Page 84 of The Wedding Forecast

I’d downloaded Marco’s email before we boarded, and now I read it properly. It’s curt. He accepts my resignation, and tells me I should come and pack up my things, but they don’t need me to see out the two weeks notice since it falls partially over Christmas anyway. The vibe is good riddance.

Well, good. This is good. I am free.

Is my stomach in knots from the feeling of freedom, or is it period cramps? I’m not sure.

Hayley lasts two hours before she brings up Mac. She watches a whole movie and then turns to me, taking off her headphones.

‘Okay, we have twelve more hours. You have to tell me the whole story. In detail.’

‘You know the story. You were there.’

‘How did you get together though?’

‘In the same way everyone does.’

‘What does that mean?’

‘We kissed, it progressed from there.’

‘Who made the first move?’

‘He did. Well, sort of.’ I think of my hand on his chest.

‘Was it just, you know, a holiday thing?’

‘Of course. He lives in New York.’

She has more questions. Do you like him? Do you have feelings? Was it more than just sex? What was his place like? How much money do you think he makes? Her questions are like a woodpecker tapping away at my heart.

No, no, no, I say to every question about feelings.

She knows I’m lying.

I probably have four days until I can’t smell him on the hoodie anymore.

I pull out my laptop. I haven’t touched my book for the entire trip. But now, sitting here, I decide to change the ending. If I can’t be happy, if I can’t be with the man I want, at least my character can. I am going to give this unlikeable, cynical, devious grifter couple a happy ending, damn it. The con man is going to come back for Stevie even after she double-crosses him.

27

I EMAIL SAMANTHA the draft of my novel in a fevered jet-lagged state, barely reading over the last chapters I wrote on the plane when my eyes felt like they were barely attached to my head. I write Sam an apologetic email, telling her The Scam might be terrible and full of plot holes and beg her to be kind.

I have collected my things from work and I am, for the first time in a long time, without any responsibilities or deadlines. I am also exhausted and hormonal and emotionally confused by the recent good sex.

I decide a trip to Bobbi’s bookshop is in order. She’ll have a self-help book that can fix whatever is wrong with me. Or a great novel I can use as distraction. At the very least, I’ll spend money and get a little shopper’s high from that.

The bookshop is in a busy shopping strip, with lots of restaurants and cafes and a few nice clothing and gift shops nearby. It has a beautiful archway over the front doors, and I always feel transported into a better mood when I step inside. The shop is one big, airy room, with white-painted brick walls, tables of new releases up the front, and light timber shelves. The lighting is warm, and the overall effect is cosy and inviting. There are a few rolling ladders attached to the bookshelves, and the lovely blue velvet chair in a corner. At the back of the shop is a smaller room that holds the children’s and young adult books. It has fairies and pixies and goblins painted around the walls, all holding books or reading, which gives it a magical feel (kids adore them), and a colourful, patterned rug on the floor. Bobbi keeps an actual working typewriter in the back that she uses for little reviews that she clips to the shelves, because customers love the old-fashioned look of typewriter-written recommendations.

There’s a stationery and gift section near the counter with a small range of cute literary socks (with words like ‘on my way to the library’ and ‘shhh, I’m reading’ on them), book lights, badges, puzzles, reading glasses and a spinner of gorgeous cards.

The shop is extremely busy when I walk in today, because it’s the last week before Christmas. I squeeze around people to try to get near the nonfiction section, where I end up standing shoulder-to-shoulder with a man who keeps clearing his throat in an unappealing way.

‘Anna!’ Bobbi calls across the shop, grinning at me from the counter. I wave back. I hear her tell a customer, ‘That’s my goddaughter. She is a brilliant writer, I should show you her book,’ and I want to crawl into a corner and hide, but also hug her, because the customer buys it. I need every sale I can get right now. Bobbi is not technically my godmother, but she thinks it’s the easiest way to refer to me, and she is, as she says, ‘spiritually’ my godparent.

I hover in the children’s book room until finally there is a lull.

‘How was the trip, honey?’ Bobbi says, as she types numbers very quickly into a search box on the computer. She can memorise books’ ISBNs like a savant.

‘It was wonderful.’