CHAPTER EIGHT
I turned and slipped into the lift just as it was closing, suddenly aware that a whole group of tourists must have heard the tail-end of our break-up. I could feel dozens of eyes boring into my back, and the lift seemed to take an eternity to reach the ground floor.
I escaped with relief as soon as the doors opened and hurried away, out onto a New York street that now felt alien and scary – just like my suddenly uncertain future.
Richard’s concerned face, as the lift doors had closed, was burned on my mind’s eye.
He was right, of course. Things hadn’t been great between us for a while.
But knowing that didn’t make me feel any less devastated by the cruel way it had all come crashing to an end...
*****
On the subway journey back to the apartment, I investigated flights to the UK, just wanting to be home. But I pretty soon realised it was impossible.
Unless I wanted to bankrupt myself, which would make me feel even worse than I already did, I’d just have to stick it out in New York for another two days until the flight I’d originally booked was ready to leave.
I spent as little time as possible packing up my belongings in the apartment. Catching my reflection in a mirror, I saw how flushed I was and stopped in my tracks. It wasn’t my red cheeks I was focusing on now, though. It was the diamond stud earrings. The gift from Richard. I’d loved them when he’d bought them for me – but now, I wondered about why he had done that. Were they a final gift because he knew he was about to bin me off and he was feeling guilty about that?
Or... I suddenly remembered how very eager he was for us to leave the apartment the previous morning. I’d thought he was just wanting to make the most of the time we had for sightseeing. But the cleaners’ van had drawn up just as we left.
I gave a bitter laugh.
That was the reason for all the hurry – he’d known the cleaners would be arriving that morning and he couldn’t risk me running into Emily. Or more importantly, Emily running into me . He hadn’t told Emily that I was coming over, for obvious reasons. As far as she was concerned, we’d broken up at Christmas, so why would I be visiting my ex in New York? He would have had a lot of explaining to do if we’d happened to meet.
But I’d wanted to go back for my earrings, and of course, he couldn’t have allowed that because Emily would have been there, cleaning the apartment. So he’d obviously made up the Tiffany’s visit on the spur of the moment – again, to avoid his two women clashing with each other.
It also explained why he’d been verging on obsessed with me clearing away my belongings into the drawers before leaving the apartment. He’d said it was because the cleaners didn’t do a good enough job when the surfaces were cluttered. But thinking about it now, the real reason was because when Emily came in to clean the place, she would have noticed my stuff lying around and she would have known that Richard had a woman staying in the apartment.
The idea of all this took my breath away. The audacity of the man! To lie about the drawer thing and to pretend he’d planned all along to buy me some jewellery, when really, it was just a ruse to keep me away from the apartment...
Fumbling a little, I took out the earrings, shoved them back in the little turquoise box and threw the box into my case. Tears flooded my eyes. Those earrings would always remind me of the day Richard broke up with me. I could never wear them again.
I heard a sudden noise out in the corridor and my heart lurched, thinking it was Richard back to give me more of his guilt-ridden sob story about how he really couldn’t help himself when he slept with Emily.
Sighing with relief when I heard voices and people entering the next-door apartment, I speeded up my packing, just wanting to be out of there. I wanted never to have to see Richard’s stupid, sad-looking, guilty expression ever again – although I knew that would be hard, since he just happened to be my friend Fen’s brother.
A few moments later I was sliding the key through the letterbox and making good my escape – although to where, I had absolutely no idea.
Out on the street, I walked until I found a park, trailing my suitcase behind me. Then I sat on a bench and looked at the prices of hotels nearby. They were expensive – Richard’s apartment was quite centrally located – so I had to look further afield than Manhattan. I needed somewhere to stay for the next couple of days until my flight left.
Eventually, I found a one-bed apartment in a place called Sunset Park, in the Brooklyn area of New York. It was a bit of a trek by the subway but at least I wasn’t spending a month’s wages to stay two nights in a centrally-located Manhattan hotel! Plus the route back to the airport looked simple enough.
When I arrived, I found a bakery nearby. And even though I currently felt like I wouldn’t be able to eat a thing for weeks, I nonetheless stocked up on cakes and pastries, planning to go to ground in the apartment for forty-eight hours.
Not that I had any appetite at all. But hopefully the feeling like a washing machine churning round and round on an endless slow spin cycle in my stomach would eventually calm down. And when it did, copious carbs would no doubt be what I’d crave in my despair.
I had no intention of doing any more sightseeing. All the joy had gone out of my trip. I’d hole up in the tiny apartment and distract myself with American TV until it was finally time to go home.
The first twenty-four hours were awful. I had friends texting me, asking how I was enjoying myself, but the thought of trying to explain what had happened was too much for my weary brain. So I switched off the phone and took to my bed, just wanting to escape the horrible memories.
But my brain wouldn’t switch off, however many sheep I tried to count.
So at two in the morning, I abandoned the whole idea of getting any sleep, got up, took some pillows through to the bijou sofa in the kitchen-living area and stared blearily at the TV, wondering what the hell I was going to do now.
My whole life had been centred around doing things with Richard.
I’d had a taste of life without him over the past few months, but that wasn’t the same because back then, I’d assumed he’d be returning to the UK, at which point our lives together would resume exactly as before.
But that was off the table now. I was single – for the first time in six years – and I’d be living a different kind of life from now on.
I also found myself thinking about the state of our relationship.
I hadn’t been entirely happy for a while now, but I suppose I’d thought that we’d get back on track eventually. All couples went through ups and downs. But then I remembered how I’d felt when I’d thought Richard was about to propose the day before, when he took me to Tiffany’s to buy me a ‘special gift’. It was depressingly funny now to think I’d imagined it could be an engagement ring. (How bloody ironic, in the light of what had actually happened.) But I could distinctly recall now the way my heart had sunk a little as I’d wondered if I was really ready for marriage.
Had it been marriage in general that had given me those instant doubts?
Or was it the thought of marrying Richard that had sent my heart tumbling?
It hurt so much that he was discarding me for Emily. But maybe in the long term I’d see that actually, ‘ripping off the plaster’ had been the best thing for me. Because what if I’d never actually bumped into Emily and I’d gone home thinking that things were still rosy with Richard. He’d bought me those expensive earrings, after all, which obviously proved that he cared. (Not!) The relationship might have bumbled on for months before he finished it and I’d have been living in ignorance of his deception all that time.
At least now I knew . And that meant I could get my head together, adjust to my new life and move on.
That made it sound so easy but it obviously wouldn’t be...
Sighing, I hauled myself off the sofa, deciding to put the kettle on for yet another cuppa. But passing a side table, I bashed my thigh on my case which I’d dumped there when I arrived. The case tumbled off the table, disgorging its contents on the rug, and I gave an indignant cry of anguish right there, alone in the silence of the apartment.
My leg hurt where I’d bashed it on the case.
It really felt as if life was kicking me when I was down!
Abandoning the tea, I sank back on the sofa, staring at the jumble of belongings, unable to summon up the energy to clear it all up.
The turquoise box from Tiffany’s lay within reach on the carpet. It would only ever bring back unhappy memories so it would be consigned to a drawer once I was back home.
What a terrible waste of diamond earrings!
Although maybe . . .
I sat up straight, an idea forming in my mind, and a little surge of something positive penetrated the cloud of despair that had settled over me.
Springing to my feet, I walked with sudden determination to the kettle.
My new plan was giving me the lift I badly needed.
I even had my appetite back, I realised, as I bit into a delicious-looking apple turnover from the bakery along the road...
*****
On the way to the airport, I made a brief journey into the heart of Manhattan, before catching my flight home.
Once through passport control, I took the train to Guildford and then on to Sunnybrook. As I walked home from the station, I stopped at the jewellers where – the night before I’d flown to New York – I’d admired the gorgeous bracelet in the window.
It was expensive. Almost a month’s wages! But I’d returned Richard’s diamonds to Tiffany’s (how lucky was I that we’d used my credit card to buy the earrings!) and I still had the money he’d transferred into my bank account to pay me back.
I had a moment’s doubt. Was I really the type of person who would do this kind of thing?
Then I recalled the cool way Richard had told me that we weren’t really suited and how Emily made him feel like a teenager again. He’d allowed me to fly all the way over to New York in total ignorance of what he was up to...
Buoyed up by a surge of anger, I marched into the shop and bought the bracelet.
My heart was banging nervously as I watched the assistant wrap it in delicate white tissue paper and place it carefully into a navy box.
My eye wandered to a tray of ‘girl power’ brooches on the counter. The one declaring ‘RIP the Patriarchy’ on a gravestone was possibly a little too strong. Richard might be a sly, cheating scumbag but at least he wasn’t a controlling scumbag, intent on keeping women in their place.
I did, however, quite like the message on the pink brooch next to it.
‘The Future is Female.’
I felt a surge of empowerment just looking at it. And after the devastated way I’d been feeling over the past few days, I’d grab at any ounce of power that came my way.
On a whim, I smiled at the assistant and added the pink brooch to my haul of treasure.
Thanks, Richard!