Yes Chef, No Chef - By Susan Willis Page 0,16

Shit, I feel really stupid now,” she said. “I think I just over reacted and was so upset that I worked myself into a hysterical state.”

Lisa and Sarah both nodded in understanding and sipped their wine while Katie started to tell them what had happened from the time he’d rang yesterday to say he wasn’t going to the Savoy. She kept stopping for gulps of wine because her mouth and throat were dry and she’d had to choke back tears on a couple of occasions. When she’d finished she sat back and knew what both their different reactions would be, and she was right.

Lisa was bolshie with indignation, hating him instantly for hurting her and was fired-up with a loyal protectiveness. Whereas Sarah’s angelic face was contorted with confusion and her eyes were watery with sympathy desperately trying to understand why he’d behaved in that way. Katie looked from one to the other and gave them a tired smile. They were the two best friends anyone could wish for and knew she couldn’t live without them in her life - she loved them the same as her own family.

An easy familiar silence settled between them until Lisa said, “You won’t have had time to think about what you’re going to do?”

Katie shook her head slowly and looked unhappily down into her wine glass.

Sarah stroked the side of Katie’s knee. “My advice, for what it’s worth, is to do nothing for a couple of days and see how you feel when he gets in touch with you?”

And Lisa nodded gravely in agreement. “Yeah, but don’t let the bastard off the hook too easily. He deserves to suffer…” she said menacingly, and as miserable as Katie felt she couldn’t help but giggle.

After Lisa had left and Sarah had made them both a light supper Katie felt exhausted and tried to suppress a yawn but Sarah saw and insisted she go to bed and think about having the next day off work to recover from all the turmoil.

“And you know you can stay here as long as you need to.” Sarah called as Katie bid her goodnight and made her way along the hall to the guest bedroom.

Opening the hastily packed holdall she pulled on blue spotty pyjamas and crawled into the bed, exhausted. She tugged the quilt up under her chin and moaned quietly, missing the breadth of his shoulders next to her. Her temper about the argument had long since dissolved and in its place was a feeling of abject misery. The horrible words he’d yelled at her were going over and over in her mind and although she tried to think about his shitty behaviour over the last few months and knew she should hate him instinctively she stretched her hand across the great expanse of empty bed and cried herself to sleep.

The alarm on her mobile phone woke her the next morning and suddenly realising she wasn’t in her own bed she looked around the room at the candy stripped wallpaper and remembered what had happened. Maybe Sarah was right and she should call in sick but then thinking of the busy week ahead she decided to compromise and take the morning off. She sent a text to Frances telling her she had a migraine and was going to take some pain-killers and hopefully would see her around lunch time.

Lying back in the bed she began counting the amount of thin and thick stripes in the wallpaper which was a technique she’d used in the past when she was trying to keep a problem off her mind. But inevitably the argument won out and she went over and over the words they’d screamed at each other trying to understand why he’d been so horrible. This however, was difficult because she was still convinced that she was right and he was definitely in the wrong. He has to be, she raged, because the girls certainly agreed with her and all three of them couldn’t be wrong, could they?

Curling herself into a ball she dragged her eyes from the wallpaper stripes and focused instead on the bedside clock. For some reason the memory of an old boyfriend came into her mind and how he’d once told her that everything in her world had to be black and white and that she couldn’t cope with grey areas.

Thinking about this theory she wondered what would be classed as grey in their situation but shaking her head she still couldn’t quite grasp it and