A Season for Second Chances(6)

“I’m just going to put you on hold, please, Mrs. Sharpe,” said the receptionist.

Annie was treated to a tinny rendition of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony while the receptionist presumably decided whether to call the police or the psychiatric team. After a few minutes, another voice came over the line.

“Thank you for holding, Mrs. Sharpe,” said the voice. “I’m the shift supervisor. That’s another three nights in room 208 booked in for you.”

Annie thanked the patient supervisor and apologized for being a pain in the arse and explained that she had recently found her husband having sex with a waitress half his age on a velvet banquette and it was making her behave rather oddly. When she put the phone down, Annie pulled the duvet back over her greasy head and slept for another nine hours.

When she woke, there was a note pushed under the door, which read: Delivery outside.

Curious, Annie opened the door and found a bottle of wine and a box of chocolates with a small card attached.


Dear Mrs. Sharpe, I thought you might need these. Sorry about your cheating husband. Best wishes, Sally (the supervising receptionist you spoke to this morning)



Annie was deeply touched. Her eyes filled with tears. It occurred to her in that moment that she didn’t really have any friends, not of her own; she’d never had time to make any. And if she had, she might have to confess that her husband was a manipulative, serial cheater, and that was a shame she preferred to keep to herself. She spent many hours a day with Marianne, and they got on very well, but they’d never hung out outside of work. She had Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle, of course, but the cat couldn’t answer back and was aloof at the best of times. As Annie stood between the compact, windowless bathroom and the built-in wardrobe, trying to ignore the smell of her unwashed body, it occurred to her that Sally the hotel receptionist was the closest thing Annie had to a friend, and she’d only spoken to Sally on the phone from beneath her duvet.

Annie began to sob. And once she’d begun, she found it very hard to stop. By the time the late-night movie started, Annie was out of both tissues and tears. She opened the box of chocolates and poured the wine into the glass from the bathroom; she finished the wine before the movie ended and fell asleep with the empty tumbler still in her hand and a dark chocolate coffee-cream in her mouth, which melted and dribbled down her chin and onto her stale pajamas.





Chapter 6



Annie woke the next morning with a hangover, yet she felt lighter than she had for several days.

She peeled off her pajamas and stuffed them into the wastepaper basket. She brushed her teeth—twice—then climbed into the shower and let the hot water wash away the despondency of the last couple of weeks. She imagined the gloom clinging to her skin like a rind cracking under the shower pressure and peeling off in sheets, slipping down her body before gravity pulled it down the drain and away.

In the midst of all the uncertainties she now faced, there was one thing of which Annie was certain: She wasn’t ready to let the credits roll on her story yet. She was only forty-four, goddammit! She caught sight of herself in the mirror as she dressed. Certainly, her bottom was rounder than it used to be. And her boobs were more pendulous than pert but, all in all, she wasn’t in bad shape. The extra weight helped to plump out wrinkles that might have otherwise appeared on her face, and with a little help from Warm Russet hair dye, she could easily pass for forty; well, maybe forty-two. Her large, round eyes were the color of warm honey; Peter said she reminded him of one of the rabbits from Watership Down. She had a pert nose, a heart-shaped face, and high cheekbones, and her thick, wavy hair hung in soft layers around her face. Annie smiled at her reflection as she pulled on fresh jeans and a jumper that still smelled of fabric softener. Today is not a day to mope, she said to herself. Today is to find somewhere to live.



* * *



—

She left the hotel at lunchtime with four appointments to see flats. As she passed the reception desk, a voice called out:

“Mrs. Sharpe! There’s a delivery for you.”

Annie wondered if this might be Sally—bestower of sympathetic wine and chocolate—but the badge on her lapel indicated that this was Beth.

Beth smiled as she produced a huge bouquet of flowers from beneath the desk. Annie smiled back graciously and thanked her. She didn’t need to look at the card to know who they were from; they reeked of a Max Sharpe charm offensive.

This was how it would start: the wooing. No one did remorse like Max. He could be so utterly woe-filled that anyone would think it was he who had found his spouse bonking the accountant, jeweler, or, in this case, waitress, and not the other way around. He would make grand gestures and even grander promises. Alongside these, he would attack her sensibilities: What about the children? The restaurant? The house? He’d kill himself; is that what she wanted?

Their lives and livelihoods were inextricably linked, so that as a younger woman with small children and a business to keep afloat, Annie was too exhausted to seriously consider all the logistical and emotional untangling that leaving would entail.

The first affair was the worst. After the second one, Annie retaliated with a revenge affair. It didn’t last long, and Max never found out about it. She’d thought about telling him, just to hurt him, but that wasn’t really why she’d done it. She’d done it to even the score; it also made it easier to excuse herself for staying if they’d both cheated. The crux of the thing was, she had loved Max back then.