The One Before the One (27 page)

After we lost the Schumacher account, Lexi single-handedly won it back. I came back to work from lunch one day to find my little sister in the meeting room with Darryl Bum Smacker having a power meeting all on her own!

‘What the hell?’ I yelped to Shona.

‘I know. They’ve been in there an hour,’ she said.

Without telling me, the little so-and-so had arranged a meeting with Darryl, explained about the profit slip up, navigated her way through a minefield of negotiations with the sort of charm most people can only dream of, and won the Minty Me account back.

We did a deal: SCD would pay more for Minty Me and he stopped with the sexual innuendos and making people feel uncomfortable. Lexi had come straight out with it: ‘Basically, Darryl, when you do that, people think you’re a letch.’ A feminist icon, in her own lunchtime!

So a Diploma in Business Management and Enterprise starts
next week. ‘Tomorrow, Doncaster market. Next year – the world!’ Lexi joked when she got the letter. And I’m so proud of her. It’s all her doing, at the end of the day.

‘She’s happy, that kid, you know?’ says Dad. ‘She’s a changed girl since she came to London. All thanks to you, of course.’ He nudges me on the arm.

‘I think she just learned how to make herself happy, Dad,’ I say, as Lexi throws her head back and necks straight from the bottle. ‘And to drink professionally, it seems.’

Since our chat in KFC, Dad seems so much more relaxed, less manic. Like he’s realized he doesn’t have to overcompensate any more, that it’s okay to be him. That I forgive him.

He passes me a plastic glass, fills me up with champagne, and we stand there laughing at Lexi as she drags her friends from ride to ride.

Then suddenly, a familiar voice …

‘Fancy a go on the Dodgems, Trevor?’

I freeze.
My mother. My mother talking to my father?

It was always a risk to invite both parties. They haven’t been in the same room for twenty-two years. To be honest, when Mum said she would come, I started to get panicky. ‘Charlie’s going to drive,’ she said, proudly. (Now she had a driver, I’d never get rid of her.) But to come to Lexi’s birthday? When she knew Dad was definitely going to be there, too? Now, this was progress.

And then the most miraculous thing happens; Dad answers Mum’s little joke and they start to talk. I mean talk, actually
talk
(and even laugh a little), and for the first time since I was fifteen years old, I realize I am watching my parents have a conversation.

I leave them to it. Ten minutes now. Just enough time to get a drink before Wayne gets here, but the words from Rachel’s letter are reverberating in my head and I’ve already got an idea what I might do.

Only we can change the course of our love lives …

I bump into Lexi and Jerome hand in hand on the way to the stall. She’s all breathy and overexcited and high on her birthday.

‘Is he here yet?’ she says. ‘Have you seen Wayne yet? Don’t let him go before he says goodbye to me, too, will you?’ Then she’s dragged off to go on the Dodgems.

I stand at the queue.

Only we can change our story …

There’s a pat on my back. ‘Hello, Caro.’ I turn to find Martin standing there. He and Lexi have had a few phone chats about Clark, since it all came out. She feels terrible about how mean she was to him – even if it was all my fault – so she invited him to come down today. Well, actually, she invited Martin
and
Polly.

‘Hey, Martin, how are you? Is …?’

‘Yes, she’s over there,’ he says, proudly, gesturing to Polly queuing at the drinks van.

Martin and Polly are officially going out now. I’ve seen them sitting outside the Duke two Saturdays in a row. He always was a man of habit.

‘How’s it going?’ I say.

‘Well,’ says Martin, ‘really well. We’re going on holiday next week, two weeks on a French cooking course in the Dordogne.’

He’s beaming from ear to ear and I think how long it’s been since I’ve seen him smile like that. ‘That’s great, Martin. That’s really great.’

‘Yes.’ He nods. ‘Yes, it is.’ Then he says, ‘You know, I think she might be it – The One, Caroline.’

His eyes are shining. And I’m glad,
so
glad.

I give him a peck on the cheek. ‘Oh, Martin,’ I say, ‘I’m so pleased for you.’

Turns out he was right, I hadn’t ruined his life at all, that
it was only just beginning, that all he needed was to be set free. It turns out I wasn’t The One after all, was I? I was the one before The One.

There’s a slightly too long silence. I know what I want to say, but dare I? I don’t know if I should … Sod it, I think, I may never get another chance.

So I say:

‘Martin, you know something?’

‘No, what?’ he says.

‘Polly’s a very lucky lady.
I
was lucky, too. That’s all I really wanted to say.’

‘Lucky?’ he says, bewildered.

‘To have you love me,’ I say.

And he smiles and looks towards Polly. He knows he has to go now, that this might even be the last time we have a proper conversation because that’s how it goes. That’s how relationships go. And so he hesitates, he looks at me and says,

‘And a part of me probably always will.’

I’ve got my drink now and I’m walking back through the fairground towards our party. I can hear the faint squeals of people being thrown upside down on some ride or other, and Amy Winehouse blasting from the speakers.

Then, he’s walking towards me. He’s smiling, waving, and I wave back. I feel the tissue paper of his present in my hand and I put it behind my back.

He’s right in front of me now. He gives me a hug.

‘All packed?’ I say.

‘Yeah, just Dave left in the hammock and a load of boxes.’

I laugh. I see his eyes dart to the hand behind my back and the present, but he doesn’t say a thing.

I think about the letter lying back at home.
Only we can change the course of our love lives, only we can change our
story, because Toby will never change the course of his.
The words fill my head.

We start walking.

‘So, how’s Birthday Girl?’ he says.

‘Oh, pissed.’

‘I should think so, too.’ He laughs. ‘It
is
her eighteenth birthday.’

‘You say that, but I was sober as a judge on my eighteenth birthday. I had a ceramic-painting party for Christ’s sake!’

Wayne cracks up laughing.

‘A ceramic-painting party? Jeez, you really were square, weren’t you? A late developer, I’d say. Making up for lost time now.’

‘Do you remember your eighteenth birthday?’ I ask as we walk.

‘Oh yeah.’ He grimaces. ‘Oh, that one was bad. I got dumped on my eighteenth birthday. Lucy bloody—’

‘Briers?’ I interrupt, jokingly but he nods, resignedly.

‘As a matter of fact, yes.’

I stop.

‘What, and you didn’t even change her name?’

‘Not hers, no,’ he says. ‘I particularly wanted revenge on that little minx.’

I start to giggle and I peer at him, coyly.

‘So can I ask – the weights and the working out in the back garden?’

He grimaces. ‘Yep, that too, I’m afraid. Never did get a six pack.’

‘So, Sarah Rawlinson?’

He laughs.

‘Oh no, no. Lucy Briers is where the autobiography ends. Everyone else who broke Kevin Hart’s heart, I totally made up.’

A pause. We both know he has to go soon. There are new people moving into the boat and the removal van’s arriving. Give him the present now, I think, whilst we’re talking about
the book. Just do it! But I can’t seem to move my hands from behind my back. So I say:

‘Do you want to go on the waltzers?’

And he looks at me and pulls a face.

‘You? On the waltzers? Wow, you really have come over all daring since you went on my bike.’

So we do, the tissue-paper wrapped present lodged between us. As well as something else as loaded as a gun.

I scream as our carriage spins so much I think it might come right off and sail into the air.

Wayne is laughing with a mixture of fear and delight. He takes my hand in his, our heads are pushed right back, and for a second I dare to open my eyes. Above us, clouds whip and spin, the sunlight bounces off the park’s golden Buddha sending golden discs into the sky like meteors.

Change your story. TAKE A RISK. Otherwise, you may never know.

We step down giddily, still hand-in-hand, and Lexi comes over, says her goodbyes.

‘You’re nothing without me, Campbell!’

She slaps him on the back and he picks her up.

‘You bet, Steele. You’ll be taking over the world before we know it. One day, I’ll be able to say, Alexis Steele? A great friend of mine!’

Lexi goes, so then it’s just Wayne and I alone, next to the bandstand.

‘I guess this is it, then?’ he says.

‘I guess it is,’ I reply. ‘I guess it’s goodbye.’

I bite my lip. I can still feel the present in my hand. Please don’t, I think. Please don’t. Not now.

But he doesn’t. He just leans over and, very gently, he kisses me on the lips. I kiss him back, and I linger for every last millisecond, breathing him in. And then he’s gone, he’s walking away from me into the crowd.

‘Phone me, yeah?’ he calls back to me.

‘Oh, absolutely. Absolutely will.’

‘Goodbye, Caroline.’

‘Goodbye, Wayne.’

Wayne. Still a bloody awful name. But I’d decided it suited him now that he’d made it his own.

I watch as he makes his way through the fairground, I turn the present over in my hand, and go back to the party.

Ten minutes go past. Fifteen. I’ve almost lost hope at twenty-eight minutes. Then my mobile goes.

He says:

‘Hi.’

‘Hi.’

‘It’s me.’

‘I know.’ I laugh.

‘So, um, I didn’t take my leaving present.’

‘You didn’t?’

‘No.’

Silence. It goes on for ever. My heart punches against my ribs.

Then eventually:

‘So, shall I come back and get it?’

You can change your story.
But you have to be brave.

‘No,’ I say. ‘I’ve decided I’m not going to give you a leaving present after all.’

‘Why?’ he asks and I drive off the edge.

‘Because I don’t want you to leave.’

Where are they now?

Lexi Steele
is the proud owner of
Movie Star Bride,
a vintage wedding dress shop in Doncaster, and was last year named Local Businesswoman of the Year by the
South Yorkshire Times.
When she’s not working or giving motivational talks to young entrepreneurs, she likes to rock out to Gossip in her pyjamas with flatmate Carly Greenford. Lexi and Carly are both currently single and very, very happy about it.

Gwen Steele
lives self-sufficiently with Charlie Gaunt in a cottage in Otley. Charlie recently started work on converting their loft where Gwen will run her new ironing business. Gwen currently has a good line in maxi dresses. Leggings being so last year …

Trevor
and
Cassandra Steele,
with the blessing of their kids, moved to the Greek Island of Zante where they now live in a yurt and run Healing Horizons courses. Lexi and Carly visit often, to giggle throughout Cassandra’s reiki classes and get drunk on ouzo.

Toby Delaney
is currently Account Manager at Pearl’s Biscuits, where he is shagging the intern. He hasn’t read a book in two years.

Rachel Gregory
(formerly
Delaney)
now lives in Shropshire where she runs an Interior Decoration Business with boyfriend Al. She is expecting their first child this autumn.

Shona Parry
is now single and still works at Skidmore-Colt-Davis.

Darryl Schumacher
never asked her out for dinner again.

Martin Squire
and
Polly Green
recently moved into a new-build in Surbiton. They hope to open their French restaurant, Ooh la la!, by Christmas (and to have perfected their choux pastry).

Wayne Campbell
’s debut teenage novel,
Love is a Battlefield: Kevin Hart’s Stories from the Frontline of Love,
was published in January. He marries the love of his life, Caroline Marie Steele today, at 3 p.m., at St Peter’s Church in Harrogate. The bride will wear an original Sixties shift dress from
Movie Star Brides.
Honeymoon: a motorbike tour of Belize. Future home: Two-bed flat, East Dulwich, London.

Caroline Marie Steele
recently had
CS
4
WC
4
EVA
tattooed on her backside.

Huge thanks to the amazing team at HarperCollins who worked so hard to make this book the best it can be. I am so grateful. Special thanks go to the very talented Sarah Ritherdon – my editor – for her un-floundering belief in the book, her insightfulness and for laughing and crying in all the right places! To the gifted Lizzy Kremer, quite simply the best agent any writer could ask for. Also thanks to Laura West and everyone at David Higham Associates for their ongoing support. Thanks to Johanna Campbell for the long calls from Australia about the sales stuff. Any inconsistencies are mine! … And to Martin Roper and all the sixth formers at Ashlyns School, plus my niece, Charlotte for the txt spk and reminding me what it is to be seventeen. LOL.

As everyone who knows me will know, this was the hardest thing I have EVER done (what? Surely not harder than the first book?!). I am truly grateful to ALL my wonderful friends and family for listening to me go on (and on and on) particularly Rowan Coleman for the writerly advice, encouragement and coffees! However, special thanks have to go to Louis Quail for the morning plot … ahem … I mean, relaxing coffee meetings and for his continuing love
and support. Also, to Greg Knight for the jokes, for letting me in on the cutest Arnold Schwarzenegger story ever and never doubting this book would get written, even when I did. I am forever indebted.