A Moral Dilemma: A Romantic Comedy Chick Lit Story by Zara Kingsley Page A

needed to keep my job, so I turned to her as we approached the front door and said: “Isabella, I’m not sure if you’d be at all interested but Pamper Moi also offers a personal shopping service which can be a wonderful day out.” My feeble attempt at cross-selling.
    The eavesdropping Helga, pretending to busy herself in the foyer, actually appeared to be chuckling silently at my comment. Isabella’s own reaction was also quite unexpected as she turned to me with deadly narrowed eyes and scowled. “ Personal shopping ?” she spat in disgust. I was momentarily stunned by her transformation but my look of horror must’ve jolted something in her mind as she quite surprisingly smiled happily at me and chirped: “Personal shopping! What a fabulous idea.” Hmmm. I wondered if Isabella Coombs was a touch schizophrenic as well as an agoraphobic.

C hapter Seven
     
    I stood looking in the mirror at my reflection, wondering if I could leave out my facial exercises for this one night, seeing as how it was already 2am and I had to be up in less than five hours. I swear, Abigail could talk for England! In fact, she ought to be on the England talking team! She had barked at me for three hours straight, moaning and complaining, about Julia mainly, but as I had stood her up for dinner I felt a guilty obligation to endure it.
    “Are you even listening to me Becky?” she had demanded having mystically detected that I was nodding off at the other end of the phone line.
    “Of course I’m listening Abby,” I lied, stifling a yawn and rearranging the pillows behind my head.
    “She really does piss me right off! Sebastian had might as well slit his own wrists right now! She is fucking with his head, that’s all she’s doing and I just cannot get why he doesn’t see it.” Abigail’s heated reaction was a direct result of reading Julia’s earlier text message, which she had sent to everyone in her address book it seems, as even my mum had left a message on the answer phone earlier making comment. It had been a very simple text stating:
    It’s on again! We’ll be tying the knot on August 25 th . Invites to follow.
    My initial reaction had been: Hah! I’ll believe that one when I see it. And I quite understood how one could feel that Julia may well be messing with Seb’s head. But we couldn’t ignore the underlying reason of why they were in actual fact getting married. Again. And it had to be because they loved each other and wanted to spend the rest of their lives – together. Simple as. And why Abigail was having such difficulty in grasping this tiny little fact, I really did not know. But after two hours of her making my ears bleed I had to get off the phone.
    “Abigail,” I moaned, “stop it. Please. Look, I know Julia’s cancelled their wedding before–”
    “Twice!”
    “Arghhhh. I know Julia’s cancelled their wedding twice before, but it’s not as if she’s forcing him to marry her is it? I mean Sebastian is doing this of his own free will. I’m sure he’s well chuffed about it. I know you’re worried for him but he’s a big boy. Try being happy for them will you. They’re finally getting married!” I had naively taken her silence as reluctant agreement and wasn’t expecting the torrent of strong disagreement that followed. I was neither ready for it nor was I accepting it. “Oh my god!” I said breaking her flow, trying to sound as lively as possible. “The fire alarm’s just gone off in our building!”
    “…What?! I can’t hear anything.”
    “I’ve got to go!”
    “Well call me ba–” I slammed the phone down and unplugged it. Enough was enough!
    So I decided against the facial exercises, opting for the ten minutes extra of much needed sleep, opened up the cabinet and started popping my pills instead. Vitamin c high potency for collagen production, vitamin e for complexion, calcium because I don’t drink enough milk, vitamin b complex to regulate my hormones – not quite sure if