Page 79 of Love Letters on Hazel Lane

‘I’m glad,’ she said.

She glanced over at the exit where Razz, his arms full of boxes, was nudging the double doors open with his foot.

‘I don’t suppose you could look at that spreadsheet for me, could you? I mean, if you’re too tired, that’s fine, but I’d appreciate it.’

Mr Morgan was looking at her expectantly. After he’d been kind enough to let them use the school all weekend, well, she could hardly refuse, could she? And it wouldn’t take long. She could talk to Razz once she’d finished.

But by the time she had finished untangling Mr Morgan’ circular references, Razz was nowhere to be seen.

*

Monday morning.

Jo had once spent her weekends looking forward to getting back to the office; she liked having people to talk to. Even when Leona joined the company, Jo had still preferred the working week to the long, lonely Sundays.

But something had changed. Since she’d met Razz, got involved with the Scrabble club and taken on the mammoth task of organising the festival, she’d begun to enjoy her weekends. And the more she’d enjoyed her weekends, the more she’d realised that she didn’t enjoy her job. At Pop! Productions, her organisational skills were mocked, not appreciated. No-one ever listened to her ideas. And when her colleagues went off for an after-work drink, they never thought to invite her along.

All things considered, her workplace had become toxic. Yes, that was definitely the right word. Toxic – 14 points. No, place that on a double word score and make it 28 points. Because the environment at Pop! Productions was, as far as Jo was concerned, doubly toxic.

And now something had changed again. Hebbleswick Scrabble Festival had come to an end. Razz was with Zoey. Probably, anyway. She still didn’t know for sure.

She picked up her phone and looked at the time: 5.57 a.m. The alarm would go off in one hour and three minutes. She rolled over, pulled the duvet over her head and wondered what Razz was doing now. He couldn’t be in bed with Zoey already, could he?

Probably not. Not yet. He wasn’t the sort of man who leapt into bed with a woman the minute he met her. He’d be wooing her, taking her out to dinner, getting to know her.

She really must stop torturing herself with these thoughts.

She felt deflated. And it wasn’t only the thought that Razz and Zoey were now dating each other, or the fact that she’d soon be walking into her toxic workplace. She had the same flat feeling that she’d had the day after her Grade 2 violin exam and the day after her GCSEs. All that build-up to the festival. The excitement. The energy. The adrenaline surging through her veins. Or was it arteries? (Razz would know but he wasn’t there to ask.) And now, suddenly, wham. It was all over.

It had been odd yesterday that he’d left without saying goodbye to her. Disappeared without a word. They’d never arranged anything, but she’d always envisaged that once everything was tidied up after the festival, they’d go for a drink – or a cup of tea at least – and discuss how it had gone. Celebrate their achievement, no matter how tired they both were. Had he rushed off to be with Zoey?

What the hell was she going to do with herself? she wondered as she walked to the station. Every spare minute had been devoted to organising the festival. How would she pass the evenings and weekends now?

She’d assumed that once it was over, she and Ras – Razz, now – would continue spending time together. Even if he didn’t want her in a romantic way, she’d imagined that they’d still meet as friends. That he might invite her over to play Scrabble at his place. That she might give her tatty house a bit of a makeover and invite him over to hers. That they’d hang out.

That was what she wanted more than anything. Even more than she wanted a boyfriend, she wanted a friend to hang out with.

But she couldn’t imagine Zoey being the type who’d be happy with her new boyfriend – assuming Razz was now her boyfriend – spending time with another woman. Even if they were only playing Scrabble.

Later, as her packed train trundled towards Manchester, Jo realised she was going back to her old life. A life of lonely evenings playing word games on her phone and watching box sets of nineties medical dramas. Maybe she’d try Grey’s Anatomy instead of ER; she wasn’t sure Dr Ross did it for her anymore. You could keep your Dr Ross; it was Dr Razz who occupied her daydreams these days.

She pulled out her phone and clicked on WordPals. As the train left the hills behind, Jo spelled out SAD and scored a miserable 4 points. As it crawled towards the high-rise buildings of Manchester, she scored another 9 points with HOPE, and as it pulled into Victoria Station, she used a blank tile and added LESS to HOPE and scored another 13 By the time she reached the ticket barriers, she had lost the game.

The office was buzzing with the usual Monday morning hum about who’d done what over the weekend. For once, she wanted someone to say, How was your weekend, Jo? What did you get up to? so she could say, I organised a Scrabble Festival and hundreds of people came and it raised loads of money and was a great success and everyone had a fantastic time.

Well, everyone apart from her when she saw the man she was in love with tick someone else’s box at the speed-dating event. But they didn’t need to know about that bit.

No-one asked her anyway.

‘Morning,’ she called, trying to sound cheerful as she sat down at her desk.

Only Caroline replied, ‘Morning, Jo,’ back to her. That was something at least. There’d been some mornings when no-one had replied at all.

At eleven o’clock, they all filed into the meeting room as usual, notebooks in hand. Well, Jo had her Filofax and the others all had notebooks. David closed the door behind them and took his place as he always did at the head of the table.

‘Fabulous show last week,’ he said. ‘Good viewing figures too.’

He said this every week, regardless of the actual viewing figures. Probably thought it was good for team morale.