His words hang in the air between us. My dreams cave in. I’m a fool. Ever since I saw Paul outside the jewelers, I’ve had a spring in my step. I’ve felt excited to be moving on to the next phase of my life. I’ve been able to ‘like’ pictures of friends’ weddings on Facebook without feeling that increasingly familiar twinge of sadness that it’s not me walking down the aisle. I’ve felt hopeful for the first time in ages. I even bought the stupidly expensive dress I’m wearing because I was so convinced Paul was going to pop the question and instead, he’s ending things. He’s ending our entire six-year relationship. He’s pawned a family heirloom that his mum wanted him to propose with in order to jet across the world. Alone.
‘I’m sorry, Rachel,’ Paul says, looking guilty.
‘It’s okay,’ I utter. ‘It’s fine. I understand. Enjoy India.’
I stand up suddenly, causing my chair to screech back across the floor. I grab my coat and my bag and turn to leave, my pizza uneaten on the table.
‘Rachel, don’t…’ Paul protests, although his tone is half-hearted and the shamefaced look in his eyes tells me he wasn’t exactly expecting this to go swimmingly.
I blink back tears as I hurry away.
Chapter Three
It’s fine. I’m absolutely fine. So my boyfriend’s going to India to find himself. It’s cool. So, he didn’t come home last night. No big deal. So I got home and opened his side of the wardrobe and found that he’s removed all his clothes. No problem. He needs something to wear while he’s over there, right?
I’m fine, I tell myself for the four hundredth time this morning as I stand in the rattling Tube carriage on my way to work. I’m exhausted from a night of tossing and turning and trying to convince myself this is all just a bad dream, and yet I’m simultaneously wired from having mainlined practically two litres of coffee when I got up. I’m fine, I tell myself again as a Transport for London announcement momentarily pierces my mantra, to inform me that we’re at Chancery Lane station. What?
Damn. I barge through the throng of passengers, dodging sweaty armpits and morning breath and papercuts from people holding copies of Metro, before bursting free onto the platform. Great, just great. I was so lost in my own self-pitying, yet defiantly un-self-pitying thoughts, that I completely lost track of where the hell I was and missed my stop. I’ve never missed my stop, zoning out like that. Not in the eight years I’ve worked for Pearson & Co.
‘Oh no,’ I grumble, looking down at my watch.
I’m meant to be at work in five minutes and now I have to backtrack two stops. I walk as fast as I can through the crowd of commuters, trying to get to the opposite side of the platform.
‘I was reading that,’ a man in his sixties or seventies tuts as I plough past him so forcefully that I accidentally cause him to drop his copy of The Guardian onto the ground.
‘Sorry,’ I throw over my shoulder as I dash further along the platform.
The man shakes his head at me, before gingerly bending down to pick up his paper. I feel like a total pariah - the worst woman in London. Not only does my boyfriend, or ex-boyfriend as I should probably start referring to him, want to get away from me so badly that he’s pawned his mother’s engagement ring in order to jet halfway across the world, but I’ve just knocked a newspaper out of an old man’s hands. I’m about to turn around and go back to help him, and properly apologize, but it’s too late. The man is stooping down to grasp his paper from the ground, but just as he’s about to reach for it, a train pulls into the platform and half a dozen commuters burst off, treading all over the pages.
I gasp, feeling terrible. The man shakes his head disappointedly and hobbles onto the train, abandoning his trampled paper. I try to push the shameful episode out of my mind and dash across the station to the opposite platform, where I stand, staring at the arrivals display, which informs me that the next train will be arriving in ten minutes. Ten minutes! Honestly! I tap my stilettoed toe impatiently against the ground, as if doing so might somehow make the train arrive faster.
Finally, after what feels like an eternity, the train decides to make an appearance and I hurry into the carriage, even though I’m fully aware that no matter how quickly I get onto the train, I’m still going to be late for work. Deep down, I know it doesn’t really matter. I’m a partner at my firm after all, and in all the years I’ve worked there, I’ve always been on time. It’s just frustrating that on the one day that I want to cling to the illusion that I might have just an iota of control over my falling-apart life, I’m going to be late, feeling as scatty and disorganized on the outside as I do inside.
I grab the overhead rail and try to push the negativity out of my mind and resume my pathetically weak mantra of telling myself I’m fine over and over again as the train chugs along.
By the time it arrives at my stop, I’m already fifteen minutes late for work and when I eventually get to the office, pounding the busy street in my heels, I’m a whopping nineteen minutes late. Fantastic. Just fantastic.
I swipe my pass against the sensor by the door and walk through reception.
One of the temps working at the reception desk looks over from her monitor and smiles sweetly.
‘Morning,’ she says brightly.
‘Morning,’ I chirp back, feeling a tiny bit more human.
The airy, light-filled, marble-floored reception area at work is a soothing slice of tranquility in the center of the chaotic city, and the receptionist probably doesn’t know how much her friendly smile means to me on a morning like this.
I’m just about to head through the door leading to the corridor where my office is tucked away, when the CEO of the company pulls it wide open, stopping me in my tracks.
Albert Pearson, the founder of Pearson & Co, is standing before me, taking me completely by surprise. There are twenty-five Pearson & Co branches across the country and Mr Pearson is the head honcho. I had no idea he was coming into the office today. Occasionally, he visits but I’m always well aware of it. Everyone is. We get so tense in the days and weeks leading up to a visit from him. The office is always impeccably clean. Everyone is always keen to appear effortlessly on top of their workloads. We all wear our neatest, most expensive suits and do our best to look like model employees. Of course, we muddle along pretty well at the best of times, but it’s important to everyone that we give the CEO the best possible impression. Mr Pearson is quite intimidating after all.
He’s an absolute force to be reckoned with, having created a network of leading law firms from nothing. He’s from a single parent family in east London and his mum worked at the local launderette, yet through hard work and determination, he managed to rise from his humble beginnings to become a multi-millionaire powerhouse. Yet he’s stayed true to his roots and firmly believes in supporting junior staff in getting ahead and having a workforce that’s diverse and inclusive. Our firm probably has the highest number of state school educated lawyers than any other in the capital. As much as Mr Pearson intimidates me, I also have a lot of respect for him. He has better values than my boss, Nigel, who’s your stereotypical money-hungry city lawyer, but Mr Pearson still unnerves me a lot more.