Page 31 of One Year After You
‘Yes, but we kept it completely private. I didn’t want my career to be defined by being his girlfriend and he… well, Ithought he was just respecting my wishes. Now I realise it suited him because he could play the single man.’
‘I’m sorry. I know I’ve said that before and I might say it a few more times. I really am.’ Keli knew the apologies should be coming from him, but that didn’t change the fact that her heart hurt for this woman, who’d just found out her partner of three years was a duplicitous tosser.
‘I get that. Honestly. I’m not blaming you here. I just can’t believe that I didn’t see who he was before now, but I was just too wrapped up in him, right from the start.’ There was an almost wistful melancholy in her words. ‘We met on a photo shoot in London. The moment I met him, I fell crazy hard for him and that’s not me. I don’t normally do shit like that.’
‘I don’t either,’ Keli empathised. ‘He just had this… weird effect. I can’t explain it. It was nothing to do with how he looked or who he was. It was more of a way…’
‘That he made you feel,’ Laurie finished the sentence for her. ‘He love bombs. Goes in hard and fast. Makes you feel amazing. Like he can’t get enough of you. Like you’re the most special person in the world. I feel so pathetic saying that. And I can’t believe that he kept me reeled in for three years.’
‘No, no, but you’re right,’ Keli agreed, leaning into Laurie and the conversation. This was in no way how she’d expected this to go. She thought there would be conflict. Animosity. Instead, it was like two kindred spirits that had watched the same movie and were comparing notes.
It turned out that her first impression had been pretty much correct. Laurie was a model, mostly catalogue and internet fashion work. ‘Don’t be impressed,’ she managed a bashful smile when she said that. ‘It sounds glam, but it really isn’t. I’m not Kate Moss, swanning around forVogue. I spend most of my days freezing my bits off posing in bikinis in winter for start-up fashion brands who don’t have the cash for big names.Ryan didn’t mind, though. He preferred that I was relatively anonymous. That I wasn’t in the spotlight.’
They talked on, feeding off each other, throwing out comments or observations that the other one immediately caught on to and recognised. In some ways, it was horrific. In others, it was a comfort.
They established more facts. ‘I worked out where and when you met him from the texts…’ Laurie told her.
‘At a party at his work.’
Laurie nodded. ‘At first, I thought you were in the same business as him, but then I saw texts where you mentioned that you worked shifts…’
‘I’m a nurse,’ Keli answered the unasked question. ‘Over at Glasgow Central. Our schedules didn’t always line up very well, but he didn’t seem to mind. I guess that’s because it left him plenty of time to carry on with his real life.’
‘I hate that he did this to you. I’m sorry.’
‘I’m sorry he did this to you too. Jesus, what a dick,’ Keli blurted, and Laurie murmured a rueful, ‘Amen.’
‘One thing I don’t understand,’ Keli went on, ‘is how you didn’t wonder where he was. I spent Christmas evening with him…’
‘I’d gone to London to visit my family. He had work commitments, so he couldn’t come. And personal commitments too, I realise now.’ There was an unmistakable hint of bitterness as she said that.
‘And New Year?’ Keli went on. Her tea was cold now, but she was too engrossed in the conversation to order another.
‘I flew to Prague on the morning of New Year’s Eve for a job there. Evening wear, against the backdrop of the New Year fireworks. Never been so cold in my life. I was crazy busy all through October, November and December, travelling constantly. The start of January too. But I’ve pretty much beenhome the last month or so, because I only had a few local jobs. In fact, I was supposed to leave this morning to fly to London, but it was cancelled at the last minute, right before I checked in at Glasgow Airport. I went back to the flat, and that’s when I saw his iPad. He’d left it lying on the kitchen counter – I guess he thought the coast was clear.’
Keli could feel her stomach sink and her temper rise. Laurie had been away most of the period from October to December. That was when Keli had been spending time with him. She was just a stop gap for a bored guy. ‘Do you think… Do you think he’s done this before? Were there other messages?’
Strangely, given the circumstances, it was Laurie who now threw Keli a sympathetic glance. ‘I’m sorry, but there are. Only you for the last few months, but there were a couple of others earlier last year. I contacted all of you, but you were the only one who got back to me. I know that makes me sound crazy…’
‘It really doesn’t,’ Keli said honestly, the butterflies in her stomach now replaced with the heavy weight of a depressing reality.
‘But even though I was gutted and didn’t want any of it to be real, I had to know the truth.’
This was all beginning to make hugely depressing sense. When his girlfriend was out of town, he shagged around. ‘Is it strange that in some ways, I’m glad you called?’ Keli told her. ‘The last month has been excruciating, not knowing why he was ghosting me, not understanding what had gone wrong. At least now I know. Although I fricking hate the answer.’
Laurie sat up straight, tipped her head back. ‘Aaaargh, how did this happen? How did we let this guy do this to us?’ Her gaze returned to Keli. ‘I mean, we’re smart women. Decent people. How does this make sense?’
‘I know it’s pointing out the obvious, but I guess he’s a really good liar…’ Keli said with a sigh. ‘Who is great at putting ona convincing act.’ Something in that popped a bubble of rage inside her, and she felt it begin to rise to the surface. What a bastard. What an absolute arse. ‘I suppose the good thing is that we know now. The question is, what are we going to do about it?’
4 P.M. – 6 P.M.
17
ODETTE
It was already dark outside, when Odette and Calvin climbed into the back of the car that had brought her to and from the studio every day for years. Back in the nineties, after only a few years on the show, she’d already started to garner star power and she’d used it well – getting a car and driver written into her contract. For the last two decades, the car had been driven by the same man, Harry, a chap of few words that she had a genuine affection for, one that was reciprocated in his typically understated way. A kind smile. A nod of the head. A reassuring conversation. And never, as far as she knew, a negative or badly spoken word about her in twenty years.
‘Home please, Harry,’ she said as she climbed into the vehicle, going along with Calvin’s plan to rest for a couple of hours, then change into something fabulous for their dinner later.
