Lindsey Kelk 5-Book ‘I Heart...’ Collection

Jenny turned around to look for me, holding her hand over her eyes. ‘Pretty great, huh?’

I nodded, without anything to say and walked slowly towards her. We dropped our bags and leaned over the railings. It was beautiful, my very own movie moment.

‘I was thinking where we should go when you were trying on clothes,’ Jenny said softly. ‘And I figured where better than the first place thousands of people first experienced New York. Cheesy maybe, but who better to officially welcome you to the city than Lady Liberty.’

‘It’s so weird,’ I said, still staring out across the river. ‘I’ve seen it a thousand times on TV and stuff but to actually see it, there, real. Wow.’

‘Yeah,’ Jenny agreed. ‘I remember the first time I saw her, it was the first thing I did when I moved to the city. We never, ever came down here as kids, my mom hates it. But she’s here to look after everyone. New York is made up of millions of different people, Angie, and they all come here looking for something, just like you.’

‘Please, you’re giving me too much credit. I wasn’t looking for something,’ I said, looking across at what I guessed to be Ellis Island. ‘I was running away.’

‘No, you’re not giving yourself enough,’ Jenny said, turning to me. ‘Yeah, so maybe not everyone puts an ocean between themselves and their ex but you’ve got a lot to work through. And that’s not psychobabble, that’s genuine life experience talking. When my ex left me, I fell apart and I mean it. Fell. Apart. And I had no excuse to be so incredibly pathetic, it was all totally my fault and I had the most amazing friends to look after me. If you didn’t feel like your support system was strong enough, then getting yourself out of the situation was the best thing to do. And New York is a great place to do that. It’s a city of new beginnings. People go to LA to “find themselves”, they come to New York to become someone new.’

‘I suppose,’ I said, thinking about everything that had happened. Was it weird that Mark hadn’t even crossed my mind since the Chanel counter? ‘It all just seems so strange and unreal. I feel like I ought to be, I don’t know, feeling more.’

‘So you’re still in shock,’ Jenny said, turning back towards the bay. ‘There are worse places to be in shock than in Bloomingdale’s. Seriously though, you’ve suffered a huge personal trauma, a break-up is the closest thing to a bereavement, you know.’

‘I do feel kind of like that,’ I admitted. I really didn’t want to dwell on it in such a public place. I was English after all, we’re not public criers. ‘One minute I’m like, it’s over, I’m not even going to think about any of it and then the next, I just can’t believe what’s happened. I think I’m doing the right thing by being here at the moment though.’

Before Jenny could back me up or shoot me down, a loud ringing interrupted us. My phone. I pulled it out of my bag, ready to remind my mum how expensive international calls were on a mobile when I saw who it was.

Mark.

I looked at the flashing screen for a split second and wondered what he could possibly be ringing for after our last conversation. Had he changed his mind? Was he feeling awful? Was Tim’s hand so badly damaged he was having it amputated?

Ring ring. Answer me. Answer me.

Without another thought, I threw my phone, as hard as I could over the railings and into the water. And it felt really, really good.

‘Sorry,’ I said, inhaling deeply. Had I really just done that?

‘This city is a good place to deal with trauma, honey, we’ve been through a lot ourselves and we’ve come out of it just fine.’ Jenny pulled a pack of tissues out of her handbag and passed them over as a precautionary measure, completely ignoring the phone missile I’d just launched.

‘God, I know,’ I said quickly, taking the tissues. ‘I suppose when you think what everyone has been through here, what they survived, it puts a break-up into perspective.’

‘True, but that’s not what I meant, sweetie,’ Jenny said. ‘I meant that you’ve come to the right place to pull yourself through something that’s difficult and hard and tears your insides out. Whatever that something is, is different for everyone. For me, Century 21 reopening five months after 9/11 was my epiphany. I knew I’d be brave enough to get through anything if they could open their doors and sell me designer shoes at a seventy per cent discount.’ She took my hand. ‘Now I’ve got to get to my evening shift. And you must be completely wiped. Want to head back to the hotel?’

I took one last look out at the statue. Wowsers. I was in New York.

And I was so incredibly tired.

‘Yes please.’

We gathered up all of our bags and flagged down yet another cab. Hmm, a new friend, a new wardrobe and a new city. Compared to Saturday, this hadn’t been a bad day.

CHAPTER SIX

After a nap, a shower and several false starts at international dialling from the hotel room phone I finally did what I had to do.

‘Annette Clark speaking.’

‘Mum, it’s me.’

‘Oh, Angela, thank goodness. I’ve been trying to get hold of you all day,’ she breathed out in an overly dramatic gesture. This was going to be quick and easy, then.

‘Well, my phone doesn’t work over here.’ We generally found it easier to rely on white lies, a much healthier mother/daughter relationship, than telling the truth, and I wasn’t ready to have my mental state questioned. Again. ‘I just wanted to let you know I’m safe and I’ve got somewhere to stay and I’ll give you another call when I know what I’m doing.’

‘Somewhere to stay?’ she repeated.

‘Yes, with a friend,’ I said, keen to get off the phone before the conversation turned to a subject I just didn’t want to deal with. ‘Now, can you do me a favour and pick up my stuff from the house? He knows—’

‘Angela, slow down,’ Mum said. I could see her, cradling the phone between her shoulder and ear, rubbing her cheeks with her palms, just like she always did when she was confused. ‘What do you mean “a friend”? You don’t know anyone in America. Please just come home. Dad has sorted out your room and everyone feels just awful, you know, but no one blames you for what happened at the wedding.’

‘No one blames me!’ I said, my voice getting a tiny bit higher than it needed to be. ‘No one blames me … Right, well, yes, I’ve made a friend. No, I didn’t know I could make a friend in a day but then until Saturday, I didn’t realize the friends I’ve had all my life could lie to me so well, so maybe it’s time to take a chance on new people.’

‘Angela, don’t start, that’s not what I meant,’ she sighed. ‘I just want to know you’re all right. Sod the rest of them.’

‘Yes, I’m fine,’ I said, catching a glimpse of my new hairdo and beautiful, albeit slightly melted, make-up in the mirror. Damn, I looked pretty bloody good. ‘I really am. Look, I’m staying at a – with my friend Jenny and she’s really nice. I’m going to be here for a while I think, but I’ll call you if I need anything and you can call me on this number for the next couple of days, just 1471 it. Love you.’

‘Love you too, sweetheart,’ she said, sounding slightly mollified. ‘Dad and I will go and get your things from your house. Don’t worry, just come home soon.’

Five minutes after my mother had hung up, I realized I was still gripping the receiver so tightly my knuckles had turned white. Just hearing her mention Mark, the wedding, everything back home had put me in a foul mood. Not a good move when I had to spend the night in by myself. I walked over to the window, looking for somewhere to hide out, people watch and basically listen in on other people’s conversations. A huge, familiar beacon of normality stared back at me.

Starbucks.

Perfect. And there was even an HSBC next door.

Multinational corporations be praised.

I emptied two of the Big Brown Bags onto the bed and found a pair of tiny shorts and some colourful T-shirts. Peeling off my sweaty jeans and old graying T-shirt, I swapped outfits and slipped into my new Havaianas. My handbag looked too formal, too structured and altogether too much like it came from Next to wear with the outfit, so I slipped my room key and cash card into my back pocket and hoped for the best. Sporting a big black pleather handbag with flip-flops and hot pants did seem a bit silly.

Jenny wasn’t on the desk when I passed through reception so I escaped without questioning and, even though it was past seven, the air outside was still balmy and dense. I visited the bank first, struggling for a second with having to put my card in and take it back out again before the buttons would work. Just before I could withdraw some cash, the related accounts link danced in the corner of my eye. The joint account. I pressed the button, just to check. It was looking really, really healthy. Mark and I had always had an agreement that I put in a certain amount each month to cover the mortgage and bills and then he paid them all. From the looks of this, he’d been covering a lot more than half the bills for some time and never mentioned it. For a brief moment, I felt a pang, maybe he wasn’t all bad, he did look after me after all.

And then a devil appeared on my shoulder with a quick reminder of his sweaty, pathetic face. Before I even knew what I’d done, I moved half the cash from the joint account over to my personal account. He was hardly going to miss it, he earned a fortune, and by rights, half of it was allegedly mine. And more importantly, it covered my shopping spree. Result.

Breathing fast and heavy, I withdrew a couple of hundred dollars, not knowing what I’d be doing for the next few days, and dashed into Starbucks with my ill-gotten gains.

‘What can I get you?’ asked the cute assistant. Under normal circumstances, I’d have been flustered and blushing, he was absolutely my crush type. Tall, skinny, floppy brown hair and had the look of a man that new his way around a Stratocaster. The complete opposite of Mark, to be specific. But I was too confused by the coffee menu to take in his messy prettiness.

‘Er, I just want, a, erm,’ this wasn’t me projecting my most confident and beautiful self, as recommended by Jenny, ‘a large coffee?’

‘A regular coffee?’ he asked. ‘Like, a Venti Americano?’

‘Very possibly? And a muffin, blueberry muffin.’

‘Five thirty-five,’ he said, flipping the fringe across his eyes. Now the coffee issue was out of the way, I had a chance to check out just how good-looking he was. And he really was. ‘I’ll bring them over.’

I scooted over to a table for one by the window and tried to relax. Looking at the bank account had actually been even worse than talking to my mum. I felt as if I’d actually taken money out of his wallet. I rested my head on my forearms and breathed deeply. Sod it, he could consider that his Dickhead Tax.