London, England
October 2013

In these days of quiet desperation

With a sinking feeling, I look at next week's employee roster hanging on the notice board. If I still felt like laughing, I might have been amused at the irony of it, but any feelings of humour deserted me long ago.

Was it really just six weeks ago that I so confidently yet naively told Grandma Bertha that my new job was about so much more than waitressing? Well, the roster on the wall is a firm reminder of how well that didn't work out.

Sighing, I take a step back and almost knock into a colleague whose name is Louis or Lewis or some variation thereof. (Involuntarily, I find myself thinking of the spelling confusion surrounding Ken's friend Hew and feel a sudden sense of wistfulness. It was barely six months ago that I met his old school friends, but life feels infinitely more complicated now.)

"Sorry," I murmur and duck around Louis/Lewis. He briefly nods his head to acknowledge the apology, but already has his attention directed at the notice board.

Turning around, I just mean to head back to my desk, when I hear the sound of someone tottering past the office door on impractically high heels. There's just one person insisting on wearing heels like that around the office and that person could be just the one I need to speak to.

Making a quick decision – seize the moment and all that – I slip through the door and dart along the corridor, following the clack, clack, clack of the heels.

"Marcia?" I call out once I'm close enough. "Do you have a moment for me?"

Marcia is one of the owners of the party planning company I now work for. As she hears me, she hesitates, clearly caught between stopping and moving forward. For a moment, I think she might try and get away (despite her shoes really not being practical for a quick escape), but then she turns towards me.

"Rilla-dear!" she exclaims. "I'd love to stay and chat, but I really must fly. Oodles to do!"

She tries to hurry on, but I manoeuvre myself between her and the corridor, effectively keeping her in place. Short of shoving me aside there's little she can do to get past me.

"I only need a moment," I insist.

With a dramatic sigh, Marcia looks at her sparkly watch. "But only a moment, darling," she part-relents. "I am expecting delivery of colour swatches for the Hunter-McClellan wedding."

"For the dining room decoration?" I ask, feeling somewhat desperate to somehow get a foot into the planning side of things.

Marcia laughs her tinkling laugh. "No, silly. For the table protectors."

The… table protectors? That's the thing that goes under the tablecloth, right?

Better not ask.

"The table protectors," I repeat, nodding. "Absolutely."

(Does anyone ever even see them?)

"Obviously, we can't have them in the wrong colour," Marcia tells me gravely, as if the hue of the table protectors was at least a question of life and death.

"No, we can't," I agree – outwardly, that is. "Totally obvious."

Let's file it away as another thing that still befuddles me about this job.

"Very good of you to see," commends Marcia and pats my cheek. I suppress the impulse to recoil. When she tries to subtly slip past me, however, I mirror her movements so that I continue to block her.

"The thing I wanted to talk about –" I begin.

But Marcia doesn't even let me finish. "Can't it wait, sweetheart?" she replies, frowning in a very put upon way. "I'm such a busy woman."

"I don't doubt that," I lie. (I mean, whoever thinks that choosing the colour of the table protector constitutes an important job clearly needs their head examined!) "I really just need a moment."

I'd prefer to move this conversation to a closed office, instead of holding it out here in the corridor where everyone can hear it, but Marcia seems disinclined to do so. Instead, she sighs another dramatic sigh, lest I forget the great sacrifice I am asking from her, and asks, "What is it, sweetie?"

A quick look along the corridor reveals it to be if not deserted than at least free of obvious eavesdroppers, so I soldier on. At risk of sounding overdramatic myself, it's now or never. I've got to get this right.

"Look, I know I'm new and that certain tasks come with being the new one," I tell her cautiously. "I also realise that everyone has to pitch in in a tight spot. That goes without saying, really. It's just…" I hesitate.

"Just?" prompts Marcia, not-so-subtly peering past me.

Taking a deep breath, I continue, "I really don't mind filling in for someone when there are not enough people to cover catering between them, but… well, I started working here four weeks ago. So far, waitressing has been the only thing I've done."

In fact, there was hardly a day at all in the last four weeks I didn't spend pouring drinks and juggling plates and offering tasty little nibbles. And it's fine that they call on me for waitressing duties, it really is, because the occasional spot of waitressing has never hurt anyone, but to make me do it almost every evening has to be excessive, right?

"We're short on waiters, so everyone must do their part," Marcia tells me with a distinctive air of unconcernedness. It's like she doesn't even care. (And I don't get the feeling that "everyone" includes her and the team leaders.)

Much more pertinent though, she's not speaking the truth either. I've seen the list of the temps for waitressing jobs and some of them haven't been called in since before I started my job. I can't imagine they're all of them too busy to work.

"And I understand that everyone must do what needs to be done to finish the job," I assure Marcia, making sure to keep my voice pleasant. "I absolutely do want to do my part. It's just that I was hired to do more than waitressing and it would be great if I could soon start on that aspect of the job as well."

"Oh, absolutely, you will!" claims Marcia, tapping an orange-painted fingernail against my shoulder. "Some more waitressing and then you're all set to learn the other aspects of your job."

It sounds, while not great, certainly like an improvement and I find myself nodding enthusiastically. "That'd be amazing!"

And it would be – if only the nagging voice in my ear would stop wondering (loudly!) whether Marcia is speaking the truth now. Somehow, I'm not altogether convinced. Nor is the nagging voice.

But I know when a discussion is over and Marcia's sighs of impatience tell me that it's best to end this before I truly start annoying her. Maybe the vague promise of future improvements is all I can hope for right now.

Takin a step back, I say, "Right, well. If you do have anything I can help with, you know where to find me." Even if it's just colour swatches for table protectors – or is even that too advanced a task for me?

"Absolutely, sweetie!" promises Marcia, already walking past me. "I really must fly now. Those colour swatches, you remember?"

Yes. Hard to forget, those.

Looking past Marcia as she totters along the corridor in her ridiculous heels, I find that I don't feel much better than before. I planned this conversation for days, but now that it has taken place, I'm not too hopeful that it changed anything.

Sighing, I turn to walk back to my desk. Next to the door leading to the shared office, I spy Louis/Lewis and briefly wonder how much of the conversation he heard.

He answers my unspoken question when, without even looking up from his blackberry, he informs me, "You're most valuable for them when you're visible. They can't charge a premium for you advising clients on their choice of hors d'oeuvre, but they can charge a premium for you serving them."

I stop dead in my tracks. "A… a premium?" I stutter. "What?"

Louis/Lewis pockets the blackberry and looks up at me. "People get a kick out of being waited on by the girl sleeping with the future king. Makes them feel important," he explains, very matter-of-factly, and pushes away from the wall.

Knowing I should respond somehow, I open my mouth, but there are not words coming out. My stage of befuddlement must have shown on my face though, because as he walks past me, Louis/Lewis adds, "Better get used to it, princess. If Marcia has her way, you'll be carrying trays for a very long time."

Great.

Just bloody great.

The worst thing is that he's making perfect sense. If there truly are people out there deranged enough to pay extra for having me as a waitress, Marcia has no incentive at all to have me learn how to do the behind-the-scenes work. Much more lucrative for her and the company to push me out there as much as possible.

My first instinct is to stalk after her and tell her I'm resigning now. But as I sit down at my desk and stare at the dark screen of my computer, better sense is already starting to take over. I can't quit this job because I need this job. Living in London (well, near London) is no less expensive than living in New York was, only that now, I don't have my parents and Aunt Mary Maria bankrolling me. They wouldn't let me starve either, but to come running for help barely ten weeks after leaving university is more than my pride will allow. (Besides, the papers would have a field day if I left my first job after just a month. I can already see the headlines painting me as workshy and high maintenance.)

There's nothing else for it but to knuckle down and hope that Louis/Lewis will turn out to be wrong and that Marcia will keep her promise. (I'm not too hopeful about either thing happening.)

Thankfully, at least today's gig is a tea party, which means a) less drunk guests and b) a comparatively early night. It's only a little after 7pm when I drop off the waitress uniform at the office and make my way home. As I leave, I have to dodge the usual gaggle of photographers, who seem to think it's imperative that they chronicle my commute. Every. Single. Day.

In New York, numbers quickly dwindled when the first interest in me waned and in Oxford, they knew to keep their distance, likely facilitated by the presence of Ken and his bodyguards. Here though, I'm on my own and the British press has already proven to have all the tenacity of an angry terrier. There's no chance of them growing bored with me.

With little choice but to keep my head low and ignore the calls of "Rilla! Look here, Rilla! Is it true you're secretly working at a strip club, Rilla?", I walk on and make my way to Warren Street Underground Station. The company office is in fancy Fitzrovia, but the wages they pay only allow for living on the very outskirts of London. Thus, my daily commute sees me take the Victoria line to Victoria Station, before switching to the overground trains taking me to East Croydon.

Croydon is… look, it's not a bad place to live, per se, but… but moving here from pretty Oxford is certainly… an adjustment. Where Oxford is all spires and towers and ornate buildings, Croydon is… emphatically not. It has some nice corners and the town centre even has the odd pretty-looking building, but as I walk from the train station to the actual place I now call home, well… let's just say there's little about it that qualifies as 'nice'. In fact, my way home takes me past the remains of several buildings that were burned down in some riots two years ago, which… yeah.

My studio is located on the sixth floor of an apartment building that might have been modern sometime in the 1960s. As it is, it's still functional, but that's about it. There's nothing welcoming or pretty about it and it's not made more charming by the pub next door, which looked quaint at first and initially delighted me by being named The King George, but then turned out to be frequented by football fans. Loud, drunk, rowdy football fans. It certainly contributes to make the apartment building a place you stay when it's all you can afford and that you leave when you have the chance.

After a year of living in our beautiful, spacious town house in Oxford, coming home to the Croydon apartment feels like a punch to the gut. Every time.

As usual, some photographers have gathered here, too, though what makes them think that pictures of me in Croydon will be any more interesting than pictures of me in Fitzrovia is anyone's guess. (Some of them even make a point to be at both places. The more darkly cynical part of me thinks it's bad manners that they never offer me a lift.) As it is, they do their usually spiel of shouting and getting in my face and I do my usual spiel of keeping my head down and pretending they're not there. It's lather, rinse, repeat, every bloody night.

Having escaped them and then dragged myself up twelve flights of stairs, I get on the job of opening the door. Since Beckett strongly vetoed the idea of Ken ever coming here (he actually might have hyperventilated at the mere thought), the studio didn't get the Royal Security Treatment my old Brooklyn Shoebox received, but Hanson turned up one day after work to have a look at it and gently suggested I have someone install a proper security bolt. It was an expense I could ill-afford, but one mention to Dad took care of it. I might be paying my own way now, but safety is a non-negotiable thing to him, thankfully.

With all locks and bolts taken care of, I push open the door and step inside, making sure to re-lock everything behind me. I have only just finished when, out of the corner of my eye, I see a flash of orange launch itself at me. Moments later, there's a sharp pain at my ankle as teeth and claws cut through my tights, but before I can react, George has already disappeared beneath the bed.

Sighing, I drop my handbag and get on my knees in front of the bed. "Georgie?"

George is at the farthest end, pressed against the wall. His ears lie flat against his head, his tail swishes in annoyance and when he sees me, he hisses loudly.

"Look, I'm sorry, Georgie," I apologise, still crouching in front of the bed. "I know you want to go outside, but it's not possible."

The lack of fire escape ladders in London means that the sixth floor apartment is far too high for him to leave through a window. There's no alternative way either as I'm unsure how my neighbours would react to a cat stalking through the hallway. Besides, one of the second floor apartments is occupied by a burly man with two heavy bulldogs that I never want George to encounter. And even if that didn't rule out letting him out through the building, there's a busy street running just by it that no cat should ever attempt to cross.

Because I can't see any way to solve this, George is trapped in the not very sizable studio apartment and he shows me daily what he thinks of it.

"Do you want to play a little?" I ask him, blindly reaching for something I could offer him.

When we were still in Oxford, Dev and Josh, upon learning that I don't know when George was born, went and gave him an Unbirthday Present. Among other things, it consisted of several catnip cuddly toys in the shape of food, including a slice of pizza, two different tacos, an ice cream cone as well as a waffle and a chicken wing that, inexplicably, came as a set. It's the chicken wing that I now offer to George to play with, but he just swishes his tail in indignation and hisses again, for good measure.

With a sigh, I toss the cuddly chicken wing under the bed and get up from the floor, only now shrugging off my coat and kicking my shoes into a corner. I suppose I should be putting them away orderly, but it's hard to care about keeping a place like this tidy. It's plainly depressing and no amount of housekeeping will ever change that.

Additionally, George's cuddly toys have reminded me that it's been weeks since I've last seen my friends. Lucy is away on an internship with a museum in Ireland, Josh has started his PhD studies up in St Andrews and Dev decided that he had earned a break after university and was last known to be holidaying in the Caribbean. I'm in contact with all three, just like I'm in contact with my New York friends, but just as with them, it's not the same.

And besides, they aren't the only people I haven't seen in weeks.

Rubbing my face with both hands, I let myself fall backwards on the bed, ignoring the protesting squeak it emits. The studio came furnished, which was a bonus from a financial viewpoint, but adds to the drabness of it all. My Shoebox was small, but cosy. This… isn't.

And the worst is that I even have to be grateful for having found an affordable place so close to London so quickly – and with a cat, too! The commute is a bother, being loud and crowded and smelly and always late, but it's under an hour (though it's under an hour spent standing, as there are never enough seats). And while the apartment is bleak and uninspiring, it has a solid roof, running water, electricity and even, on occasion, functioning heating. Rationally, I know it's something to be grateful for, but emotionally, everything within me rejects the very thought. I don't want to have to feel grateful for this.

George obviously agrees, for having crawled out from under the bed, he stops to look at me with utter disdain. Another hiss, before he stalks to the other end of the studio and jumps up on the windowsill, clearly intent on ignoring me.

Lovely. Even the cat hates me. (Not that I can blame him.)

I briefly consider making myself something to eat, but the thought of heated instant food isn't enticing enough to make up for the effort, so I just don't bother. Instead, I just lie on the bed and stare at the ceiling until, minutes later, my laptop calls for my attention with a loud, jingling sound.

Scrambling up from the bed, I need a moment to locate the laptop on the counter of the somewhat grimy kitchen, so by the time I've settled back down and accepted the Skype call (rescheduled from Sunday because Joy had a family outing), all my sisters are already there.

"Rilla!" chides Nan, seconds after I've logged on. "Didn't we talk about giving your place a homier feel?"

We did. Or rather, Nan did. She even emailed me decorating tips.

"Yes, I… I just didn't get around to it," I lie. Truth is, I couldn't be bothered.

"You should," insists Nan. "It'll make you feel much better to come home to a place that is a home."

I don't even doubt her. She's certainly done lovely things to the Toronto studio she moved into this summer. It's almost overstuffed with, well, stuff, but there's no denying it looks perfectly cosy and comfortable.

The difference is, though, that Nan has accepted that this will be her home for the foreseeable time. She still has at least four years of her PhD left, so won't be leaving Toronto anytime soon. And with her having told Jerry firmly and calmly that things are definitely over between them, she needed a new place to properly call home. Whereas I… well, I still can't shake the feeling that any attempt of turning this drab place into something nice would be acknowledging it as a non-temporary thing and I just can't face that thought. It's just… too much.

As if having read my thoughts – or rather, the thoughts I don't even allow myself to think – Di chimes in, "How is lover-boy doing, Rilla? Still off playing soldier?"

"He's still doing pilot training, yes," I confirm primly. I know most of my family members don't exactly approve of Ken's military training and that's their prerogative, but Di's glibness still rankles.

"Is he enjoying it?" Joy enquires, clearly in an attempt to keep the peace.

"He's ecstatic. Totally over the moon," I answer slowly, feeling a lump build in my throat as I speak. "Whenever we talk, he's telling me about all the things he did that day and… really, he sounds like a little boy on Christmas Day. It's… it's sweet, in a way. He's so happy doing this and I'm glad for it. He's not even bothered by the weather, which, given that he's in Northern Scotland, is quite remarkable. I don't think it has stopped raining ever since he arrived."

I try to raise a smile at this admittedly very weak joke, but look back at three identically frowning faces.

"And meanwhile, you're stuck…" begins Di, then hesitates. "Where is it that you're stuck again?"

"Croydon," replies Nan in my stead.

"Yes. Croydon," Di repeats dubiously. And even thought she doesn't say it, it's clear what she's thinking.

"Look, I already told you I'm fine with him going," I insist, feeling more than a little annoyed. "He asked and I told him to do it. I mean, yes, it means we won't see each other a lot in the next few months, but what does that matter in the grand scheme of things? This is a dream of his and what kind of girlfriend would I be if I didn't support that?"

Of course, it never is quite as easy as that and my sisters aren't so easily fooled.

Di opens her mouth to speak, but, probably fearing what she might say, Joy cuts right across her. "It's lovely of you to be supportive of what he's doing. No-one thinks otherwise. We're just worried that… we're worried…" She trails off, clearly unsure of how to phrase her thoughts. (Happens rarely enough.)

"We don't doubt you being a supportive girlfriend," Nan speaks up instead. "We're just wondering what kind of boyfriend it makes him that he isn't really supporting your dreams."

And what does it say about me that the only rebuttal I can think of is 'I don't have these big, important dreams'?

It's far too depressing a thing to say, truthful as it might be, so I just shake my head, averting my eyes from the screen for a moment. "Could we… could we just talk about something else?"

"But –" Di protests and I feel my heart sink. I really don't want to be having this discussion right now.

Thankfully, Joy can be relied upon. "Of course we can," she answers kindly. "Should I tell you about Izzie's latest school production and how awfully, hilariously it went wrong?"

"Yes." I nod, feeling relief washing over me. "Yes, please."

So she does. Afterwards, Nan takes over to talk about her latest research project, before Di gives in to the general pestering and recounts the date she had on Friday with a kindergarten teacher called Imogene. By the time she is done it's nearing midnight for me, so my sisters shoo me to bed, wishing me alternatively a good night and sweet dreams. (As if.)

Shutting the laptop, I only just manage to gather the energy to drag myself over into the bathroom. (Is it me or has that mouldy patch grown bigger since yesterday?) I go through the general routine of scrubbing off my make-up, brushing my teeth and changing into my night clothing, before walking over to the kitchen and setting out some food for George. (I must remember to look into what's the matter with the fridge. If its job is to keep the food cool, it's not being altogether successful at it.)

Shutting off the light, I climb into bed to try and fall asleep – but nothing. I should be sleeping, because even though there's nothing to do for me at the office, they still expect me to be there every morning sharpish. But even knowing that, I can't seem to get my brain to shut down and let me sleep. I just lie there, stare at the dark room and listen to George gobbling down his food.

Reaching for the phone next to my pillow, I find myself going through this summer's photos. Oxford looks even more beautiful now that it isn't home anymore and it provides an adequate background for the various snaps showing my friends, me and Ken just going about our daily business. Then there are those from graduation day, all of us beaming with pride and exhilaration at having done it (Ha! If only I'd known!), followed by pictures taken during the fancy dinner my parents took Ken and me to in the evening. Leaving Oxford behind, I scroll through the photos from Steve and Fiona's wedding (where Ken's friends so reliably shielded me from Vera that I swear I didn't see her the entire day) and finally of our stay in Canada, culminating in the small, intimate wedding of Jem and Faith. (Why is everyone getting married all of a sudden?)

Following an impulse, I close the virtual photo album, instead selecting Ken's number and pressing 'call'. I know I shouldn't hope, because that he can't take calls spontaneously, but I still can't stop myself from wishing that maybe, just today –

"Hey. Sorry you only reached the voicemail. I'm busy right now. Please leave a message."

Beep.


The title of this chapter is taken from the song 'Everybody Has a Dream' (written by Billy Joel, released by him in 1977).


To JoAnna:
Skirts with pockets are absolutely the best! There should be many more of them! (Sadly, there won't be, because it'd mean they couldn't sell as us many handbags...)
Oh, a bit of preparation (or, you know,
a lot) wouldn't hurt Rilla at all. She needs to figure out what she wants, because until she does, she has nothing to strive for and she can't communicate what it is that she wants. She allows others (Ken, most often) to make decisions for her and even when she has a feeling that not all is well, she doesn't say so and that's a problem. She needs to figure out her own feelings and she needs to learn how to communicate them.
On the other hand, Ken makes decisions without consulting Rilla at all and that's equally bad. It's also selfish, because as you say, he's definitely getting the better part of the deal. He gets to do what he loves, while she is set to be all alone in a strange city - a city that she moved to for him in the first place! She has no support system there and without him present, the press basically considers her fair game. So, no, Ken doesn't get anyone feeling sorry for him right now. At the moment, he's revealing himself to be a pretty bad boyfriend and there are no good excuses for that.
I love you saying that Rilla and Ken are like real people to you. I always strive to create my characters in a way that feels as real as possible, with good aspects and bad ones, strengths and failings. And yes, that makes them exasperating sometimes, as all people can be exasperating, but like real people, they can grow and change, so here's hoping everyone will move past that at some point ;).
Rilla's lack of contact or lack of a relationship with her siblings, her sisters especially, is something that I didn't like about RoI. I mean, from a writer's POV, I understand why LMM narrowed her cast of characters (getting more than 5 characters in line is like herding cats!), but I would have liked for Rilla to interact with her siblings and I would have liked for her to have actual friends. Accordingly, I'm trying to do better in my story, by building a supporting sisterly relationship, and by writing actual friends for Rilla. (Plus, her friends are fun to write. The England fans are a delight!)
Bertha is a convenient character for me, because she needles Rilla when Rilla doesn't want to talk about something. That's why I made her be that way ;). It means that while Bertha often has a point, she can come on too strong and doesn't back off when most people would. I think she'd achieve more of she were more gentle in her approach, but even so, she's often right about what she says. In the last chapter, she was maybe a tad snobbish about the party planning business, but she was right in that Rilla should try and find out what she wants to do with her life. Right now, Rilla is being very passive about her future and that's not an overly healthy situation. She can't keep relying for others to decide her life for her.
Not too long at all! I cherish all reviews, but as someone who's been known to ramble, I absolutely appreciate a long comment ;).