Nari will flog your lovely wedding dress on eBay. You can put the money towards a deposit on a dog friendly place for you and Barney.
And remember, if Beyoncé has taught us anything – and, of course, she has – it is to remember that you are a QUEEN. Don’t ever forget it.
And the plan had worked too. Well, it worked during those first few gut-wrenchingly broken and humiliated weeks when I was still off school for the summer break. The headmistress took pity on me and let me skip the summer planning meetings, so the whole of last August felt like one long holiday – albeit the kind of holiday where you catch your reflection in a mirror, see how sad your eyes look, and start up again with the snotty ugly-crying.
Nari made sure I was rarely sober and never alone for much of the summer, planning Netflix nights or taking me out to the cinema (sassy chick-flicks), or booking nice restaurants (gourmet cheeseburgers and ice cream sundaes), and then we’d hit the gym, chasing the endorphins. Cardio Bootcamp is much, much harder when you’ve just downed a Jack Daniels and Coke with lunch, but still, we worked out like daemons. The music blaring in my earphones and the adrenalin coursing in my veins obliterated all other thoughts and feelings, anaesthetising everything, if only for half an hour.
When I was with Nari I didn’t have to face the pity-visits from extended family, and all those lost deposits, and the awkward questions about what I’d like my wedding guests to do with the presents they’d bought from my carefully curated gift registry and never had the chance to give me. I’d had to bite the inside of my cheeks to stop myself yelling into their well-meaning faces, ‘Bloody wellgive them to me, Auntie Brenda! I really wanted that toastie maker.’ But instead I’d smiled and told everyone to return them for refunds.
Basically, what I’m saying is that without Nari I’d probably never have dragged myself out of bed again. She orchestrated all of the clichéd break-up survival stuff, including making me dye my mousey, blah-coloured hair this luscious red, which I’m still not one hundred per cent sold on, and itdidall help, but after the strange excitement and shock that comes with being unexpectedly single started to wear off, I realised I was simply alone again and had to make the best of it.
I went back to work at Castlewych Academy in September, back to teaching truculent teenagers about history, and life went on. Only now I have to carry around this dull, empty, aching feeling in my heart where once there was a bridegroom, our lovely home, and a Happy Ever After.
More people have joined the queue behind me. When did they come in? I must have been miles away. I’m half looking at the winter holiday brochures on the shelves with their snowy alpine scenery, smiling skiers, and cosy gingerbread cabins when my phone buzzes again.
It’s another text from Nari.
Ghosting me? I’m on my way.
Feeling slightly panicked, I power off my phone and slip it into my pocket. She’ll never find me. Will she? I am cancelling this honeymoon and that’s that. Back in the summer and fuelled by Bacardi and Beyoncé, our single girls’ winter ‘honeymoon’ had seemed like a good idea, but as it’s come around I’ve realised, deep down, that a plan B beach holiday with Nari isn’t actually going to feel fun and rebellious; it’s just a bit sad, especially at Christmas.
Mum and Dad offered to cancel their New York trip and host their traditional Christmas at home, which is so like them, but that made me feel sadder than anything. No, I can do this. I’m a grown-ass thirty-four-year-old woman, and I can’t carry on with the jilted bride routine forever. I’ll beg this poor travel agent for a refund – even if I can only get some of the money back – and I’ll repay my parents, even though they insist they don’t want a penny of it back.
They think Nari’s right and that we should be treating ourselves to an exotic yuletide adventure. I sometimes think it’s been worse for them than it has for me; they’re so heartsore that the shitbag they’ve called ‘son’ for the last decade could up and leave the way he did.
I’ll ask Nari if she’ll spend Christmas with me at my new flat. Normally she’d be in some far-flung location for Christmas, or sometimes when it was Mum and Dad’s turn to have me and Cole for Christmas, she’d spend the holiday at my folks’ too. Her mum and grandmother live in South Korea and Nari isn’t flying out to visit them until February, so I know she’ll be up for it, once she’s gotten over the disappointment of missing out on Mauritius – hence this impromptu trip to the travel agents to cancel the whole sorry honeymoon shambles.
I shove my growing-out fringe off my face (I was never a fringe sort of girl, I should have been firmer with Nari about that) and let out one of my newly perfected Eeyore sighs.
I can just about make out the Christmas tree in the town square through the steamy glass of the travel agency windows; the condensation is making its lights shine out like stars. Their colourful glow sets me thinking about my bare little flat and all the unpacked boxes and how I haven’t even sorted out a tree yet.
Oh, come on! What’s the hold up? I usually try to avoid having time alone to think, it isn’t good to dwell on it all.
‘Next, please? Madam, it’s your turn,’ the travel agent calls out.
I’m not moving fast enough for him and he’s not even attempting to hide his annoyance. Deep breath. Here goes.
‘Sorry about your wait,’ he says unconvincingly.
Why do shop assistants always say that? As though they’re commiserating with you over your body mass index.
I hand over the crumpled booking confirmation. If I say it really fast maybe it’ll hurt less. ‘I know this is late notice, and I’ve read the terms and conditions so I know I’ll get next to nothing, but I need to cancel this,’ I tell him.
The young man, Nathan his badge says, starts reading it out aloud without a shred of interest.
‘Luxury beach hut, seven nights, bridal package with champagne and rose petal welcome…’
It’s at this point that Nathan pauses momentarily and glances up at me. There’s a curling smile at the side of his mouth that isn’t sympathy; it’s salacious interest and somehow mocking too. I’m trying to assume what I hope looks like an air of quiet dignity. He carries on in a too-loud voice that everyone in the queue behind me can surely hear.
‘Full board, spa treatments, scuba diving experience, private boat transfers, leaving on thetwenty-second of December? Oh!No wayshould you cancel this… You and your… um… husband will lose the lot.’
