No One Wants to Be Miss Havisham

What?

She caught herself from thinking further about his lips.

She looked up and caught hazel eyes glinting, laughing at her.

“Well, I believe we will have to agree to differ then,” he said following her in. “Ms Dickens, isn’t it? Your reputation precedes you,” he continued.

The way he emphasised ‘reputation’ caused Edie to go on alert.

She knew his type. They were always trying to convince people that if they just worked at it they could get back together or at least come to an equable settlement. As if. That wasn’t what the job was about.

“I take it you believe mediation is the panacea for the masses then? All the touchy feely new age stuff,” she said.

As Edie said ‘mediation’ a shiver went up her spine.

Mediation.

Wasn’t that what Jessica had said she should be pushing her clients towards?

“New age? If you want to call it that, then yes, Ms Dickens I’m one of those touchy feely new age types. But maybe you’d care to tell me where I’m going wrong over a drink tonight. Dispense your theories. Maybe take pity on the prodigal son returning to the fold.”

His hands were held out in supplication. They were as rough and battered as his face. One of them could've easily held both of hers.

Where were these thoughts coming from?

And what was this prodigal son stuff? Did he think she had nothing better to do than gossip about her colleagues? A drink? As if.

She opened her mouth to tell him and as she did a faint shimmer of pink glitter fluttered out of thin air and landed on his shoulder. The few specks winked in the fluorescent lighting.

Pink glitter.

Just like the glitter she had found all over the end of her bed that morning.

The same pink glitter that had wound a path from her bedroom window to disappear somewhere in the middle of her living room.

It hadn’t been a dream.

Edie felt the blood drain out of her face. The cerise lining of Jack Twist's suit went grey. She put a hand out to steady herself.

It hit solid muscle; muscle clad in cotton and wool.

“Whoa there. I know I’m not much of a catch but you don’t need to faint to get out of it. A simple no would have been fine,” Jack Twist joked as he grasped her arms to hold her steady.

He smelt of coffee, shampoo, laundry detergent and something citrusy. Clean. Normal. Not the sort of man who would have ghosts haunting him. Well of course he wouldn’t, he was the saintly sort who believed in mediation.

And yet there was the glitter.

It winked and blinked at her, a warning light.

Stop.

Wait.

Go.

Go, she had to go.

“Excuse me please,” she said.

Wrenching her arm away she staggered to the lift doors and as soon as they were at the ground floor and opening she slipped through the gap.

“Edie! At least let me get you a cab,” his voice called loudly causing everyone in the lobby to look and see what was happening but she ignored it. She ran out of the building and bumped and careened her way through the commuters on the street.

Chapter 4 (#u8bd58e47-96b6-5dac-b5db-dc2174be9bbf)

Edie lay in her solitary but very well appointed bed. She had spent a quarter of an hour smoothing the sheets before she got in, trying to make herself calm.

Then she'd gone through all her yoga relaxation exercises and when that hadn't helped she'd used the self-hypnosis sleep app on her phone. But she was still awake. Every time she heard the sound of Big Ben chime the quarter hour, her body tensed and she found herself grasping the duvet.

She was being silly. The whole thing with Jessica had been down to dodgy meat; she knew that. She did. That glitter on Jack Twist’s shoulder in the lift was just something left over from whatever birthday celebration was happening this week, there was always one. Not that she was ever invited to them. He'd obviously brushed up against a banner or a card. It had taken her running almost halfway to the bus stop before she had thought logically about that one.

So there was no ghost coming.

Why she was allowing some bad dream to dictate her life? She'd never let anyone else dictate it before. And she wasn’t about to start tonight.

No, she was being silly. Now she'd thought it through logically, she would sleep. And setting her formidable mind and iron willpower to it, she drifted off to sleep.

When Edie woke up, it was so dark that, staring round she could scarcely distinguish the window from the walls of her bedroom. She was still squinting trying to see, when the chimes of Big Ben struck the four quarters, she listened for the hour. She reckoned it must be about three o'clock.

The heavy bell went past three and struck twelve; then stopped. Twelve. But it had been past twelve when eventually she'd closed her eyes and gone to sleep. The clock was wrong. A damn pigeon must have got into the works. Twelve. This was going to be all over the news and she'd have to listen to everyone witter on about it for weeks until something equally as trivial occupied them.

There was no way time moved backwards.

She reached to her bedside table and checked her mobile phone. Twelve. Frowning, she looked at her radio-controlled clock. It lit up and confirmed the time.

Twelve.

"This isn’t happening," she said, "there is no way I’ve slept the day away… no way. Someone would have called."

But maybe she had.

No, her, Edwina Charlotte Dickens sleeping in and missing a day? Never. It would never, could never happen. And on the few occasions she was sick she’d always phoned in and then worked from her bed. But this wasn’t work she was missing, but a hen night.

She could see herself subconsciously sleeping through it. But there was no way that Mel would allow her to miss it. And she wouldn't let Mel down. Edie had promised to do this for her. And she didn’t break promises.

Edie scrambled out of her bed, and groped towards the window. Which was frosted. In June.

She rubbed the frost off with the sleeve of her pyjamas; nothing unusual. It was just very foggy and extremely cold. Global warming? Freak weather? Time standing still? But the street was silent; no hysterical people running round like headless chickens so probably not a major global catastrophe.