Love Me Till Wednesday (Sapphire Stars #1)

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The following morning Lisa was sitting in a conference room in her employer’s offices in central London. Not for the first time, she marvelled at the architects’ ability to create a stuffy room even though it had air conditioning. It had a lousy outlook, too. Despite being surrounded by elegant Georgian buildings, the windows perfectly framed the grimy brick walls and peeling window frames of the rear of the building behind.

She dragged her attention back to the meeting. It had already gone on ten minutes longer than scheduled, thanks to programme manager Colin spouting on about the success of their work so far, no doubt for the benefit of the Assistant Director who’d graced them with his presence today. Lisa looked around the table. She wasn’t the only one who looked as if they were struggling to stay awake. Chris, the test manager looked like a rabbit caught in the beam of a headlight as he fought to keep his eyes open, and her friend, Nina, was sitting next to her, doodling seaside scenes on her notepad. Why did senior management insist that the entire project team had to come into the office for the weekly Wednesday catchup? If they’d been using Teams, at least everyone could get on with something useful while Colin was grandstanding - researching estate agents and places to live, for instance.

After reading Greg’s note yesterday, Lisa hadn’t felt like getting on with organising the house sale. But this morning, she decided to see the positive side of the situation. Rattling around on her own in a five-bedroomed, four-storey Victorian terraced house made no sense at all. The Universe was giving her a nudge in the right direction.

Would anyone notice if she fired up a browser window and started researching house prices? Probably. Annoying Anya was sitting the other side of her, and she never missed an opportunity to point score over Lisa. House-hunting or, more likely, flat-hunting would have to wait until lunchtime.

Colin was still droning on. Lisa let her mind drift back to the house move. Perhaps one of those luxury flats they were building in Kings Cross would do. Somewhere ultra-modern for a change, with quieter plumbing than Number 39’s. And it ought to leave Lisa with enough money to top up her pension. Possibly even enough to give up this lousy job and do something more fulfilling. But what?

‘Lisa!’ Colin’s agitated tone brought her back to reality. ‘We would all love to know what you plan to cover on your Manchester trip next week.’

‘Next week?’ she said, kicking herself for not paying more attention. What the hell was happening next week? She quickly clicked on her work diary. Wednesday and Thursday had “Keep free for delivering mop-up training sessions” highlighted at the top. Thank God!

‘Yes, of course,’ she smiled, sharing the correct presentation on the large screen.

‘I never understood why you agreed to Greg having any share of the house,’ Lisa’s neighbour Jules said as they sat in Lisa’s kitchen on Wednesday evening, waiting for the rest of their book club friends to arrive. ‘You bought it years before he arrived on the scene.’

‘I had to give him something. He designed and paid for a lot of the renovations. I was lucky to get away with 20%. If Isabella hadn’t been so loaded, I’m sure he would’ve demanded more.’

‘So what’s the plan?’

‘I’m working from home on Monday so I’ve got three estate agents booked in for valuations. That’ll give me the weekend to tidy up.’

‘I’d make it look like a tip if I were you. That should minimise the 20% Greg gets.’

‘And minimise what I get too. It still won’t bring it down to an amount I can afford to pay him. I need to sell it for as much as possible so I can downsize to somewhere good enough to spend the remainder of my life and still have some change left over.’

‘I can’t imagine you living anywhere else after all these years.’

‘Neither could I at first, but it’s time for a change. I can’t keep living in the past.’

‘You need a rich man to come along and rescue you.’

Lisa was disgusted at that suggestion. ‘Since when did I rely on men to rescue me? They’re the ones who cause me trouble. Pete, Nick and the lovely Greg. They’ve all left me to fend for myself.’

Her breakup with Pete hadn’t been so bad. She’d already been thinking about finishing with him when he cheated on her. In hindsight, she’d never been truly in love with him. They were just friends. After the initial shock, the split had turned out for the best for both of them.

And Greg being seduced by another woman hadn’t been unexpected. She’d had an inkling he might be playing away from home for a while, though she was surprised he chose stick-thin Lady Isabella. Screwing her must’ve been like making love to a washboard for a man who claimed that he preferred curvy women. Lisa suspected Isabella’s address book, full of useful contacts for his architecture business, and her lack of teenagers at home to annoy him might have been significant factors.

But neither of those breakups had made her feel anywhere near as bad as the split with Nick. That had happened out of the blue and had been absolutely devastating.

Jules’ voice brought her back to the present. ‘I’m going to miss our regular chats. Everything’s changing now the kids are nearly adults.’

Jules’ twins were 17 and in the year below Elise at school.

‘Do you think you and Martin will downsize when the boys go to uni?’ Lisa asked.

‘We’ve always said we’d move to Cornwall when we retired, but I suppose there’d be nothing keeping us here once Tom and Will have left school. We could both do our jobs remotely.’

‘Well, you’ll be stuck with me for a while longer,’ Lisa said. ‘I’m not going to move far. I want to stay near to Jim and Ally.’

Lisa’s eldest son lived in Hampstead with his fiancée, Ally, and their daughters, four-year-old Sophie and baby Grace. Seeing them a couple of times a week made her routine life more bearable. She might even find somewhere with a garden so she could keep the old swing for Sophie to play on or even invest in a new one.

‘No excuse not to keep up with our book club too. Which reminds me, did you finish this month’s book?’

Lisa shook her head. ‘No, but it’s been a great cure for insomnia. ’

Jules pulled a face. ‘Same here. I was hoping you’d help me out with a summary.’

‘I read The Guardian review. We’ll wing it,’ Lisa said as the doorbell rang.