Page 108 of Lie For Me

‘Hasn’t Dot said anything about this mess?’ Cassie asked.

She poked at a packet of half-eaten chocolate chip cookies.

Lucy batted her hand away.

‘Her husband made her go on a Caribbean cruise. Apparently, he said she spent too much time here, and he hadn’t retired for her to abandon him to spend all her time with an old wreck every day.’ She tidied a pencil back into a penholder. ‘I think he meant the house, not me. But it’s touch and go.’

‘Oh, Lucy,’ Cassie said, her voice softer now. She sank into the chair opposite Lucy. ‘Have you still not spoken to him?’

‘What is there to say? He obviously doesn’t want to talk about it.’ Lucy’s mouth turned down, and she fiddled with her computer keyboard. ‘I don’t think I even know how to talk to him anymore, to be normal. It’s all gotten too weird. He messaged me the day after we got back—just said he hoped I had a good drive home.’

‘Oh, well. That’s…considerate of him…what did you say?’

‘I said it was fine and said I hoped the train journey wasn’t too bad. And then he just put a thumbs-up emoji.’

Lucy pulled an elastic band to full stretch and then let it snap back onto the ball, narrowly missing her fingers.

‘So I sent a smiley face. And that was the last time we were in touch. That was nearly two weeks ago.’

‘Wow.’

Cassie let out a breath.

‘I know.’ Lucy sighed. ‘It’d be funny if it wasn’t so tragic.’

‘Well,’ Cassie reached over and prised the elastic band ball from Lucy’s fingers. ‘It’s a fine line between comedy and tragedy.’

‘It’s bad, isn’t it?’ Lucy said. ‘I keep nearly,’ she squeezed her fingers together to show a tiny gap, ‘picking up the phone to call him, but the way he left it, I’m not sure he wants to hear from me. And he hasn’t called me, so it’s not like he seems eager to talk. He said he’d be leaving for New York in a few weeks, and that was two weeks ago, so if he hasn’t contacted me by now, I guess that’s it.’ She added, ‘I didn’t go to yoga on Saturday in case he was there—might have been weird.’

‘Lucy,’ Cassie said, in the voice one uses to explain a maths problem to a six-year-old for the third time. ‘As far as I can see, the only person committed to making this weird is you. This is not a big town. Are you never going to go to yoga again? Are you going to do your shopping two towns over, or hide inside and wait for online deliveries?’

‘I don’t need to worry, do I?’ Lucy said, her bottom lip wobbling. ‘He’ll be in New York soon, then we can both move on.’

She sniffed and picked at a Post-it stuck to the side of a book.

‘I got an email from Ollie and Sophie today,’ she said. ‘They’re still on honeymoon, back in a couple of days, but the wedding photographer sent them some early sample pictures, so they sent me a link.’

‘Mmm,’ Cassie said, her voice wary. ‘Are they nice?’

‘I haven’t looked,’ Lucy sighed. ‘That’s my karmic punishment, isn’t it? Never being able to look at my brother’s wedding photos because Jack will be in half of them because I am a big fat liar, pants on fire.’

‘Don’t forget drama queen,’ Cassie said helpfully. ‘Let me look,’ Cassie said, gesturing for Lucy to slide over her laptop. ‘You know, it wasn’t your wedding—the sample might not actually include any of you.’

Lucy pulled a face and slid the laptop over.

‘There’s a password in the email for the online gallery page,’ she said. ‘I just have to hope my mother doesn’t choose a big family shot to blow up and frame, so I have to stare at Jack’s face whenever I go home. That might finish me off.’

Cassie flapped her hand at her to shush and started browsing.

‘Gosh, Sophie looked gorgeous,’ she said. ‘They’re a really good-looking couple.’

Lucy brushed some crumbs into her bin.

‘And your mum looks fab. What was the colour scheme? Was it lilac?’

Lucy groaned and waved for Cassie to give her the laptop back.

‘Nope, lavender.’

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