Alice Brown's Lessons in the Curious Art of Dating Page 0,85
cleansed, toned and moisturized. She really knows her matchmaking stuff. And she turned out the light, falling into a contented, dream-filled sleep within seconds.
ALICE
“At last! I’ve been so worried about you!” Alice had finally got through to Ginny. She twisted in her seat, trying to block out the noise of the office. “Is everything OK?”
“Not exactly,” Ginny answered tightly. Something in her voice made Alice suddenly feel more worried than ever. “A few days after you came around, Dan and I had a huge row. Everything came out: all the ugly things I’d been thinking. I can’t believe the nasty stuff I said, like how he wasn’t the person I’d fallen in love with, how I hated him for not making an effort anymore, for not taking me out, telling me I’m attractive. I even told him I was only with him because of Scarlet, and given half a chance I’d run off with the milkman—or anybody who bothered to look at me twice.”
“Oh my God, Gin!” Alice was stunned. “I’d no idea things had gotten that bad.” But as soon as the words came out of her mouth she remembered the clues she’d missed. Looking back, hadn’t it been obvious? Ginny had been so weird in her kitchen the other night. And she’d been making odd asides for months now, implying that everything wasn’t exactly peachy at home. Guiltily Alice realized she’d dismissed her friend’s distress signals, writing them off as Ginny just being sleep-deprived because of Scarlet. But why hadn’t she caught on; dug a bit deeper? Ginny was her best friend in the world, and she hadn’t done a thing to help her. And now her marriage was in trouble—big trouble. “But you wouldn’t though, would you?” she asked tentatively, almost scared to hear Ginny’s answer. “Run off with another man, I mean . . . ?”
“Of course not! I just said it to hurt him. I was being a cow.”
It was a small crumb of relief.
“What did Dan say?”
“Not a lot, at first. But then he got angry. Told me he’d been pretty miserable too, that he loved Scarlet and that he thought he still loved me, but sometimes it was hard to remember why.”
“Ouch!”
“He said I’d been a right royal pain in the backside for the last year. He said he knew it was because I was tired and that Scarlet could be a handful, but he was tired too and he never took it out on me. And then he said he was disgusted with me for threatening him with an affair—that he thought I was a better person than that.”
“Oh, Ginny!” Something in Alice’s insides was sinking, knotting uncomfortably into a hard and unpleasant lump. It wasn’t just the agony of realizing her friend was utterly and painfully miserable—it was the very wrongness of it too. Ginny and Dan were perfect for each other. They’d fallen in love at first sight and had been inseparable ever since. Their relationship made such utter sense; they were such a team. They weren’t fluffily romantic about each other, or gushingly sentimental, or suffocatingly joined at the hip; they had a long-lasting, realistic love based on friendship, respect and fancying each other rotten. She’d always believed their marriage was so strong that she held up it up and savored it as her shining example whenever she tried to match her clients. Ginny and Dan couldn’t be in trouble. If they were in trouble, anyone could be in trouble. The world suddenly felt a less safe place.
“It’s really shaken me up,” Ginny admitted in a small voice. “I didn’t realize he was unhappy too; I thought it was just me. But now I know he’s been having doubts . . . It’s really frightening, Alice. I can’t believe I said such horrible things to him. I didn’t mean them. But now the damage is done and I can’t take them back.”
“What can I do to help? Can I come over?” Alice offered earnestly.
“Thanks, but I think we just need to spend some time on our own. You know—be a family.”
“Yes, of course. But it sounds like you and Dan could also do with some quality time together, just the two of you. Go on a date night; be Ginny and Dan for a few hours, not Ginny and Dan and Scarlet. If you want to go out, just say the word and I’ll be straight over to babysit Scarlet.”
“You’d really voluntarily spend time with our perpetually screaming devil-child?”