No One Wants to Be Miss Havisham. Brigid Coady
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has sucked any sense out of you.
But she didn’t say it. She also didn’t say she thought Mel had lost a fair few IQ points ever since she got engaged. Hell, who was she kidding? Ever since she fell in love. Why couldn’t Barry have run off with the best man? It would solve all manner of things. For once Edie kept her opinion to herself, Mel meant too much to her.
“OK, well I’ll see you at mine at eleven am, and no ducking out of anything. You promised.” Mel carried on.
“I’ll be there.” Edie promised as she said goodbye.
She even had to drive herself to her own execution. A three-hour car journey with the blushing bride before they even got to the hen weekend; if Edie’s body wasn’t so well disciplined her shoulders would have been round her ears, her back bent and she would be wringing her hands. Instead she picked at the chipped varnish on her thumbnail.
At six thirty, Edie repacked her briefcase with less work than she would have liked. She turned off her computer and left the pale and red eyed Rachel still at her desk.
“Oh, are you off?” Rachel sounded surprised.
Edie knew it was earlier than normal but if a hen night called then she would need to make sure she hit the gym that night instead of tomorrow.
“Good night, Rachel,” she said repressively. There was no need for her to keep Rachel up to date with her social life.
Marching out of her office she headed for the lift, thinking as she walked that she would do a quick five miles on the treadmill and then some weights.
Pressing the button, the chipped varnish on her thumbnail where she'd been picking at it caught her eye; she wondered whether the manicurist could fit her in tomorrow morning.
“We must stop meeting like this.” The deep voice from this morning spoke from somewhere behind her.
Her back tensed.
It was bad enough that she was haunted in her dreams now it felt as if she was being haunted in real life.
She ignored him.
“Tough day at the coalface, huh? So tired and drained from saving people’s marriages that you can’t speak?” the bass voice rumbled on.
Really. Saving people’s marriages? What kind of divorce lawyer did he think she was? It was in the title ‘divorce.’ Hilary Satis had taught her that when she’d been her mother’s lawyer and then again when Edie had come to work for her.
“I think you’ll find, Mr Twist, that saving marriages is for marriage counsellors. Not for lawyers.”
The lift arrived and she marched in. Turning to press the ground floor button, she got a good look at her nemesis as he followed her in, grinning.
She had forgotten how tall he was; she only came up to his chin. His face was square and saved from beauty by a broken nose, a scar through his left eyebrow and another just below his lower lip. Although the scar brought attention to a bottom lip that begged to be kissed.
What?
She caught herself from thinking further about his lips.
She looked up and caught hazel eyes glinting, laughing at her.
“Well, I believe we will have to agree to differ then,” he said following her in. “Ms Dickens, isn’t it? Your reputation precedes you,” he continued.
The way he emphasised ‘reputation’ caused Edie to go on alert.
She knew his type. They were always trying to convince people that if they just worked at it they could get back together or at least come to an equable settlement. As if. That wasn’t what the job was about.
“I take it you believe mediation is the panacea for the masses then? All the touchy feely new age stuff,” she said.
As Edie said ‘mediation’ a shiver went up her spine.
Mediation.
Wasn’t that what Jessica had said she should be pushing her clients towards?
“New age? If you want to call it that, then yes, Ms Dickens I’m one of those touchy feely new age types. But maybe you’d care to tell me where I’m going wrong over a drink tonight. Dispense your theories. Maybe take pity on the prodigal son returning to the fold.”
His hands were held out in supplication. They were as rough and battered as his face. One of them could've easily held both of hers.
Where were these thoughts coming from?
And what was this prodigal son stuff? Did he think she had nothing better to do than gossip about her colleagues? A drink? As if.
She opened her mouth to tell him and as she did a faint shimmer of pink glitter fluttered out of thin air and landed on his shoulder. The few specks winked in the fluorescent lighting.
Pink glitter.
Just like the glitter she had found all over the end of her bed that morning.
The same pink glitter that had wound a path from her bedroom window to disappear somewhere in the middle of her living room.
It hadn’t been a dream.
Edie felt the blood drain out of her face. The cerise lining of Jack Twist's suit went grey. She put a hand out to steady herself.
It hit solid muscle; muscle clad in cotton and wool.
“Whoa there. I know I’m not much of a catch but you don’t need to faint to get out of it. A simple no would have been fine,” Jack Twist joked as he grasped her arms to hold her steady.
He smelt of coffee, shampoo, laundry detergent and something citrusy. Clean. Normal. Not the sort of man who would have ghosts haunting him. Well of course he wouldn’t, he was the saintly sort who believed in mediation.
And yet there was the glitter.
It winked and blinked at her, a warning light.
Stop.
Wait.
Go.
Go, she had to go.
“Excuse me please,” she said.
Wrenching her arm away she staggered to the lift doors and as soon as they were at the ground floor and opening she slipped through the gap.
“Edie! At least let me get you a cab,” his voice called loudly causing everyone in the lobby to look and see what was happening but she ignored it. She ran out of the building and bumped and careened her way through the commuters on the street.
Edie lay in her solitary but very well appointed bed. She had spent a quarter of an hour smoothing the sheets before she got in, trying to make herself calm.
Then she'd gone through all her yoga relaxation exercises and when that hadn't helped she'd used the self-hypnosis sleep app on her phone. But she was still awake. Every time she heard the sound of Big Ben chime the quarter hour, her body tensed and she found herself grasping the duvet.
She was being silly. The whole thing with Jessica had been down to dodgy meat; she knew that. She did. That glitter on Jack Twist’s shoulder in the lift was just something left over from whatever birthday celebration was happening this week, there was always one. Not that she was ever invited to them. He'd obviously brushed up against a banner or a card. It had taken her running almost halfway to the bus stop before she had thought logically about that one.
So there was no ghost coming.
Why she was allowing some bad dream to dictate her life? She'd never let anyone else dictate it before. And she wasn’t about to start tonight.
No, she