Page 50 of Six Steps to Happiness
Jack slowed to an almost standstill, putting an arm out as if directing those at the back of him to stay where they were. “Please, Ronnie,” Jack said. Cautious in his approach, he held out his hand for Ronnie to take. “Let me help you down.”
Ronnie frowned, bewildered by his concerned expression. Anyone would’ve thought she was about to jump such was the fuss going on around her. She froze, her eyes widening as her gaze went from him to his numerous colleagues. She swallowed hard, before turning her attention to the helicopter above – a police helicopter. “Oh Lordy,” she said, realisation dawning.
Standing there, she remembered the note she’d started to write before leaving the house, pictured her broken down car in the middle of nowhere, and looking down at her bare feet, considered the fact that she was stood on a wall next to a rather big drop. Putting those things together, there was no denying the fact that she was surrounded by a search party, that everyone there thought she was in the process of ending it all.
Not for the first time of late, Ronnie realised, she cringed in embarrassment. Why did such ridiculous things keep happening to her?
37
Ronnie sat squirming in the passenger seat of Jack’s car. Rather than being driven home, she wanted to find a great big hole that could swallow her up. Not knowing what to say about it, she couldn’t believe the drama that had just unfolded. She pictured the helicopter above her head that had undoubtedly filmed every second of her purging, the uniformed officers racing towards her, and Jack’s fearful expression. A police search party, for goodness sake. How was she ever going to live it all down?
She stole a look at Jack, wondering what he must think of her. She’d been in so many embarrassing situations of late, which was bad enough in itself. But to know the man sat next to her had witnessed most of them, she found that excruciating.
He stared at the road ahead, a big grin on his face.
“I don’t know what’s so funny,” Ronnie said. “Those people, seeing me scream like a banshee, thinking I was about to…” She turned to stare out of the side window. “The shame of it.” Ronnie shook her head, before bringing her attention back to Jack. “You’re lucky I didn’t jump out of sheer humiliation.”
Her driver continued to smile.
“How did you know where to find me anyway?”
“The usual,” Jack replied, matter of fact.
Ronnie’s brow furrowed. He said that like such misunderstandings happened all the time.
“A concerned member of the public rang the station. Some bloke who’d seen an inappropriately dressed woman wandering about in the middle of nowhere, before coming across an abandoned car…”
“It wasn’t abandoned.”
Jack looked straight at her. “Something he wasn’t to know.” He faced the road again. “Anyway, he thought the woman might be in trouble and naturally your daughter and mother-in-law had already reported you as missing.”
Ronnie groaned, even more mortified by the whole thing. “I wasn’t missing.”
“It was easy enough to put two and two together.”
Ronnie let her head drop onto her chest, again asking why she kept finding herself in such absurd situations.
“Maybe next time you’ll tell people you’re simply nipping out, instead of leaving them a one-word apology.”
Ronnie’s head shot back up. “Sorryis hardly a suicide note.”
The car slowed as Jack pulled it over to the side of the road and switched off the engine. He shifted round in his seat to face Ronnie. “To you, maybe not. But to concerned family and friends.”
Ronnie scoffed, but the man’s sincerity continued. She took in his earnest expression, knowing that if he’d been worried, Willow and Bea must have been frantic. Ronnie looked at the evening’s events in their entirety again and felt guilty. How could she have been so thoughtless as to make everyone think she planned on ending things?
“You can’t blame people for thinking the worst,” Jack said.
“But none of you were meant to see that note. I intended on being there and back before any of you landed. And if that damn car of mine hadn’t broken down, I would have been.”
“Ronnie, you’ve had a lot to deal with.”
“Not enough to kill myself! People who do that have far worse problems than me.”
Jack smiled. “All I’m saying is, everything considered, we’re bound to panic when you disappear like that.”
Ronnie clocked how he’d included himself in that sentence. It felt nice to think someone other than Willow and Bea cared, even if only a little. Ronnie stared down at her hands, thinking about the trouble she’d caused. She took a deep breath and exhaled. She felt so stupid.
“I hope you noticed I was quite the superhero back there,” Jack said, clearly trying to lighten the mood.
