The building has tons of development potential? I bite down on my cheek so hard it hurts. That sounds like something you’d say if you were buying a manor house, not investing in a hotel. Is that Louis’s game? And might the Singh-Bartholomews sell, now that things have become so desperate?
I look at what I have typed on the draft email to a potential wedding client in front of me. Hiog[rwJIPR;Wkgk. Yes. If there were a word for this feeling, it would probably look something like that. Louis sees no reason why Izzy would not want his attention, just as he sees no reason why he shouldn’t get to do as he likes with this beautiful hotel, and it makes my blood boil.
“Better shoot. Good chat,” he says, firing me a wink as he saunters off.
He dodges Mr. and Mrs. Hedgers, who are heading through to their room with the kids behind them, muttering furiously to one another. Izzy would try to figure out what’s wrong. I watch them go, thinking they look like they’d rather be left alone.
I look back at my screen as my pulse slows. There’s one new email. I click through.
OMG! it says. That is totally my wedding ring! Can I come in on Monday to pick it up? Hubby will be so pleased!
“Porra!” I mutter, already typing back.
Izzy
I lie back on my bed, pull the laptop onto my knees, and reach for my tea. It’s a spiced loose-leaf tea blend—it’s a total faff to make, but I love it, and lately it’s become a bit of a ritual for my rare, precious evenings to myself. I open Netflix, looking for something new, even though I already know I’ll be rewatching Charmed, and then I make the mistake of checking my phone. Sixty-eight unread messages from seven chats.
I am a people person. I’ve always had a whole gaggle of friends, and that’s exactly how I like it, but lately I’ve started to feel like I’m keeping up with my WhatsApps for the sake of it. Replying just to get rid of the unread messages, not because I really want to hear how my old colleagues’ kids are, or how a mate from school is getting on with her new job.
An ex-boyfriend once said that I collect people and don’t let them go, and the comment has really stayed with me. At the time I told him you can never have too many friends, and that there’s nothing wrong with being loyal, but when everything happened with Drew last year, it made me see things a little differently.
From the moment I met her, I knew we’d get along. She walked into my flat for a viewing with this big, cheeky smile and fabulous square glasses, and I was smitten. I was on furlough and needed the extra money, and I knew that whoever moved into my box room would be spending a lot of time with me—the perils of flatsharing in a lockdown. But she seemed so fun, I instantly relaxed.
And Drew could be really fun when she wanted to. Say, when she was trying to get a room in your flat. But once she was installed there with a twelve-month contract, she was a different person altogether. I tried so hard to rediscover that side of her. I coaxed her into a more positive outlook as she whinged on my sofa about being bored; I bowed to her requests to change my flat’s decor because it was “too childish” and “too pink” in the background of her video calls. Basically, I was so determined to be friends with my flatmate that I put up with almost twelve months of absolute nonsense. And then she kissed the man she knew I liked, and I realised that I was making all this effort for someone who gave zero shits about me.
My outlook has started to shift in the year post-Drew. Maybe I don’t need to keep people in my life at all costs. Maybe I don’t need to be surrounded in the way I did back when my parents died. There are a few people who will always bring me joy—Jem, Grigg, Sameera. But as I scroll through my recent conversations, I ask myself who I am looking forward to catching up with from this list, and the answer is kind of shocking. There’s pretty much nobody I actually want to see.
The phone rings in my hand and I let out a yip of surprise, spilling tea on my duvet cover.
“Shit,” I say, dabbing as I answer the video call.
“Hello,” Grigg says, unfazed at being greeted with a swear word.
Not much fazes Grigg: he is the exhausted father of a seven-month-old who wakes up five times a night, and still he remains unflappable. We met when we both spent a summer waiting tables at the Jolly Farmer pub on the edge of the forest, and even aged sixteen, he had the air of a mild-mannered old man. I remember watching him drop a tray of full pints: he stood there for a moment, looking thoughtfully at the carnage on the floor around him, and then said, You know, Izzy, I am just not sure I have found my calling, here. He’s an accountant these days, and likes it much better.