Chapter One
It’s December the sixteenth and all over the little market town of Castlewych (that’s where I live, in one of the posher bits of Cheshire, where I am incongruously ‘not posh’) all the gift shops and tearooms are packed with Christmas shoppers and the streets are bejewelled with bright twinkling lights of every colour.
I am definitely the least colourful thing about this scene. I know my face is pale and washed-out without even having to look at my reflection in the shop windows. Even with my getting-revenge-on-my-ex-fiancé bright red dyed hair (which is supposed to be a symbol of how completely fine I am and how well I have already moved on), it’s obvious that I’m fooling precisely no one and I am abso-bloody-lutely knackered and still, frankly, heartbroken. But, it’s the last day of term and I’m off work for three whole weeks and I amreadyto tackle Christmas head on.
Mum and Dad are away, of course. They organised their once in a lifetime New York break to coincide with my honeymoon, never imagining that their little girl would be embracing solitary spinsterhood this holiday, but that’s OK because I’ve got it all planned – and it isn’t at all tragic. No, it isn’t.
There’s still umpteen bottles of the bubbly that Dad bought in bulk for the wedding that never was, and I’ve mail-ordered one of those woolly blankets shaped like a mermaid’s tail (hey, don’t judge me; the home shopping channels have been an enormous comfort, and I’m now the satisfied owner of an array of vegetable peeling and vacuum storage devices), and then there’s all the end of term seashell truffles and chocolate oranges from the kids and their parents (a really decent haul this year; I can’t help wondering if it’s because they feel sorry for poor jilted Ms. Magnusson). Come Christmas day I’ll be happily ensconced in my flat with theStrictly Come DancingChristmas Special on repeat; a drunken, woolly mermaid with record-breaking blood sugar levels.What?I’m not crying,you’recrying.
In another life – in the parallel universe where Cole didn’t ditch me one week before our gorgeous, romantic summer wedding – my passport reads ‘Mrs Sylvie Magnusson-Jordan’ and we’ve spent the past six months engaging in bouts of blissful newlywed Olympic-gold-medal-winning sex, and now Cole’s got Christmas off work and me and him are busy packing our matching His and Hers suitcases with my tiny thong bikinis, his tighty-whitey speedos, and a mega sized box of condoms, getting ready to fly off on our honeymoon to Mauritius. Round about now I’d be having a spray tan and getting my eyelashes tinted and Cole would be engaging in some serious manscaping on that hairy chest of his.
Come on, Sylve! Get it together. What did you say at the school carol concert today? The parents loved it… Oh yeah… These are the heady, chilly, joyful days of Advent when the coming holiday is full of possibility and promise, and the old year has stored up its very best and brightest moments for the bleak midwinter as it bids farewell in a fanfare of carols and charity, kindness and kisses, yadda yadda yadda. I must buy some gin on the way home: bubbly won’t be enough to get me through to New Year.
Right, here we are: the travel agent’s. I push my way inside, making the bell over the door ring, to be met by the sight of a substantial queue and the panicked expression of the frazzled young guy behind the desk. He looks like he’s thinking, ‘Shit, notanothercustomer.’ He shouts to me, ‘Madam, you’ll be number five in the queue,’ and I take a seat beside a giant cardboard Mickey Mouse who’s failing to tempt me to spend my Christmas in The Happiest Place on Earth.
Hold on! Did that travel agent just call meMadam? For crying out loud, I’m only thirty-four. Do I really look careworn enough to have transitioned from a ‘Miss’ to a ‘Madam’? I’m working hard on ignoring my own answers to this question when I hear a beeping sound coming from somewhere about my person. A text.
I rummage in my coat pockets trying to retrieve my phone and making crumpled tissues, ponytail bands and Chapsticks tumble onto the floor by my feet. I scrabble to gather them up and tell myself I wasn’t always this shambolic. This is all Cole’s fault.
You’re NOT really doing it, are you?! WTF happened to the Beyoncé Protocol?
It’s a message from Nari, my best mate and the co-creator of the, admittedly very drunken, break-up survival strategy we named after Nari’s all-time favourite singer-slash-goddess-slash-inspiration. It had all sounded so positive on that Saturday night back in August – on what should have been my wedding night. It was too late to cancel the classy spa hotel, not without losing all the money so, feeling defiant, me and Nari checked in to the bridal suite and immediately devoured the contents of the minibar.
‘Little vodkas! My favourite. And look Sylve,tiny nuts!’ Nari had called out as she ransacked the fun-size snacks. ‘Remind you of anyone?’
Admittedly, it wasn’t as bad as I’d feared. We ordered room service and lounged around on the four-poster bed in fluffy robes and those white hotel slippers they let you keep. I held it together and managed not to cry but only because I had wept solidly all week long and was utterly exhausted and ready for some mind-numbing drinking and serious pampering.
The Beyoncé Protocol had taken shape over the course of that evening, and Nari, being Nari, typed it all out onto her tablet and emailed me a copy in case my memory was hazy the next morning, which it was. This is how it went:
Cole caneff off. You don’t need a man to be happy. Plus, he was very, very hairy for a thirty-five-year-old (andnotin a good way).
Move out of your mum and dad’s on Monday and come to live at Nari’s ‘House of Win’ for as long as you want. Tell Cole you want your contribution tohismortgage payments back.
Nari will take you out every Friday night, when she’s in the country, to a place of your choosing – but there must be cocktails and hot waiters.
First thing tomorrow – hotel salon hair makeover. New Life: New Look.
DO NOT cancel your December honeymoon. It was your wedding present from your folks, so it’s yours. Go anyway. Take someone amazing like, say, Nari? Get drunk, get a suntan, dance the night away, and live off rum cocktails and coconuts all week long.
