A Summer of Discovery

Chapter Twenty Three

The party went ahead! The locals would feed on the gossip for another ten years, if not forever. Jane changed the party theme at the last minute to a farewell party for Mrs Clayton, it was a last hurrah at the Manor before it was sold. I had heard it was actually a pretty amazing party and a good knees up from Sam and Caroline whom I had begged to go and leave me alone, they did as I had asked as far as going to the party was concerned but they didn't comply with my terms when it came to just being friendly. It was six weeks later now and Sam had already flown up three times to see Caroline in New York, believe it or not the southern gent and the brash red headed New Yorker were a perfect match! He calmed her and she brought him to life.

I had packed my bags the morning after the party and headed home, mine and Lucy's apartment was empty on arrival of all of her belongings. It was like she ceased to exist, she had even deleted our answer machine message.

I hadn't answered any calls from Pops or Jane and my inbox was long full, I heard their pleas checking if I was okay but I couldn't bring myself to call back, I couldn't speak to anyone.

It had been six weeks since the party, four of which I had spent working like a crazy person on new ad campaigns with eighteen hour days from my office, no visitors allowed unless you count Caroline and her wonderful attempts to try and help me from my funk by telling me whose lives were worse within our three floors of office. Usually poor Steve the mail man took the prize for bad luck with his current bout of crabs that had somehow infected the entire female population of human resources, and even that couldn't rival my engagement party from hell and subsequent dumping.

I had pushed for and fronted a new gay and lesbian dating app campaign that I had won a month previously, it had launched in a whirlwind of ten days which should have taken a month but being that I lived in my office for four weeks it wasn't hard. I worked morning to night gaining me the new nickname of Emery 'the demon' Randolph, this however was swiftly followed by a massive slump and my complete downfall over the next two weeks when I finally realised work wasn't helping me to keep busy enough to dull the ache inside of me that Lucy had left. I could only bring myself to keep my job above water this past fortnight by doing conference calls with the partners, emailing back and forth campaign ideas and getting Caroline to push important paperwork under my door. Mostly the work I was getting done was from the comfort of my king size bed, nobody tells you how empty a king size bed feels when you're in it alone and if I laid here much longer I would be getting bed sores. My dark hair was knotty and a mess, my complexion was pale and for a woman of Italian decent that was a rare thing to accomplish. I covered the mirrors up in every room of the apartment and my new best friends were a couple great guys called Ben and Jerry.

As I lay watching another series of the L word I jumped at the sound of the door bell ringing, I hadn't ordered anything and Caroline wasn't due her daily paperwork delivery. The ice cream had slipped out of my hand as I jumped leaving the rocky road to melt into my shirt. I leapt out of the bed and placed the ice cream on the kitchen side as I slowly walked towards the door uneasily. I moved my weight onto the balls of my feet as I pushed myself up to the height of my peep hole to find Sam stood there with his finger pressed to the buzzer. I looked down at myself. "Hang on" I called through the door grabbing a robe and wrapping it around my waist a couple times. I pulled the chain off of the door and opened it up with a crack.

"Yes" I asked looking at Sam's large frame casting a shadow over my doorway.

"Emery you look rode hard and put up wet" He said pushing the door aside and walking into the lounge. I closed it behind him and stood with my back to the door as he looked around the apartment and threw open my curtains. My hands covered my eyes "Ouch that hurts. Make it go away" I begged.