Destination Thailand

My stomach did that funny clawing feeling you get when you know that as soon as they mutter the next few words everything could change. Catrina was never one to beat around the bush but also lacked the tact to pull off any emotional conversations.

‘When you were off gallivanting on holiday you seemed to forget that a memory stick containing some sort of “mood” board was left on your desk,’ she seethed.

My mouth went dry. I had selected a few photos – OK, maybe a hundred – that I liked from the internet as inspiration to show to the wedding venue before the final checks were made. And yes, maybe I did turn it into a live mood board with special effects – and, oh yep, even a backing track. I’d grabbed a work USB stick and quickly copied everything across, before Catrina came back from a meeting and clocked me wasting work time again, but I must have forgotten to put it in my handbag to take home.

‘Unluckily for you, the temp covering your work, that stuck-up cow Dawn, found this stick whilst you were tanning yourself on holiday and got it mixed it up with her own usb for the presentation at today’s pitch meeting. So instead of bloody pie charts and graphs the overseas clients and the whole of the Board, including Mr Rivers, have seen frothy bridal images and Lionel bloody Ritchie blasting out.’

Crap. This wasn’t good.

I knew how slightly over the top I’d gone with the wedding montage, if you would call adding The Best of Lionel a little excessive. Looking at personal things in work time was bad, especially when this was the second time it had happened. I just found myself getting lost in wedding blogs on my lunch hour, losing track of the time until Catrina was stood watching over me, suffocating me in her heavy perfume, glowering at me with a furious scrunched-up face. I’d been given a verbal warning for this already but that time it had just affected Catrina, not the whole of the Board. Nope, really not good.

‘Oh God. I’m…I’m sure we can explain it all,’ I stuttered in shock.

‘Georgia – did all that cheap booze last week affect your brain cells?’ Catrina seethed.

My stomach lurched. I felt light-headed, the smell of a stranger’s vomit burnt my nostrils. ‘Catrina, I don’t know what to say. I am so sorry. Maybe if I speak to Mr Rivers and explain it was all my fault. I’ve been under a lot of stress planning the wedding, which didn’t actually happen, and–’

She let out a deep sigh crossed between boredom and amusement at hearing me begging for my job. ‘Georgia, it’s not going to be possible, I’ve given you enough chances to buck up your ideas and each time you throw them back in my face. So, you leave me no choice but to tell you that you’re fired.’

‘No, wait I…’ I babbled, desperately trying not to cry.

Then it dawned on me: I could try my hardest to apologise, get off this step and storm into the office, bin juice and all, demanding a chance to make this right and possibly keep my job. Or…what if I let fate work its magic, giving me a shove to freedom and into the unknown? The face of ‘R-ick’ laughing at my boring spirit flashed in front of my eyes; my mum’s voice entered my head telling me I could never be so adventurous and Alex’s patronising smile made my cheeks heat up.

Sat on that beach in Turkey I’d planned to quit my job anyway, so, yeah, this wasn’t anything like the scenes I’d imagined in which I’d leave to rapturous applause from my colleagues for my bravery and courage, not for unwittingly pitching 1001 Ways to Improve Your Wedding to important clients.

‘Georgia. Did you hear me?’ she shouted down the phone.

I made my decision.

‘Yep. Loud and clear. OK, well thanks for everything.’ My voice sounded high-pitched and wobbly.

‘OK?’ She paused, taken aback by my quick acceptance and lack of fight. ‘Well, right, good. So that’s that then. I’ll get your things couriered to your address.’

I hung up before I had the chance to tell her I no longer lived at my old address. Oh well, looks like Alex and Stephanie would be getting a bittersweet housewarming gift of post-it notes and some naff logo merchandise.

I pushed myself onto my feet and wandered down the busy high street buzzing with adrenalin, which lasted as far as Superdrug where suddenly the reality of what I’d done dawned on me. The reliable side of my conscience had a panic attack, shocked, as my other hidden, risky side looked on smirking. I was unemployed. I’d wreaked havoc in the travel agent’s, my ex was going to become a daddy and I stank of some stranger’s vomit. What had my life become?

CHAPTER 6 (#ulink_ae23244d-d857-55ca-827d-e9b94549f7b8)

Serendipity (n.) The chance occurrence of events in a beneficial way

I stumbled into a nearby Weatherspoon’s, ordered a pint of fruity cider and immediately dialled Marie’s number.

‘I can’t frigging believe it,’ Marie kept repeating as I filled her in on what had happened in the brat pack travel agency, Alex and Stephanie finding me in a compromising position with the council’s bins and how Lionel Ritchie had got me the sack.

‘It was mortifying.’ I closed my eyes, willing it from my brain before downing the rest of my glass, the super-sweet bubbles slipping down my throat way too easily for a Monday lunchtime.

‘You were clinging onto a rubbish bin? Oh God, Georgia.’

‘I know! I should never have gone into that stupid travel agent’s. I don’t even know what came over me in there. I just felt like I was sick of people laughing at me, like “Oh there she goes, that stupid jilted bride that says she wants to change her life but doesn’t have the faintest idea how to do anything right. Oh here she is, boring Georgia who didn’t even know her ex got some slapper up the duff. Oh wait, Miss Green, isn’t that the bridezilla with a penchant for Lionel Ritchie?”’ If there hadn’t been a queue of people behind me I would have face slapped the bar.

‘Oh stop it. No one will think that,’ Marie tutted. ‘So what was it like seeing Sir Knob of Knobsville? I don’t know how you could have even looked at him.’

I sighed. ‘It still hasn’t really sunk in, I guess. I was too paralysed with shock and shame to react properly. But the weird thing was, as unprepared as I was to see him, I didn’t get a rush of loving emotions – just a rush of humiliation at the situation. I didn’t really feel anything for him.’

‘That’s good, Georgia. You don’t need him and yeah, well, meeting your ex whilst draped over a stinking bin probably didn’t give off the clearest “I’m over you, my life is fabulous” message, but you’re just a bit lost, that’s all. Nobody’s life goes to plan, especially not one they found in a stupid magazine quiz.’

I smiled, I knew exactly what quiz she was talking about. One warm Summer day back when we were teens, weeks before the nightmare bunker incident, Marie and I were lying on the cool stubbly grass in her back garden, scribbling our answers to a trashy ‘What kind of life will you have?’ quiz I’d found in an old copy of my mum’s Woman’s Weekly magazine.

‘But this is stupid,’ Marie had moaned as I’d asked her about her dreams and aspirations, ‘I’m going to marry Ricky Martin; he just doesn’t know it yet.’

‘OK,’ I sighed, ‘so you run off to Puerto Rico to find him – then what?’

Marie rolled over to her back and shaded her eyes from the sun. ‘Well, I want to be married by the time I’m 22 and have had my first child by at least 24.’ We both shuddered at how ancient that sounded. ‘After that, I’ll become a world-famous actress and we’ll live in Hollywood with our three model-looking children.’

‘You’d better start paying attention in your Spanish classes then,’ I teased, picking dirt out of my fingernails.

‘Nah, we’ll speak the language of lurve,’ she smiled before pulling the quiz away roughly. ‘Right then, Miss Green, what’s your life plan going to be?’

My eyes lit up as I spoke: ‘I want to travel, to see more of life than what’s on our doorstep. Oh, and also to write. Being a travel journalist would be pretty cool. Imagine waking up in a different country every day and getting paid to tell the world what you’re seeing, eating and doing?’

‘Then you can write better quizzes than what’s in here,’ Marie smirked whacking me with the rolled up mag.

‘Look what happened to my plan!’ Marie exclaimed. ‘I never did get round to marrying Ricky Martin and definitely never thought I’d be a single mum, but even though Cole wasn’t part of my original plan, I couldn’t imagine how my life could be any better without him.’

‘To be fair, I don’t think you’re Ricky’s type.’ She laughed. ‘Well, I never got to be the next Judith Chalmers,’ I sighed thinking of my unloved passport. ‘I guess I hadn’t realised how fast life passes you by. One minute you’re fresh-faced, taking the first job you’re offered, convinced it will be a springboard for better things to come, then the next, you’re older, settled and saggy,’ I said sadly, just as an unshaved old man waddled past holding a pint of bitter before hacking up a load of phlegm into a mucky handkerchief.

‘It’s easily done, babe.’ Marie paused. ‘OK, I’m going to be real with you for a second, and don’t get mad. I hadn’t wanted to say anything because, you know, the whole not getting married thing, but actually, hun, you’ve changed. Going away with you last week reminded me what the real Georgia was like. Not the one who fusses over Alex, who stresses about table runners and ruddy place mats. Not the one who checks the weather to see if they can put their washing out rather than if it’s hot enough to head to a beer garden, not the one who pretends to enjoy eating kale and drinking pomegranate juice. You never used to be like that, but over time you’ve changed. So maybe you did get lost along the way, but now it’s like you’ve been given a ticket to start again, to reinvent yourself and do exactly what you want. Not go along with what Alex likes, or follow Catrina’s direction, but actually think: what does Georgia Green want to do?’

‘I guess,’ I mumbled tearing the moist edges of the beer mats in front of me. She was right, about all of it. Kale is bloody nasty.

‘I’m serious hun, if I was in your situation, but obviously minus a child, then I’d be out of here faster than when Big Claire orders her kebab at closing time. The world is your oyster. Go and grab it by the pearly balls!’

*

‘Oh hello, I’ll be with you in just one tic. Oh you silly bugger just work!’ A woman was wrestling with an ancient printer almost half her petite size. Papers were strewn everywhere and a strange gurgling noise was blaring from the knackered machine. ‘This is why I write everything down. Don’t trust these impetuous things. You know where you are with a paper and pen.’ She ran a wrinkled hand through her grey hair, flattening down loose strands that had formed a halo in the dust-particled light streaming through the window.

I’d taken Marie’s advice and left the pub having googled nearby travel agents, one I hopefully wouldn’t be humiliated in. ‘Have you changed the ink recently?’ I suggested stepping over documents flung on the floor to get a closer look. ‘We used to have the same model at work and all it needed was a good whack. Like this.’ Without thinking I thumped down hard on the lid. It wheezed to life then began churning out copies like brand new.

‘Oh my days. Thank you so much. Do you know how long I’ve been faffing with this? Turning it on and off again, trying different paper and I never once thought to do that.’ She beamed a genuine heartfelt smile at me.

‘No problem. Glad to be of service.’

‘So now that’s working, I can properly introduce myself and make you a cup of tea, the least I can do for saving my sanity!’ She wiped her hands on her trousers and came round from behind the desk, cautiously placing her pale pink court shoes amongst the carpet of paper between us. ‘Welcome to Making Memories. Owner, explorer and technology-phobe Trisha at your service! How can I help you?’ She stuck her ink-splatted hand out to me.

This small slightly sweating woman was a world away from the intimidating chimps at the other travel agency. Trisha was more like someone’s grandma. In fact, how had she not yet retired? Her cotton wool-coloured hair was loosely pulled into a low chignon and gold necklaces jangled against her crinkly tanned neck. She was wearing a smart trouser suit with a name badge and smelled like incense and sun lotion.

I shook Trisha’s hand and smiled down at her. ‘Hi. Georgia. Wannabe backpacker, gherkin hater and printer fixer who would love a brew,’ I said gratefully.