The Runaway Bridesmaid (6 page)

Once the happy couple were safely dispatched on their honeymoon to Hawaii, Rosie had intended to ratchet up her work rate at the office, but now she had no idea what she was going to do. After she had attended the funeral, met with the English solicitor and sorted her aunt’s legal affairs, could she really see herself back at her desk by the following Friday morning?

Chapter Eight

As tiny Devonshire hamlets and the rolling hills of Exmoor National Park flashed by the taxi’s window, and the low orb of the sun rose above the horizon, the diaphanous light of dawn skimmed its silvery fingers over thatched rooftops. Mist draped its veil over the fields and dew sparkled on emerging leaves, as Rosie’s exhausted brain meandered the labyrinths of memory to alight upon the time she had spent with her aunt the previous year – repairing her broken heart and expanding her soul.

The abiding image from those recollections was of Thornleigh Lodge, its scarlet front door bedecked with a garland of ivory roses and its garden swathed in vibrant fuchsias and violet cat-faced pansies. The whole bucolic scene had been presided over by a majestic cherry tree under whose canopy of blossoms she and Bernice had lingered, reading, sketching, painting, talking, the latter activity being the balm and then the cure for her broken heart.

She had assured Bernice that she intended to continue these quiet pursuits which had generated such a sensation of calm when she returned to Manhattan, but of course she hadn’t. Nor had she undertaken the promised return visit to the UK, a failure which one again produced a squirm of discomfort in her abdomen.

As they entered Bernice’s home village of Brampton, a flash of familiarity hit Rosie. She couldn’t prevent a curl appearing at the corners of her lips when she noticed the proclamation above the Brampton village road sign proudly announcing ‘Winner of Britain in Bloom Contest’. She experienced that illusive feeling of coming home, which she never experienced when she returned to the neighbourhood of her apartment in Manhattan.

The taxi followed the road, running like a ribbon through the pretty English village, past the shop and adjacent tearooms – opened early that morning for the residents to collect their daily news. As Thornleigh Lodge came into view, Rosie’s smile of anticipation drained from her lips.

She had expected to see the neat chocolate-box cottage crowned with a thatched roof, white, sweet-smelling roses arched like a moustache over its front porch, and with neatly manicured front lawns divided by a pressed-shingle footpath, its nets floating at the windows. But instead the lodge bore a careworn mantle of neglect and melancholy.

She paid the silent taxi driver an exorbitant amount of money and dragged her wheelie suitcase to the picket gate, where she paused. Under the glow of the now-risen sun, the front garden was a riot of vivid colours and tangled grasses. The gravel path leading to the front door sprouted weeds like nasal hair and overgrown ferns fanned their frothy fingers across the sash windows.

Rosie forced the reluctant wheels to the formerly scarlet door, its smooth paintwork now blistered like sunburnt skin. Overgrown, dew-soaked carnations slashed at her naked shins, and the heels of her stilettos sunk deep into the path’s tiny pebbles. She scrabbled around under the geranium-filled terracotta pots where she knew she would find Bernice’s front door key. Did her aunt really think an intruder wouldn’t possess the brains to look there?

She smiled at the stark contrast between this pretty, albeit dilapidated cottage and the inhabitants of the rural Devonshire village, with her own tiny Manhattan apartment and her community neighbours. Every person living in Brampton had a working knowledge of their neighbour’s recent history and current daily life, thus imbuing the resident with a feeling of belonging, rather than the lack of privacy such intrusions would be labelled in her apartment block where she had met only one of her eight fellow tenants.

Yet, despite this communal kinship, Rosie had been relieved to return to the high octane, disinterested environment of New York after a month’s immersion in all things rural, and she would be repeating the escape this time as soon as formalities allowed.

It was Monday morning. The funeral was scheduled for Wednesday and her appointment at Richmond Morton Solicitors was on Thursday for the reading of her aunt’s will and the signing of the paperwork, after which she intended to scoot straight back to Heathrow for her Friday morning flight.

As she inserted the ancient Yale key into the lock, she felt the slithers of regret worming their way into her conscience. Just because Giles had cheated on her in the worst way possible, did that mean she should consider resigning? Why should she suffer for his despicable actions? Maybe she was being too hasty in her reactions to his treachery.

Rosie shouldered the reticent front door, a mound of mail slowing her entry. The cottage smelled of lingering dust and sadness but held a top note of dried lavender, a favourite of Bernice’s – almost her signature scent. The reminder brought tears to Rosie’s eyes.

On her last visit, the lodge had throbbed with a vibrant welcome, the warmth from the stove enveloping her grief at the loss of Carlos and squeezing it from her soul, replacing the pain with acceptance, and then peace. Today, its inherent life had drained away. A gloomy hallway led to a dank kitchen, draping Rosie with a shroud of loneliness and reproach. The cream Aga stood silent and stern. She shivered, goose-bumps prickling her body.

She dumped her Gucci duffle bag on the scarred pine table – the designer bag such an incongruous accessory in Bernice’s farmhouse-style kitchen. Her cell phone tumbled from the bag onto the floor and as she bent to retrieve it, it burst into song.

She checked the caller ID and a bolt of pain so strong it whipped her breath away shot from her heart down to her fingertips.

It was Giles.

She checked her silver watch. New York was five hours behind Devon so that would make it just after seven a.m. He would be at Harlow Fenton, lounging behind his desk in his favourite Armani suit artfully cast open to reveal a tantalising glimpse of purple silk lining, his shirt cuffs turned back to display a pair of his many quirky cufflinks. She could almost sense the smirk on his face as he waited for her to answer his command to speak to him.

That’s it! Never again did she intend to endure his casual, back-handed criticism of her abilities. She gritted her teeth, took a deep breath and swiped the answer button.

‘Giles, what a pleasant surprise.’ Even the most rhinoceros-skinned person couldn’t fail to recognise the heavy sarcasm that laced Rosie’s greeting.

An uneasy laugh spluttered down the phone line.

‘Hello, Rosie. We were just wanting to confirm that you are over in the UK to attend your aunt’s funeral and checking on your return date. Let me just say that I’m in the boardroom on speaker phone. I have CEO George Harlow with me, as well as Lauren, Toby and Brad Carlington.’

‘Perfect!’ Clearly Giles had gathered a group of colleagues around him, believing that she would never take him to task for his abhorrent behaviour in front of them. He was right, of course. But that was before he’d cheated on her with her sister. In fact, she felt even more inclined to speak her mind in front of an audience to ensure she did not retract what she was about to do. Lauren already knew what he had done of course, but only via a text, she didn’t have the details.

‘Rosie, I know how you must be feeling, how close you were to your aunt…’

‘Giles, I resign.’ Wow, how liberating it was to say those words. The concrete block that had taken up residence in her chest since the afternoon of the wedding shifted a little. ‘Yes, I resign.’

‘Ah, come on, Rosie. I know you may be a little put out about the… well, the situation we find ourselves in, but you don’t have to
resign
! We value your involvement at Harlow Fenton…’

‘Actually, I do. I do have to resign. With immediate effect.’

‘Well, I’ll need to check your contractual obligations with HR. I may be wrong, but I believe you are required to give the firm six months’ notice of your wish to terminate your employment.’ Rosie could hear the officious tone that had crept into his voice. Why hadn’t she noticed his tendency to petulance before?

‘Really, Giles? Is that so? I have a contractual obligation? Is that the same as an obligation owed by a boyfriend to his girlfriend
not to cheat on her with her sister
?’ She realised too late that instead of taking the moral high ground as she had intended, her voice had escalated an octave to shriek mode in place of the dulcet, sarcastic tone she was aiming for.

‘Ha, ha, Rosie. I do love your sense of humour. Maybe what we have here is a case of mistaken identity…’ She could almost hear the beads of perspiration bulge from his salon-steamed pores.

‘No, Giles. I’d recognised those pallid buttocks anywhere, even when they are concealed in the linen closet of the most expensive hotel Stonington Beach has to offer its residents. I’m resigning so that I don’t have to set eyes on your bouffant, lacquered locks, your plucked and tinted eyebrows and chemically enhanced lips ever again.’

‘Come on, Rosie. Don’t make this personal. There are great prospects for you at Harlow Fenton. I thought you dreamed of being VP one day?’

‘I doubt that will happen, Giles, whilst you continue to steal the credit for every high-profile deal you can get away with. It’s only because of our “involvement” that I’ve let that particular treachery slide, against my better judgement.’

‘Now, Rosie, I must protest…’

‘You want details? I can give you details.’

‘There’s no need. Perhaps we can discuss this in a civilised and professional manner when you return to the US and your senses. Clearly your aunt’s death had affected your behaviour more than we anticipated. It’s understandable. But this is your career we are talking about here…’

‘I resign, Giles. I’d rather get a job scrubbing toilets than continue to work under your management.’

To her amazement she heard a smattering of applause in the background and knew it was either Lauren, or more likely Toby, who had been unable to resist the urge to celebrate her moment of revenge, or was it madness? Had she really thought this through? What on earth was she going to do without an income? Wasn’t Manhattan the most expensive city in the world to rent an apartment? And how could she throw away everything she had been working towards since she left college? All those late night scrambles to close an investment deal to make their wealthy clients more money than they could spend in one lifetime? Was that all for nothing?

A curl of self-doubt tickled at her abdomen as a crystal clear image of her mother’s gentle face floated into her mind, swiftly chased by a rendition of her father’s mantra which he had repeated often since they had laid her mother to rest. ‘
Pursue your dreams as hard as you can, but don’t forget to pause and smell the flowers you were named after!
’

She returned her cell phone to her bag but knew she would be retrieving it again shortly to take Lauren’s flabbergasted call. She was amazed to find the crushing weight that had taken up residence in her chest since the wedding had not just shifted, but melted away.

As she set the ancient kettle to boil and searched for a packet of the loose tea her Aunt Bernice favoured, she contemplated her now-former workplace. She envisaged the stony faces of Giles and the other two senior VPs at the boardroom table in that temple of insatiable greed which preached any problem could be solved by throwing enough money at it, so why not take the risk? She knew that those who shied away from the excessive risk-taking were destined to wallow in the lower echelons of the company hierarchy and became mindless paper-shifters, indoctrinated in the culture that screamed money was king and its accumulation the only goal worth pursuing.

Young associates at Harlow Fenton existed on frequent injections of caffeine which disguised the lack of restorative sleep and the ever-tightening tentacles of the stress they all constantly fought against. They were obliged to accept these tortuous conditions as a rite of passage; they, like their predecessors, had to pay their dues. There was no slackening of expectations even when those who had endured the gruelling journey had reached the top and were in a position to make changes. More was always better in the corporate culture of excess – more hours, more money, more clients, more deals, which often translated into more booze, more food, more sex, more emotional crutches.

Chained to their computer monitors, blinkered to the outside world in their corporate cocoons, where nothing worth knowing happened anyway, their only companions were stale, stained coffee cups and gut-wrenching fear. Every waking hour was spent nose-to-screen until they succumbed to their chosen poison or expired. Then they’d be wheeled out, without a word of thanks, and a fresh-faced business school graduate would be slotted seamlessly into the vacated booth to continue the relentless cycle, their naivety exposed when they swore they could tame the corporate tigers lurking in the financial jungle.

Her only regret was that her resignation had left Lauren alone to continue the fight against the ‘male, pale and stale’ culture that was so prevalent on the Harlow Fenton board. In order to survive an executive needed to focus firmly on their intended escape route for when the pressure became unsustainable, and Rosie knew Lauren’s was motherhood. Lauren and Brett had been trying for a child for well over a year now, the failure of which, in itself, piled on more pressure. The couple were engaged in a constant, low-key battle about the excessive hours Lauren spent under the cosh of Harlow Fenton. Brett had now expanded his arguments to include the submission that the constant stress and anxiety of the continual deadlines were playing a significant role in their inability to conceive and the reason they had to resort to expensive IVF. They had their first round of treatment scheduled for the end of the week and, with another painful jolt to her stomach, Rosie realised she wouldn’t be around to support Lauren. What a truly useless friend she’d turned out to be.