The First Mistake(77)

‘Sophia, are you coming up?’ asks Alice.

‘No, I’ll wait here. Try not to be too long.’

I’ll be as long as it takes, thinks Alice as she takes the stairs two at a time, with Olivia trailing behind her.

‘Hey, you’re back,’ says Lottie excitedly, sounding much like Olivia when she saw Alice. ‘How’s it going Livs?’ she asks, holding a hand out for Olivia to high five.

‘Hi Lottie,’ says Alice, as cheerily as she can manage. She looks her up and down, taking in her lean, long legs, encased in tight black trousers. Her hair is pinned up with what looks like a pencil securing it, blonde strands fall down, framing her elfin face.

‘Can you just do me a favour and keep Livvy occupied whilst I have five minutes in my office?’ asks Alice.

‘Sure. Do you want to come and help me do some colouring in?’ she asks Olivia.

For the first time since seeing the text to Nathan, Alice is able to sit down and work out who it might be from. Her stomach knots as she recalls it from the camera roll on her phone. As ludicrous as it sounds, she wonders if it’s changed since she took the screenshot. Might there be more words, to give her more of a clue as to who it’s from? She hopes there are less; that the incriminating sentence, so short, yet so hurtful, has been magicked away into cyberspace.

Disappointingly, what she finds is what she remembers.

I need you. Now xx

She types the number it was sent from into her phone and holds her breath whilst she waits the split second to see if it matches any of her contacts. If it does she doesn’t know how she’d ever recover from the deceit. But if it doesn’t, she’s no further forward to finding out who it is. She counters that the latter is the best option – just.

When nothing shows up, Alice sets about methodically working through her contact list to see if it might jog a memory or a feeling. Though it quickly becomes apparent that ninety per cent of the people she knows are ruled out on the grounds of gender, age or sexual preference. The only real possibility is Lottie. The number definitely isn’t hers, or at least not the one Alice has. She could have a second phone, but as Alice looks out through the glass wall at her and Olivia, their heads together as they pick colours from the marker box, she knows it can’t be her. She’s attractive, but childlike. Assured, but awkward. And besides, what would she find appealing about going to bed with a man old enough to be her father? And her boss, to boot.

Nevertheless, she calls Lottie’s number, just to be sure she has the right one stored, and watches, waiting for her to pick it up. Alice can see the phone sitting on the desk, but Lottie shows no signs of going to it.

‘Lottie,’ she calls out, ‘have you got a minute?’

Lottie drops what she’s doing and scurries into Alice’s office.

‘I had trouble calling you whilst I was in Japan,’ Alice says to her. ‘Your mobile just kept ringing and ringing.’

‘Ah, yes, sorry,’ says Lottie. ‘Mine got stolen, so I had to get a new one.’

Alice bats away the heat that’s creeping up from her toes. ‘Oh,’ she manages, momentarily stuck for anything better.

‘I did let Nathan know though,’ says Lottie. ‘I sent him my new number, just in case either of you needed to get hold of me.’

‘Did you?’ says Alice numbly, as all the reasons she’d had for ruling against Lottie being Nathan’s mistress, suddenly become arguments for.

‘I’ll send it to you now,’ says Lottie, unaware that Alice can’t begin to function until she gets it.

Alice’s phone pings and the numbers blur, but she can already tell that it’s not a match. She lets out the breath she didn’t realize she’d been holding in.

‘So, how did it go in Japan?’ asks Lottie, oblivious to Alice’s need for privacy.

Alice smiles tightly and nods. ‘It was good – we complete next week.’

Lottie dances up and down on the spot, clapping her hands together.

‘Oh my God, how exciting,’ she says.

Alice wonders if they really will complete next week when there’s such a huge obstacle in between now and then. But then the pilot’s surprise, her mother’s words, and Lottie’s excitement ring loudly in her ears. And she wonders why the hell she shouldn’t. With or without Nathan.

‘Have you seen him today?’ asks Alice, as if Lottie is privy to the innermost workings of her mind.

‘Who?’ she asks.

‘Oh, sorry, Nathan. Have you seen Nathan?’

‘No. To be honest, I wasn’t expecting to see either of you after a ten-hour flight. I thought you’d both go straight home.’

‘Has he called in?’ asks Alice.

‘Hold on,’ Lottie says, poking her head around the door. ‘Has anyone spoken to Nathan this afternoon?’ she calls out across the open-plan office. It’s an innocent enough question, and one which just a week ago would have been quite normal. But now it feels accusatory, as if she’s tracking him. Lottie’s question is met with shaking heads and nonplussed expressions.

Alice tries to call Nathan one more time, but it goes straight to his answerphone. Her fingers tap thoughtfully on her phone case. Where are you, Nathan? she says to herself. She looks out the window, to the car park below, and can just about make out Sophia’s fast-moving digits operating the phone in her lap as she sits in Alice’s car, waiting.