‘Good.’
‘I’ve got some work I need to do here in the early part of the week, but then I’m coming back to London to spend some time with you before your exhibition.’
‘Oh, I’d like that,’ Anna said, hoping that things would be all right after all.
* * *
Anna leaned back in her seat on the train and closed her eyes. For once the train wasn’t busy — she was the only one sitting at a set of four seats with a table. While it had been a difficult weekend, she was happy that she and Daniel had had a great day yesterday spending time with Ben, but part of her was glad to be going home, where she could concentrate on her own life and career without having to be part of the drama.
Her phone pinged and she picked it up. It was a text from Daniel saying how much he was going to miss her over the next few days. She smiled sadly at that. She was going to miss him too.
Idly she started to scroll through Instagram, looking at Eva’s account to see if she was up to anything. She hadn’t seen Eva since she’d offered to lend her the dress and she was determined to go and see her as soon as possible. She wondered what she’d make of the situation. She hoped Eva didn’t blame herself for the choice of dress, because the only people who could be blamed for it were Daniel and Lucinda. And while she was still annoyed at Daniel for not telling her in the first place, his was an oversight, whereas Lucinda had been acting out of spite.
She typed Lucinda’s name into the search engine of Instagram and opened up her page. As she had expected, many of the pictures were of the ball, with lots of comments of congratulations. She couldn’t help noticing so many of the pictures were of Daniel and Lucinda together, which made it look as though they were still a couple. She scrolled through the photographs until she saw one of herself, sitting alone on the table looking forlorn. She looked across to the comments. Lucinda hadn’t posted any, but plenty of others had.
Who would be stupid enough to wear a black dress when the dress code was white?
Doesn’t she know anything about dress code?
No wonder no one wanted to speak to her.
Definitely not our sort.
Two of the comments, unsurprisingly, were by the lovely Verity and Felicity.No, Anna thought as she flicked her phone off, tears welling in her eyes.I wouldn’t want to be one of your sort either.It would be nice if she never had to go to Cheshire again, but she had the exhibition to get through. Right now, she wished she’d stuck to taking photographs of London, but it was what it was. She’d just have to make sure the exhibition was as good as it could be. She’d show them she was not someone to be ridiculed.
* * *
Daniel had had a busy morning, meeting the building contractor first thing to go through the renovations to the photography school. He was satisfied that the team knew what they were doing, and hopeful that the work would be completed on time. When he got home he’d work on the text for the pages of the website so that it could go live as soon as possible. And then they would start marketing. He was looking forward to getting his first students through the door. The first course would start at the beginning of January. Initially he would run three-month introductory courses, with a certificate at the end of them. If that went well, he would apply to teach more formal qualifications from September next year. He was also looking forward to actually getting back to his camera, rather than having to deal with estate agents, solicitors and builders. He’d enjoyed project-managing the venture but he’d missed the photography, and being with Anna.
It wouldn’t hurt to spend more time with her and much less time around Lucinda. He’d been nice to his ex-wife to keep the status quo for Ben, but after the way she’d tried to manipulate him recently the gloves were definitely off.
He pulled into his driveway, opened the front door and headed to the kitchen for a much-needed cup of coffee. His phone pinged with an Instagram notification and he opened it up. Social media was an important part of his job and that was what he used it for, but he wasn’t interested in gossip and the tittle-tattling that went on there. He opened up Lucinda’s post, horrified to see there were a lot of pictures of him and her together. Why did that not surprise him? And then he saw the photograph of Anna, sitting alone, looking forlorn, and his heart clenched. He should never have asked her to go with him. He should have known it would be like throwing her to the lions. When he saw the comments he was even more enraged and immediately dialled Lucinda’s number. It took a while for her to pick up, but eventually she did, sounding a little out of breath.
‘Daniel, hello! How nice to hear from you.’
‘I’ve just seen your Instagram post.’
‘Oh, have you? Didn’t the photos come out really well? Not to your standard, of course, but good all the same.’
‘Could you take down the photo of Anna, please?’ He refused to engage in conversation.
‘Oh, don’t you like it? I must admit she looks a bit sad but—’
‘No, I don’t like it. Neither do I like your friends’ comments. You know full well that the dress wasn’t Anna’s fault and you should be ashamed of yourself for trying to make a fool of her.’
‘Daniel, I never meant—’
‘I don’t care what you meant. Please just take it down.’
‘Of course, Daniel, yes, I didn’t think. I haven’t actually seen the comments yet, so I don’t know what you’re talking about, but if my friends have been unkind, then I’m sorry.’
‘So am I, Lucinda. I expect to see that removed immediately.’
‘Yes, of course.’
‘And, just for the record, next time you find yourself short of an MC, find someone else.’
He ended the call with an angry jerk of his thumb. Her protestations of innocence angered him even more. Who was she trying to fool? Not him, that was for sure. At least not any more. He just hoped Lucinda took that picture down before it could do much damage. Certainly before Anna saw it anyway.
