All the Single Ladies (Kissing Fish)

Twenty minutes later, I walked out the front door with a bag slung over my shoulder and dragging a suitcase. Gatsby pranced cheerfully ahead of me at the end of her leash, eagerly sniffing at everything in her path. I waited until I’d turned the corner before sinking down onto someone’s garden wall and pulling out my phone.

“Hello?” Faye said.

“Hi,” I said. “Are you home?”

I must have sounded worse than I thought, because she immediately said,

“What’s wrong?”

“Um. Nate and I may have just broken up.” I kicked absently at a plastic bottle cap and watched as Gatsby investigated a flower and then promptly ate it.

“Shit,” Faye said. “No, I’m not home.” I heard a male voice say something in the background, and Faye said, her voice muffled, “I have to go. I’ll call you later.” I heard the sound of a door shutting and then Faye said, “I’ll be right there. Where are you?”

“I’m so sorry,” I said. “I can tell you’re busy. Really, it’s not important—is Alex home? If he is I can just walk over and he can let me in.”

“No, he texted me this morning to say he was going away for the week but he’d be back Friday. Where are you?”

“Corner by the house.”

“Be there in less than ten.”

Seven minutes later, Faye’s trusty little Fiat pulled up next to me. “Taxi for the lady?” she said, leaning across and opening the door for me. The passenger side door couldn’t be opened from the outside. Then she spotted Gatsby, sitting with her tongue hanging out. “Oh, is the mutt coming too?”

“Yep, I got landed with the dog.”

“The one you didn’t want in the first place,” Faye said disbelievingly. I nodded. “Well, never mind, she’ll have to get in the back.”

With Gatsby and my bags safely stowed in the back seat and me strapped into the front, Faye rocketed off down the street and listened quietly—well, with the occasional interjection—as I told her what had happened. When I finished, she said indignantly,

“Well, what did he expect? This isn’t the 1950s. You’re entitled to live your own life. It’s not like you’re required to abandon everything to follow your man. Blimey.”

I sighed. “So how was your night? I guess it went well? You were pretty entwined when I left.”

She shrugged. “He’s a bit intense. In a fun way, but I think it would get pretty wearing long-term. Definitely not boyfriend material.”

“Did you get a name?”

Faye laughed. “The masks never came off. No idea who he is, he’s got no idea who I am.”

I raised my eyebrows. “Well, I guess that’s one way to go about it.”

“Who were you talking to last night after I abandoned you on the couch?” She pulled over in front of the house she shared with Alex and parked. “I glanced over once and saw you chatting with a bloke but then you disappeared.”

“No idea,” I said. “It was the weirdest thing. He knew exactly who I was—knew who Nate was, too—but he wouldn’t tell me who he was. That’s not all, either.” I hesitated, looking at Faye standing on the pavement with my bag slung over her shoulder, and then clicked for Gatsby to get out of the car. As I shut the door, I said, “He kissed me.”

“Ooh,” Faye said, unlocking the front door. “A mystery man who knows all about you kissed you at a masquerade party. I smell shenanigans. Did you kiss him back?”

I blushed and headed for the back of the house, leaving my bag in the hallway. “Maybe. I didn’t mean to, but you know how it is.”

“Was it any good?” Faye asked, following me.

“I plead the fifth?”

“This isn’t America and you’re not American, so that’s invalid,” she said, laughing.

I let Gatsby into the fenced garden and turned to look at Faye. “He accused me of not being happy with Nate, or not getting what I needed with Nate, or something—I can’t remember.” I sighed. “Guess he was right.”

“Darling, I love you, but anyone could see that you’ve been going through the motions with Nate for months now rather than actually feeling it. If you’d actually married him you would have been miserable. Tea?”

“Yes, please. Do you really think so?”

“Dead obvious.” She perched on the counter and swung her legs. “Nate’s a sweetheart a lot of the time, but I think you guys got used to dating each other and never quite realised that you could, you know, date other people. That just because you liked being with someone it didn’t mean you had to be with them.” She shrugged. “Alex agrees with me, by the way. We both think you haven’t been actually happy for months.”

My mouth twisted. “It just makes me feel so guilty. I mean, maybe if I’d just tried harder to make things work—”

Faye shook her head and slid down from the counter. “That never helps,” she said sagely, handing me a cup of tea. “Tell me, how do you feel now that it’s over?”

“Truthfully?” I took a cautious sip of tea and considered. I kind of felt like crying, but to be perfectly honest I wasn’t sure if that was because I’d lost Nate or if it was because it had taken me this long to realise that it wasn’t going to work. But mostly… “Relieved,” I said at last. “I feel relieved. Which makes me feel even more guilty. I mean, surely you shouldn’t feel relieved about ending a five-year relationship when really everyone was expecting that you were going to marry the guy and have two kids, especially when the guy in question is a nice bloke.”

“Yeah, well, I’m not surprised you’re not more cut up about it,” Faye said. “I’m only surprised it didn’t happen sooner. So what are you going to do now?”

I turned the mug of tea in my hands. “Um. Nate is leaving next month when the lease on the house expires, but I don’t head up to St Andrews until the end of the summer. So…”

Faye laughed. “Yeah, you and Gatsby can live here. Come on, we’ll go make up the spare room for you.”

As I followed her up the stairs, I said, “So where is it that Alex’s gone then?”

“No clue. Had a cryptic text that just said he was going away but would be back Friday.” She frowned at the bed in the spare room and said, “I think someone’s slept in here since it was last made up. Help me strip it.”

“I hope it’s not work related,” I said, dragging the cover off the duvet and dumping it on the floor. “It seems like every time I come by he’s working.”

“Yeah, well, he’s trying to get that new children’s theatre up and running,” Faye replied, tossing de-cased pillows back on the bed. “Hang on a second.” She pulled extra linens from the wardrobe and plunked them down the desk. “Here,” she said, tossing one end of a sheet towards me. “Tuck in that end. If you can get more out of him than that you’ll be doing better than me. He’s been a right grump the last couple of days. I assume it has to do with Sarah. She was calling him constantly in the run-up to her party. Can’t say I blame Alex for having somewhere else to be last night. Have you told him about Nate yet?”

“No,” I said, smoothing out the sheet and catching the duvet as Faye threw it at me. “I literally packed a bag, put a leash on Gatsby, walked out the door, and called you. Do you think he’ll take Nate’s side or mine?”

“Hmm,” Faye said, plumping pillows and eyeing them critically. “Hard to say. He’s known Nate longer, but I’d guess he’ll take your side since he hasn’t been very happy about how Nate’s been treating you lately. Oh, I don’t know. His friendship with Nate isn’t nearly as good as it used to be.”

I sighed. “My friendship with Alex has been making Nate more and more cranky over the last couple of years. I don’t know why. I mean, nothing’s changed in the last couple years. Nate just kept getting grumpy if I wanted to hang out with Alex.” And since it had only been in the last couple of years, it couldn’t have anything to do with the night five years ago.

“Men are idiots,” Faye pronounced. “And on that note, I say we find a really girly movie and drink a bottle or two of wine and eat ice cream.”

“That sounds amazing,” I said. “Sainsbury’s run?”

“Yep. All beware, single women on the loose!”

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