Page 3 of The Retreat

A month had passed since Celeste’s retreat announcement, and Talia was no closer to solving her problem. Every idea was flawed.

She couldn’t ask a friend to play along, that would be too humiliating. The idea of admitting she had a pretend girlfriend could never be public knowledge.

She could tell everyone that the relationship had ended, but that was no good because she’d still be in the same bind as before.

A social failure at a firm that prized romantic success. Plus, she remembered that joke from the meeting. ‘If she exists.’ Saying she broke up with Alex was too close to admitting she’d made her up.

She could tell the truth? What a hilarious idea.

There had to be a way around this. Talia pulled up her phone again. She quickly googled hire a fake girlfriend and scrolled through the results.

All of the ads were for ‘escorts’ who specialised in pretending to be your girlfriend for an event. Talia’s stomach churned. She wasn’t even comfortable googling this. No matter how much she needed a solution, she was certain this idea would backfire. She’d seen too many bank records during settlement meetings to be ignorant to the fact that things like this could bite you in the arse long after you’d forgotten you’d even done it.

She sighed and leaned back in her chair. Her thoughts shifted to the root of her problem, the reason she was so damn single. To the start of all her problems.

Flora.

Because Talia wasn’t single just because she was too busy—though that was true enough. She simply couldn’t get over why she was avoiding relationships in the first place. The reason was tied up with her most serious relationship, which was also her worst betrayal.

The wound wasn’t just about Flora. It wasn’t just about the fact that Flora had been the one person Talia had allowed herself to care about. It was that she had been the first person to teach her how deeply a heart could break when it was cracked open.

Talia couldn’t seem to come back from that knowledge. So here she was, about to look like a real arse at the very moment she needed to look like the opposite of an arse. She needed to be more like… a shoulder. Something neutral and quietly competent.

What could she do? She couldn’t pull a pretend Alex from thin air.

She was stuck with the best of bad options. Pretend she’d broken up with Alex and take the hit. The thought didn’t sit well. But what choice did she have?

It wasn’t perfect. It wasn’t clean. But it was an answer. She could act heartbroken, maybe even rush off to the toilets a few times as though overcome with emotion.

Yes, maybe people would have some cynical thoughts on the ‘breakup.’ But who would ask her to prove Alex’s existence? No one would dig deeper into it, not at a company retreat. They’d probably think she was a little tragic. A little sad. And her ambitions would take a hit. But maybe she was good enough by herself. Maybe if she worked even harder, she could make up the deficit.

Maybe.

Talia stood up and paced her office, the weight of the decision settling on her chest. It wasn’t ideal. But it was the only option she had. A breakup story would have to be enough.

She grabbed her phone again to send the email to Celeste. She’d craft a story. She’d say the right words. It would be OK.

I’m sorry I can’t bring Alex to the retreat, she typed, pausing before she added the next line. We recently broke up. Our schedules were simply too tough to make it work.

It was plausible. The words were soft enough, sad enough, to sound real. She could hear the sympathy in Celeste’s voice already, feel the polite understanding that would follow. It was a believable story. She could sell it.

So why couldn’t she press send?

Because she knew this would cost her the promotion. It just would. She’d never get there at Monroe. She’d have to leave, start somewhere else, resetting the clock and everything she’d done to get to the big chair. Professionally, not having a girlfriend at this moment in time could set her back as much as a decade.

Her thumb hovered over the send button. She should just do it anyway. There was nothing else to be done. All she was doing was delaying the inevitable. An answer was not going to fall out of the sky.

But she couldn’t bring herself to hit send. Not yet.

Talia closed the email, the draft sitting in her inbox, incomplete, unresolved. She needed more time. But more time to do what?

A reminder beeped at her, and she realised she had a meeting in half an hour. This problem would have to wait.

***

Talia’s day was going from bad to stupid.

En route to her meeting, her heel had gotten stuck in a grate so thoroughly that she had to let the grate have it. She had to hop into a nearby budget shoe shop and grab the closest thing to classy she could find. So she’d arrived at her meeting late and poorly shod.

As she left the meeting, which had not gone great, she cursed her own feet. How could she be confident in Chimmy Joe’s? Talia was not a fan of mistakes. Particularly her own.

She decided not to head back to the office immediately. She spotted a little café tucked away on a quiet corner. No one from work would be there because, frankly, it was a little too grubby.

She pushed open the door and stepped inside. The place was even more of a dive from the inside. But that was exactly what she needed right now. It was just her and the comfort of this tiny, empty shithole.

She chose a table in the corner and glanced around, wondering if anyone would serve her. After a few moments, she spotted a waitress, an hourglass-shaped blonde in an apron, moving quickly behind the counter, facing away. Talia kept looking, hoping to catch her eye. But she wouldn’t turn around.

Talia sighed impatiently. She was the sole customer. Talia would have thought they’d been all over her.

Moments later, the door to the kitchen opened, and an older woman came out, spotted Talia, and said something into the waitress’s ear. The waitress turned slowly, with regret, and Talia found out the reason for the bad service.

It was Imogen.

She slowly approached Talia, looking down. As well she might. Finally, she reached her, her hands fidgeting with the apron strings nervously. Talia’s heart pounded, and she could feel the heat of anger rising in her chest.

‘What can I get you?’ Imogen nearly whispered, her doe eyes skittish.

‘What?’ Talia scoffed.

Imogen flinched, but only for a second. ‘What can I get you?’ she replied, the flatness of her voice making Talia’s blood boil.

Talia’s eyes narrowed. ‘So this is where you’ve landed up, is it? Guess the gallery didn’t work out.’

Imogen’s gaze flickered with something. Shame? Annoyance? Talia couldn’t tell.

‘No, it didn’t. What can I get you?’ she repeated once more.

‘I’d have thought you’d have a job for life given what you did for the boss,’ Talia said.

Imogen took a slow inhale before speaking again. ‘It closed. OK?’

Talia felt her heart flood with warmth. ‘The gallery went bust? Oh, poor Flora. Hate to hear her dreams didn’t work out.’

‘Actually, she was offered curator of The Vespar in Paris,’ Imogen told her, as though it was a win. ‘She packed up the place by choice.’

But it didn’t take Talia long to put two and two together. ‘Oh, I see. Did she leave you behind for greener pastures? How sad.’

Imogen didn’t flinch, didn’t look away. She just set her jaw and met Talia’s gaze head-on. ‘I wasn’t your girlfriend, Talia. If you’re still angry, take it up with her.’

‘Take it up with her?’ Talia spat, feeling the frustration building to a boiling point. ‘But you were so integral to the whole thing, and you’re right in front of me. So I think I’ll take it up with you if it’s all the same.’

Imogen’s face twisted, and for a second, Talia thought she saw something like guilt cross her expression. But then it was gone, replaced by something colder.

‘It wasn’t my fault,’ she snapped.

‘No? Flora screwed herself in our bed, did she?’

‘I’m not to blame,’ Imogen shot back, her voice barely above a growl.

‘Oh no, you were such an innocent in it all,’ Talia spat, her breathing shallow as rage pulsed through her.

She couldn’t believe how angry she still was, even after all this time. Five years had gone by. She should have let all this go by now.

But looking at Imogen, nothing had been let go.

Without thinking, Talia stood up suddenly, her chair scraping loudly against the floor. She was too close now, their faces inches apart.

‘You really think you’re not responsible?’ Talia hissed, her voice shaking with a combination of fury and desperation.

Imogen’s face hardened, her eyes cold. ‘You want closure?’ she said quietly, her words sharp. ‘Then here it is: Flora made her choice.’

Talia’s body trembled with rage, and without thinking, she grabbed the table nearest and flipped it with a crack.

Imogen’s eyes went wide in surprise. But no one was more surprised than Talia. Public rage was not her style at all, nor was destruction of property. Was this what it was like to go insane?

She wasn’t planning to go any further into the madness. She had to stop. This was too far.

She reached forward and tried to right the table. But as she pulled, the table next to it teetered, its balance disturbed by the motion. It fell, crashing into the one beside it, which then knocked into another. One after another, the tables toppled with a cacophony of splintering wood and shuffling chairs.

Talia stood frozen for a moment, watching the carnage she had unintentionally set in motion. A domino run of lunacy.

As the last table finally crashed to the ground, Talia looked around, her mind still struggling to catch up with what she’d just done.

But then she looked at Imogen’s face—at those bloody doe eyes that had batted at Flora and ruined Talia’s life—and made the decision not to give a damn.

‘Great. Look what you’ve made me do,’ Talia said.

Before Imogen could respond, Talia stormed out of the café, the door swinging shut behind her with a bang.

She didn’t look back. She didn’t want Imogen to know that she was freaking out. Not just from the destruction, but coming face-to-face with someone who played a part in leading her to the very predicament she was now in at work. If not for her, things might have been so very different.