The Chatsfield Short Romances 11-15. Fiona Harper

schoolgirls, dragging me in their wake. I stare longingly at the polished lift doors. My fingers itch to reach out and touch the call button.

      But escaping to the suite won’t help. All it will do is prolong the hours I spend staring at the bedroom ceiling, alone and waiting for the dawn to come.

      We pass the ballroom as we make our way towards the bar and Mel stops, listening beyond the doors. I can hear music. Not pop or classical, but something with a sharp and sultry tempo.

      ‘Sounds like quite a party,’ she says, then she and Vikki are giggling again. They both turn to me, a question in their eyes. My insides start to feel heavy.

      I don’t know what’s wrong with my two best friends. They’ve been getting wilder and wilder all week. In their attempts to help me ‘snap out’ of whatever’s got me, they’re spinning faster and faster, trying to suck me up into their whirlwind.

      I start to shake my head, but then the door opens and a couple wander into the lobby, giving a tantalising glimpse of the party for just a second. Before I know it, Mel grabs my hand and drags me inside. Vikki acts as rear guard, blocking my escape.

      Even though it’s close to midnight, and it’s obvious there were originally more guests at this event, the faithful are still going strong. The band is playing an up-tempo salsa song and people are dancing. It’s not showy, like they’ve been to ballroom classes after watching Strictly and want to demonstrate their skills. The way they move is natural. Easy. As if they’ve been doing it their whole life and don’t really have to think about where their arms and legs are going.

      I want to feel the way they feel, I think to myself. I want to feel as if reality is nothing but the thrum of the music in my breastbone, that nothing exists beyond the unthinking sway of my hips as my feet travel across the floor.

      ‘Oh!’ Vikki says, stopping short, her eyes fixed on something further into the room. ‘Maybe this isn’t such a good idea after all.’

      Mel follows her gaze and also stops smiling. She reaches back and grabs hold of my hand.

      I hadn’t really been paying much attention to my surroundings, too caught up in watching the easy elegance of the couples on the dance floor. Now I look around.

      It must have been a very elegant party. There are beautiful crystal glasses on the tables, most now either empty or half full with flat champagne. Flowers in tall-stemmed vases stand guard over those that are left. Everything is cream and gold. Very elegant. Very romantic.

      A thought starts to form in my head, something tickling round the edges of my consciousness. I frown and glance further around the room.

      That’s when it hits me, the reason this whole thing seems vaguely familiar, like a half-remembered dream. My eyes finally come to rest on the remains of a large and elaborately decorated four-tiered cake in the corner. It is then I notice the sparkly confetti everywhere, the forgotten bridal favours left on the tables. Everything inside me turns cold. I feel as if I’m in a horror film, at the exact moment where the girl in the nightdress realises the monster is in the house, and the camera does that thing where it both zooms in on her and zooms out on the background at the same time.

      ‘Come on,’ Mel says, tugging at my captive hand. ‘This was a bad idea. Let’s just go.’

      I can’t move. All I can do is stand and stare at the stupid cake. All I can think is that it’s nicer than the one that I chose, the one I don’t even know what happened to—did anyone eat it? Did it just get thrown away?—and I’m jealous. I’m actually jealous.

      I’m so pathetic I start to laugh. Softly.

      Vikki steps closer. ‘Come on, Soph…’

      ‘No.’

      I pull my hand away from Mel’s. I don’t know how I know it’s there, but I turn and look at the bar on the far side of the room. I’ve been drinking all week. Because I’m supposed to be drowning my sorrows, because I’m supposed to be having fun in an attempt to stick two fingers up at my absent groom. Because I’m supposed to be toasting my own phoenix-like regeneration after a holiday with the girls.

      I start walking towards it, the only thing in my focus the bartender conscientiously cleaning a glass with a sparkling white napkin. I’ve been drinking all week, but this is the first time I’ve really craved alcohol.

      ‘Go if you want to,’ I say loud enough for the two women staring at my back to hear, ‘but I’m staying.’

      It’s time I stopped running and turned to face the monster.

       Chapter Three

      ‘You don’t look as if you are having a very good time.’

      I look up from my glass of Scotch to find a man sitting on the bar stool next to me. He is looking at me. Not in a sleazy way, but with guarded curiosity. I prepare to say that I’m fine, that I’m just a bit tired, but the words never leave my lips. I just haven’t got the energy to lie any more, and this man doesn’t know me. I don’t have to pretend that Gareth’s actions haven’t made me feel like a fragile piece of confetti trodden onto the bottom of somebody’s shoe.

      He nods at the circus of movement and enjoyment on the dance floor and raises his eyebrows.

      ‘Probably because my life has gone down the toilet,’ I say matter-of-factly. ‘I don’t belong here, anyway. I crashed this wedding.’

      His expression doesn’t change but I spot a glimmer of amusement in his eyes as I slam my tumbler back down on the bar and signal for the bartender to keep ‘em coming.

      I look at my companion. He is older than I am but I can’t tell by how much. He has thick dark hair that might wave if it were allowed to grow longer, and there is a speckling of grey not only at the temples but in the cowlick on his forehead. He isn’t handsome. Not in the pretty, chiselled way Mel and Vikki like their men—his nose is too strong and his eyes too deep-set—but there is something about him. I’m surprised he’s bothered to stop and talk to me. There are much better pickings on the dance floor—including Mel and Vikki.

      For a moment he doesn’t say anything, just absorbs my answer, then he also signals to the bartender, while pushing my empty tumbler away from me. ‘There’s only one thing for heartache,’ he says completely seriously.

      I realise he has a slight accent. Mediterranean, maybe. Spanish?

      He leans forward and gives instructions to the bartender, who places two large goblets in front of each of us and fills them with a dark, fragrant red wine. ‘Try it,’ he tells me and I hesitantly reach out and take hold of the glass, allow myself a tiny sip. It tastes amazing, of berries and plums and vanilla, and it feels like velvet on my tongue.

      ‘What is it?’ I ask, already yearning for more.

      ‘Malbec,’ he says, ‘2006 vintage. That was a wonderful year.’

      ‘You know about wine?’ I take another sip. It’s even better second time around. I can taste spices and rich fruit and a hundred other things I’m not sophisticated enough to identify.

      He smiles and his serious eyes light up. My tummy warms. I tell myself it’s the wine.

      ‘It is my passion,’ he says. I think that only someone who looks and sounds like him can get away with saying something like that. On an English man it would sound either ridiculous or insincere. I like his honesty. I have forgotten men can be so honest.

      Not that Gareth is a cad. He didn’t lie to me. It was the truth he hid that brought me here today, seeking a cure for my heartache in a bottle of exquisite Malbec. The truth that he didn’t love me enough to marry me. I have discovered that truth omitted can be every bit as damaging as all-out deception.

      I turn and face the bar, stare without focusing at the smooth wooden surface. ‘Thank you,’ I say. ‘You’re