Things I Want My Daughters to Know_ A Novel - Elizabeth Noble [63]
Jesus. Was this weekend not hard enough? She turned to see who was speaking. The man on her left was tall and blond, with broad shoulders and a narrow waist. Not at all her normal type, he looked uncomplicated and too healthy, with bright eyes and slightly ruddy cheeks. Typical jock.
“What?”
“I mean to say, you scrub up well, if you’ll excuse the phrase.”
She still had no idea of what he meant.
“How could any woman in her right mind possibly excuse that phrase?”
He shrugged nonchalantly and beamed at her.
“Have we met?” She felt bored already.
“Not exactly. I was watching you, this afternoon, running.”
“Right.” That explained the appalling opening gambit, from which, she felt, the chances of recovery were bleak.
She looked pointedly at the place name of the man on her right, hoping that this idiot would leave her alone, but of course she didn’t know him, either, and he was already talking animatedly to the woman next to him. She was stranded.
The tall blond held out his hand and smiled, and this time it was sheepish.
“Stephen. Sorry. I’m not a dickhead, I promise.”
She shrugged and smiled weakly. This could be a long night.
Only it turned out, he wasn’t a dickhead. And it wasn’t a long night. He was funny, and far cleverer than his earlier remarks had made him seem. And incredibly straightforward. He was a stockbroker, but he didn’t want to do that forever. He wanted to work for himself. He lived in London, alone, in a flat he’d bought a couple of years ago and done up in the evenings and at weekends. He had a lot of mates, played rugby at the weekends, as she had suspected, but had no girlfriend, at least not one permanent enough or important enough to bring to this wedding.
“So how come you’re here, Jennifer?”
“My…my boyfriend, John. He’s the guy over there, at the end of the table. He was at school with Peter.”
Stephen glanced briefly at John, who didn’t notice that he was being discussed, and nodded. She thought she saw incredulity cross his face. “How long you two been together?”
“Forever.” Or did she mean too long?
“How long is forever?” His eyes were laughing at her. “You’re not much into straight answers, are you?”
“We met at university. First week, first term. That sort of thing.” She pulled a face, and he raised an eyebrow.
“Ah,” he nodded sagely, “one of those couples.”
She laughed, indignant denial seeming suddenly pointless. “Afraid so. Do you have to make it sound quite so ghastly?”
“But it is ghastly. Think of all the things you missed….”
She fell silent and stared intently at her fingers, entwined in front of her on the table.
“So that would make it…how many years?”
He was like a dog with a bone.
“Well, I was eighteen, and I’m twenty-seven, so I guess nine years.”
“And you’re not married.”
“Not married, no.” She waved her ringless left hand nervously in front of her face.
“Why not?”
No one had asked her that before. People joked about it. Mum danced around the subject, at family gatherings when she’d had a couple of glasses of wine. And Hannah made no secret of her burning desire to be a bridesmaid, for anyone at all who might ask her. But no one had just come out and asked her. And here was this stranger, looking right at her, asking her straight-out.
Jennifer looked at her hands, folded in her lap. When she answered, she was almost surprised to hear the words come quietly from her mouth.
“We don’t love each other anymore.”
So this would be the point at which he’d cough, embarrassed, and change the subject. Invent the need to visit the bathroom, or the bar.
She looked up, and he was staring at her intently.
“I’m sorry to hear that.” But he didn’t look all that sorry.
THE NEXT MORNING SHE SLIPPED INTO A PEW NEAR THE BACK OF the church. The elderly couple next to her nodded and smiled politely, and then they all listened to the organist. She’d wondered how she would feel about watching John come down the aisle with a woman who wasn’t her. Turned out, she felt sorry for him. He looked awkward and uncomfortable, and the pair of them couldn’t get their