuddle left turn, ladies’ right turn, back-to-back and reverse wrap – with Frank. The results would be hilarious if I was even remotely in a laughing mood.
The next morning I decide to text him.
But deciding this and knowing the right thing to say are two different matters. I compose, then re-compose my message so often it’s a wonder my fingertips aren’t bleeding. My first text is so long my phone instructs me to turn it into an email. But an email feels like the wimp’s option, so instead I determine to say something face to face.
I open a blank text again and write: I am so very sorry. And I’d like to explain why I reacted like I did, if you’d be willing to talk? x
Even that seems intensely crap, but I send it anyway and pray that he’s willing to listen, despite owing me nothing.
I check my phone on average every three minutes.
But as three minutes become six minutes, then six minutes become nine minutes and, somehow, using this bizarre counting technique, I end up hitting the three days mark, I am forced to come to a devastating conclusion.
He is never going to text me back. He really does hate me.
By Friday, I am tearful and wracked with self-loathing and regret.
There’s only one thing left. I have to try, one final time.
I drive to the Moonlight Hotel in a bid to seek him out.
As my car crunches up the drive, my heart is racing as if I’ve just sprinted. I park in the forecourt, and I head into reception as I realise that the hotel is finished – or as near as damn it.
‘Oh hello, madam. We’re not actually open until next week, I’m afraid. Can I help you at all?’
It’s the same receptionist who greeted Cate, Emily and me when we first started at salsa all those months ago – but a significantly new and improved version. This time, she actually smiles.
I clear my throat. ‘Um . . . I’m wondering if Joe Wilborne is available at all?’
‘I can certainly find out for you. Who shall I say is looking for him?’ she asks, before I give her my name and she radios through to another staff member.
Through a crackly blur, I hear someone offer to go and find him. And I wait, anxiety racing through my veins, before the radio springs back into life and I hear someone explain, with deliberate vagueness, that he’s tied up and won’t be able to come up to see me.
I don’t leave a message. I can’t think of anything else to say. So instead I am left to skulk out of the building, wishing I’d never come. I click open the door to my car and am about to step in when something stops me. Checking that nobody’s looking, I tentatively walk round to the lake side of the hotel, to the window that overlooks the ballroom.
I press my hands against the glass and peer in, feeling my breath leave me as I take in the sight.
It’s finished. And it’s magnificent. Every corner of it glitters in the sunshine, the walls incandescent and glorious. It looks how it used to when the place was booming. When impossibly glamorous clientele – at least in my eyes – would spill onto the terrace and summer nights at the Moonlight Hotel were the stuff of legend. I could stay there all day and just look at it. But instead I tear away my eyes and head back to my car, knowing one thing for certain: my dad would have absolutely loved it.
As Cate gets ready for the wedding, I’m reminded of the person she used to be, when we’d dance round my bedroom during our teenage sleepovers. She even has the rollers in her hair, though this time she’s actually got somewhere to go to when they’re out, instead of just staying in my room, which was what we used to do, watching Notting Hill and trying not to crack our face packs from laughing.
This Cate has changed over the last few weeks, inevitably. But she’s no longer consumed by panic, or by despair. She turns round at one point and flashes me a small smile of recognition, before turning up the volume on ‘Groove Is in the Heart’ by Deee-lite and starting to dance around the bedroom, luminous-eyed and energetic.
As the song comes to an end, she leans into the mirror and begins filling in her eyebrows with a pencil. ‘With hindsight,’ she muses, ‘I could tell Joe only thought of Emily as a mate.’
I don’t question why she never mentioned it until I filled her in earlier today, with Emily’s permission.
‘It’s obvious he’s got the hots for you, or at least it has been lately. Poor Edwin didn’t get a look in.’
‘Poor Edwin has been through half of Tinder, from what his mother said. But . . . really? Obvious?’
‘There were a couple of nights at salsa when the two of you were virtually sizzling. And when I say “you”, I mean both of you. I suspected weeks ago that if Joe had ever had feelings for Emily, they were yesterday’s news.’
‘Why didn’t you say anything?’ I ask.
‘Same as you,’ she shrugs. ‘Because I thought he was going out with Emily. I wasn’t going to encourage you. Besides, after a while I became too wrapped up in my own problems to even think about anything else. Sorry.’
‘Have you seen Will yet?’ I ask.
She sighs. ‘No.’
‘You know he’s going to be at the wedding?’ I ask.
‘Yeah. Not sure how I’m ever going to face him though.’
I take a sip of tea and don’t need to tell her I know exactly how she feels. I decide to change the subject. ‘So how was Stella this morning? Nervous?’
Cate spent the morning delivering flowers to the venue – the gorgeous, rambling Swan Inn at Newby Bridge – and then to the bride and her bridesmaids at home.
‘Very, but also ridiculously excited. And quite plastered,’ Cate tells me. ‘Her bridesmaids were already plying her with champagne and it was only 10 a.m. I’ll be surprised if she doesn’t stagger down that aisle.’
I glance at the clock. ‘Hey, we’d better get going. We need to be at the hotel in less than an hour.’
‘I’m ready!’ Cate replies, as she throws on her heels. She looks beautiful today, with the tendrils of her hair curled, a gorgeous short silk dress, and slim, athletic legs. We grab our bags and stumble down the stairs in clatter of heels. I’m looking for my keys as Cate idly takes her phone out.
‘I thought you’d given up on social media after the last few months,’ I say.
‘I had, but I missed all the funny cat videos,’ she grins.
I laugh and finally find my keys, checking my hair in the mirror. But I don’t feel excited, not even vaguely. I feel sick – literally sick – at the thought of what might be about to happen. I open the door, and wonder why Cate isn’t behind me.
Then I spin round and see her slumped against the wall, staring incredulously at her phone. And then I know exactly what’s happened. The picture is back.
All my instincts were right: Robby couldn’t be trusted. All he really wanted was Cate, not the money, so when she continued to reject him, right until the end, it only made him angrier, more bitter than ever. And unwilling to relinquish the one, twisted bit of power over her he had left.