Chapter 22
Rose
“Does my hair look okay?” Harriet checked her reflection in the mirror and looked uncertain. “I hate it when all the attention is on me and I can’t believe you’re making me do this.”
“You can’t expect Fallon and Erin to not make a fuss.
” It was true; if I’d been the one organising things, we’d have had a low key meal somewhere, all at home by midnight, but Fallon and Erin were unable to avoid a shebang.
I understood it; I was a great believer in marking milestones, they gave us anchors through time, moments we could attached our own development with, but right now, my sympathy was with Harriet.
“I know.” She turned around and looked at me, her face pale and expression drawn. “I’m going to miss living with you.”
The strength that was holding me together started to disintegrate. “I won’t know what to do with myself when you’re not here.”
The flat fell silent as if the walls were holding a guard of honour, the memories of the past few years absorbed into their bricks and mortar and plaster.
“When can you come to Stratford?”
“Three weekends. I can come Friday and go home the Monday. We can go book hunting. Have afternoon tea on a riverboat.”
“See a play. Unpack the books. We have plans already.” Harriet sat down on the floor, still wearing a dressing gown.
We needed to get a move on else we’d be late.
“It’ll be fun.”
“It will be. And we’ll be okay.”
“We’ll always be okay.” I sat down opposite her. “And your hair looks fine.”
“Thank you. It won’t by the end of the night.”
“Especially if you can find someone to mess it up.” I tried to lighten the tone, but it didn’t work.
Harriet looked sad, her smile not reaching her eyes. “I really hoped I’d have met someone by now, and this move would’ve been to live with them.”
“You can’t force things if they’re not meant to be. You don’t know what’s in store for you.” I could apply the same advice to myself.
Harriet nodded, resting her back against the wall. “I don’t hold out much hope for meeting someone in Stratford if I couldn’t find anyone in London.”
“I don’t think it works like that, Harriet.” I was always amused by her ideas on how the universe was structured.
“I wish I knew how it worked.” She looked more upset than I’d seen her for ages. “I’ll be a spinster librarian forever with a vagina as dusty as the books I’m curating.”
“Really? When was the last time you had sex?” Because while my little friend was boyfriendless, she was not without her friends with benefits.
“Two weeks ago. And it’ll be a while longer because I’m not hooking up with anyone tonight. I’m not in the mood.”
“Do you still want to move?”
She nodded, albeit slowly. “The job is amazing and I’ll be living in the birthplace of Shakespeare. I feel good about it and it’s exciting and I love my little house. I will miss you so, so much though.”
“Other end of the phone, Harriet. Plus weekends, and holidays and you coming back here.” We had booked a girls holiday to Ireland in the summer, a seven night tour of the west coast, guaranteed for just the four of us, pending Fallon’s operation, which the other two didn’t know about yet.
“It’s bittersweet,” she said. “And I’m leaving you when you’re trying to work things out with Carter.”
“Things will be fine.” I knew this. “We need a chat because I’ve been avoiding him.”
“You’ve needed space. What you need now is a wild romantic gesture.”
“I really don’t. What I need now is for you to get dressed so we’re not stupidly late.”
“Fair enough.”
We got to the private room in a local pub only after three inpatient text messages from Erin.
The place was already packed, filled with old friends, Harriet’s work colleagues and people she’d collected along the way.
The room was decorated with photos of Harriet over the last ten years, and filled with balloons and a banner, wishing her good luck.
There was a hot buffet including good old fish and chips – I could smell the vinegar from across the room – and the bar looked well stocked, which it was going to need to be.
It was also filled with Carter. He gestured to me across the room, talking to a man who’d gone to school with us and kept in touch with Harriet because they’d both gone to work in libraries.
I’d wondered before if he’d felt something more for her, but because he was quiet and rather shy, never said anything.
I mingled around the room, more comfortable than at Erin’s birthday because this was far less formal and I knew more people. Maybe I wouldn’t need to resort to reading my book in the corner.
But nothing was distracting me from Carter, who was quietly getting on with his evening, sending me a look and a smile when I glanced in his direction.
“Go and talk to him for the love of god,” Erin said, passing me a drink. “You’re filling the room with more tension than a priest when Fallon goes to confess.”
“I pity that priest.” I forgot that Fallon had a religious streak when it suited her. She loved stories of the saints and weird rituals.
“The priest pities himself and locks the confessional booth when he sees her. Anyway, please go and speak to him. We’re all watching you both and working out what’s going to happen.” She nudged me with her elbow, as if she thought that would make a difference.
It did.
I saw Carter looking lost, his gaze seeking me out too often, his shoulders sagging.
Laurie was already here and surrounded by some of Harriet’s fellow bookworms, Silversmiths already becoming legendary.
She and Carter had only said a couple of words to each other.
Laurie had hugged me more than him. No one in the room would think for one minute that they had gotten married the previous week, even if that marriage was in the process of being annulled.
I headed over to Carter, avoiding making eye contact with Fallon, who'd already sent her piece on how she thought I was being a little too stubborn and not seeing things - or anything - from Carter’s perspective.
He looked like he wanted to hook me when I stood in front of him, his brown eyes reminding me of a puppy my uncle Callum had once rescued, and to always look so grateful to have been saved.
This was a different Carter to the one that people saw in work, he lacked his surgeon’s arrogance.
His usual I'm-in-charge manner was absent and I knew in an instant that I held the power in my hands.
“Rose,” he said, looking uncertain. “I wanted to speak to you but I wasn’t sure if you wanted to bother with me tonight.”
His words made me feel like a selfish piece of shit, and I realised how much I’d been living in my head over the last few days. “I’m sorry. I’ve needed to process things. Has the annulment gone in?”
He nodded. “We received confirmation yesterday. It could take a few weeks, but there won’t be any problem with it.”
“What did you give as the reason.”
“Non-consummation.” The words were fired quickly off his tongue.
“I need to ask you a question,” I said, thankful for the array of distractions around us that were stopping anyone from interrupting.
“Go for it.”
“If I hadn’t wondered what would happen with us both being single at the same time, would things with you and Laurie have worked out differently?”
It wasn't what he was expecting me to say. I watched his face, his thinking process affecting his expressions, and I remembered how much I liked the way he would take to think before immediately responding.
“We tried. Back when I first suggested the idea to her, we went on a date to see how things were, and there was nothing. No chemistry, no attraction. just a couple of people who got along well and could have a good laugh.” He spoke slowly, concisely and with his usual precision.
“But don't you think that could have been us?” I was needing to sort out the two separate things.
; Carter and Laurie, me and Carter. “Where was the attraction when we were younger? Where was the attraction earlier between us? Maybe it would have grown in time between you and Laurie, and me saying that threw a spanner in the works, and you could be having your own happily ever after now with a fake wedding that turned out to be real after all.”
“Then you're seeing things differently to how I did, Rose. Do you think that our friendship has only ever been platonic? Was there never anything more for you? Until these last few weeks?” Carter looked resolute now, a little bit victorious.
I shook my head. “Clapham Common. When you rescued me when I was at that party and needed to kiss someone. But I thought it was one-sided.”
“It was never one-sided. Your friends have told you that, I know they have.” There was an upsurge in noise from one side of the room, something to do with Fallon and shots.
I decided not to look. “Come over here.” I pulled at his shirt and guided him away from the room to the stairwell where it was quieter.
“It’s been harder than I thought, imagining you saying vows to a woman that wasn’t me.
I don’t blame you for that. Yes, things could’ve been done better, we could’ve communicated more, but I understand how we got here.
I thought I could compartmentalise what was happening with you and Laurie and I haven’t done that like I thought.
You’ve had a wedding to someone who wasn’t me, and that’s not going to change.
” I inhaled, aware of the word vomit that’d just happened.
Carter nodded, understanding or at least seeming to.
“Does that mean you don’t want anything from us?
That you don’t want this to be any more than friends, because if that’s the way you feel, I can live with that.
I’d rather have you in my life than not, Rosie, even if it’s not in the role that I want you to be. ”
“What’s that role?” I needed to hear it.