Читать книгу Who’s That Girl?: A laugh-out-loud sparky romcom! - Mhairi McFarlane, Mhairi McFarlane - Страница 10

Louis’s unusually twitchy demeanour did nothing to make Edie less panicked. She hoped against hope he’d sail in and say, It’s blown over, what are you doing up here?

She let him pass, walking on weak, pipe cleaner legs and re-locked the door behind him, as if there really was a murderer loose in The Swan. Louis surveyed her as if suddenly in the presence of a notorious individual. He put his hands on his hips, under his suit jacket.

‘Er. So. What the HELL happened?’

‘Oh God, what’s everyone saying happened?!’ Edie wailed.

‘Jack and Charlotte,’ Louis paused, unable to keep himself from the stagey pause, as if he was announcing the winner on a talent show, ‘they’ve split up.’

Edie gasped and sat back down on the edge of the bed, to steady herself. She was trembling, almost juddering. She knew she’d ruined their wedding day. But to cause them to separate, during it? It didn’t seem feasible. It wasn’t a thing that could happen.

‘This can’t be real,’ she mumbled.

‘Charlotte’s gone back to her parents’ house,’ Louis said, enjoying himself now. ‘And Jack’s somewhere here I think, holed up with a bottle of whisky and his stag-do lads. There was a screaming match, total hysteria. It was chaos. Charlotte threw her wedding ring at him.’

Edie closed her eyes and held on to a bed post with a clammy palm, as the room swam and shifted. ‘What are they saying about me?’

‘That Charlotte caught you together. That you’ve been having an affair.’

‘We haven’t been having an affair!’

‘What happened then?’ Louis said.

It was the first time Edie had recounted it out loud and she hesitated.

‘I went into the garden and … he kissed me. Just for a moment.’

‘Wait, are you saying you weren’t shagging?’

Edie’s jaw fell open. ‘Shagging? No?! Of course not! How could we have been … Are you winding me up?’

‘Some people are saying you were, you know. At it. Or on the way to being at it.’

Edie knew Louis was prone to exaggeration and amping up drama but she had no way of telling if this was what he was doing. She could well imagine the Chinese whispers were out of control. As if the truth wasn’t terrible enough.

‘We were only a few yards from the hotel!’

‘Yeah, I did think that’s more the sort of encounter that happens on a car bonnet, after midnight. And usually, y’know. Not with the groom. So he kissed you?’

Edie nodded.

‘But you are having an affair, yeah?’

‘No!’

Oh God, this was agony. Everyone thinking the last thing she’d want them to think, ever. If she could be granted the option of being forced to streak, instead of this kind of exposure, she might just take it.

‘Erm, OK, darl. So out of the blue, Jack was like, “Are you enjoying my wedding day oh and also my tongue”?’

‘He started saying I meant a lot as a friend, he was very pissed I think, and the next minute he’s kissing me.’

‘And you didn’t kiss him back?’

‘No! Hardly. I mean, I was shocked.’

‘Mmm. Kind of odd you were hanging around out there alone? How did he find you? Sure you hadn’t texted him?’

‘I’d gone to take a photo. I can show you the photo!’ Edie waved her phone at him. ‘Also, no texts on here!’ As if there’d be a court case, and she could put her phone in a Ziploc evidence bag. It was the court of public opinion. She’d do much better from the former kind of trial.

‘Louis, think about it,’ Edie pleaded. ‘Why today, of all days, would I try to get off with him?’

‘Why would he try something like this, out of nowhere? You’re leaving something out, Edie. You must be.’

‘We messaged at work. Chatted. That was all. We were friends. Nothing more.’

‘You flirted?’

‘A bit. I suppose.’

She couldn’t give Louis nothing and get his vote, she knew that. He chewed his bottom lip, weighing things up.

‘… I believe you. I think you’re going to have a problem getting anyone else to believe you, though. The rumours are halfway around Harrogate and the truth doesn’t have its boots on. Also …’

Louis’s pause made Edie’s eyes bulge. ‘What?!’

He lowered his voice.

‘There’s only two people who are going to be blamed here: you and Jack. He’s the kind of guy who falls into a pit of shit and comes out wearing a gold watch. Not to sound cold, but you need a PR strategy. You have to let people know it was him who did this, not you.’

‘How do I do that?’

‘I’ll do what I can,’ Louis said, magnanimously. ‘You should think about that though. We work in advertising. Do crisis management for your brand.’

Edie nodded. She had to put aside everything she knew about Louis and trust him. A friend in need was a friend you couldn’t afford to doubt.

‘Do you think Jack and Charlotte are over, really over?’ Edie said, voice wavering.

Louis lifted his shoulders and let them drop.

‘Not sure I’d forgive a wedding day like this. The shame of it. Could you?’

Edie shook her head, miserably. She hadn’t thought of that until now. She’d focused on her own survival. Look at what Charlotte would have to face, the fact everyone would know about this carnage.

There was a clomp-clomp and a banging at the door, a thud as if a slavering wild animal had suddenly thrown itself at it. Both she and Louis jumped out of their skins.

‘EVIE THOMPSON! This is Lucie Maguire! I am the chief bridesmaid! Open the door THIS INSTANT!’

Edie and Louis boggled at each other.

‘EVIE! I KNOW YOU’RE IN THERE, YOU LITTLE COW. FACE THE MUSIC.’

‘Tell her it’s your room!’ Edie hissed to Louis.

‘What? What if she goes off to my room instead?’

‘You’re not in that room.’

‘I will be later.’

‘Then tell her that’s your room, too.’

‘Then she’ll know I lied about this room.’

‘Louis!’ Edie said, near-feral in desperation. ‘Tell her.’

He grimaced and said, loudly: ‘Hi, Lucie, this is Louis. Not Edie.’

‘Where’s Evie? This is her room! The man on reception told me! Do not toy with me, I am in a VERY AGGRESSIVE STATE.’

Louis made a middle-finger gesture with both hands at the door and sing-songed: ‘No, my room. Little Louis in here.’

‘… Let me in. You know this girl? You can tell me where to find her.’

‘I’d rather not. I’m naked.’

‘Put some clothes on, then.’

‘I’m naked, with someone else who is also naked. Get it?’

‘Is it her?’

‘No, it’s a man, man. Now if you don’t mind, we’d like to get on.’

A pause.

‘Do you know where this slut is?’

‘No, I thought we’d established I’m otherwise engaged.’

‘Well if you do see her, tell her I’m going to be wearing her tits like they’re ear muffs.’

‘Will do!’

Edie winced.

Pause. ‘Also, can I just say I think it’s very bad taste to be having sex while a woman’s life is in ruins? We’re trying to help. And meanwhile you’re up here, naked.’

‘That’s me. Always naked in a crisis. It’s when I do my best work.’

There was tutting and Lucie’s fearsome clomping stride retreated. In the depths of the despair, Louis and Edie couldn’t help small, stifled laughter.

‘How am I going to get out of here in one piece?’

‘Mmm. There may be scenes of a harridan nature. I’d check out early.’

Edie had already formed this plan. The reception was staffed 24 hours, she could escape at dawn. She reasoned that even the very angriest were unlikely to be prowling around, fired up by fury, at half five. Although with Lucie, who knew.

‘Look on the bright side. No music Lucie can get you to face can be worse than the music she already made you face.’

Edie laughed weakly and thought how that experience, where someone else was the centre of attention for the wrong reasons, seemed an era ago.

‘I think it’s safe for me to leave, now,’ Louis said.

At the prospect of being alone again, Edie felt desolate.

‘Louis,’ Edie said, in a quiet, broken voice, ‘I know what I did was wrong but I’d never want any of this. I feel terrible. Everyone will hate me.’

‘They won’t hate you,’ Louis said, unconvincingly, ‘Just let them know Jack jumped you, not vice versa.’

They both knew that a) it wouldn’t be possible to let everyone know this and b) no one was going to be inclined to absolve Edie and thus lose a key player in such compelling You’ll Never Guess What gossip. The narrative needed a vixen.

‘We’re still friends, aren’t we? I feel like I’ll have no friends.’

‘Babe,’ Louis squeezed her in a quick, hard, brusque hug, ‘Course we are.’

After re-locking the door after him, Edie sank back down on the bed. Every bump or scuffle in the hotel startled her. She imagined a procession of people queuing up, Lucie Maguire having rejoined at the back, waiting to scream and rant at her and do horrible things to her tits.

When she could bear it, she looked online. Again, nothing but a chilly calm. She couldn’t see any comments alluding to what had gone on, she hadn’t been unfriended on Facebook (though that was coming, obviously).

And yet … as time ticked by, suddenly, an ugly, worrying notion gripped a panicky Edie. She wrestled with it. She was being paranoid. She didn’t need to check. Of course she was wrong.

OK, Edie had to look. Just to reassure herself she was being paranoid. She fumbled with hot fingers on the touch screen. Oh, God. No. She blinked back tears and hit refresh and refresh again and willed herself to have made a mistake. But she hadn’t.

Louis had deleted the picture of them together.