Page 86 of Always the Bridesmaid

‘I’m happy for you, darling, I truly am. And I know that Danny wouldn’t have wanted you to spend the rest of your life alone. He would’ve wanted you to go on and have the family that you always wanted. You deserve to be happy and you deserve to be a mother one day. When that day comes, God forbid you ever have to, you will tell your son or daughter the same things that I am telling you now.’

Now I’m not just crying, I’m audibly sobbing. I move to Greta’s chair and kneel in front of her, let it all out as she wraps her arms around me.

‘I’m so sorry, Greta,’ I cry.

She presses her lips to my head as she tells me, ‘You’ve done nothing wrong, my sweet girl. You can’t change God’s plan, none of us can. We have to make the most of the path we’ve been given. I love you.’

33

SARAH

It’s Sunday and I’m at home in my apartment, cleaning in a pair of yellow rubber gloves because I have nothing better to do, though I am intermittently flirting with the idea of applying for the Office Manager position at work.

Since my talk with Greta, I’ve been thinking I need change. I’ve been stuck in a rut. I am stuck in a rut.

Maybe I do need the people around me to be dependent on me, like Charlie said, because it gives me purpose.

But my people are moving on with their lives and it might be time I let them go… A little, at least.

Baby steps. The first of which might be to apply for old Gerald’s job.

There’s a buzz through the intercom just as I finish shining the glass top of my coffee table.

‘It’s Drew. We need you to stop watching sad movies and cleaning your kitchen in your stretchy pants, get dressed and get down here ASAP. We are parked illegally so don’t argue and don’t make us wait. This is your intervention, misery guts.’

I gasp. How rude.

Then I run to the window and see Drew getting into the back of Brooks’s truck. Brooks is in the driving seat and I think I can see Becky in the front passenger seat. And is that…? Yes, Izzy’s in the back next to Drew. They start waving at me when they see me looking down from my lounge window. They are, in fact, parked illegally at the curbside outside my apartment.

I rush into my bedroom and change out of the stretchy pants Drew just called me out on and into a pair of jean shorts and a T-shirt.

As I hurry down the steps from my apartment building, Drew gets out of the truck and tells me, ‘Last in gets the middle seat.’

‘What is this? Where are you taking me?’

‘Stop asking so many questions and get in the truck,’ Brooks says.

I climb into the truck and sidle up to Izzy, asking, ‘What’s going on?’

‘It’s a surprise,’ Becky says from the front passenger seat. ‘Don’t you dare utter a word, Izzy.’

Izzy shrugs. ‘My lips are sealed, I’m afraid, but you brought this on yourself, Sarah, that’s all I’ll say.’

No one will tell me anything and I have no idea where we’re going, except that we’re driving out of the city and in the direction of New Jersey. I worry that I might have missed someone’s birthday but I run through everyone’s in my mind and I know I haven’t. I might have been out of it for a few weeks but I would never miss one of my friends’ birthdays. So where the hell are we going?

The others talk amongst themselves. The topics of conversation are so mundane that I know they’re only chatting to avoid telling me where we’re headed.

After forty minutes or so of listening to their nonsense chitchat, we pull up to the gates of a private airfield. Drew gets out of the truck and walks up to the security box, where a man sits inside. I hear him name drop one of our largest aviation clients – the CEO of Gold Miles – then he comes back to the truck and the electric gates open to let us onto the airfield.

I am beyond perplexed.

We drive past a fleet of Gold Mile private jets, which I recognize from brochures because there is no branding on the discreet aircraft. They are reserved for the world’s most secretive passengers – Hollywood A-listers, managers of hedge funds, the CEOs of the largest banks.

We drive along a track that runs parallel to the primary runway and head in the direction of an old airplane hangar. The entire front is open and inside is what I know to be an old fighter jet, one which Gold Miles had something to do with procuring for some prestigious client. The details are hazy but I recognize the old F-14 Tomcat.

Then, I am not quite sure I believe my eyes. To the right of the hanger is a man, dressed in a Navy fighter pilot jacket, wearing a pair of aviators and leaning back against a motorbike, which I also recognize as a Kawasaki, arms folded across his chest.

‘Charlie?’ I say disbelievingly.

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