Chapter 39
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
Felicity went home and slept for twelve hours straight. She woke on the Tuesday morning groggy and still confused but slightly less headachy, at least.
She checked her phone immediately.
Four messages.
Andrea: Penguin Man is a star. All well with cats and dogs. Hope A okay x
James: Hope you slept well, CCL. I’m going to help Andrea for a couple of days so no need to rush back to work. Give me a call when you’re awake and feeling a bit better. XXX
Adam: Bex is here. No need for you to come back, I’ll be fine. I’ll give you a call when I’m home.
Bex: Heard the news, I’m heading to the hospital right now, will come and find you xxx
Damn .
She also had a missed call.
Voicemail: ‘Hi, darling, it’s me, it’s Bex. I wonder if you might give me a call when you have a chance, please. Nothing to worry about but, well, yes just call me, please. Mwah.’
Bex sounded odd. As if she was calling from the bottom of the sea… although that seemed unlikely. Felicity tried returning the call but it rang out. She made a mental note to try again when she was feeling a bit more awake and headed for the shower, where the mental note immediately got washed away along with her tension headache and half a bottle of her best shower gel.
It was only the next morning that Felicity finally remembered to call Bex back. She really was a crap friend.
‘Oh! My darling I’m so glad you called me. I really need to talk to you.’
‘I’m here, what is it?’
‘It’s about Adam.’
Felicity felt a shiver. ‘What about him?’
‘I don’t know if I should tell you like this. Are you free to meet me?’
The shiver turned into five cold fingers crawling up her spine. ‘I can’t – I have to get to work. What is it? Please just tell me.’
‘I don’t know… I’m not sure where to start…’
‘Just say it.’
Don’t be dead, don’t be dead, don’t be dead.
‘Well, the thing is, well, basically, um, he’s asked me to marry him!’
Bex shrieked so loudly down the line that Felicity dropped the phone in surprise. After a few seconds of fumbling, she managed to retrieve it from under the sofa and turn it the right way up, heart hammering, palms sweaty.
‘Felicity! Are you there? Did you hear me?’
‘Yes, yes, I heard you.’
‘Did you hear what I said?’
‘Yes, I definitely heard what you said.’
‘Are you mad with me? Are you angry?’ She sounded terrified.
‘No! I’m bloody relieved! I thought you were going to say… something else.’
‘What?’
‘It doesn’t matter.’
‘Oh, well that’s fine then. I was so worried what you might say!’
‘I can see why. So run this by me again. Adam – my ex-boyfriend Adam, just to be clear – he proposed to you and you said yes?’
‘Ha ha, didn’t I mention that bit? Of course, I said yes. It’s Adam!’
Am I living in a parallel universe?
‘Yup. It’s Adam.’
‘Please say you’re not mad?’
‘I’m… I’m happy for you, actually,’ said Felicity, although she felt a bit faint all of a sudden and sat down in her armchair with a bump.
Was she? Maybe not happy as such. Shocked, mainly. But not jealous, that was for sure. Definitely not. Okay, maybe a teensy bit jealous.
Shocked. Jealous (a teensy bit). Mainly completely confused.
The sneaky little whatsit.
Bex was still talking. ‘Thank goodness for that as I was hoping you’d be my maid of honour. You’d be fabulous!’
‘Woah there, Nelly. One step at a time.’
‘I’m sorry, you’re right. I’m so excited, that’s all.’
‘I can hear that.’
A pause.
‘Fliss, are you still there?’
‘I’m here.’
She was stalling for time while her mind whizzed back through the past few weeks, searching for any signs that this conversation was ever on the cards. She came up empty.
‘Tell me something though…’
‘Anything.’
‘Aside from the whole, you know, “how on earth did this happen” thing… Did he propose in the hospital? I mean, like, while he thought he was dying or something?’
Or the split second I left the building?
‘Ha!’ said Bex, with a snort of laughter. ‘No, not exactly. Well, yes, actually, although he knew what he was doing.’
‘I wasn’t suggesting he was delirious or anything. I just meant, well, you know it’s quite weird timing.’
‘Not that weird, as it goes.’
‘Go on…?’
‘Um. Look, why don’t I come over tonight and I’ll tell you all about it?’
‘Okay. Deal.’
Felicity couldn’t help calculating the number of days it had been since Adam had sort of proposed to her on New Year’s Eve. Perhaps she’d best not mention that to Bex either.
That night, wine in hand, mind still racing, Felicity asked the first of many, many questions she’d been storing up all day.
‘Did he give you a ring?’
Bex bit her lip and waggled an empty hand. ‘Not yet, he hasn’t had a chance to get one yet. He’s been, you know, in hospital, after all.’
‘Yes, I was there. Oh, well, maybe he’ll get you one made out of tin foil or a Hula Hoop or something.’
Bex gave a hollow laugh. ‘Oh yes. A Hula Hoop, ha ha.’
Felicity chewed her lip. ‘I think I need to tell you something.’
Another hollow laugh. ‘Is it about the Tiffany ring?’ said Bex.
‘Yes! How did you know about that?’
‘Addy told me all about it. He said it was all a misunderstanding, apparently. He never meant to propose or anything, it was just a gift.’
‘Yes, yes of course, it definitely didn’t mean anything.’
‘No, it didn’t mean anything.’
‘No, it definitely didn’t mean anything.’
There was an awkward pause. Felicity tasted blood in her mouth and hastily stopped chewing.
‘Can I see it?’
‘Um… okay…’
Felicity stood up slowly and found herself mechanically walking through to her bedroom and retrieving it from its recently recovered spot in her bedside drawer, even though there were a million alarm bells going off in her head. Pretend you’ve lost it. Pretend you gave it back. Maybe now’s the time to actually throw it out of the window? Instead, she handed the box tentatively to Bex and went to the kitchen to put the kettle on. Just to do something. She fussed around in the cupboards for some biscuits even though she knew there weren’t any.
There was silence from the living room.
‘What do you think?’ asked Felicity, over the noise of the kettle.
‘It’s beautiful,’ said Bex.
‘What?’ said Felicity. ‘Sorry, I can’t hear you over the kettle.’
‘I said, it’s beautiful,’ said Bex a little louder.
‘That’s what I thought you said.’
Another awkward pause while they listened to the kettle finish bubbling.
‘But it doesn’t mean anything,’ said Felicity, into the ensuing silence.
‘No. It doesn’t,’ said Bex, still staring at it.
Felicity felt slightly panicked. She poured the water over two decaf tea bags – it was late, after all – and furiously stirred the milk in, buying herself precious seconds to consider what she might do next. As she carried the tea through to the lounge, she noticed Bex was still staring at the ring. She had silent tears running down her cheeks.
‘Are you okay?’ said Felicity.
Bex wiped one eye with an elegant finger.
‘There’s something else I need to tell you,’ she said.
‘Go on then,’ said Felicity with a sigh. ‘But you’d better not be pregnant.’