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  Waiting at Eros

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  Waiting at Eros Copyright© 2009 Rosemary Laurey

  Edited by Mary Moran

  Cover art by Syneca.

  Electronic book Publication March 2009

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  With the exception of quotes used in reviews, this book may not be reproduced or used in whole or in part by any means existing without written permission from the publisher, Cerridwen Press, 1056 Home Avenue, Akron, OH 44310-3502.

  This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locales is purely coincidental. The characters are productions of the authors’ imagination and used fictitiously.

  Cerridwen Press is an imprint of Ellora’s Cave Publishing, Inc.®

  Waiting at Eros

  Rosemary Laurey

  Chapter One

  Janet Geçtan pulled up her collar as she stepped out of the taxi. Cold wasn’t the word. She’d end up with a red nose like Santa Claus if she waited long in this wind. She paid the driver, smiling to herself as she watched him drive up Regent Street, balanced the shopping bags that had been her alibi to her mother for this trip up to town and crossed the road. Trying hard not to stare, she glanced at the people standing in Piccadilly Circus. Mid-February didn’t encourage the crowds July did, but there was still a knot of Japanese tourists with cameras at the ready. Janet ignored them and disregarded the student couple sitting side by side on the steps beneath Eros. They were too occupied with each to be waiting for anyone.

  Surely she wasn’t the only sentimental twit in the world? Or at least in London? On Valentine’s Day? Wasn’t anyone else keeping the appointment? She positioned herself sideways to Lillywhite’s window, giving far more attention to the passersby than the expensive ski equipment. Fifteen minutes later, she had chilled hands despite her fleece-lined gloves and eyes fixed on two other women. They stood separately with that air of occupation and distraction lone women assume to avoid unwanted pick up. But while seeming occupied, they both carefully glanced at every approaching man. Or at least the ones under forty.

  One woman was carefully dressed in a well-fitting black wool coat and the other wore a fleece jacket, she kept her hands tucked in her pockets, unlike the first one who tapped her black leather-gloved fingers. Between looking at the passing men, they cast covert glances at each other until leather gloves glanced at her watch, frowned and crossed the few yards to fleece jacket and spoke to her. A look of pure amazement crossed the other woman’s face. She nodded slowly, eyes still wide, as if only half accepting whatever she’d been asked. Leather gloves spoke again, offered a half smile and after a moment’s mutual hesitation, they joined forces and together watched the passing men.

  Yes , Janet thought to herself. It’s time, I think. Patting the small bulge in her belly for reassurance, she walked up to the waiting pair. “Excuse me.” They both turned irritated faces. Black coat frowned a little. Cashmere, Janet decided. “Excuse me, but are you, by any chance, waiting for Timor?”

  They were and the look on their faces confirmed.

  “How…?” black cashmere began.

  “You too?” fleece coat asked. She had beautiful wide blue eyes that seemed almost too big for her face and expensively capped and straightened teeth. Rather at odds with her cheap coat and scuffed shoes.

  “Me too.” Janet smiled. “‘Let us meet five years from now, in London. In that circus where you English have erected a statue to the God of love. And if we cannot find raki, we’ll share a pot of tea and see how kindly the years have used us.’”

  “Oh! Timor!” The hurt burned in fleece coat’s eyes.

  “Trust Timor the hunky beach boy!” Cashmere coat didn’t try to hide her disgust.

  “It’s been five years,” Janet pointed out. “He probably forgot ages ago.”

  “We didn’t,” fleece coat said, a tinge of wistfulness in her voice.

  “We’re women,” Janet said, smiling. “Since we have a mutual acquaintance, maybe we should introduce ourselves, I’m Janet.”

  Black cashmere was Lindsay and fleece was Anna. Neither seemed disposed to exchange last names.

  “So, we’re here but Timor of Karatash isn’t.”

  Anna widened her eyes at the barely disguised emotion in Lindsay’s words. Was it disappointment or pique? Janet wondered. Had she really expected him to show? Apparently, and so had Lindsay.

  “Excuse me,” a red-haired young woman with wide, gray eyes and a snow-suit-encased baby in a back pack stood at Janet’s elbow. “I’m Felicity Jarvis, and I heard you mention Timor,” she hesitated. “You’re meeting him too?”

  Janet couldn’t repress her smile. “I think we’re not meeting him as it happens but…” She looked at the other two. “Just because Timor didn’t turn up doesn’t mean we can’t have lunch, does it?” Janet waited while no one came up with a good reason not to, but everyone was equally reluctant to agree. Was it competition? Insecurity? Heck, they’d all been stood up by the same man.

  “Why not?” Anna took care of everyone’s hesitation. “There’s bound to be a Turkish restaurant somewhere in Soho we can get kebabs and a glass of raki for old time’s sake.” She glanced up at solid gray clouds. “Even if we have to forgo the sun and sand.”

  “I don’t want to go anywhere funny. Not with Peter,” Felicity said, joggling the baby carrier on her back. Peter opened one eye inside the hood of his snow suit and seemed unconcerned at any moral dangers he’d just escaped.

  “I’m not sure…” Anna began.

  Before Janet could speak, Lindsay jumped in. “There’s a nice coffee shop down Piccadilly. Let’s go there. They’ve a good menu and I bet they’ll have highchairs.”

  She was right. Settled at a circular table in the corner, they gave their attention to the long menus, everyone seeming slightly uncomfortable at the realization they were sitting down with three total strangers. The only sound for a few minutes was Peter making engine noises as he ran a car across his highchair tray.

  Unpeeled from his snowsuit, he turned out to be older than Janet first thought. He had to be at least two, maybe even three. Janet ran her hand over her belly and smiled. Envying the smile little Peter gave his mother.

  As the waitress arrived, they ordered. Lindsay chose Dover sole and a salad, Anna a croquet monsieur, the cheapest item Janet noticed. Felicity ordered shepherd’s pie and asked for an extra bread plate. Janet had to make a fast choice and settled for egg mayonnaise. She didn’t want much, her mother would have a full-scale meal ready when she got home.

  An awkward quiet descended on the table as the waitress disappeared with her pad and willing smile. Why not? Here they were, four total strangers ordering lunch and the only thing in common was being stood up by a holiday romance of years earlier. Was she nuts to have suggested this?

  “Anyone game to share a bottle of wine?” Lindsay asked, smiling as her gaze circled the table. “My treat. I got a promotion yesterday and feel like celebrating.”

  She gave a wide, encouraging smile, no doubt not wanting to seem
as lonely as her last sentence implied.

  “I’d love to,” Janet said. “Shall we split it?” she asked, and noticed Anna’s worried look. She probably had every pound in her purse counted out.

  “Lord, no!” Lindsay was emphatic. “My treat.”

  Anna relaxed.

  Felicity smiled. “Thanks. If you’re sure…”

  “You bet I’m sure!” Lindsay signaled for the waitress. “Heck, we all stood in the cold for an hour for a man who didn’t show. We all deserve it.”

  An hour was a bit of an exaggeration but not that much. Janet raised her glass as Lindsay lifted hers and the other two followed.

  “What shall we drink to?” Felicity asked.

  “Timor?” Anna suggested.

  “Heck, no! To us! We’re here. He isn’t!” Lindsay said as she clinked glasses with Anna, her closest neighbor.

  “To us!” they all said in unison, and silence fell for a few seconds as each one of them drank. And thought back.

  “Alright,” Lindsay looked around the table as she set her glass down, “how about we all tell how we met Timor?”

  “That’s easy!” Felicity said with a chuckle. “I’ll bet my train ticket home we all met at that hotel of his uncle’s in Karatash.”

  No one argued. But they did rather look at their wine glasses.

  Felicity straightened her cutlery.

  “The Palace Hotel,” Anna said quietly.

  The others nodded and remembered.

  “We all know where we met him. How about why we came today?” Felicity asked, pausing to retrieve Peter’s car from the floor.

  “Why did you come, then?” Anna asked, her voice sharp with defensiveness.

  Felicity shrugged. “I’ve been asking myself that since I left the house this morning. Several reasons,” she paused, handed Peter a bread stick from the basket that had appeared on the table a minute or two earlier. “I suppose because I’m drowning in motherhood and wanted reassurance.”

  Anna and Lindsay stared, uncomprehending.

  Janet nodded. “I think I understand.”

  That was all the encouragement Felicity needed. “I’ve got Peter. I’m pregnant again. My husband Jeff is in Saudi Arabia for six months and I’m living with my mother-in-law.” Anna gave a quiet groan. Felicity shook her head. “It’s no as awful as it sounds. We get on pretty well. She even encouraged me to take a part-time job so I could get out and keeps Peter for me when I work. She’d have kept him today but I rather wanted to show him off,” she paused to looked sideways and smile at her son, “I think I wanted to see Timor, find he’s gone to fat and nowhere near as alluring as I remember him, and then I could go home, secure that I’d made the right choices.” She looked at the other three. “I suppose that sounds downright confused.”

  “Not to me,” Janet said. “I sometimes stare at the ceiling in the middle of the night and wonder how I ended up married.”

  “Yes!” Felicity smiled at her, obviously glad for the support. “Okay,” she went on, looking across at Anna, “why did you come?”

  “Me?” Anna asked, her eyes wide with either surprise or insecurity. “Well, I…”

  The arrival of food gave her a few minutes respite but not much. Her hesitation seemed to fuel everyone’s curiosity.

  Lindsay, who seemed to have become the group leader, gave Anna just long enough to swallow her first mouthful. “Go on,” she said, spearing a miniature carrot on the fork, “tell us why you came.”

  Anna chewed thoroughly and took a sip of wine. She swallowed slowly and then took a fast gulp, as if needing the punch of alcohol to go on. Setting her glass on the pink tablecloth, she took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. “You really want to know, don’t you?” she asked, and went on. “I came because I was stupid enough to think Timor would be here, that he’d greet me with delight and we’d go off hand in hand to a delectable lunch, if not the sunset.” She finished with a bitter laugh. “Loony, wasn’t I?”

  Felicity broke the embarrassed silence. “No. We all did the same expecting, or at least half hoping he’d be there.” She glanced at Lindsay and Janet. “Right?”

  “I bet you didn’t bring your own condoms!” Anna seemed determined to berate herself.

  “Felicity and I are married, we’d better not have!” Janet said. She’d noticed Lindsay’s bare left hand.

  “You’re getting the delectable lunch,” Lindsay pointed out. “And pretty good company, even if we’re not the sort to send your heart fluttering.”

  “Don’t make cracks like that,” Anna said with a shudder.

  “What’s wrong?” Felicity asked, looking up from smashing shepherd’s pie and broccoli for Peter.

  Anna hesitated, glancing round the table and finally staring at her sandwich. “Hell, might as well tell you. We’ll never see each other again. To tell the truth, my life’s a horrid mess, a nightmare, and in desperation I thought I could recapture a holiday romance.” She drained her glass in one swig. “I was living with this chap. Bought a house together. We were supposed to get married next June. And last week he called the wedding off.” She exhaled, closing her eyes for a second or two. “He’d met someone else. The scrum half of his rugby team.”

  “Sheesh!” Felicity muttered, reaching across the table and clasping Anna’s shaking fingers. “I’m sorry I pushed you to tell, heck, if I were in your shoes, I’d be a basket case.”

  “I am a basket case!”

  “I think you’re holding up damn well,” Lindsay said. “You have spoken to a solicitor, right? Get the house and everything sorted properly. Don’t let him cheat you.”

  “My mum and my dad are both solicitors. That’s all taken care of, or will be. That’s the easy part. It’s the rest. I keep asking myself how could I be so stupid?”

  “You should stop calling yourself ‘stupid’,” Lindsay said. “You were trusting. Not at all the same thing. And you’re not the first woman to make that mistake.”

  “I’m the first in my family!”

  “They’ll get over it,” Lindsay assured her. “Heck, when I got divorced, I though my nice, Catholic mother would have a fit and she did. But you know, she got over it. I think she’s now glad she doesn’t have to be nice to him at Christmas for my sake.”

  Anna gave a little smile. “There’s something there. We always fought over whose house to spend Christmas at.” She turned to Janet. “You’ve been very quiet. Why did you come?”

  Quick pause to pick her words carefully. “I was curious if anyone else remembered Timor and that summer, like I did. I didn’t honestly expect him to be there.”

  “Come on,” Felicity said. “You really came to see who else came?”

  “Yes, I did. I remember that as a wonderful summer, I fell in love and grew up. I was a shy, little English girl when I went to Karatash that summer and Timor changed my life. I wondered if I was the only one.”

  “It was my first holiday without my parents,” Felicity said. “I went with a girl from work who always got the best-looking man, I never got over Timor picking me over her!”

  “I remember meeting him,” Lindsay said. “Out on that terrace overlooking the beach on the first morning. He came up to my table and asked if there was anything he could do to make my stay at his uncle’s hotel wonderful.”

  “Did you tell him?” Janet asked.

  “Not until that evening! And I really showed him rather than told.”

  “You’re terrible!” Anna said with a weak giggle. “I met him when my suitcase got left at the airport and he offered to drive me back into Adana to get it.”

  “Drove all the way to Adana to find your soft sides!”

  This time Anna laughed outright. “Am I glad I came. This has been more fun than meeting Timor could possibly be.”

  “I dunno,” Lindsay said. “Timor was good.” She grinned as a lascivious gleam sparkled in her eyes.

  “Yes,” Anna added, “but as Felicity said earlier, he’s no doubt married, gone to fat and got
ten children.”

  “Not ten, unless his poor wife had multiple, multiple births,” Anna said, getting into the spirit.

  “Maybe he’s still there, on Karatash beach, thrilling the tourists,” Felicity suggested.

  “In February?” Janet shook her head.

  “Good point,” Lindsey said. “That crusaders’ castle up on the hill would be darn draughty this time of year.”

  “You too?” Anna asked.

  “You bet! We had a great time!”

  “I think we all had a good time,” Felicity said. “It’s fun to look back, but now it’s over and done with.”

  “Yup, and I’ve got the present to cope with,” Anna said.

  “You will,” Lindsay promised. “I’d putt my money on you. Heck, Timor picked you, didn’t he? The man had good taste!”

  “Talking about taste,” Janet said as the waitress cleared their plates, “I noticed baklava in the pastry case over there. Let’s have slice each, my treat,” she added. “For old time’s sake.”

  The baklava was fresh and sweet but lacked something. Maybe not enough honey or poor-quality nuts, or maybe, Janet thought to herself, it just needed sunshine and Timor to taste right.

  They didn’t linger over coffee. Lindsay left first to go back to work. “I can’t take the whole darn afternoon off,” she said. “But I’m so glad I came.”

  “I think we all are,” Felicity said, hauling Peter out of the high chair and zipping him back into his snow suit.

  “I needed this,” Anna said.

  They said goodbye on the pavement outside. No one suggested meeting again and they all went different ways. Felicity took Peter into the park, Lindsay took a bus back to the city and Anna headed for the Green Park Underground Station.

  Janet hailed a taxi, took herself and her packages to Paddington and took the next train back to her parents’ house in Oxford.

  Epilogue