Before I Do(91)

Audrey didn’t reply to anyone; she didn’t know what to say. She just sent messages to Vivien, Hillary, and Clara saying she’d arrived safely in Ibiza and that she’d found somewhere to stay. None of them needed to know it was a foam-proof cell on the eighth floor of a tower block.

In her inbox, she found an e-mail from Miranda.


Dear Audrey,

You and Josh both have your phones off, so I’m sending this in the hope that you might be picking up e-mails. I don’t know what happened yesterday, Fred was acting erratically after you left but he wouldn’t say why. We got the train back to London this morning and that’s when he told me about how you two met six years ago and—dated? Connected? I’m not sure what you’d call it. You can imagine how strange I felt, especially hearing it from him rather than you.

I don’t know what to think, Audrey. Clearly you and Josh had an argument and then left, without saying anything to anyone. Did you argue about Fred? Or the wedding? Are you in Ibiza together now?

Look, if I played any part in this, I am so sorry. I should never have brought a man I hardly knew to your wedding. Honestly, the way Fred was talking about you—about how “fate had intervened”—he sounded like a bit of a lunatic. I can’t believe any of his feelings were reciprocated. Surely Josh knows that?

While we were on the train back to London, midconversation, Fred noticed that his watch had stopped at almost the exact moment he checked the time. The train had just pulled into a station, and there was a poster that said “Time to Leave” hanging outside, and you know what he did? He got off the train, right there, at Bridgwater. He messaged me later to apologize, but he felt the watch and the poster were telling him to get off the train. Seriously, who does that?

On a more positive note, I did as you suggested and talked to Paul at the wedding. We are going for coffee next week. Whatever it was you said to him, thank you. It would be nice to be friends with him again if nothing else.

I hope you can sort out this misunderstanding with Josh and then come back and get married properly. Let me know what I can do, if anything. Oh, and sorry for crying on you yesterday, I just got my period today, so that explains a lot.

Love from Miranda



This e-mail from Miranda cemented something Audrey already knew—Fred was not the man for her; he was certainly not her “soul mate.” On that day six years ago, he had swept her off her feet; she had been awed by him, his buzz of energy, bright as the Dog Star. It was the first time she had really fallen for someone, and it had left its mark. But what she knew about Fred had been a few dots in the sky; she had filled in the rest of the picture. Clearly, he was whimsical, impulsive, maybe a little selfish. He had not even been single that day they met. Her fantasy had obscured reality.

Audrey wanted to call Miranda, to hear a friendly voice, to say how pleased she was about Paul. But she also wanted to work things out for herself first, not involve anyone else. What she needed was to think of a grand gesture, a show of how much she loved Josh and how much of a team player she could be.

She googled “Big romantic gestures to win him back” and found a helpful list. Josh loved lists; maybe she would find the answer here.





Romantic gestures to show him you care:


         Cook his favorite meal.



     Tag him in a funny meme you think he will like.



     Plan a romantic vacation.



     Cuddle him in bed.



     Pre-cool or pre-heat his car for him, so it’s the perfect temperature when he gets in.





Who invented the Internet? These were all terrible ideas. Maybe a grand gesture wasn’t the way to go. Maybe she just needed to be honest. She needed to make him see that she was a team player (even if she was one of the crap players who spent most of the game on the bench). And if that didn’t work, then she could think about getting an “I heart Josh” tattoo and maybe sending him some funny memes.



* * *





Unsurprisingly, Foamtopia turned out not to be the best place for a restorative night’s sleep. Not only was Audrey’s single bed the width of an ironing board, but the foam party downstairs went on until the small hours of the morning. Every time she thought the pounding bass through the floor had stopped, a few seconds later, it started up again. At two a.m., she gave up trying to sleep and went to lie on the beach. The stars were out, the same stars she’d seen on Friday night from the garden of Millward Hall. They shone just the same, completely oblivious to the fact that her whole world had combusted like a supernova.

Her father’s letter was still in her bag. After the drama of yesterday, she had held off opening it. She wanted to be in the right frame of mind, to savor reading these final words from her father, because there would be no more. Now, lying alone in the sand beneath the crescent moon, it felt like the right time. She pulled the creased letter from her handbag and opened it, bracing herself for another mistake, another letter meant for someone else. But it wasn’t.

    Darling Audrey,

I will always think of you as my little girl, but one day I imagine you will grow up. One day you will be a woman; you might even get married and feel that I should have been there. As I sit at my desk, writing the closing scenes of my life’s work, I realize this future imagined day is the one I will be most sad to miss.