The Broken Hearts Book Club (22 page)

I started painting what would be my bedroom on a beautiful May morning. Sunlight streamed in through the window as I slapped ecru paint on the wall. Music blasted through my headphones and I couldn’t help but steal glances at the breath-taking beach that lay just a few feet away. The breeze coming through the open French windows ruffled my hair, tied away from my face with a red bandana, and brought a smile to my face.

This view was all mine now. It belonged to me and I to it.

Taking my headphones off I listened to the gentle lapping of waves on the sand and the distant crying of seagulls as they came to rest on the cliffs. To think that I’d be waking up to this every morning made my heart flutter.

‘Here we are!’ Elle came in carrying steaming hot mugs of tea on a tray. The china chinked dangerously as it wobbled around and little ripples formed on the top of the tea.

‘You’re a lifesaver!’ I took one of the cups and sat on the bed with it. ‘I feel like I’m painting the bloody Sistine Chapel!’

‘This is why I’m sticking to tea and cake duty.’ She reached into her black Mulberry slouch bag and pulled out a bag of freshly baked cupcakes. ‘Here, I got these from the café.’

Even the vague mention of the Moonlight Café made my insides wrench. I hadn’t been there in so long and could only imagine the smell of cakes and newly made coffee. I pictured Diane’s face behind the counter, smiling when the bell above the door rang to herald a new customer. It was horrible to think of her and the other Broken Hearts Book Club members still mired in grief after my bad advice had ruined everything. I probably wouldn’t get another chance to help them either; they more than likely wanted nothing more to do with me.

‘Are you OK?’ Elle’s voice broke through my thoughts. ‘Do you want lemon, chocolate or vanilla?’

‘Oh, um, vanilla please.’ I tried to bring my focus back to the room and away from the Broken Hearts Book Club. ‘I-I don’t suppose you popped by The Purple Partridge on your way here?’

She shook her head. ‘No I’m afraid not. I can go there now if you like? See if Jake’s around to have a word with?’

I put my vanilla cupcake back in the bag and picked up my roller again. ‘Oh no, that’s OK. Don’t worry about it; I-I just wondered if he’d left for Spain yet. I might drop in later, see if he’s about.’

Yeah right
, I said to myself,
I’m avoiding that man at all costs
.

Elle’s lips curved into a smile. ‘Lucy, if you actually go over to that pub, I’ll sell every designer handbag I own. I know you, you’ll run away from it like you always do and you know what, I’m not going to let you. This place is perfect for you,
Jake
is perfect for you and that club has done you the world of good. You need to tell him how you feel; if he knew how you really feel about him, he’d cancel his flights quicker than you can say
Viva España
. He might’ve kissed Rachel, but anyone who isn’t daft can see it’s you he wants.’

I dropped my roller and retrieved the cupcake from the bag. ‘Look, it’s best if he goes. If he doesn’t, he’ll miss out on being with Maya and I can’t have that. He got back together with Rachel after telling me there was no way he’d do that. He said if he went, he’d be going for Maya only – so she must’ve done something to change his mind. After all, he kissed her in front of everyone in the pub.’

I recalled the look on his face when Rachel had excitedly announced they were getting back together. Everything about him had positively screamed
no we’re bloody not!
Then he’d kissed her and dispelled any notion I’d had that he was being forced into a life he wasn’t happy with. If that was the case, why did he kiss her?

My best friend did her famous pout and gave me her ‘you’re going to listen to me because you know I’m right’ look.

‘All right, if he’s so happy to be back together with Rachel, why is he constantly trying to get in touch with you? If he wanted to let you down gently, there are far easier ways to do it than that. And since you keep bringing him up in conversation whenever you can, I’m guessing you still love him too.’

I screwed my eyes shut and groaned. ‘Why do you know me so bloody well?’

‘I’m your best friend,’ she replied, scooping some lemon buttercream into her mouth. ‘It’s my job.’

‘Well you’re too bloody good at it!’ I grimaced and picked up my roller to do some more work on the wall I’d been painting.

‘Just talk to him, will you? There must be some way around this whole Spain thing. You two are obviously mad about each other, so you’ll find a way to make it work.’

I sighed. There was no way to make this work. Life wasn’t a fairy tale or a romantic comedy; some things just weren’t meant to be.

Later on, after the first coat of paint had been put on the bedroom walls, I went for a walk on the beach to clear my head. I’d thought of nothing except how stupid I’d been to push Jake away. There was nothing I could do though; he’d gone to Rachel now and I had to accept that.

Something in the distance caught my eye. There were two people walking near the water, their figures blurred by the low-lying sun. From where I was standing, I could see two taller people with a smaller one sitting on the tallest one’s shoulders. It looked like an ordinary cosy family scene, but something made me want to investigate more. I had a sneaking suspicion who the figures might be and I hoped to God I was wrong. I started walking towards them to find out.

I broke into a run so I didn’t lose the three figures before I unmasked their identities. It was pretty hard to make this look normal, considering I was wearing a dress and pumps, but as nobody else was around to judge I didn’t care. As I drew closer, a feeling of dread slowly began to grip me.

My instincts had been right.

‘Oh Laura, fancy seeing you here!’ Rachel’s toothy grin was stretched to breaking point.

‘It’s Lucy.’ I could barely get my words out as I caught my breath.

Jake avoided my eyes; I guessed this was so Rachel didn’t kick off and cause a scene. Either that or the seaweed he had his eyes fixed on really was more interesting than my face.

‘What are you doing here?’ she asked, taking Maya from Jake’s shoulders and balancing her on her hip. Almost immediately, she started crying and Rachel put her down like she was an unexploded bomb. I had to force down a smile.

‘My cottage is just off the beach, so I like to come down here for a walk or a run sometimes.’

She didn’t look particularly convinced with my story. ‘And you just happened to be here at the same time as us? What a lovely coincidence, don’t you think so Jake?’

Jake was too busy making funny faces at Maya to bother with us. I didn’t blame him; her adorable little giggle was way more fun than my and Rachel’s casual sniping.

‘Jake!’

Rachel’s sharp but sweet voice caught his attention and he whipped his head round to see what all the fuss was about.

‘Sorry, what?’

‘I was
just saying
what a
lovely
coincidence it is that Lucy’s here on the beach at the exact same time we are. Don’t you agree?’

I could tell what Rachel was thinking: that Jake and I had somehow engineered a ‘chance’ meeting to see each other without arousing suspicion. I wanted to tell her she couldn’t be more wrong, but didn’t bother. She wouldn’t believe me anyway. The undertone to what she was saying was obviously lost on Jake, judging by the frown that furrowed his brow and made him look ridiculously cute.

‘Yeah I suppose it is a coincidence,’ he replied, ‘but this is a public space so anybody could be here at any time. Oh Luce, I meant to say thanks for helping me organise the cocktail party. It was amazing, even made the local paper.’

You’ve crapped all over me and you want to talk about the sodding cocktail party
, I wanted to say. One look at them was enough to remind me that it was my stupidity that had brought them together. I hadn’t wanted to get in the way of him being a dad to Maya, so I’d done the decent thing and stepped aside so he could do whatever he needed to. Which was apparently getting back together with Rachel.

‘Yeah anyone could,’ she agreed, ‘but she’s the only one here that you’ve shagged.’

My jaw dropped and I immediately turned to look at Maya. It was disgusting that she had to hear something so vile from her own mother, I thought.

Jake echoed my thoughts. ‘Jesus Christ Rachel, watch what you’re saying in front of Maya will you?!’

‘I wouldn’t have to if your ex-girlfriend didn’t show up every five minutes! You two are supposed to be finished yet she’s always popping up wherever we are! I’m the mother of your child, we’re trying to make this bloody relationship work and you’re hardly helping by mooning over her every chance you get! ’

If ever there was such a thing as a conversation killer that was pretty much it. It sounded like Rachel had reached breaking point, judging by the swift change in her demeanour and tone. She’d gone from being sunny and calm to caustic and sharp. None of us knew what to say, just stared blankly at each other, the sand, the cliffs, anything that might hold an answer.

‘We’re not together any more,’ I said, taking the bull by its proverbial horns. ‘In fact, we never really were. Not properly anyway. Whatever there was between us, it’s finished now. Right Jake?’

His jaw was set into a familiar hard line and he gave a silent nod to confirm my story.

‘Yeah that’s right.’

Rachel gave a sunny smile and grabbed his hand. ‘Well now that that’s sorted, we’ll be going now. Lots of family stuff to do and that! We’re planning our farewell party, you see.’

Although it was customary to finish a conversation with ‘nice chatting to you’ or something, she didn’t bother with that. She yanked Jake towards the path that led away from the beach and didn’t look back once.

Jake did though. For the briefest of seconds, our eyes met for what we knew in our hearts was the last time.

Chapter Twenty-One

Leaving Jake behind was the single hardest thing I’d ever had to do. He’d brought so much sunshine to me and my world felt empty and cold without him. Every time I allowed myself to think about him or miss him, a little voice in my head would pipe up
you let him go, this is all your fault
. It was right: if I had stuck by him while he figured out the Spain thing and not run off as I usually did, Rachel would never have been in the picture. This proved what I’d known all along: anyone good who came into my life would inevitably leave and that I didn’t deserve to be happy. Just as I’d been developing real feelings for Jake, Fate had intervened and torn us apart. I’d be paying for what happened to Vicky for the rest of my life.

Aside from Jake’s now imminent departure, I still had a lot of making up to do with the Broken Hearts Book Club. My bad advice had landed them in some sticky situations and it was up to me to fix them.

My first target was Denise. She and her husband John still weren’t back in the same house from what I’d heard, and were barely on speaking terms. I saw her coming out of Frank’s corner shop on a gorgeous mid-May afternoon and seized my chance.

‘Hi Denise!’ I kept my tone as bright and breezy as possible.

She looked up at me and smiled. I couldn’t believe she wasn’t about to tear my head off after what had happened.

‘Hiya flower, how’s tricks?’

‘I want a chance to make things up to you. I owe you one for my rubbish advice about the charity skydive. What do you say?’

She watched me through narrowed eyes, trying to figure out if my intentions were honourable or not.

‘If you can get my husband to at least entertain the idea of speaking to me again, all will be forgiven.’

‘OK,’ I said, ‘give me his number and I’ll sort something out.’

An hour and one begging phone call later, John and Denise were in the Moonlight Café, sitting on opposite sides of the table and not speaking to each other. I’d appointed myself mediator, which was laughable under the circumstances.

‘So John, what exactly was it about the skydive that you weren’t happy with?’

‘She said she wanted to do it for our Rebecca, but she said stuff about moving on too. I don’t want her to do that. I don’t want her forgetting our daughter.’

‘As if I ever could! She was everything to me John, but we’ve been stuck in this limbo for far too long. I want to do something special to honour Rebecca’s memory but to start a clean slate as well. Do you think she’d want us moping around at home all day, crying our eyes out? Of course she wouldn’t! She’d be ashamed of us if she could see us now.’

John banged on the table in a fit of temper. ‘That’s not true! By grieving for her, we
are
honouring her memory! We’re not letting ourselves forget her, we think about her every day and we’re not just tossing her aside with all our other old memories.’ He suddenly broke down in tears. ‘I don’t want to let her go! I should’ve done more to save her, should’ve researched more treatments…’

His words dissolved into great racking sobs. Denise reached over and put her hands on top of his.

‘You did everything you could for her, John. I’d give anything to bring her back, but we can’t. We owe it to her to keep living, you and me. To make sure we live each day to the full. That doesn’t mean forgetting her, it means we appreciate the time we’ve got and make the most of it.’

John sniffed and wiped his nose with a napkin. ‘I miss her so much. I-I wonder what she’d be like now, if she were still here a-and I try to do something every day to make her proud.’

‘That’s why I wanted to do the skydive,’ she said gently. ‘To make Becky proud.’

He nodded and looked down at the gingham tablecloth. ‘I’ve been so horrible to you, Denise. Can you forgive me? M-maybe we could even do the skydive together. If you wanted to, like.’

Denise glanced sideways at me and smiled. ‘I’d like that very much.’

Next on my list of fix-its were Cath and Frank. They’d barely spoken to each other since their disastrous date and a thirty-year friendship was on the line.

Frank was tethered to his corner shop, so it was a case of getting Cath to go to him. That was no mean feat, considering she practically lived at the library she worked in, so I drafted in Elle to help me come up with a ruse to lure her away.