Only she’d never expected Liza to do it, too. Not after twenty-six years of friendship.
She closed her eyes and thought. Getting out of here would need a plan and she needed to be out of this hotel or she would break down completely.
She had her tiny bridesmaidy handbag: there was nothing else in the reception room. If she could sneak upstairs to her bedroom, she could speedily change into her ordinary clothes and leave. She wasn’t going to talk to anyone, not explain anything. She knew she could get upstairs via the back staircase.
Summoning up the courage from somewhere in her bruised heart, she left the women’s room.
To distract herself, Ginger thought of all the tough things she’d had to do in her life.
Exist in a world where she had no mother and everyone else did. Smile and pretend it didn’t hurt when the girls in her class made Mother’s Day cards and she couldn’t. She’d made one for Great-Aunt Grace, who was not precisely motherly but who loved Ginger fiercely in her own eccentric way.
She’d braved college, scared of leaving people like Liza – what an irony – to swim in waters she was sure would be full of sleek sharks. Yet it was there that she’d found her tribe: people who liked knowledge, books, seeking things out.
Her first job: where that first, terrifying day someone had called her a ‘fine big lump of a girl who’d keep a man warm at night’. Ginger hadn’t run crying or screamed harassment. No, she’d begun developing her tough-girl persona.
‘You can dream, old-timer,’ she’d said, dredging up a wide smile, as if he hadn’t hurt her to her marrow.
She’d done all that. She could do this, too.
Then she rounded a corner and reached the bit of the lobby where she needed to slip into the corridor to the back stairs.
Despite being almost hidden by a selection of giant palms, she could see the after-party guests arriving. She recognised some of Liza’s outer circle, people Liza didn’t really hang around with, so they wouldn’t have been considered good enough to ask to the wedding but were still perfect for the after-party.
If they saw her, they would look at her dress and smile, or worse, say: ‘Oh, you look lovely, Ginger.’ Which was a lie, Ginger thought. A complete lie. She obviously looked terrible and everyone thought it but nobody had said it to her face.
And then she stilled. Over to one side of the lobby stood James, Liza’s new husband, along with Liza, Charlene and Stephen, the man that Ginger had really thought she was going to take upstairs to her room. The man who’d asked her for a date, when hehada girlfriend.
He still looked handsome but also strangely conniving at the same time and how had she not noticed that his eyes were so close together?
She was overcome with a desire to slap him, but Ginger, who had never used physical violence in her life, wanted to hit Liza even more.
Liza had betrayed her totally.
Ginger wanted to scream:When were you going to edit me out of your life, Liza?
The four beautiful people were laughing. Probably about her.
Stupid, sad old Ginger – fancying a man who would only want to grope her because she’d pushed herself on him.
Rage, which had been absent when she was in the toilet cubicle reeling from shock, asserted itself.
With fierce determination, she walked right up to the quartet and stood in front of them, not caring that the tears she’d tried so hard to suppress had begun to roll down her face.
‘I heard you,’ she said, staring at Liza, ignoring everyone else. ‘I heard you in the bathroom, I was in one of the stalls. I can’t believe you’d talk about me like that. I’m your oldest friend. How could you say all those things?’
Liza looked discomfited, which was something Ginger had rarely seen before.
‘Well,’ blustered Liza, faced with this new, angry Ginger. ‘Nobody said you can’t snog Stephen. Might be good for you. Get you over the drought ...’
‘What drought?’ Charlene was eager to know.
‘The permanent bloody drought,’ said James, who looked bored. ‘Let’s not ruin our day, Liza,’ he said to his new wife. ‘Ginger, go and do the wild thing with Stephen. Get it out of your system. You need a fuck. Virginity’s only for the really religious. At your age, it’s embarrassing. You just need a kick-start.’
Ginger felt the words like a fist to her solar plexus.
‘You’ve never had sex?’ gasped Charlene, fascinated. ‘Like, ever?’
‘You told James about me,’ said Ginger quietly to Liza. ‘My secret.’
