Right Here Waiting for You: A brilliant laugh out loud romantic comedy. Rebecca Pugh
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against the wall. The invite and the envelope lay on the kitchen table and Sophia stared at them, unable to comprehend the possibility of bumping into the woman who had ruined everything. How long had it been since they’d spoken their last words to each other? They’d been eighteen at the time. It had all happened so quickly, Sophia had barely had time to register what was going on. But she hadn’t forgotten what that woman had done. The deceit. The betrayal.
How could the arrival of such a simple thing shake her world up so much? She felt uneasy now, unable to carry on with her plans for the rest of the day. Knowing she had no choice but to carry on because there was housework to attend to, Sophia snatched up the invite and its envelope and shoved both behind the breadbin. Out of sight, out of mind. Probably.
‘Do you think you’re in love with Tom Archer?’ Sophia was curling her hair in the mirror when Magda asked the question.
Magda was painting her toenails on the bedroom carpet, eyes focused on the brush.
‘Maybe,’ Sophia shrugged. ‘Who knows?’ She spun round and looked at Magda, wondering how it was possible for her best friend not to think Tom was the sexiest lad in the world. ‘What I do know is that whenever he’s near me, I get this weird flutter in my chest. My heart starts to beat really, really fast and my legs feel like jelly. Is that stupid?’
Magda shook her head quickly. ‘No, I don’t think so. It sounds like you do really like him though.’
‘I do,’ nodded Sophia. And she meant it. Tom Archer had been her one true desire since before she could remember. She still couldn’t understand why he liked her when he could have his pick of any of the girls in town.
She settled down beside Magda on the floor and perused the different colours of nail varnish before picking up a hot pink. ‘He’s actually asked me out. He wants me to go round to his and watch some movies.’ Her stomach flipped and she bit into her bottom lip at the thought of being alone with him.
She saw Magda smile. ‘And are you going to go?’
Sophia wavered. On the one hand, she wanted nothing more than to be alone with him, but on the other, it would eat into her time with Magda, and she didn’t want her friend worrying about being replaced. ‘Maybe,’ she said in the end. ‘I haven’t decided yet.’
Arriving home after her night in the hotel, Magda pulled up in the driveway and switched off the engine. Rather than heading inside straight away, she sat and stared at the exterior of the house, mentally building herself up to take that step.
Greg would no doubt be in his home office, pretending to work but secretly texting and emailing whichever woman of the moment he was trying to get into bed. He was a private accountant, bringing in most of their income, while Magda was a content writer for an online magazine, focusing on fashion and beauty. She adored to write, and it was possibly one of the only things she had ever been good at. She didn’t earn anywhere near as much money as Greg did, but she didn’t care. She enjoyed it.
Greg liked to hide away in his office. Magda wasn’t stupid and she wasn’t sure why he thought she was. She was clever. Clever enough to put together the pieces of evidence Greg left behind him like a trail of breadcrumbs and reach the nasty conclusion that he’d been having numerous affairs behind her back. She wasn’t entirely sure how long it had been going on for, but she didn’t think it really made any difference.
‘I’m back,’ she called into the empty quietness. Her voice echoed around the hall. She heard a noise from behind the door of his study.
‘There you are,’ Greg said once he’d stepped into the hall. ‘Good. I tried to ring you last night.’
Magda forced a smile. ‘Yes. Sorry I didn’t answer. I was invited out to a spa day at the last minute and I had such a good time I decided to stay over. I ended up drinking a bit too much at the bar so driving back wasn’t an option by then.’
Greg narrowed his eyes and spoke his next words in an infuriatingly condescending manner. ‘Yes, you seem to be getting a bit fond of the drink lately. I’d slow down a bit if I were you.’
‘I know, and I will.’ She felt like shrinking beneath his stare. She wanted to tell him that he was the reason she was drinking so much, that it was because of him and his lies that she felt drinking was the only option she had.
‘Good. Dinner tonight? I thought we could go out and grab a bite to eat.’ Everything he said was a command. Anything that sounded like a question was one of the rhetorical kind that warranted no answer from his wife. ‘I’ve booked us a table for eight. I’d better get back to work.’ Greg spun round, strode back up the hall and disappeared back into his study. Left to her own devices, Magda tugged her suitcase up the stairs and pushed open the door to her bedroom. They’d long since stopped sharing a bed, but Magda preferred it that way. How could she possibly get a good night’s sleeping beside such a lying bastard?
*
It was while chopping vegetables in the kitchen the next afternoon that she came across the envelope, propped in the post holder along with the other household bills and letters. Magda wiped her hands down the front of her blouse and picked it out. Once she’d opened it and read the invitation, inviting her to a school reunion back in Worthington Green where she’d grown up, she had to take a seat to gather herself. She’d been such a fool to give that life up and, standing there in the kitchen, sweat beading on her forehead, sweltering over a hot stove, making a meal she didn’t even like, for people she didn’t like either, she felt like the most stupid person in the world.
For a moment, Magda imagined she was back by the harbour in Worthington Green, feeling the cool spray of the sea on her flushed and burning cheeks. It would be such a blessed, sweet relief.
‘They should be here soon,’ Greg announced as he strode into the kitchen. He was referring to his parents, who had invited themselves round for dinner – a habit of theirs. Magda wouldn’t have minded the visits if Greg’s parents were people she enjoyed spending time with. As it was, she couldn’t stand being around them so the thought of spending the evening sitting around the table with them was one that filled her stomach with a feeling of dread.
The small heels of Greg’s shiny black shoes clicked across the marble tiles with every step he took. ‘You’re not eating dinner dressed like that, are you?’ His eyes travelled down the length of her body.
‘No,’ Magda murmured, ‘of course not. I’ll go and sort myself out now. I was just checking on the vegetables one last time.’
‘What’s that?’ Greg nodded towards the invitation in Magda’s hand.
‘Oh, just something about the car insurance. Nothing important.’ She hastily folded the invitation back into its envelope and hurried out of the kitchen. ‘I’ll just go and get dressed. I shouldn’t be too long.’
After reading the invite a couple more times in the safety of her bedroom, Magda couldn’t shake the memories of Worthington Green away. The place remained at the forefront of her mind throughout the evening, while Greg’s father droned on about business and economics. Greg’s mother, Patricia, sat silently and watched Magda from across the table with her lips tightly pursed. It was no secret that Patricia thought her son could have done better but Magda was past caring. She stared down at the food on her plate, silently willing the evening to hurry up and be over with. She couldn’t stand to be with these people a second longer.
‘I reckon they’ll get married when they’re older.’ Michael nodded through the doorway to where Esther and Harry were sitting side by side on the carpet in the lounge, positioned in front of the television. Michael’s comment reminded Sophia of something she’d once talked about with an old friend of hers, but she batted the memory away and forced herself to focus on the cooking instead.