‘Beep, Beep, BEEP,’ shrieked the alarm rudely. The shrill tone pierced Lucy’s skull and reverberated a thousand times around her head like a hammer to the brain. She reached over to the bedside table to silence it, cursing herself for being so efficient yesterday in setting it. She had planned to get up in time for a hangover-destroying fry-up, but there was no way given her current head spin that she would be making it down to breakfast. She looked at her phone to check the time, ten o’clock; she had an hour to be out of her room. Lucy groaned. She tried to swallow but her tongue felt alien, swollen and heavy, stuck to the roof of her mouth. She brushed her fringe from her eyes and groped for a glass of water, gratefully gulping it down as she pieced together the reason for her hangover. With a few too many years of practice, she began at the church service, searching through her memories, reordering them and joining them together like a jigsaw puzzle.
‘Oh my god! Alex! Alexander Hayes!’ Her heart leapt sky-high and an enormous grin spread across her face as the memories of last night came flooding back. A bubble of laughter rose through her, erupting in a manic giggle. She grabbed her phone to check for messages, nothing yet.
Lucy and Alex had spent the whole night dancing, flirting and swapping stories, revelling in their mutual attraction. She had been dizzy from the delicious smell of him, combined with vast quantities of champagne and wine. She remembered Alex’s taxi coming to pick him up, to take him to his friend’s house nearby where he was staying for the weekend. They had parted exchanging numbers and lingering kisses with promises of dinner soon.
Lucy wished and hoped that he would text her, sending up fervent prayers to whoever might be listening that this wouldn’t be yet another first encounter that never developed. But this time Lucy just knew he would get in touch. It had been different, she couldn’t explain why but she knew that it had.
She phoned Claudia but predictably got her voicemail, the first morning of newly wedded bliss was not to be interrupted. So she left her a rambling voicemail telling her how she was dying of a hangover, how it had been the best wedding ever, how she had been the most stunning bride and Dan the most handsome groom and how she wished them the best honeymoon ever and could she text her the minute she arrived?
Heaving herself out of bed, Lucy showered and packed before calling a taxi to take her back to the train station.
She bought a bacon bap and a cup of tea at the station kiosk, found an empty seat and collapsed heavily into it. The journey passed in a blur of sleepy daydreams, mostly about Alex. Unable to resist, Lucy let her imagination run riot. She raced through a string of indescribably perfect dates, a whirlwind romance followed by heartfelt declarations of love. She imagined their first home together, allowing herself to relive her daydream from the church but this time it was Alex standing there waiting for her, exchanging their vows in front of all their family and friends, including Jack. She even saw them strolling through the park on a summer’s day, pushing a pram with their first child giggling up at them from inside. As the train rolled into London Paddington, she drifted out of her reverie, opened her eyes and glanced at her phone. A message! Her heart leapt into her mouth. She frantically clicked on the open button and her heart plummeted back to its resting place as she saw Claudia’s name appear on the screen. She opened the message:
Darling Luce, best MoH ever. D + I on cloud 9. On way to Maldives! OMG! Will call when I land xx P.S. Alex??! He was def keen. You were all over each other! Keep me posted! C x
Lucy chuckled as she gathered her stuff before heading for the tube. She swiped her Oyster card and braced herself as she was sucked into the momentum of the underground network, eventually being propelled back into the daylight at Baron’s Court. She walked slowly home, looking forward to the rest of the day. She was going to spend it under her feather duvet on the sofa, watching reruns of Friends and Sex and the City. She decided to treat herself to a curry from the local Indian and felt her tummy begin to rumble at the thought. She remembered her mother Ginny’s much-used expression ‘a watched pot never boils’, but she knew that she would be checking her phone every five minutes for a text from Alex nonetheless.