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The staff members were mostly very friendly, but I noticed a change in their behaviour w
hen they were introduced to me.
They were jovial until they heard my name and worked out who my dad had
been.
Then
they went quiet and reflective.
Some looked at me with pity, tilting their hea
ds and asking how I was coping.
Some looked flustered and fou
nd urgent matters to deal with.
The kindest comments were the ones saying how much they missed my dad. I was back to
being the poor orphan, again.

At midday, the staff started to filter out of the office, and Sam explained that they were working a half day as it was thei
r Christmas party that evening.
He asked if I wanted to attend, but I wouldn’t have felt right about it, even if I didn’t already ha
ve plans with my friend, Jade.

“Sam, is it OK if I take a few of
the books from my dad’s office?
I’d like to read up on the business a bit, before I commit to a decision.” My voice sounded child-like, far too
young to be a company director.
I didn’t even know why I was
bothering to borrow the books.
I should really just sign the
company over to Sam, right now.
He cared about the business as much as my dad and h
e’d built it up alongside him.

“Of course, I will need to talk to you about some important decisions soon though, like hiring a new personal assistant – using temps is having a det
rimental impact on the company.
Will you be around during the holidays?” We were standing in my dad’s office, he was pulling a selection of books off the shelf and handing them to me.

“I’m visiting my aunt for a few days, but I’ll have my mobile phone with me.”

“That’s great – just leave the address where you’ll be staying with Andrea, in case we need to send any paperwo
rk for your approval.
I’m really glad you
came to see us today, Claudia.
Bobby would be so proud of you.”

I swallowed a big lump
that had formed in my throat.
He’d been very kind and he was c
learly mourning my father, too.
“Thank you, that means a lot to me,” I struggled to speak.

I walked around to the reception desk, and the greeting I got from Andrea was the polar opposite of the way s
he’d talked to me this morning.
I left Aunt Sandra’s address and telephone number, and told her the dates that I wou
ld be out of town.
I took my dad’s books and w
alked slowly back to my house.

I passed the afternoon by flicking through my dad’s books, reading and re-reading the same paragraphs, unable to take in
the information they contained.
Every time I started reading, my attention wandered to Marty, and then I had to ch
ide myself for thinking of him.
It was so tempting to indulge in the images of him that floated through my head.

I tried to distract myself fr
om Marty by cleaning the house.
Jade was heading over before we went out, to have
dinner and get ready together.
Part of me was looking forward to seeing her and being someone else for a few hours, and the other part of me just wanted t
o be left to mope in my misery.
I imagined Marty watching me and sigh
ed.
I knew it was hard for him to watch my pain, but surely it was just as hard to watch me trying to move on, to pretend that our love hadn’t completely
altered the person that I was.
He was so self-sacrificing, he probably would enjoy watching me move
on.
I wished I
could enjoy making the effort.

I put a bottle of sparkling wine in the fridge to chill – I couldn’t afford champagne, but I felt I should attempt to acknowledge my first big night out since my parents
died and since Marty had left.
I knew Jade would enjoy the wine, even if she didn’t know the true reason for us drinking it.

When I decided my house couldn’t be cleaner, I
crawled into my bed for a nap.
It had been a long time since I’d been out on the town, and I knew Jade liked a late nigh
t.
I didn’
t feel like a teenager anymore.
I didn’t feel like myself anymore.

Chapter 22

I awoke to the sound of the doorbell being rung, followed b
y hammering on the front door.
I’d slept longer than I’d p
lanned and it had turned dark.
I raced down to answer the door to Jade, worrying about how c
old it must be for her outside.
I could hear her mum’s car engine running as she waited
to make sure I opened the door.
I turned the lock and pulled the door open, glad to see a friendly, familiar face.

“Sorry, Jade, I fell asleep.” I waved to the car, not able to see her mum
, but knowing she would see me.
The engine grew louder as the car pulled away from the kerb.

“Bloody hell, babe, it’s freezing out here!” Jade’s cheeks were turning red from the cold and her breat
h hung in the air like a cloud.
I pulled her inside the ho
use and she gave me a huge hug. It was just what I needed.
We stood embracing for a few moments, me clinging to a familiar human, someone to remind me of my previous, carefree life.
Jade rubbed my back in the same way yo
u would comfort a crying child.
“How have you been?” she asked.

I pulled away from her arms and she began
taking off her scarf and coat.
I took them from her and hung them over the banister, knowing we would need th
em again to go out later. “I’m OK.
S
ome days are worse than others. Today was tough.
I went to my dad’s office…”

She tilted her he
ad, sympathy oozing out of her.
She did
n’t make me continue speaking. “That must have been hard.
You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to.”

“I’d rather not talk about it anymore today… I feel all cried out to be honest,” I looked at her and managed a small smile, “I’d like to just pretend to be the old me tonight, to not have to be the poor orphan for a few hou
rs.”

She bent down to pick something out of the carrier bag she’d brought with her and produced a bottle of wine and a box of chocolates. “In that case, le
t’s start as we mean to go on!
I am a girl on a mission tonight!”

“What’s your mission?”
I asked, as we walked into the kitchen and I located a corkscrew.

“To have as much fun as possible, and forget about that dickhead, Mike.” Jade winced as she mentioned her ex-boyfriend, one of her university flatmates whom she had unfortunately found in bed with an
other girl.
“Want to join me?”

I grabbed some wine glasses as she opened the bottle. “What did you have in mind?”

“Drink,” she replied, filling up the wine glasses generously.

“And?”

“Men.” Jade gave me a wicked grin.

“Count me in for the first and out for the second.” I said, raising my glass to her.

“Do you have a special someone?”

Yes. “No…not anymore.”

Her eyes wid
ened as she waited for details.
I knew Jade wouldn’t stop asking until I told her something, it was easier to just tell her the gossip straight away.

“
I fell in love with my lodger.”
I could almost hear her chin drop.

“You said he was old in your email.”

“Older, I said he was older. Not old.
Do
you want to hear this or not?”
Talking about Marty was hard enough, and I didn’t want to drag this out.

“Tell me everything, every juicy detail.” Not likely, I thought.

“So, a few days after he moved in, I started falling for him; and it turns out he felt the same way about me.” I
watched as Jade’s eyes lit up.
For all her man-eater appearance, she was an
old romantic underneath it all.
“We fell i
n love, but he had to leave me.
He had to go a
nd help people really far away.
He only left on Sunday.”

“Oh…” Jade was silent for all of a second, “they say the best way to get over one man is to get under another man.”

I rolled my eyes at her.
“
That is so not going to happen.
You are perverted, you know that, right?”

“That’s what they tell me
!” she giggled and I joined in.
We had both had our hearts broken and had very different outlooks for dealing wi
th the pain.
I had been wallowing in my heartache, acknowledging the void that Marty’s
departure had left in my life.
Jade was seeking approval, validation from a
ny males that crossed her path.
Perhaps the difference was due to our personalities, or perhaps it was due to the polar opposite endings of our relationships
.  Her love had cheated on her.
My love had been un
willingly ripped apart from me.
I was still pondering on this when she spoke again.

“You’ve lost weight,” she commented.

Had I
?
I supposed I hadn’t been eating properly or taking very good care of myself for the past few days and I was dancing
at rehearsals a lot, recently.
“I’m told heartbreak is good for s
hifting the pounds,” I replied.
She pushed the box of chocolates towar
ds me.
I picked out an orange cream, wondering to myself if that counted as one of my five a day fruit portions.

“You need fattening up. You look too skinny.
Pizza tonight?”

I
nodded, “Pizza would be great.”
I would need something to soak up the alcohol; judging by the way Jade was knocking back
the chardonnay, she would too.
She’d already finished her first glass of win
e and was pouring out a second.
I walked over to the drawer where my mum had kept any takeaway flyers that were delivered through the door and selected the
one for my favourite pizzeria.
“What did you fancy?”

“M
ac Efron, George
Klooney and Robert Patter
son!”
She burst into laughter
as she named her favourite three heartthrobs
and, even though I didn’t find her joke that funny, I joined in, desperate to begin my charade of being the old me
for a few hours.

“
How about a total calorie-fest?
Two pizzas, potato wedges,
chicken nuggets and ice cream?
My treat,” I suggested, thinking the more food I could get her to eat, the less drunk she would be by the time we left the house.

“Ye
s!
Brillia
nt.
Thanks, babe.”

I rang the order in and left Jade in the living room watching TV, giving her some money in case the pizza guy turned up while
I quickly hopped in the shower.
By the time I came back downstairs, Jade had finished off the bottle of wine. I’d only had one glass of it.

“Should we do our make up?” I suggested, trying to think of something to keep her hands busy until the pizza arrived.

“No, we’d have to brush our teeth after eating and then we’d mess up our make up!” She had a point. “Is there anything to drink here?”

“Diet coke?
Lemonade?”

She rolled her eyes at me. “A real drink, Claudia.”
The irony of me, the person who had nearly drowned herself in wine a few months ago, trying to control another person’s drinking habit, wasn’t lost o
n me.

“Sure,” I reluctantly admitted, “but let’s take this one steady – it’s sparkly and you know the bubbles take the
alcohol straight to my brain.”
I was hoping that if I acted like I was the one who needed to slow down my drinking, she might follow suit.

I could say one thing for Jade.
When she made up her mind to do someth
ing, she did it wholeheartedly.
There w
ere no half measures with her.
I popped open the wine and
took a small glass in to her.
I considered diluting it with lemonade, but thought she would taste the difference an
d I didn’t like to lie to her.