Just Desserts

The kitchens were all but empty, manned by a solitary plongeur wiping down surfaces. He nodded a polite greeting to her. Trudy said hello as she walked towards the office in the centre of the kitchen. She was hoping to find Imogen so she could give her a quick hug and tell her how splendid she had looked as maid of honour. Stepping into the office she saw Imogen was just resting her baby on the couch.

‘Trudy,’ Imogen said carefully. ‘I thought I saw you earlier.’

She didn’t smile. Her behaviour seemed a little stilted. Her eyes were wide and she was staring unhappily. At first Trudy thought she’d done something to upset her friend. It was only when she heard the sound of someone clearing their throat behind her that she realised Imogen was staring unhappily at a figure in a shadowy corner of the room.

Trudy didn’t dare follow the line of the woman’s gaze. In truth, she didn’t need to. She already knew who would be standing there.

‘Trudy?’

She recognised his voice immediately.

He looked resplendent. His jacket was currently wrapped around his grandson, Imogen’s baby, but its absence only made him look more dashing. He wore a silver waistcoat over a crisp white shirt and it hugged his broad physique. His hair, the colour of polished steel, shone almost as brightly as the glint in his diamond-blue eyes. When his gaze met hers a smile faltered uncertainly on his lips.

Don’t you dare smile at me, she thought bitterly. Don’t you dare smile.

It made sense that he would have been spending five minutes chatting with his daughter in his own office. She didn’t know why the sound of his voice was so shocking but she supposed it was because she hadn’t wanted to talk with him today. At the back of her mind she had figured a meeting would be inevitable but she had hoped the encounter would be somewhere busy, made unimportant by a crowd of acquaintances, in a location that was sterile, without any personal associations.

This was a room where they’d had sex half a dozen times.

This was a room where they’d spent countless working nights discussing business and passions and unrealised futures. And this was a room from which it looked like Imogen was trying to make a discreet exit.

‘I’ll leave you two alone,’ Imogen began.

‘No need,’ Trudy said stiffly. She turned to Bill and said, ‘Congratulations.’

‘I didn’t –’ he began.

She didn’t let him finish but held up a hand, cutting him off, and turned to Imogen. ‘I’m just about to head home with Daryl and Beatrice. They’ve organised a date for me this evening. I just wanted to say that I thought you looked beautiful today.’

Imogen’s smile was genuine and broad. She started to say a thank-you but Bill was speaking over her.

‘You’re going on a date with Daryl and that model? Have you turned gay?’

She turned to face him. ‘I’m going on a date,’ she told him. ‘Straight or gay, what business is it of yours, Bill?’

His shoulders slumped. He nodded defeat and turned away. As soon as he stepped out of the office Imogen was speaking in his defence. ‘There were circumstances,’ she explained. ‘If you knew why he married her –’

‘Are you still working at Finlay’s shop in the morning?’ Trudy asked.

Imogen said she was.

‘I’ll probably see you there tomorrow. He’s organising a consignment of spices for a new product I’ll be working on. We can talk more then.’

‘Aren’t you staying for the evening celebrations?’

Trudy shook her head. The question was asked with such obvious concern she didn’t dare say another word for fear of bursting into tears.

‘Are you OK?’ Imogen asked.

Even though she’d practised her response until the words should have been automatic, Trudy wasn’t going to attempt them this time. She nodded, turned abruptly and rushed out of the office and into the kitchen.

At first she thought her body was trembling with the threat of tears. It was only as an afterthought that she realised her mobile was vibrating to alert her to the fact that she’d received a text message. She’d put the phone on silent as a courtesy for the wedding ceremony. Reading as she walked, anxious to get away from Boui-Boui and the rest of the guests who might come and ask her if she was fine, or OK, or bearing up, she inwardly cursed when she saw the message had come from Donny.

I hear your sugar-grandpa just married one his former wives. LOL.

A tear spilled down her cheek and sliced through her mascara.

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There were flowers waiting on the doorstep of Eldorado when she returned. Beatrice grabbed them and exclaimed over their beauty. A bouquet of a dozen long-stemmed red roses, in a nest of lush green fern and vibrant white Baby’s Breath. They reminded Trudy of the last bouquet of flowers she had received. Those had been a bad omen.

‘These are beautiful,’ Beatrice called. She read the card and passed them to Daryl. ‘It says they’re for Trudy.’

Daryl passed the flowers to Trudy.

Trudy put the bouquet in the recycling bin.

Beatrice exclaimed in shock but Daryl placed a hand on her arm. Whatever questions Beatrice had been about to raise were silenced by the way Daryl firmly shook her head.

Trudy unlocked the door and they all stepped inside.

The walls were a mixture of magnolias, oatmeals and beige colours that made the open-plan arrangement of the downstairs appear spacious. The floors were polished wood. The furniture was light-coloured leather. Only the TV and the kitchen fittings, shiny and silver, gave any suggestion of a break in the bland colour scheme.

Trudy had to admit that living back at Eldorado had not been the hardship she expected. When she lived there as a student, sharing the house with Charlotte and Donny, and Donny’s visiting harem of pliant female admirers, Trudy had had a single room on the upper floor and a shared responsibility for the communal living area of the lounge-cum-kitchen. Now, although Charlotte still kept some belongings in her room, she spent most of her nights with Harvey in the apartment he’d acquired in the town centre. Daryl had taken over Donny’s use of the basement and, because Daryl didn’t spend much time in the communal areas, there were some days when Trudy felt as though she had Eldorado to herself.

‘Would either of you care for a bite to eat?’ Trudy asked, heading to the kitchen. She was trying to remember what remained in the fridge and whether it could serve the three of them.

‘No time to eat,’ Daryl reminded her. ‘You’re going out on a date.’

Trudy groaned. She had been trying to forget about that.

‘Do I have to?’

She thought of pointing out that she’d had enough romance for one day by watching Bill and Aliceon’s wedding. Looking at the steely resolve on Daryl’s face, Trudy could see there would be no point in attempting such an argument. They had already had this conversation several times. Daryl insisted she needed to return to dating as quickly as possible. She’d used phrases like ‘getting back on the horse’ and ‘clearing out cobwebs’, which had made Trudy worried about what she was expected to do on a date. More practically, Daryl had advised that Trudy needed to date again both for her own confidence and to show anyone interested in her life that she hadn’t been troubled by Bill’s marriage to Aliceon.

‘He’ll be here in half an hour,’ Daryl promised.

Trudy’s shoulders slumped and she nodded defeat.

‘Go get yourself ready,’ said Daryl. ‘Your mascara’s smudged.’

Trudy paused at the bottom of the stairs. ‘Who is he?’

‘His name is Mark. I used to go out with him. He’s a doctor at the local A&E department.’

‘When did you go out with someone called Mark?’ Beatrice asked.

‘We dated on and off for a couple of months last year,’ Daryl said. ‘Why?’