Conversations 02

Beth stared at me, tears in her eyes. "I never, that wasn't it... I didn't..."

"You didn't tell him you were little miss diamonds and pearls from a golden family? Why not? Afraid he'd see through you?"

Beth turned and I just knew she was going to run. And if she ran I might never get her back. I grabbed her hand, swung her in and held her to me.

"Hey," I whispered as she sobbed against my chest. "She's looking for a weakness to try and split us up and break our friendship apart. It's not going to happen. I don't care whether you have a couple of quid or not. I really don't. You are my best friend. But this is what she does. It's who she is. She manipulates reality. Why do you think I could never prove her infidelity? She could spin anyone around and get them to believe black was white."

I turned back to Marie, who was watching us with triumph in her eyes.

"Marie, you had better shut that big trap of yours right now, or the next words out of it will be 'do you want fries with that?' I gave you that CEO position, but if you don't shut up right now, I swear I will take it away from you again. Fuck, I'll give it to Beth instead. She's a great little organiser."

I said that Beth was short. She's five foot nothing in her shoes. So when she looks up at me, she really does that. And now she was looking up at me with alarm behind the tears. She wanted that position no more than I did.

Marie finally heard the truth in my voice. She didn't want to lose the position of chairman, and knew that I had the proxies for the whole day. I could call everyone back and simply change the agenda so she was fired along with the rest of them.

"Why did you give me the position if you hate me?"

"Marie, I don't hate you. I did, but I don't hate you anymore. I used to love you, but I don't feel that anymore either. You want to know why you got the job? Let me tell you. Six weeks ago when I started planning this day out, I thought about us divorced. If you got fired, I would have to pay you alimony. I would have to pay you, so that you could fuck around and exercise your cunt to your heart's content. I would end up paying you so you could do that!

"I couldn't accept that, so I decided if I promoted you, maybe you would end up paying me instead. And then I thought how delightful it would be if I could spend all day fucking while you worked hard to support my pleasure. Oh that would be so good. That would be karma. I mean, I have a heart condition, so I couldn't work anymore..."

Beth looked up at me with fear in her eyes. I held her face between my hands and as gently as I could, I brushed away the tracks of her tears with my thumbs. "I don't, but I could easily get a certificate that says I do. I have friends in many strange places."

She threw her arms around me, weeping.

"I'm sorry," she said in a muffled voice, with her face buried against my chest. "But I don't want to be your best friend anymore."

"Hah!" said Marie. I shot her a look with so much venom in it, she actually moved back a few feet. I waved a hand at her and she retreated to the other side of the room.

"Really?" I asked Beth. She nodded, and I felt my body just sag and my arms drop to my sides. I felt so tired. I was so tired of my emotions just driving me from place to place, with hope and fear mixing like oil and water and never quite making it.

"I'm so sorry," I said. "I never meant to fall in love with you. I just wanted you to be my best friend. It just happened. I'm so sorry I ruined everything."

She was staring up at me, her brown eyes huge. "You fell in love with me?"

"Yes, of course. And I'm sorry that it ruined our friendship."

"You fell in love with me?" she asked again. Shit, it seemed I had overstepped the mark in a big way. I should have just kept it contained.

I nodded, feeling a main course of miserable with a nice big side order of creeping loneliness. Why did she keep asking me the same question?

"I don't want to be your best friend," she said carefully, and I nodded my acceptance of that fact. "I want to be your best love, your best life, your best wife. And okay, your best friend as well. But the others first."

"Huh?" I couldn't seem to place what she said in the right order.

"Rob Bentley, will you marry me."

"Okay but you have to get on your knee to ask first." Not a very funny comeback, but if we were going to joke around, it would have to do. I was too drained to get really cute.

She got down on one knee. "Rob, will you marry me?"

"Can't hear you now, you'll have to come closer again." I tried to smile, but joking about marriage wasn't in the best of taste in my book. Not right then, maybe later.

She got to her feet, and the next thing I knew her arms were around my neck and her legs were wrapped tightly around my waist. I stumbled backward a few paces.

"I am going to ask you one last time, Rob. Just once more. I mean it! Almost. Maybe. Now listen, and listen well. I love you, and you said you love me, so will you marry me?"

"You're not joking?"

"No, of course not. What, you think I ask guys to marry me for a joke? Why would you think that?"

"I'm not very lucky."

"Well, say yes and I promise you'll get very lucky as soon as I can get you back to the house."

"Yes!"

She kissed me then for the first time, knocking her glasses askew in her passion. I know, everything was screwed up, and in the wrong order. I didn't care; she tasted of sunlight, roses, vanilla, autumn mists, warm sand at the beach, chocolate - everything that was ever good in my sad, fucked up life.

"Hah! I knew it," came a muted screech from the far side of the boardroom.

"Fuck off, Marie," Beth and I said at the same time.

And she did. So maybe I wasn't so unlucky after all.