LITMIR.BIZ

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somewhere, free, above her head like a balloon. Shock. It must be. Either that or she was about to pass out. A beep shook her from her thoughts. Cass’s purse was on the table. Her mobile phone! Maria leaned forward and snatched it up, fumbling through the contents to grab the phone and bring up the call display. Before she could talk herself out of it, she dialled Darcy’s number and held her breath. It must be a mistake, Chinese whispers. He was probably stuck in traffic. Last-minute nagging from his mother, perhaps.

      He picked it up on the third ring.

      ‘Hello?’ he asked lazily. He sounded a little drunk even. ‘Hello, who is this? Hello?’

      ‘Darcy?’ It came out as a cracked whisper. ‘Where are you? Are you okay?’

      A tear ran down her cheek and she went to dab at it, trying not to ruin her expensive face paint.

      ‘Maria.’ It came out of his mouth, just like that. Flat, monotone. No excitement, no rushed explanations, no desperate plea for her to wait for him. He said it like he was disappointed it was her, regretted taking the call from a number he didn’t recognise. Cass and he had never been that close. ‘It’s you.’

      ‘Of course it’s me! I’m at the church. Are you here yet? The vicar said you’re not coming? What’s wrong?’

      At first, she didn’t hear anything, and she thought the call had dropped till she heard the ching of the glass. A sound she recognised. The glass coffee table in their apartment made that noise when she filled his favourite whisky tumbler and set it down next to her glass of wine as they settled down for the evening.

      ‘I’m not coming, Maria. I’m sorry.’

      At first Maria couldn’t decide whether to cry, wail or laugh. The words sounded so absurd, so silly. She half-expected him to start laughing, that laugh she loved to hear. The one that came from his belly as he celebrated another successful prank.

      ‘Don’t be daft, of course you’re coming. We’re getting married!’

      The glass clinked again, hard.

      ‘I can’t do it, Maria. I’m sorry. I… Mother… we…’

      Maria felt her heart break. ‘Darcy, I…’

      ‘I’m sorry. I have to go.’

      The line clicked, and he was gone. She went to press the button, to call him back, to shout, to cry, to ask him why he’d said those things. Why her Darcy, the man who should be nervously passing wind at the altar, chewing the fat with his best man to stay calm, was at home, drinking instead. Leaving the woman he loved sat in a dress, in an imposing church setting. Trapped. Stranded in her very own fairy tale. Maria pushed the phone back into Cass’s purse, throwing it onto the table as she heard her friend’s loud voice coming closer outside.

      ‘Mate, that best man is a total jackass, I tell you. I almost decked the arrogant swine!’

      ‘Cass,’ she whispered.

      ‘He won’t tell me where Darcy is, or give me his number, and apparently his family didn’t even show!’

      ‘Cass,’ she tried. Harder this time. Fighting to push the words out of her mouth, amidst the mess of her scrambled thoughts.

      Her friend turned and knelt before her again. Maria looked into her eyes and swallowed hard, trying to dislodge the huge lump in her throat. The more she swallowed, the thicker it felt.

      ‘Cass,’ she tried again, her voice betraying her. ‘Get me out of here, okay?’

      Cass nodded. Marching over to the window, she wrenched it open, looking outside. Seemingly satisfied that they had an escape route, she beckoned for her friend.

      ‘I scoped this out too, just in case. Come on, my car’s outside.’ Maria nodded and five minutes later she was in the passenger seat of her friend’s Mercedes, hunched low, being whisked away from her own wedding. For the first time in her life, she was glad her parents weren’t there to see how her life was going. Cassie placed a warm hand over hers.

      ‘Stay with me, okay? I’ll arrange for your stuff to be collected from Arsy’s.’

      Maria nodded, too numb to even complain about her friend’s nickname for her would-be groom. Darcy Burgess of the Burgess Tea empire, a well-respected Harrogate institution. Currently about to corner the Yorkshire market in herbal teas, they sold everything from ginger snaps to ornamental teapots to go with their amazing tea blends. Beatrice Burgess, the head of the family, was an all-encompassing woman, driven and one hundred per cent committed to making sure her children, Laura and Darcy, didn’t do anything to embarrass her beloved empire. She made the Godfather look like small potatoes, and her wrath wasn’t something to seek out.

      Darcy, who had just jilted her at the altar, in front of their friends. Darcy, who, up until yesterday, she had lived with in his plush apartment in Harrogate. She started to sob quietly. Cassie swore under her breath and turned on the radio, jabbing at the buttons as though they were part of Darcy himself.

      ‘Poncey git. Who wants to marry a Darcy anyway?’

      Maria looked across at her in exasperation. ‘Millions of women, Cass. Millions. Mr Darcy, Mark Darcy? Come on, I know you have that poster of Colin Firth on your fridge.’

      Cass’s lips pursed, and she grinned at her mate. ‘Okay, okay – but seriously, Mar, you’ll be okay. Everything will work out.’

      ‘I called him.’

      Cass looked at her, but said nothing, flicking her attention back to zooming through the streets.

      ‘And?’

      ‘He said sorry.’

      Cass’s lips clamped together, as though trying to ward off something unpleasant from being rammed between them, or trying to escape.

      ‘Oh, he’ll be sorry all right.’

      Maria nodded, looking down at the engagement ring on her finger. She didn’t think for one minute he would be, but what else could she say?

      ‘I’m hungry,’ was all she could think of. ‘I didn’t eat a thing this morning, I didn’t want a podge in my dress.’

      Her friend smiled. ‘I know just the thing to cheer you up.’

      Ten minutes later, a very startled food server was taking an order from a weepy bride and a very angry woman in a flouncy peach dress. They took a booth in the back, ignoring the stares of the lunchtime crew and the mothers feeding their children a junk-food treat. Cassie put the tray down in front of them, and Maria sank her teeth into a cheeseburger, a napkin shoved into the front bodice of her couture gown, one Darcy’s mother had insisted she wear, rather than one of her own designs. A glob of ketchup dripped from the side of the napkin onto the ivory material, and Maria wiped at it half-heartedly, leaving a small red dot on the fabric. Oh well, she thought to herself. Not like I’ll be saving it for my daughter, eh? She swallowed the last of her burger and looked across at Cassie, who was shovelling fries into her mouth while barking orders into her phone. She reached for hers out of habit, before realising that her bag, containing her keys and phone, was still in the hotel. In the space of a morning, I have lost my fiancé, my home and my sanity, she thought to herself glumly. The reality of her situation dawned again, and she felt the threat of her cheeseburger coming back up. Cassie barked out a final command and stashed the phone back inside her tiny peach purse. Her face paled as she looked at the current state of her childhood bestie.

      ‘Maria, you doing okay?’

      Maria looked across at her. ‘Cass, what the hell am I going to do?’

      Cass gripped her hand in both of hers, squeezing it tight. ‘Mar, you are going to pick yourself up, get a new place, go back to work, and never speak to Arsy again.’

      Maria smiled weakly at her, looking away quickly from the builder who was looking her up and down while devouring a family-sized box of chicken nuggets.

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