Page 18 of (Not So) Mad About You

She said nothing, squinting at him, thinking about Darren and trying not to think about him all at the same time.

“Perhaps the right move under these circumstances should be to contact whoever made your reservation and communicate through them,” he said, licking at dry lips. “Being sure to remind them that there are no refunds.”

Her eyes narrowed further, thinking about this. Fine, alright, Darren thought he had a good reason for sending her here. On the other hand, he’d also thought this might be fun. He’d obviously had visions of beach yoga and steamy saunas, not cold cabbage and stale single beds.

“There is a telephone in the entrance hall,” Luke said now, as though sweetening the deal.

Okay, this she could work with. She lifted her chin slightly as though she were thinking about things, then shook her head. “Won’t work.”

“Why on earth not?” he asked in surprise.

“Because it’s not nineteen-fifty-four and I don’t have anyone’s number memorized,” she said. “Give me my phone and I’ll phone him.”

He studied her. “I’ll take you to your phone and you can make one phone call,” he said finally. “On the condition that if you’re staying here, you then put the phone back into my custody and this conversation is over, you go back to the program.”

She sucked on her teeth, then nodded. She knew enough to recognize a final offer. “Deal.”

“Very well,” he said with a sigh, standing up and coming around the desk. “Follow me.”

She followed him out into the corridor and then through into a dim back room. A large, locked chest was sitting in a corner. He bent over it and put in a code. Alli glimpsed the first three numbers before he moved. Alright, three out of four. She could brute force the rest and get her phone back whenever she wanted. Not a bad result.

She schooled herself to look angry as he pulled out a bag marked with her name and took out her phone, handing it to her.

“A little privacy?”

He scowled, re-locked the chest, and stood up. “I’ll be right outside that door.”

“Please yourself.”

She waited until he was gone before she scrolled to Darren’s name.

“Alli, I’d have thought you were busy settling in. Wait, you are at the program, aren’t you? Not on a plane to Tahiti or anything?”

“I’d rather be on a plane to Birmingham than here,” she hissed. “This place is a nightmare. There’s dust everywhere, the building is practically falling down around my ears, and I’m not at all sure that anyone’s qualified to do anything.”

There was a stunned silence on the end of the phone. At least Alli interpreted it as a stunned silence.

“I can’t stay here, obviously,” she added.

“Oh, Al.”

There was a pause, and she was already thinking that if she left now she could be in her own bed before eleven, plenty of time to get some sleep before an early morning run to the office to check on her clients. Her stomach twisted sourly.

“Al, you’re there for a reason. You’ve no idea how hard it was for me to negotiate this for you. In the end, it doesn’t really matter if it’s paradise or paradise lost, does it? It’s only for a couple of weeks.”

“What are you saying?” she felt cold inside.

“You have to stay there if you want to keep your job. I can’t put it more simply than that, Al.”

She hung up without saying another word, cradling her phone in her hand and scrolling desperately through her contacts.

But the truth was, there wasn’t a single other person that she could call.

Yes, there were plenty of clients, and her hairdresser and manicurist, her doctor, and a handful of service workers. But no one else. No one who would care that she was trapped in Miss Haversham’s house from Great Expectations. No one who would rescue her from death by cabbage smell and damp sheets.

“So, done in here, are we?” Luke said, sticking his head around the door. The rest of his body followed and he held out his hand for the phone. “I’ll take that.”

Alli handed it over because there was no reason not to. For the first time all day, she really, truly understood that she had to stay here.

---