Chapter Five
I f Alli knew one thing, it was that there had to be a way out of this. Alright, so she was sitting in the car with a case on the back seat driving toward whatever hell-hole this was going to be. But she still knew that there had to be a way not to waste two precious weeks of her life learning… what? How not to be a go-getter? How not to stand up for herself? How to let people walk all over her?
Which was not the point, as Darren had pointed out when he’d escorted her to her flat.
“I’m not a child,” she’d said.
“I’m not treating you like one,” he’d said reasonably. “I’m just making sure that you’re doing what you need to do so that we both keep our jobs and life can go back to the way it was.”
“Just with me being less myself.”
“Less angry,” he’d said.
She’d rolled her eyes and taken a deep breath because seriously, this really couldn’t be happening. And then she’d done something which even she had to admit was crossing the line.
She’d taken a step forward, pushing Darren toward the wall, then taken another one, until she was close enough that she could see the whiskers on his chin and could hear him swallow.
“Come on,” she’d said, lowering her voice to practically a purr. “We don’t really have to do this. I can just work from home for the next two weeks and we’ll tell no one about it.” She’d raised her hand to cup his cheek.
And he’d slid out of her grasp, brushing his suit off as if she’d been dusty or infectious. “We don’t have to do this. You have to do this,” he’d said. “And I think we should both pretend that that shameful little display didn’t just happen.”
It wasn’t that she liked him. She didn’t. Not like that, anyway. It had been, looking back, pure desperation. She already knew that she didn’t function that way, that whatever this mysterious sexy feeling was supposed to be she was incapable of feeling it.
The incident had left her feeling dirty and shallow and disgusted enough with herself that she’d silently packed a bag and let Darren walk her to her car in the car park under her building.
“Sorry,” she’d mumbled as she opened the driver’s door.
He’d reached over and turned her head so that she was looking at him. His eyes were kind. “It’s fine,” he said. “Really. You were exploring every avenue, I get it. It’s one of the things that makes you so good at your job, that drive to do anything to get the results that you want.”
“If it’s such a good thing, then why are you forcing me to go into therapy or whatever?”
He smiled a little. “Because a little of something is good and a lot of something generally isn’t. Drink a glass of whiskey a night and you’re cultured. Drink a bottle and you’re a drunk. You need to learn to limit yourself, to draw boundaries, and, god forgive me for saying this, you need to learn how to switch off. You can’t work all the time. And you can’t be this angry. At this rate, you’ll have a heart attack before you’re forty.”
None of which meant that she’d play ball. She’d got in the car and driven off and was well on her way by now. Almost there, in fact. But she would find a way to get out of this. She just wasn’t sure how yet.
And now there was a stupid light blinking at her from the dashboard. She peered at it and realized that it was the low petrol light. Shit. All this bother and she’d forgotten something as simple as a fill up .
She saw the familiar lights of the petrol station coming up. Better to take care of this now. She’d need a full tank for when she broke out of this stupid wellness prison. She smirked at the idea of a getaway car running out of petrol.
Indicator on, she turned into the forecourt.
???
In the end, it had been the best plan for everyone involved. Liz got to rest in her sick bed without worrying about letting a client down. Marilyn and Robbie got the entire flat to themselves for two weeks. And Bea herself got a job, with hopefully enough money to save up for a deposit for a new flat on the off-chance that Marilyn and Robbie really weren’t planning on moving out. And a potential long-term gig if the retreat liked her work.
So who said that the universe wasn’t listening now?
Everything had turned out fine, at least for the short term, and Bea was even smiling as she pootled along in Benny, her ancient Renault.
“You might not be fast, but you’ll get me there, won’t you?” she asked, stroking the dashboard.
Benny grumbled in response.
This had to be her life changing for the better. In fact, Bea was determined that this was definitely her life changing for the better. Even if she had to make things happen that way. Her problems seemed to be solving themselves for the time being, and the only thing really bothering her was what Liz had said.
Don’t be a push-over.
Of course, Liz had been doped up to the eyeballs and half asleep.
Still though, she might have had a point. Had Bea actually been acting like a push-over? She supposed that she could see why it looked that way. Most people didn’t live with their exes and their new girlfriends.
She’d thought she was just being kind. But maybe she could have a little more backbone now that Liz mentioned it. A bit of… not courage exactly, but a bit of… ooomph. Maybe that was what she needed to get her life back on track, to propel all of these changes into something more sustainable.
Benny grumbled again.
“Ugh, what’s wrong, Ben?” Bea glanced down at the four flashing lights on the dash. Three of them were just the normal, everyday flashes that she was used to by now, the fourth was new. “Ah, crap, did I forget your juice?”
She peered out of the windscreen and saw the red and yellow lights of the petrol station.
“Not a problem, Benny-boy,” she said, shifting gear. “Let’s get you filled up. It’s not far now.”
She put her indicator on, changed lanes, and pulled off the road into the garage forecourt. She was just pulling around to the pump, turning Benny in a tight circle, when a car appeared out of nowhere.
It was like a film in slow motion and there was nothing she could do.
One second there was the bright glowing neon of the petrol station, the next there was a sleek black monster pulling out in front of her and Bea knew that Benny’s brakes weren’t good enough to stop in time.
She stomped on the brake anyway and squeezed her eyes shut. A millisecond later, there was a crunch and a crash and she juddered against her seatbelt.
Bea’s eyes flashed open. “Oh, Benny, poor Benny,” she said as she hurriedly unbuckled her seatbelt.
She climbed out of the car in time to see the driver’s door on the other car open with a smooth whir. Some rich city boy, no doubt. Bea pulled herself up to her full height. If there was ever a time to stand up for herself, it was now.
She was momentarily thrown off when a tall, leggy blonde climbed out of the swish car. Tossing her hair over her shoulder, the woman looked angrier than Bea thought she’d ever seen anyone look. “What the hell were you doing? ”
Which stung, because Bea had just been turning to get to the pump. “Driving. What were you doing?” she said. Good start. She hadn’t apologized yet, anyway.
“Driving with your damn eyes closed?” snarled the woman.
A stray thought sprung into Bea’s head. This woman would be very, very good at yoga. With those long limbs and strong, toned muscles. She shook her head. Not the time. “Absolutely not,” Bea said stoutly. “It’s very obvious what happened.”
“Oh, is it?” said the woman, coming closer.
Bea forced herself not to take a step back. “Yes, just look. I was turning to pull into the pump and you came around the corner too fast. You didn’t have time to see me, so you hit me.”
“Bullshit. You were turning, how could you have seen me?”
“You were behind the corner,” Bea said. Her heart was throbbing in her chest and she felt sick. She really didn’t like this standing up for herself business.
“For fuck’s sake.” The woman stepped back again and looked at the damage to the two cars.
“Look,” Bea said, craning her neck to see for herself. “It’s just a scratch. It’s not like anything awful happened.”
The woman glared at her. “That’s because your car is worth all of a fiver,” she said. “Mine’s a Mercedes.”
Bea swallowed. “Right. Well, um, I suppose we’d better swap insurance details.”
The woman rolled her eyes. “I don’t have time for that.”
And something in Bea snapped. It was something about the way the woman spoke to her, like she wasn’t important enough to waste time on, like Benny didn’t matter, like Bea herself didn’t matter.
“Oh, piss off you stuck-up, snotty little excuse for a woman,” Bea said. She slammed her mouth shut quickly. She had no idea where those words had come from.
The woman was staring at her. And then, with a shrug, she pulled a business card out of her suit pocket. “Have your people call my people. We’ll get the insurance sorted.” Then she climbed back into her car and reversed out of the forecourt and whizzed off down the road.
Bea looked at the card in her hand, not even reading it, just amazed that she had it at all. She’d stood up for herself and look what had happened. She’d got the woman’s info. The petrol station cameras would have everything else she needed if the woman decided to kick up a fuss about paying for Benny’s damage.
She grinned as she pulled out the petrol nozzle and unscrewed the cap on Benny’s side. Things really were looking up, weren’t they? She looked down at the card again. Alli Williams. This Alli Williams was not going to walk all over her.