The Red Dress chapter twenty nine

    








Word of Lisa's broken engagement travelled around the sixth form like wild fire. Amy reported back to the rest of the 'team' who in turn discussed it with others. Without realising it, Amy's disclosure about Lisa, including the story about her ripping up the letter from her estranged fiancee, made Lisa a very popular topic of conversation in the school. There was hardly a girl who didn't know about it.
 
     Monday came and went, and Lisa still couldn't get through to Alan. Now her love started turning to anger because, if it hadn't, she would have fallen apart. She still didn't want to believe he had been acting in those last few days they had together, but she thought, understandably, the evidence was staring her in the face. Lisa tried to keep herself occupied by getting into the routine of the school, but every time she had any time to herself, she would ring Alan's mobile, hoping desperately that he would answer and have a plausible explanation.
 
     As the week went on, she became more resigned to the fact that it was useless, and the only thing that kept her going was the tiniest hope that Alan would keep his promise, find out where she was, and turn up as arranged the following weekend.
 
     Meanwhile the girls were making plans. On Monday Amy popped into Lisa's room while she was out, and checked that the ripped up letter was still there. The pieces were still scattered in the bin. She would have taken them then, but they had all thought that Lisa might have a change of heart and decide to read the letter. They realised that they couldn't take the pieces out until Wednesday when the bins were usually emptied from each room.
 
     On the Wednesday morning Veronique was instructed to get Lisa down to breakfast, by hook or by crook, and the others watched as she frog marched Lisa down the stairs, protesting her lack of hunger. As soon as they knew she was safely out of the way, Amy shot into Lisa's room and swapped the bin for an empty one.
 
     When they got it back to Amy's room, they took out the bits of paper and hid them in a bag at the back of her wardrobe. By the time they got down to breakfast, Lisa was on her way back, and they all smiled knowingly at her as they passed her on the stairs.
 
     When Lisa got back to her bedroom she didn't notice anything amiss. In fact she didn't notice anything at all, as she was too busy, yet again, trying to call Alan's mobile.
 
     Amy and the others couldn't wait until lessons were over and they could get together and sort out the letter. They didn't know what they were going to do with it, but they were convinced it somehow held a clue to Lisa's misery, and they would be able to work it out once they had read it. They also had to wait until Lisa was out of the way and somehow distracted, which wouldn't be easy because she usually hung out with one or all of them in the common room each evening. That was, when she wasn't being miserable on her own.
 
     They decided to take it in turns to spend time with her, while the others worked on piecing the letter back together. It had taken most of the evening, but they had managed it. Thankfully Lisa had called it a day and gone to bed early, allowing them to get together in peace.
 
     They all went back to Amy's room to discuss what it said. Each of them had read a few lines here and there as they had been taping the pieces together, and each felt as though they knew a part of a secret from the words they read. Slowly they passed the hand written pages between them, and they were all silent as they digested the entire contents of Nick's letter.
 
     Teddy nearly started crying as she read the last paragraph, and the others were near to tears as they finished reading it all.The letter had started "My Dearest Lisa" and ended "Yours forever, Nick," and everything in between was a testament to the woman he loved. He wrote of the first time that he had seen her, how he had immediately loved her and wanted her for his wife. He reiterated over and over again that whatever had happened, he still loved and needed her more than life itself, and how he still wanted her to be his wife.
 
      When they had all read the letter, they looked at each other searching for something to say. Teddy had felt so sorry for him that she blamed Lisa for being a heartless cow, but Amy defended her by explaining about the age gap, and the fact that they hardly knew each other. Veronique was a little more realistic than that, having more experience than the others.
 
     “Perhaps he is no good in bed,” she suggested, her French accent making the suggestion sound plausible.
 
Chloe was indignant.
 
     “Trust you, Veronique, just because you’ve had sex, you think everything, including love, is based on a man’s performance.”
 
Veronique knew that it did have some relevance.
 
     “Well, I think it is important, even to you cold English women!”
 
Amy still didn't like the idea of Nick being less than perfect.
 
       “Lisa's Scottish, not English, so that doesn't count! Can we get off the subject of this poor guy's performance? This is serious.”
 
They all agreed, so they looked again at the contents of the letter and searched for ideas to try and get Lisa and Nick back together. Teddy had homed in on one part of the letter that said life was just not worth living for Nick since Lisa had disappeared out of it.
 
     “You don’t think he's going to top himself, do you?” she asked the others with a serious expression.
 
Amy realised that their imaginations were now getting carried away.
 
     “Don't be daft, Teddy. He's a grown man of thirty three, not a stupid teenager.”
 
Teddy wasn't convinced, and she couldn't see that age had anything to do with it.
 
     “Well, from where I'm standing, he sounds pretty suicidal to me. How's he going to feel if he finds out that Lisa hasn't even read the letter?”
 
Amy actually agreed with Teddy on that one, but she was feeling guilty about reading the letter anyway, and she didn't want the responsibility of some suicidal maniac as well.
 
     “I don't  know about you guys, but I'm going to sleep on it. There's got to be some way we can get them back together, even if it's just for an hour or so,” Amy announced as she stood up.
 
Chloe pointed out that Nick had put his home and mobile number in his letter, in case Lisa wanted to contact him.
 
     “Why don't we just ring him up and get him over here?” she suggested.
 
Teddy thought that was a daft idea, they knew nothing about him, except that he loved Lisa passionately.
 
     “And say what? Excuse me, but I've just read the letter you sent to your fiancée, which she just happened to rip up and throw in the bin! Yeah, great idea, Chloe,” Amy snorted, imagining the conversation.
 
They all decided to take Amy's advice and sleep on it. There had to be an answer, and they would have to work it out.
 
 
 
     The rest of the week continued, and Lisa still couldn't contact Alan, but she didn't give up. One minute she was angry, the next, desolate. She refused to totally give in to the idea that Alan had been lying to her when she had been with him, because she couldn't cope with that emotionally, and would have ended up feeling suicidal. If their love affair was over, it had to be because he couldn't cope with splitting from Carla, which gave the sadness of it all a much nobler quality. But she still wanted to say goodbye to him, if that was the case.
 
     The 'team' still hadn't come up with any possible ideas, but they could see Lisa slipping deeper and deeper into a depression, which worried them terribly. They still mistakenly thought it was all to do with Nick, and they were also concerned over the fact that Lisa had hardly eaten since she arrived.
   
      “I think I've eaten more in a day than Lisa's eaten in a week,” Linda announced on the Friday evening when they all came back up from supper.
 
Chloe looked at Linda sarcastically, having watched her polish off everyone's leftovers earlier on.
 
     “That wouldn't be very hard, would it, Linda" she chided.  "I think you're eating for three at the moment. What happened to your diet?”
 
Linda went off to bed in a huff, feeling fat and unloved. Amy was annoyed with Chloe's remark because it had been unnecessarily cruel, especially as Linda was right. Lisa hardly ate anything at all.
 
After she had gone, Amy turned to the others and asked them what they thought they should do.
 
     “Well, the way I see it, I think we have only two choices,” said Teddy.
 
The other three stared at her, glad that someone was at last sounding decisive.
 
     “We either contact Nick, or we don’t. Simple as that...”
 
     “Shall we vote?” asked Chloe, being the most passive of them all.
 
     “Good idea,” Amy decided, and put up her hand in the air.
 
     “I vote that we call him, God knows, it can’t do any harm, surely?”
 
One by one the others raised their hands.
 
     “Agreed...” Veronique announced, and they all went to bed trying to think of what they should say when they did...