A window seat with a vacant chair beside mine
Unlimited currency (I wish) to spend on ALL the local food
Freedom to go any place I please (and to take you, gorgeous readers, with me)
A holiday romance (even if, nowadays, that’s in fictional form. I’ll always pack one romcom novel – or download one hundred – and let you know if I recommend them for your own travels)
So, who’s coming with me as I plan a whole new year of adventure, starting with a snowy escape in Lapland? This one’s a real departure for me as I’m going with my best friend, S, but I’ll be sure to blog everything we get up to.
Remember to hit subscribe, and comment below with your own travel plans.
Kisses, Nari Bell.
#Celebrating #tenyears #solotravel #intrepid #Suitmyself #Nomadgirl #FemaleSoloTravel #beachreads #IndependentGetaways #adventuretravelgoals #fearless #female
Chapter Five
Cole’s surprise visit was two days ago now and it’s astonishing what you can achieve on emotional autopilot. I drove Mum and Dad to the airport yesterday and waved them off. We all managed to smile and I think they were close to conquering their concern for me and getting excited again about their big adventure. They suggested we have a family dinner on the thirtieth (Nari included) when they return and we’ll exchange gifts then, so in a way I’ll get two Christmases, which is something to be glad about, but even so, Cole really does know how to put a big fat dampener on everything.
I’ve had a couple of sleepless nights to think over Cole’s baby news, wondering exactly how long he’s been with this cabin crew girl if she’s already three months gone. If I’d had my wits about me, I might have asked if she was the reason he called off the wedding, but the shock was just too much for coherent thought back at Mum and Dad’s the other night, and I really, really don’t think I could handle any more new information right now. Ditched Bride? OK, that’s fine, I guess; but Gullible Cheated-on Fiancée? It doesn’t bear thinking about. Though of course, Ihavebeen thinking about it, and have the sunken black eyes to prove it.
And that’s not all that’s been niggling away at me, if I’m honest. Since Cole’s visit I’d known there was something I had to do and it had been making me even more anxious. Now it’s over with, I suppose you could say I’m relieved.
On my way home from the airport I called in at Patricia Jordan’s house. After making sure Cole’s car wasn’t parked outside, I summoned up all my courage to ring her doorbell. The wait for her to answer felt interminable.
She blanched noticeably when she discovered me standing on her doorstep. I didn’t give her much processing time, I simply put her mother’s precious ring into her hand and said in my biggest, proudest, most dignified voice, ‘I believe you wanted your ring back? Consider it returned. Cole and I have no further business together so if you want any other errands running askthe new girl.’
She didn’t say a word but I know she watched me as I walked back to my car. I kept my head up all the way, even though my legs were wobbling. Once I was safely back in the driver’s seat with the door locked (irrational, I know; women like Patricia Jordan don’t run after ex daughters-in-law so they can shout at them like fishwives in the street), I drove around the corner, pulled to a stop in the car park of a veterinary surgery, and I cried out all the nervous energy that seeing Patricia again had generated, hoping nobody was watching.
As I’d rung her doorbell, it had all came flooding back, all the strange tension that had hung in the air at every encounter we’d ever had, even when we were meant to be enjoying a family meal in her smart dining room or at one of Cole’s legendary barbecues at the Love Shack – the only times he ever set foot in the garden of that place. There was always something amiss, and I’d never fully understood what it was.
We’d hit it off relatively well enough, in the first moment that we met. She’d looked me over and told me she’d always known that one day Cole would ‘bring home a supermodel’. I’d laughed and brushed off the ridiculous compliment at the time. It had taken years to realise that it hadn’t been a compliment at all, but was, in fact, an affront. Patricia’s weapon of choice was to think the worst of someone but smile and say the exaggerated opposite. Over the years I’d heard that kind of thing many times.
‘Sylvie, you’re working so hard at that school, the weight’s justdroppingoff you, and I don’t knowhowyou manage to look so rested.’ That’s Patricia for: ‘You’re overweightandyou’re haggard through overwork’.
Or I’d be told, ‘IKEA curtains, you say? Well, Clementine could learn a lot from you when it comes to scrimping and saving with the housekeeping.’ A Patricia double whammy, flagging her dislike of my cheap and cheerful furnishings while also undermining poor absent Clementine and her elegant, expensive tastes.
The long and the short of the situation, I realised, was that there was no way of pleasing the woman.
When I worked part-time she teased Cole over seemingly never-ending lunches at her house about how wonderful he was for taking extra flights in order to ‘keep me in the manner to which I’d become accustomed.’ And when I moved to working a five-day week, she’d wondered aloud at how I was managing to run a house with only the help of online grocery deliveries and doggy day care for Barney: ‘I don’t know how you do it, Sylvie, always juggling. I’m sure if I tried it, there’d be absolute chaos and my home would resemble a bombsite.’
If I’d prepared us all a meal she’d tell me how she’d recently dined in a restaurant where she’d ordered the exact same dish and it had been ‘cooked to perfection’ there. If I talked about holiday plans with Cole she’d let me know how a couple in her extended circle of friends had visited the same resort and found it ‘fuddy-duddy’ but then would say, ‘you never know,youmight like it Sylvie, dear.’
And all the while, as Patricia smiled placidly and launched her little spite grenades, Cole would sit by her side, utterly unaware, shovelling a towering barbequed burger into his mouth, content in the knowledge that Patricia wholeheartedly approved of everything he did, and thinking how convenient it was that the women in his life got along so well.
