Lucy in the Sky

minute?’ Mandy calls to me. I’m tense as I follow her through to the meeting room and she closes the door behind me.
    ‘Is everything alright with you? You haven’t been yourself at work recently,’ she says, once we’re seated.
    ‘My dad…’ I stutter.
    She eyes me searchingly. She’s not stupid. She knows there’s something else.
    ‘I’m sorry,’ I say. ‘I know I’ve been distracted for some time now.’
    ‘Do you want to talk about it?’
    I shake my head, then change my mind. I’m so confused. Will one more opinion really make a difference? I do respect my boss enormously. She’s a strong, independent, successful woman; someone I look up to. Bugger it! I’d really value her advice.
    ‘It’s personal. I know you don’t like that stuff being brought into the office…’
    ‘Don’t worry about that,’ she encourages me to go on.
    ‘I’m in love with two men.’ There. I’ve said it. It’s out in the open.
    ‘Aah…’ She nods. ‘Complicated.’ She pushes her chair out from the table and stands up. I remain seated as she goes over tothe window and folds her arms, looking down the road towards Soho Square.
    ‘You’re not alone in this sort of dilemma, you know, Lucy.’
    I look at her in surprise. We all know from the PR article we read about her last year that Mandy has been married twice and now lives with a man in west London, but she never talks about her personal life. She looks back at me, wryly.
    ‘You might very well make the wrong decision and fuck everything up…’ I’ve never heard Mandy swear before. ‘But I’ve always been one for following my gut instincts.’
    I’m all ears. This is a side to my boss I’ve never seen. She continues.
    ‘You could stay within your comfort zone and speculate about whether the grass would have been greener for the rest of your life. Or you could say bollocks to it, and go with what’s here…’ She presses her hand to her chest and looks at me intently. ‘And it may not seem like the obvious decision to everyone else, and it may be traumatic and complex and utterly terrifying, but you’re not one to play it safe, Lucy. I don’t think so, anyway. That’s why you’re my Number One PR girl.’
    Mandy’s candour and her unexpected compliment make me feel more at ease with her at this moment than I’ve felt at any time in the four years I’ve worked here. Funny how the best advice I’ve received so far has come from such an unlikely source.
    ‘So, did you make the right decision?’ I ask her directly.
    ‘I still don’t know.’ She smiles. ‘But hey, I’m optimistic.’
     
    I get home that night to find James already there.
    ‘Have you seen him?’ he asks wretchedly, coming over to me at the door the moment I walk in.
    ‘No,’ I tell him.
    ‘Thank God. I feel so sick, Lucy. I had to come home early. Please don’t see him. Please.’ He tries to draw me to him but I step back. Then he starts to cry and it’s heart-wrenching.
    ‘James, don’t cry!’ I plead. He wraps his arms around me and his whole body shakes. I hate myself.
    Eventually he pulls away.
    ‘Look, Lucy, all I’m asking is that you come home with me for Christmas so we can have some time together and talk this through,’ he implores. ‘I love you,’ he tells me forcefully.
    ‘I love you too,’ I reply sorrowfully, and feel tormented by the look of hope in his eyes when I say it, because I go on to add, ‘but I don’t think it’s enough.’
    ‘It is enough, baby. We’ll make it work. Just come home with me for Christmas.’
    Mum, Chloe, Gemma…They all think I’m making a mistake not giving us this one last chance. What about Mandy? What about me playing it safe?
    But she doesn’t know all the details. She doesn’t know about Nathan going back to Australia, or what the future could possibly hold for us. In fact, it’s ironic that she unknowingly risked losing her ‘Number One PR girl’ to a country on the other side of the world.
    But I can’t leave England for Australia. Not yet, anyway. I’m not ready to give up my job, my friends, my flat. Our flat. I will have to give it up if I leave James.
    Maybe Mum and my friends are right. Maybe I am rushing things.
    The thought of Christmas at Nathan’s dirty house in Archway with his chain-smoking flatmates actually makes me feel a littledepressed. But all the trains to Somerset will be full by now so I won’t be able to get home to my family. James and I booked our train