The Wedding Invite (Lakeview) (Lakeview Contemporary Romance Book 6) (34 page)

“It’s not that people change, it’s that
you’ve
changed, and they don’t know how to handle that. They’re afraid of it, and I suppose most people really don’t want to entertain that side of their personality. They’re possibly a little ashamed of themselves.”

Nicola nodded. She had had this conversation before with her mother. But sitting here now and listening to it from a male perspective Nicola felt rather dispirited.

Ken seemed to sense her mood change. “Hey, don’t look like that.”

“Like what?”

He shook his head. “Look, I’m not trying to make you feel bad. All I’m saying is that if you’re hoping to find someone new, it certainly won’t happen in anywhere as shallow as a bar or a nightclub. It’s hard enough for able-bodied people to do that.” He laughed out loud. “When I think of the fortune I’ve spent in Clancy’s buying drinks for all those good-time girls …”

Nicola raised a tiny smile. “I really can’t see you having problems with finding someone.”

“You’d be surprised,” he said, looking right at her.

Nicola’s heart skipped a beat and she quickly looked away.

“Oh, let’s not talk about this anymore,” she announced suddenly. “Anyway, even if I
did
find someone, why would he be bothered with me? It’s not as though I could re-enact the Karma Sutra with him.” Humour, she thought, the best form of defence.

Ken laughed. “There are ways, you know. I mean, where did my two younger sisters come from then?” he said, eyes twinkling.

She laughed, the discussion no longer quite so disheartening. “Can we change the subject now, please?”

But Ken wasn’t giving up. “You really think that you have nothing to offer a guy?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know. But even
you
have to admit, I am at a bit of a disadvantage – not to mention a whole lot of hard work.”

Ken looked at directly at her, his expression unreadable. “Do you know something, Nicola?” he said then. “You have absolutely no idea how wrong you are.”

T
hinking back on it now
, Nicola smiled. She should have realised it then, she supposed – if not long before – that Ken had feelings for her, had
always
had feelings for her. Things had happened very quickly after that. Ken began spending more and more time at her place, and soon had confessed his interest in her, and his feelings that day in his office when Dan walked in. It was wonderful at the time and it had been wonderful ever since. Ken was honest, loving and gentle and she knew instinctively that he would never let her down as Dan had.

Nicola checked the time at the corner of her computer screen. It was almost eight – he should definitely be in by now. She picked up the handset and dialled his extension, eager to find out how things went with the partners No answer.

“Did you see Ken come in yet?” she asked, checking with reception. “I thought he was back today.”

“He was back yesterday evening actually – he called in last night before closing. But he’s taken a day off today – didn’t he tell you?

Day off? Ken was so wrapped up in this place he hardly ever took days off – hell, he rarely even took
sick
days. Oh, well, he was the boss, after all, Nicola thought affectionately, dialling his home number and wondering if, despite the last few months’ encouraging figures, things hadn’t gone as well in Galway as he’d expected.

A groggy-sounding Ken answered on the second ring. “Hello?”

“Hi. You never told me you were planning on mitching off today. How was the meeting?”

There was a brief silence.

“Ken?”

“Why would I bother to tell you?” he answered brusquely. “You certainly don’t tell
me
everything.”

Nicola was taken aback. Ken sounded weird. “What?”

“Look, I can’t talk to you right now, okay? See you later.” With that he hung up, leaving Nicola staring open-mouthed at the receiver. What was the matter with him? Then she realised that it was just gone eight in the morning. If Ken needed a day off then he probably didn’t appreciate her interrupting his precious lie-in. She’d leave it a while and ring him again later, and, in the meantime, she’d input the wages and arrange next week’s roster.

But on her second attempt at conversation, Ken was equally grouchy.

“What’s the matter with you today?” she asked easily. It really wasn’t like Ken to be in bad form like this. “Didn’t things go well in Galway?”

“What’s the matter?” he repeated. “What’s the matter? I’ll tell you what the matter is, Nicola. The matter
is
that I can’t quite figure out how you managed to lead me on – so easily and for so long.”

“What? What do you mean?” she asked in shock.

“I mean, when were you going to tell me? That’s
if
you were going to bother telling me at all.”

“What? Ken … I really don’t – ” She was frightened now.

“What was the point, Nicola? Why spend all that time with me, leading me to believe that we were going somewhere, that we had a future together, when you never had any intention – why bother?”

His voice sounded strange, like he’d been drinking or something. “Ken – ”

“I mean, what’s the attraction? Do you like being messed around by him – is that it? Now Nicola was really confused. “By who?”

“Don’t play the innocent with me. Hunt, who do you think?”

“Dan? But I haven’t seen Dan in ages,” Immediately, Nicola was thrown off-guard. Stupidly, she hadn’t told Ken about her plans to invite Dan and Chloe to her house. It was a spur of the moment decision as it was, and she just didn’t think he’d agree with her interfering like that.

“I saw it, Nicola,” Ken said stonily, and her blood ran cold. “I saw the two of you together at your house. I can’t believe you would lie to me about it.”

Nicola was wrong-footed now. But how could he have seen? What would he have seen? Oh why hadn’t she told him about it beforehand? Look, love, I don’t know why I didn’t tell you before but, the thing is, the other night I invited –”

“I’ve no interest in hearing about it, Nicola. Just forget it. Forget the whole bloody thing. I thought the two of us had something, but all along you were just waiting, just hoping he would come back to you. Despite all your bull about wishing I had been the one you married. You’re full of it, and I don’t know why I was so stupid in the first place. After all, you went straight back to him the last time, didn’t you?”

With that Ken disconnected.

Nicola stared unseeingly at her desk, her mind reeling. This was unreal. Ken must have
seen
Dan come to the house the other night. But he’d told her he wouldn’t see her on Monday evening as he was going to Galway early the next morning, so how would he have … ?

Obviously he had seen something the other night but not enough to know that Dan wasn’t her only visitor. Now it looked as though she was keeping the visit a secret from him – she’d be annoyed herself, if he’d done the same. She’d have to talk to him, have to make him understand the situation from her point of view.

But if Ken wouldn’t talk to her, if he wouldn’t let her explain, then what was she going to do?

A
few days later
, and after a highly enjoyable meeting with Amanda Verveen, Laura was still walking on air.

Amanda had loved her designs and once Laura had seen samples of her collection, she knew instantly that she could rise to the occasion and produce jewellery that would be simply outstanding.

“It’s won’t be exactly ready-to-wear,” Amanda had said, indicating a missing breast panel that would have the models spilling out all over the place, “but when has that ever mattered? The main thing is that we use your jewellery to completely transform the look.”

From what Laura could gather from Jan, Amanda’s assistant, and Amanda herself, most of the catwalk fashion terminology meant little, and she wasn’t going to start describing her work as Jan had, namely “raw, wild and totally apocalyptic.” She’d like to see how many pairs of earrings she’d sell if she put
that
on her business cards, but nevertheless she had a definite feel for the look they wanted to convey. Even after that one meeting, Laura felt that she and Amanda were very much on the same wavelength. She didn’t know if Amanda wanted to work with her on a regular basis, and at that stage she didn’t care. By early spring of next year her work would be appearing on catwalks in London, Milan and Paris, something that she could never in a million years have anticipated.

Not long after the initial phone call from Amanda, Laura had called in on Brid at the boutique. She knew instantly from the bridal designer’s pleased expression that she had known about the call.

“I hope you didn’t mind my giving her your number,” Brid began, slightly apologetic. “I wasn’t sure how busy you were, but since that day she was going on and on at

me –”

“Are you mad?” Laura cried, enveloping her in a huge hug. “I couldn’t be more grateful to you. I had no idea who she was.”

“Amanda keeps a low profile,” Brid said. “She thinks it makes her that much more mysterious – like her clothes.” She laughed. “It’s her image, and to be honest, I find it all a little bit pretentious – but that’s why I chose to design wedding dresses instead of haute couture.”

Neil had been over the moon. “I knew it would happen for you,” he had said, the evening of Amanda’s call, when he had arrived home with a massive bunch of roses and a bottle of champagne. “OK, I didn’t quite imagine it this way but – wow.” He lifted her up and swung her around. “My wife a catwalk designer.”

“Ah not quite,” Laura corrected him. “I’m just providing the decoration.”

“Still, you wouldn’t know what this might lead to. Mention Amanda Verveen – whoever she is,” he added, not being overly familiar with the fashion world, “in the same sentence as Laura Connolly Design, and the business could take off.”

“I hope so,” Laura said, almost afraid to believe it.

The girls had been completely taken aback, Helen in particular.

“I have to hand it to you, Laura, even when the rest of us – well, me in particular,” she added slightly shamefaced, “thought you should pack it in, you kept on going. And of course, some of us didn’t make it easy for you.”

Nicola too had been delighted by her news but, for some reason, Laura sensed over the phone that her friend’s mind wasn’t quite focused.

“Ken’s gone,” Nicola had said worriedly.

“Gone?”

Nicola filled her in on the situation, and the details of her last conversation with Ken. “I tried going over to his house, but when I got there he was out. Then I found out from Sally that he’s taken a few days’ holidays from the centre.”

“Look, he probably just needs a little time to cool down, that’s all.”

Laura wasn’t unduly concerned. Things might be a little up in the air now, but Ken and Nicola would sort it out, she was sure of it. Still, trust good old Dan Hunt to be right in the middle of things – again.

“I’m so thrilled for you, though,” Nicola said, brightening a little. “I still can’t believe my best friend is going to be a famous jewellery designer.”

“Ah, let’s not go mad with ourselves just yet,” Laura had said, although secretly she was enjoying the attention and excitement.

She hadn’t yet said a word to her parents. She wasn’t ready to, not until she had met with Amanda and finally convinced herself that yes, this was real – this was actually going to happen. Laura would never live it down if she told her family, and then the entire thing fell through. But after the meeting with Amanda, she knew that this was definitely going to happen, and that Amanda was just as excited about working with
her
.

She and Neil were travelling down to Glengarrah that afternoon to tell them in person. Laura couldn’t wait for her mother’s reaction, partly because she wanted to prove her wrong, to let her know that her eldest daughter did have talent, that people did want her designs, but mostly because she wanted her mother, and indeed Joe, to share her happiness. How much better did it get than this? One of her daughters being asked to design jewellery for an international designer. Maureen would undoubtedly get great mileage out of that. They wouldn’t be able to shut her up down at the flower club. Now it was safe, her mother didn’t have to worry about failure anymore – Laura’s dreams had come true.

L
ater that evening
, Neil parked the car outside the cottage and he and Laura made their way round towards the back door.

“What are
you
doing here?” Maureen looked as though she had just caught an intruder in her kitchen.

“Hi, Mam,” Laura ignored her mother’s typically unfriendly greeting, having long since got used to it.

“Just in time for dinner, I hope?” Neil looked longingly at the pots simmering on the stove.

“And Neil too – what’s going on, Laura?”

Laura grinned from ear to ear as did Neil.

“Well, I have some good news,” she began, looking from her mother to Joe, who was sitting quietly at the kitchen table, waiting for his dinner.

Maureen dropped her tea towel. “You’re pregnant!” she wailed happily. “Oh thank God, thank God.”

Laura’s face fell. Was Maureen doing decades of the rosary, hoping that her eldest daughter would fall pregnant?

“Oh, this is the best thing that could have happened.”

She couldn’t remember ever seeing her mother so excited about anything.

“Laura’s not pregnant,” Neil said, when Laura didn’t speak, “but she has some great news about the business.”

Laura saw Maureen actually roll her eyes to heaven. Her mother didn’t even bother trying to hide it.

“I was
going
to tell you my good news, Mam,” she began, her tone cold. “I was
going
to tell you that a famous fashion designer has asked me to provide jewellery for her new collection – a collection that will be shown all over the world, in all the magazines, on television and in the newspapers. I was
going
to tell you that I – little old useless me with all my notions and talk – have finally begun living my dream, have finally succeeded in doing everything I’ve always wanted to do. I was
going
to tell you that somebody – somebody
important –
had enough faith in me, and my work, to take a chance on me. But judging by the look on your face, I don’t think I’ll bother.”

Laura had never spoken to her mother like that before. In fact, she didn’t think that Maureen had ever
let
her speak for that length of time without some interruption or smart comment.

Maureen looked stunned and Joe looked nervous, as if caught in the eye of a storm.

The silence in the small kitchen was almost potent.

Neil spoke quickly to fill the void. “Maureen, I can understand how you got the wrong end of the stick there and no, Laura isn’t pregnant, but didn’t you hear her news? The fashion designer is called Amanda Verveen.” He shrugged, as if in exasperation. “I know, I haven’t heard of her either, but apparently she’s very popular. She’s Irish too – I think she won something on
The Late Late Show
a few years ago – anyway, she wants Laura to work with her – isn’t it brilliant?”

Maureen slumped down on one of the kitchen chairs.

“What is
wrong
with you, Laura?” she said, flabbergasted. “What are you trying to prove?”

“To
prove
?”

“With all this jewellery business?”

“Maureen, did you not hear –”

“Leave it, Neil.” Maureen interjected. “To be perfectly honest, you’re the cause of all her problems. Laura was perfectly happy in her office job before you came along and starting putting ideas in her head.”

“But I wasn’t happy, Mam, you know I wasn’t happy.” Laura’s eyes flashed wildly. “Why do you think I spent all those years in Art College – for
fun?
Why do you think I spent every bit of spare time I had designing and making things – doing what I really love?”

“But you had a good job …” her mother said sorrowfully.

“My being happy doesn’t matter to you though, does it? It’s what makes
you
happy that’s important, isn’t it? As long as you can say that Laura is doing well and has a great job in Dublin – never mind that she hates it so much she feels as though a piece of her is dying with every passing day – as long as you can say that Laura is doing what she
supposed
to be doing, then
you’re
happy. Well, do you know something?” Laura put a hand on her hip. “I’ve spent most of my life
trying
to make you happy,
struggling
to make you proud of me, and all I’ve being doing is making myself miserable because it’ll never work.
Nothing
will please you. I want a life –
my
kind of life. And from now on, I’m going to get it. To hell with what you think, Mam, because I just don’t give a damn anymore.”

Without another glance at either her mother or her father, Laura raced out of the room, the door slamming deafeningly behind her.

Stone-faced and unmoved, Maureen lifted her chin into the air. “A piece of her dying every day,” she repeated sarcastically. “Did you ever hear such rubbish in all your life?” Then she sniffed. “Well, Joe, after all we’ve done for her, at least now we know what she thinks of us.”

Neil shook his head sadly from the doorway.

“You’re a very silly woman, Maureen Fanning,” he said, “because you really have no idea what you’ve lost.”

L
ater that evening
, sitting at her own kitchen table, Laura was inconsolable. “I can’t believe it, Neil,” she said, tears streaming down her cheeks as he held both of her hands in his. “I can’t believe she reacted like that. Doesn’t she care? Does she take some kind of sick pleasure in making me feel like crap, screwing up my confidence, making me feel unworthy?”

Neil looked worried. Laura had been saying things like this all the way back in the car. This could be far, far worse than it looked and could degenerate into an all-out break with her family, something he didn’t think Laura could handle. His own mother had been thrilled for Laura – in fact, the news had given her a real boost this week. Pamela adored Laura and knew all about Maureen’s reservations, but couldn’t understand them. To Pamela, enterprise was something to be celebrated and not ridiculed in the way that Maureen did.

At this stage, Neil too had had enough of the Fannings. They had upset and taken advantage of his wife for long enough, and their wedding day, which was supposed to have been a quiet reserved affair, had been almost ruined by the carry-on of Maureen’s family who had made absolute fools of themselves falling around on the dance-floor, and annoying other guests with their over-the-top drunkenness. No, Neil was sick to the teeth of Laura’s family, which is why – when he went to answer the ringing doorbell – he wasn’t at all happy to see Joe Fanning standing apologetically in his doorway.

“I wonder if I might have a word with Laura,” Joe said, in his usual nervous manner. “I’m on my own,” he added, seeing Neil glance behind him toward the car.

He stood back and let him pass. “She’s very upset, Joe – what happened back there wasn’t fair to her.”

“I know that, lad, and believe me I’ve tried to talk to Maureen, but she’s a very stubborn woman.”

Slight understatement, Neil thought to himself.

“Dad?” Laura looked up in surprise, but then her expression hardened. “If she’s here I don’t want to speak to her.”

“She’s not here, love, I came on my own.”

“Oh.” Her dad never usually got involved in this kind of thing. Arguments made him very uncomfortable. Laura wondered if he had taken it upon himself to ask her to ‘go back and apologise’. Well, he could forget that, for a start.

Joe cleared his throat and looked at Neil. “I wonder if we could have a little chat, Laura, just the two of us?”

Neil’s expression was wary. “Laura?”

She waved him away. “It’s fine, Neil – I’ve never had an argument with Dad in my entire life, and I’m not going to start now.” She gave her father a gentle smile as Neil went into the living-room and closed the door behind him.

“How is she?” Laura asked, wiping her tearstained face with the sleeve of her jumper.

Joe gave out a low laugh. “Do you know something, Laura, only yourself would ask a question like that.”

“I never wanted to upset her.” Now that her father was here in front of her, Laura felt guilty for behaving the way she did. All the way back in the car, she was feeling glad she had said the things she said, but now she wasn’t so sure.

“Well, maybe your mother needed to hear some of the things you said – she mightn’t have wanted to hear them, but hear them she should.”

“I don’t understand …” Her father always backed her mother, even at her most unreasonable,
especially
at her most unreasonable.

Joe pulled out a chair and sat down. “Laura, I’ve been working in the factory now for what, nearly thirty years?”

Laura looked at him. “Well, yes, since I was born . . .”

“And remember I told you I used to work at that local newspaper,
The Herald
?” He gave a wave of his hand. “Ah, it’s long gone now, it went not long before you were born.”

Laura wondered where this was going. She knew her dad had worked at the paper, supposedly fixing the machinery and things like that.

“Well, there’s something about me back then that myself and your mother never told yourself and Cathy. I was a writer at that paper, Laura, I used to do a weekly article.”

A writer? Her father? Was he having her on?

“You wrote for
The Herald
?”

“Not just for the paper.” Joe took a deep breath and looked away, as if embarrassed by what he was about to say next. “I wrote other things too, Laura – novels, short stories – that kind of thing.”

“
Novels?
” Laura wondered when exactly she had turned into a parrot. But she was hearing all of this for the very first time. Her father wasn’t a novelist, he was just an ordinary Joe Soap – a factory worker, she didn’t think he had even finished school.

“When I met your mother she was all for it – she’d read some of my stuff and was very supportive. Back then, we were sure that eventually someone important would read them and maybe publish one or two of them. We used to get a right kick out of talking about it.” He smiled at the memory. “We’d be famous, your mother would say, like Brendan Behan, John B Keane and all them fellas.” He looked away. “Ah, but they were only pipe-dreams, Laura – I was never all that good.”

“Have you still got them?” she asked, intrigued as to what her father,
her
father might have written in his younger days.

“Ah, I think your mother might have tidied them away somewhere but it doesn’t matter now.”

“So what happened?” Laura probed when Joe didn’t continue. “You didn’t just give up, did you?”

“Well, times were hard back then as you know. There were factories closing down, a lot of unemployment and the country was going through a very black period. I married your mother, and for a long time we lived on our dreams, well that and the fact that I did a bit of writing part-time at the paper. Because I had a typewriter some of the local businesses would get me to do a bit of work for them too.”

“But you were waiting for a break with your stories?”

Joe nodded. “It was all I wanted, Laura. I was consumed by it, so consumed that I didn’t worry too much about putting clothes on our backs or food on the table. I used to lock myself away for hours on end working on my baby, my masterpiece.”

“And Mam?”

“Eventually your mother began to resent me for it and sure, who could blame her? Nothing was happening, it seemed that the rejection letters were piling up at the same rate as the bills. Then the paper went bust, and to all and intents and purposes I was unemployed – but as half the village knew about my writing and my bits on the side typing – I didn’t qualify for the dole. They were all a little wary of me too.” He sighed deeply. “Laura, you know Glengarrah as well as I do. The worst thing anyone can do in that village is try to be different or stand out in any way. As someone who didn’t make a ‘normal living’, I was a bit of an outcast.” His voice wavered a little. “Your mother, who of course was born and bred in Glengarrah found this –disapproval, if you like, very hard to tolerate. So, when I was let go from the paper, Maureen got a bit of work in the factory, but after a while she couldn’t continue, being around the smell of the sausages made her sick and – ”

Then the realisation hit her. “She was pregnant,” Laura finished, “with me.”

Joe nodded. “Things were tight but I was still hell-bent on realising my dream, and keeping up with the writing. But one day your mother made me put a stop to it for good.”

“What happened?”

“We were badly off, Laura, badly off in the old-fashioned sense, not like nowadays when badly off means you can’t afford a second holiday or to change your car every year – badly off in the sense that we could barely feed ourselves. So one day, your mother swallowed whatever bit of pride she had left and went to the Kellys asking for help.”

To the Kellys? The Kellys who never had two pennies to rub together? Laura couldn’t imagine it.

“It was a small victory for Joan Kelly. She’d been telling Maureen for years that I was only a ‘layabout who had notions about himself’ and that no good would ever come of my ‘scribbling’. It seemed to Joan then that she’d been proved right. She gave her a few bits to keep her going for a little while, but it was probably the worst thing your mother ever did, because they never let her forget their generosity. I’m sure you know as well as I do that by now Joan’s charity has been repaid many times over.”

Laura tried to put herself in her mother’s shoes. Firstly, she couldn’t get a handle on how her parents had been that badly off. But Glengarrah was a small village with nothing much going for it back then other than farming or the factories in Carlow. And her parents weren’t farmers. She could only imagine the shame her mother felt then, how damaged her pride must have been.

Laura shook her head. “So that’s why she’s always so concerned about what everyone thinks of her, of
us
.”

“And why she was so worried about you going the same way as I did. She saw it in you quicker than I did. Laura, if you weren’t drawing pictures you’d be making things out of toilet rolls and bits of paper. You’ve been artistic since the day you were born. Maureen was terrified.”