Tia

 

We stop to cross the road, and Cassie gives me a hug. I appreciate her coming with me today, but I wish she’d stop acting like she expects me to burst into tears at any moment. So far, I’m feeling fine. It’s high time to move on and put it all behind me.

“I still think he had some nerve asking for the ring back,” she says as we reach the other side of the road in one piece. Bexford is a small English town, not a major metropolis, but the traffic is nonstop.

Cassie hasn’t quit going on about the ring since I told her Simon wanted me to return it.

I sigh. “It’s not like I’m going to wear it.”

Simon might be out of line, but I don’t care. I can do without getting worked up about the whole mess again. He’s moved on with Freya Riley, and I need to put everything firmly behind me too.

Until I get rid of it, that ring will keep goading me whenever I see it in my underwear drawer. I just need to drop the thing off at his office and get on with my life.

“Let me have another look before it goes.” Cassie has always coveted my ring. To be fair, it would have suited her bold look better. I’d have been happier with a smaller simple diamond, not a big cluster of stones that probably cost Simon more than a month of his hefty salary.

I get the box out of my bag and open it up. Cassie does her dreamy look. “Such a pity.” She pulls it out of its slot in the satin lining and slides it onto her finger. “It’s a stunner.”

“Yeah, but it’s going back.” I’m not even sure how I feel about Simon looking at that monster of a ring now. I’ve run the gamut of emotions over the last three months. At least it doesn’t punch me in the gut every time I see it these days. World shortage of Kleenex avoided in the nick of time. So, I let Cassie have her diamond moment.

Yet I’m still nervous about keeping calm in the face of the man who was my fiancé for more than a year. I should’ve just sent the ring back by FedEx, but I’m hoping he’ll be out at lunch as usual, and I won’t have to see him. If he’s out, I can just scrounge a padded envelope from Tanya in reception and drop it off with her.

“Let’s go out tonight and make up for it.” Cassie pulls the ring off her finger, placing it carefully back in the box.

I adjust the ring a little so it’s sitting upright in its slot, and I’m just about to say yes, I could do with a large glass of merlot, when a stupid man with an overstuffed briefcase barges past us and knocks the ring box right out of my hand. He doesn’t even stop.

And neither does the ring.

It rolls off the curb and down the grating at the side of the road, disappearing with barely a plop into the storm drain.

“Fuck!” Cassie shouts.

Make that two large glasses of merlot. Make that a bottle. “What do we do now?” I grab the box and brush off the dirt on it as if willing the ring to reappear inside like a magic trick. Obviously, it doesn’t, and we peer down into the depths of the drain through the holes in the grating.

“I think I can see it,” Cassie says. “Should we call the council? See if they can send someone? It’s their job to maintain the stupid things. If the holes in the grating were not so big…”

People wander past, eyeing us curiously—women in Bexford are not known for staring into drains at the side of the road every Tuesday lunchtime. I can hear water trickling a few feet below the opening, but it’s no torrent. November has been dry for once.

“I don’t even know if they would send someone, and what if it rains and the ring washes away before they get around to it? If we lift the grille, I might manage to reach it.”

Supertrooper Cassie, the friend who’s with me through every crisis, tries to lift one side of the heavy iron grating despite her manicure, and I lift the other side. That thing weighs a ton, but with a struggle, the grating comes up, and we slide it a foot or so over so we can see properly down the drain.

Cassie is right—the ring is there. I’m not sure how far down it is, but I’m going to try to grab it. I take off my jacket and give it to Cassie, gingerly kneeling by the opening. The drain hole is big enough that I should be able to reach right down to get the ring back, even though it’s the last place I feel like putting my arm.

But I can just imagine what Simon will think if I tell him I lost his precious ring down a storm drain. He’ll think I did it on purpose. I’ll never live that down. He’ll be dragging my name through the mud on every social media account in existence.

“I can’t quite get it.” I look up at Cassie. Hell. The ring is just a few inches out of my reach. This isn’t good. I wish I hadn’t sent Simon a message to say I would have the thing back to him today to shut him up.

I eye up the hole. “If we pull the grating along a bit more, I can go down and grab it with my foot.”

“Your foot?” Cassie looks at me as if I’m crazy. “I think we should just call the council.”

“I don’t mean with my shoe on. I can pick it up with my toes. We used to practice picking up pencils like that when we were kids and had nothing better to do.”

She shakes her head. But what have I got to lose? No one is coming to our aid. A motley subsection of the Bexford population wanders past, but they make sure not to come too close as if they fear we are lunatics escaped from an asylum about to ask the way to the bus station.

We struggle with the grating and push it along farther so the hole is completely open. I can’t see any other option than trying to get the ring again. I have to be able to do it.

“You can’t go down there.” Cassie looks down at the hole. “It’s filthy. It was bad enough putting your arm down.”

Her phone beeps with a message, so while she’s distracted, I take off my shoe and sock and lower myself into the drain before she has a chance to dissuade me. I hate to think what this is doing to my clothes or what my foot will be touching.

But I can’t afford to care about that. I’ll have to get changed before I take the ring back now. If I even manage to find it with my foot. Ah! I curl my toes around it. “I’ve got it!”

Cassie has lost all interest her phone. “Er… Tia, how are you going to get out again?”

My heart sinks. Why didn’t I think of that? I was so intent on getting the stupid ring and it was easy enough to get myself in there thanks to gravity. Now I have to hang onto the ring with my foot while I get out of the drain. “Try to pull me out.”

She puts her hands under my arms and heaves, and then I try pushing myself up with my hands on the edges of the hole while she pulls, but I’m not budging. “I think I’m wedged in.”

People are gathering around now—a gaggle of schoolboys, sniggering with their smartphones, an old woman fresh from the tea shop, a couple of housewives laden with shopping bags, and two men just coming out from lunch at the pub. A woman sticking out of a drain is apparently more of an attraction than two women peering down one.

They murmur their concerns. The old woman asks, “Do you want me to call the police, dear?”

“Don’t worry about that. We’ll soon have her out.” The larger of the two guys sizes me up as if I’m a baby elephant and he’s wondering how he can possibly haul me to safety.

Then I see Simon. He must have been in the pub for a lunchtime bite. I know he sees me because he stops for a moment, his mouth opens, but nothing comes out. I’m about to ask him for help when he deliberately turns and scurries away as if he doesn’t want to know.

Can things get any worse?