Page 101 of London, Can You Wait?

“He didn’t.” Alex twisted, trying to reach the label under her collar without elbowing the people breathing down her neck.

“Weren’t you supposed to be in Florida this month? If you were still together?”

“Yeah…so? What’s it to you?”

He shook his head, eyebrows raised.

“We cancelled Florida because we broke up.”

“You sure about that?”

“Yeah. Lucy was cancelling it for me, but Mark had already taken care of it.”

“Yep, but when did he take care of it?”

Alex stiffened: the itchy label, the suffocating crowd, Tarquin being an annoying dick…her heartbeat began to race. “What? Does it matter?”

“It does, yes.”

“Tarquin, if you want to slag off Mark, just do it, okay?” She clenched her jaw. Stupid label! “I’m in no mood to play games—”

“He cancelled on January 4th.”

Alex’s brow furrowed. “What? How would you know?” She snatched her hair off her neck and fanned her face with the program. Too many people in too tight a space, and her throat—so parched; forget ice cream, she could drink the Thames dry.

“When did you dump him?”

A few theatregoers squeezing past recognized her with grins and hellos. Alex let go of her hair and reciprocated with a flashed smile. “Oh, hi…hello…hi…”

“When, Alex?”

“January 12th. There! Happy now?” she sneered. Causing a scene in front of influential theatre folk was the last thing she wanted. “I thought you were getting drinks…”

Tarquin gave an I-told-you-so smirk.

“What?” Alex slowed her furious fanning.

“Do the maths, dear.”

“No…” Alex blinked, her mind filled with twelve minus four. She cleared her throat, but it began to tighten. She swallowed again, her program upping its furious pace. A man at the far end of the bar caught her eye and nodded with a smile. Is that…the artistic director of the National? She waved back, and then felt silly for doing so.

“He cancelled a week before you broke up. Why is that?”

Flustered, Alex looked at Tarquin. So hot in here. Cramps rolled like waves through her lower abdomen. Is the restroom nearby? She clutched her stomach with her free hand. “We weren’t talking…” The label clawed her neck. “I don’t know…” She gasped as the program grazed her cheek.

“I do: Mark knew he had a play coming up, the one he’s rehearsing now. He must’ve accepted the role before January 4th. I bet he knew before Christmas. God knows what else he wasn’t telling you…”

She asked herself that question constantly.

Tarquin leaned into her, allowing a portly man, his hands held hostage by three wine glasses, to exit the drinks’ scrum. “If you were still together, you wouldn’t be in Florida right now. Mark would be on stage, stroking his ego while you wondered for the millionth time if he would ever put your relationship first. If that’s not prickish and self-absorbed, I’m Drake.”

Alex inhaled deep breaths but came up short each time, an out-of-body sensation tingling her temples and twisting the sound of Tarquin’s words into a garbled, underwater warble. You wouldn’t be in Florida…Mark would be on stage…

Black spots peppered her vision as the floor dissolved beneath her heels. “I don’t feel—”

• • •

A boa constrictor was crushing Alex’s bicep. Her eyes jolted open. “Where am—oh!”