She disconnected the call and threw her phone into her clutch, trying desperately to steady her breathing. She wasn’t prone to violence, but she had such an urge to kick something, anything. The huge window at the front of Grilled would do. Although, nothing was worth scuffing her Louboutins. And nothing was worth spoiling this make-up, hair and dress. The only way to deal with this was to focus on the big picture. Ken would be hers, tonight – just as soon as she managed to put herself in front of Bernadette. End of story. Getting angry would only make her Botox work harder, so there was no point. Instead, she paused for a moment, inhaled, exhaled, put a huge smile on her face and entered the restaurant.
The difference in the energy was obvious the minute she walked in. Usually, the restaurant was so quiet, intimate and romantic, but tonight it was loud and busy. For a moment, her irritation flared again, until she saw the root of the transformation – two tables of impeccably dressed men, some of them dinging the bell at the top of the attractive scale.
In a split second, the vibe changed, as one by one they spotted her, fixed eyes, and she felt the adrenalin start to kick in. Her reaction to the attention was instant – she threw back her shoulders, worked those hips, adopted a catwalk strut, while all the time acting completely oblivious.
By the time she reached the table with Cammy – who was looking decidedly hot tonight – and her mum and dad, the buzz of the entrance has almost dissipated her earlier fury. A break? Ken didn’t mean that. He loved her. It was just some stupid knee-jerk reaction to the photo. Note to self – must be more careful about location of photos. A second thought struckher – he’d obviously been looking at her Facebook page. He wasn’t on social media at all, so he must just have been checking out her latest posts. That wasn’t the actions of a man who wanted a break.
That realisation was enough to get her back on an even keel. Telling Bernadette was the right thing to do. She had never been surer of anything. In the meantime, she just had to get through this dinner.
By the time the main course came, that was proving tougher than she anticipated. Cammy was in a weird mood – edgy and distracted. While her mother… urgh, she really had to have a word with her. Dad was totally monopolising her attention and it was really starting to get annoying. Much as she’d never admit it, she actually preferred it when he was away two weeks out of the month, because then she had Mum all to herself. Now they just talked about their plans to travel and bloody golf. They hadn’t shown a moment of interest in her all night. Pathetic. And all that stuff about going away for New Year? Not if she could help it. This was going to be her first Hogmanay with Ken and she wanted her parents to share it.
To make it worse, she couldn’t even use her favourite Cristal to take the edge off because she wanted to be able to drive later. This was no time to get hammered. One glass, that was all she could have. Maximum. Bummer.
The only way to get through it was to amuse herself with a few photos. Her with Cammy. Her with Mum. Her with Dad. Her with some French footballers that were dining there too.
It took a good fifteen minutes to work her way around them all, but it was hardly a hardship. Four of them asked for her number. One of them had been particularly keen, Jean Pascal something-or-other. If she was single, she totally would.And if Ken could see her now he would soon shut up about taking a bloody break.
Back at the table, she was out of options for passing the time. All she wanted to do was get the bill, get out of there, and then head over to Ken’s house, knock at the door, reveal all. She’d even made up some lie about wanting to go to the gym to set up an alibi. Then Cammy tried to get her to order dessert. Why would he even think she’d want to join him in the pudding club? Did she look like a Bernadette? Someone who would let herself go and sail off on a sea of carbs? And why was he being so insistent about it? It was only a bloody meringue.
This was so tiresome and she needed it to be over, needed to be out of there and was about to call it a night, when Cammy stuck his fingers right in the pudding, fished something out… What the hell was he doing? What was going on?
Why was he sliding off his chair. Had he dropped something? Taken ill? Oh, hopefully not because then they’d need to wait for an ambulance and they’d never bloody get out of here. No, he wasn’t falling. He was on one knee. And now he was looking at her, all misty-eyed.
A moment of realisation dawned.
He was holding a ring. Her eyes fixed on it. It was the most unremarkable ring she’d ever seen. Nothing to it. A band. A tiny stone. Seriously, was that it?
The rabble of noise in the restaurant seemed to drop, as people started to stare and she felt her face begin to burn. This was, like, so mortifying.
For a split second, her gaze shifted to her mum, who was, as far as her latest round of Botox would allow, bloody beaming with glee too – but there was no surprise there. She knew! Sheabsolutely knew Cammy was planning this and she didn’t even give her a warning? He was speaking, but all she caught was the last line…
‘Lila Anderson, will you marry me?’
Was this a joke? One of those prank videos that would go viral on Facebook?
It had to be, because otherwise he meant it, he really was down there asking her to spend the rest of her life with him.
She couldn’t think. Couldn’t process. Couldn’t speak.
Marry him? She didn’t even want to stay with him. Sure, they’d had a good time but this was never a ‘forever’ deal.
The stares were burning into her skin now. The irony. Her whole life, she’d adored being the centre of attention, and now she would give her last pair of Louboutins to be anywhere but here.
This was a nightmare.
For a split second she saw a different image – Ken, on one knee, asking her to marry him. That’s what her future held, not this.
‘No… I can’t… I…’ There were no more words. Instead, she grabbed her bag, jumped to her feet and rushed to the door. No catwalk swagger this time. Just a heart-thudding charge, as fast as she could go in those heels, while every bit of her seared with embarrassment at the fact that every person in the restaurant was watching her with astonishment.
Outside, another moment of panic. Keys. She fumbled in her clutch and pulled them out, beeping the car open.
‘Lila!’ Her mum’s voice. Traitor. Last person she wanted to speak to. Why hadn’t she told her Cammy was going to do this? She could have been prepared, cancelled dinner, spoken to him.
Horns blared as a lifetime of practice in heels allowed her to break into a run across the road, with no attention whatsoever to the cars coming along the street. Thankfully she made it, opened the door, jumped in, pushed on the ignition button and she was out of the space, in another cacophony of horns, in seconds. No doubt there would be a CCTV camera covering this street and she’d get a visit from the police next week, but right now she didn’t care. She wanted,needed, to be out of there. She put her foot down, and negotiated the grid of Glasgow’s one-way system, left, lights, left again, lights, lights, more bloody lights, left, and then she was at the end of Great Western Road, heading towards the West End, stopping every few hundred metres for more hugely irritating lights.
Her stomach was revolving like the inside of a tumble dryer. This was too much. As she sat drumming her fingers on the steering wheel at another set of lights, halfway to her destination, her phone buzzed. Cammy. She declined. It buzzed again. Her mum. She declined. She didn’t want to speak to anyone. That wasn’t true. There was only one person she wanted to speak to.
Another set of lights. Drumming her fingers again. An image in her head. Cammy. Looking so thrilled, so gorgeous, so hopeful that she would say yes. For a moment she thought she was going to have to open the door and vomit on the Corsa full of young guys, music pounding, that had just pulled up next to her.
