Semi-Sweet

by Roisin Meaney

Genres: General Fiction

Synopsis

Hannah Robinson is just about to open the doors to her new shop Cupcakes on the Corner when out of the blue her boyfriend Patrick announces that he's leaving her for another woman. Faced with starting a business on her own, Hannah begins to wonder if her life-long dream has just turned into a nightmare. So her best friend Adam sets his birthday as a deadline - seven months to make her shop a success, or walk away from it all. And as Hannah immerses herself in her new business, she soon discovers that she's too busy to think about Patrick and his now pregnant girlfriend ...or to notice an increasingly regular customer who has recently developed a sweet tooth for all things cupcake. But while Hannah is slowly piecing her life back together, family friend Alice's is falling apart. Her husband Tom's drinking is getting out of control and things are about to get a whole lot worse. As the seven-month milestone approaches, Hannah must decide her future. And while she's figuring out what's really important, it becomes clear to everyone that happiness in life, and in love, is all in the making.

Release date: April 25, 2011

Publisher: Grand Central Publishing

Print pages: 400

Sample

Hang on,” he said. “Just…hold on a minute, would you?”


They were already late, Hannah struggling into the hastily bought black dress that was beginning to look horribly like a mistake.
Too stiff to flatter her curves, too long to feel sexy in, too short to hide her knees. Too young, damn it, for a thirty-two-year-old
to get away with.


Why had she listened to a shop assistant who was paid to tell people how great they looked, no matter what inappropriate thing
they put on? But Hannah had listened, because the shop was about to close and she had to buy something. And now she was 140
euro poorer, and she hated the dress.


And they were going to be late, and it was her party. And she’d cut the damn tags off.

“I hate this dress,” she said, doing up the three oversize buttons that for some reason had seemed charming in the shop. At
least Patrick would tell her she looked lovely, and she’d pretend he wasn’t lying. How could a dress that cost 140 euro not
be lovely? At least it had to be well cut, didn’t it, at that price? And the fabric must be halfway decent.


“Isn’t it awful?” she asked. “Don’t know what possessed me—I could easily have worn my blue.” She waited for him to say all
the right things.


But he didn’t.

“Hannah, there’s something I need to tell you.”

She began to rummage through the biscuit tin that held her jewelry. “Great—now I’ve gone and lost one of my good earrings.”
Cross with him for not reassuring her, but where was the point in starting a row when they were practically out the door?
The last thing she needed was for him to be in a sulk for the night.


“Patrick, come on,” she said, still poking through the tin. “The taxi will be here any minute. Where’s your clean shirt?”

He took the three steps that were needed to reach her, and put a hand on her bare forearm. “Hannah, will you please stop doing
that a minute,” he said evenly, “and listen to me? Will you, please?”


She stepped sideways, leaving his hand behind. At least she loved the deep red shoes with the shiny silver heels that Geraldine,
knowing her daughter’s taste so well, had set aside for her the minute they’d come into the shop.


“Patrick, we haven’t time—it’s nearly ten to.” She slid her feet into the soft leather, admiring how much thinner her ankles immediately became—how
did a high heel manage that? “Please will you get changed?”


“I’m not going.” So softly that she nearly missed it.

“You’re what? What?” Turning too quickly, her hand catching the edge of the biscuit tin, knocking it off the dressing table,
sending it flying, tumbling onto the wooden floor with a clang, earrings and bangles and necklaces rolling and clattering
everywhere as she turned back to him, ignoring the mess.


“What do you mean, you’re not going?” She searched his face. “Patrick, what’s up? Are you sick?”

He shook his head, but she saw now that he did look a bit pale. He must be coming down with something, and she’d been in too
much of a hurry to notice it.


“I’ve met someone,” he said rapidly, his eyes skidding away from hers. “I’m really sorry, Han—honest to God, I never meant
it to happen, I swear.”


Hannah’s head felt as if it were emptying, everything inside it draining out as fast as it could. The sudden feeling of lightness
made her sway; she grabbed the edge of the dressing table and held on. “You’ve…what? You’ve met someone?”


A year and three months they’d been together. He’d taken her to Paris; he’d said “I love you” in all kinds of weather. You
didn’t take someone to Paris and then meet someone else. It just wasn’t done. It was plain bad manners, if nothing else.


“I’m so sorry.”

His face was terribly pale, she realized now. A little lilac vein thudded gently in his temple. Two deep grooves ran the width
of his forehead. A faint gray circular stain the size of a two-euro piece sat on the shoulder of the white shirt he’d been
wearing all day. She wondered what could possibly have caused a stain like that, in that particular place.


“Han, say something.”

His voice brought her back. She noticed that breathing was becoming something of an issue. She moved toward the bed and slumped
onto it. She leaned forward, resting her head on her black nylon knees and inhaled deeply, feeling the air shuddering into
her.


“Are you okay? Han?”

His voice sounded thick. Maybe he was crying. She hoped he was crying. Her knees smelled of lavender.

A horn sounded outside. She lifted her head carefully. “There’s the taxi,” she said. “Come on, you need to get ready.”

Her words sounded breathless, as well they might. Patrick was standing in the same position, not crying but looking as if
he might be thinking about it. Her head felt so light, with nothing left inside.


“I’m sorry,” he said again. “I can’t go. I can’t…pretend anymore.”

Pretend? She clutched handfuls of the duvet. Her palms were damp. “Don’t be silly,” she said. “Of course you’re coming—it’s all arranged.”
She squeezed the cotton-covered feathers as she curled her toes inside the red shoes.


“Hannah,” Patrick said, “I feel terrible about this, honestly. It wasn’t planned. I never meant to hurt you.”

The horn sounded again, a short, polite bark. Hannah let go of the duvet and stood up. “Come on,” she said. “You still haven’t
changed your shirt.”


He shook his head. “Han, I’m leaving. I’m moving out tonight.”

“No you’re not,” she said. She picked her way across the floor, avoiding the spilled jewelry, and took her bag from the chair
by the wardrobe. “I’ll wait for you in the taxi,” she told him. “Don’t be too long.”


She lifted her coat from its hanger, pulled her blue scarf from the shelf. “You’ve got five minutes.” There was a tiny buzzing
in her ears. Something was lodged in her throat. She pushed her arms into her coat sleeves. “Don’t bother picking up that
stuff; I’ll do it when we get home.”


She walked downstairs, her hand clutching the banister. She opened the front door and closed it gently behind her. The evening
air was knife sharp. She pulled her coat around her as her silver heels clacked on the cement path that was already whitening
with frost. The taxi looked black in the streetlights, but it could have been any dark color.


She opened the back door and slid in, murmuring a greeting to the driver.

“Just yourself?” he asked. He wore a woolly hat. The car was warm and smelled of apples. The radio was on, some trumpet music
playing softly.


“Yes,” she said, not looking back at the house. It occurred to her suddenly that she hadn’t asked Patrick about the woman
he’d met. How had she not asked? What if it was someone she knew? What if everyone knew about this other person except Hannah?


“Where to?”

“Oh…the Cookery.”

She’d booked for eight people. She’d have to look at his empty seat all night; it would keep reminding her that he wasn’t
there. She dipped into her bag and fished out a crumpled tissue, and pressed it to her eyes. Her mascara wasn’t waterproof:
She had to catch the tears before they did damage.


Was he packing a bag right now? Were his suits laid out on the bed? Had he taken his orange toothbrush from the glass in the
bathroom? Or was he on the phone to his other woman, telling her he’d done it?


Hannah took it badly, he might be saying. She wouldn’t listen. She kept telling me to get ready for the restaurant. I felt rotten.

Saying he’d see her soon, saying he couldn’t wait.

Hannah was frightened at the thought of going home and finding all the empty spaces he was going to leave behind, all the
places he’d filled with his books and CDs and clothes and golf clubs when he’d moved in. His empty hangers rattling in the
wardrobe. Maybe he’d spread out her clothes so it wouldn’t look so bare when she slid open the wardrobe door. But she knew
he wouldn’t think of doing that.


And what about the things he’d forget? Because there was always something you forgot. Clothes in the laundry basket, books
out of sight on top shelves, socks at the back of a drawer. What of the letters that would still come addressed to him? What
of a voice on the phone asking for Patrick, someone he’d forgotten to tell?


And of course his smell would still be there, in the bed and on the towels, draped along the couch, seeped into the cushions,
waiting to ambush her around the house. What was she to do with his smell?


She hadn’t asked if he loved the other woman. She couldn’t bear the thought of that, of the love he’d had for Hannah being
gathered up and transferred to someone else. Maybe he’d never—But she stopped that thought before it could go any further.
Of course he had. You knew when somebody genuinely loved you.


Didn’t you?

She was glad the driver didn’t try to talk. He probably knew there was no point, seeing her in his rearview mirror all hunched
up. She was glad the radio was on, glad not to be sitting in a silent car with a stranger who might have felt obliged to say
something.


They were getting near the restaurant. She found her little handbag mirror and dabbed with a corner of her tissue at the black
smudges that had formed after all under her eyes. The driver turned on the overhead light.


“Thanks,” she said. It didn’t help much, such a watery wash of yellow, but another driver wouldn’t have thought of it. She
brushed on lipstick and ran her fingers through hair she hadn’t had time to dry properly. Not that it would have made much
difference—all the blow-drying in the world wouldn’t take the kinks out, just as all the color rinses in existence didn’t
make the slightest difference to the boring midbrown color she’d been cursed with.


She tried smiling at herself in the little mirror. She’d have to smile for the next two hours at least. There’d probably be
champagne. They’d all be toasting her, wishing her well in her new business.


“Patrick is sick,” she said, smiling at the face that smiled back at her.

“Sorry?”

She looked up and met the driver’s eyes for an instant in his rearview mirror. Had she really said it out loud?

“Nothing…just talking to myself.”

They pulled up in front of the Cookery, and Hannah paid and got out. She moved toward the restaurant, practicing her smile.

“Hang on.”

She turned. The driver was holding her scarf out the window. “You forgot this.”

“Thanks.” She draped it around her shoulders as he drove off in his woolly hat. Then she walked into the restaurant, her heart
sinking as Adam spotted her from the corner table and stood up, as the others turned, smiling, toward her. As her mother began
to applaud.


Patrick dropped the last of his cases onto the pale green carpet. “That’s it.”

“You’re sweating.” Leah reached up on tiptoe and ran her little finger across his forehead. “Ugh. Big sweaty man in my nice
ladylike apartment.”


He grabbed her wrist. “Hey, I’ve just lugged practically everything I own up a flight of stairs. You should be glad I’m not
stretched out on your nice ladylike carpet with a coronary.”


Leah laughed. “God, imagine that—after waiting for months to get you to myself, you go and die on me.”

“Well, it’s not going to happen tonight.” Bringing her hand down and pressing it to his groin, holding it there until she
felt a reaction. “Does that seem dead to you?”


“Darling, you’re so romantic.” She wriggled out of his grasp and moved toward the bathroom. “Come on, I need to scrub you
clean before I can take advantage of you.”


Hannah’s face, when he’d told her, when she’d finally realized what he was telling her. Everything changing in it, the color
draining away, even while she was still telling him to get a move on.


Saying she’d wait for him in the taxi, as if some part of her refused to hear what he was telling her—Christ, he hadn’t expected
that. He’d been expecting tears or maybe a few things pelted at him—some kind of unpleasant scene, certainly—but not that.


Leah undid his shirt buttons as the bath filled, as the air became warm and moist and scented. She unbuckled his belt and
unzipped his trousers and eased off his shorts. She pulled out of his embrace, catching his hand as he tried to untie her
wrap—“Not yet, you animal”—and he stepped over the side of the bath and lowered himself slowly into the foaming water.


“What are you thinking?” She reached for a pink sponge.

“Nothing—I’m too tired.” Leaning his head back and closing his eyes, inhaling the musky scent of whatever she’d used to make
the bubbles.


The meal in the restaurant would be over by now; they’d have moved on to a bar, probably. He wondered what Hannah had told
them when they’d asked where he was. Of course they’d be all sympathy for her. They’d hate him for dumping her, despise him
for his timing, so close to the shop opening. He imagined her mother’s reaction, and his heart sank. He’d always liked Geraldine,
and he knew that the feeling had been mutual.


“Happy?” Leah soaped his chest, his shoulders, the length of his arms, squeezing foam and warm water onto his skin. “No regrets?”

“No regrets.” He opened his eyes. “Why don’t you get naked and join me?”

She shook her head, smiling. “Bath’s too small, babe.”

But it wasn’t too small, he was too big. Six foot four and wide as a rugby player. Beside him Leah was a nymphet, a five-foot-two
slip of a thing with boy-short blond hair and the palest skin, weighing just over half his 210 pounds.


One time in bed she’d fallen asleep on top of him, one of the few times they’d managed to spend a whole night together, and
the weight of her hadn’t bothered him at all.


Hannah was more solidly built, edging always toward a plumpness she battled against but that Patrick had never objected to.
He’d loved the small ripples of flesh around her waist, the heaviness of her breasts, the generous curves of her buttocks,
the comfortable, dimply softness of her thighs.


Hannah’s bath was bigger, too, an old cast-iron affair, stained and mottled with spidery cracks but roomy enough for both
of them in a pinch. He had some fond memories of that bath—and what harm were memories?


“Right, I think you’re clean enough.” Leah squeezed out the sponge. “Up you get.”

“Are you going to bathe me every night?” Standing on the blue mat drying his hair briskly as Leah wrapped another towel around
his waist.


“Maybe. Depends on how you behave yourself.” She turned toward the door. “Follow me in when you’re not dripping anymore.”

Patrick wiped steam from the mirror and checked his reflection. He raked fingers through the thick, almost black hair, rasped
a hand across the stubble on his jaw. He should have shaved before he’d left Hannah’s—Leah didn’t appreciate the he-man look—but
he’d been anxious to be off, nervous that Hannah might come home early from the restaurant, maybe to plead with him to stay.
He brushed his teeth with Leah’s toothbrush and dropped the towels into her pale blue wicker basket.


In the bedroom she’d lit candles and spread a fresh bath sheet on the fawn carpet. “Lie on your stomach,” she ordered, and
Patrick lowered himself to the floor. Leah undid the belt of her robe and knelt and straddled him, and he closed his eyes
as he felt the warm massage oil trickling onto his back, as her hands began to spread it over his skin, as the scent of eucalyptus
wrapped itself around him.


“I could really get used to this,” he murmured.

“No talking.”

Her fingertips drummed down his vertebrae, the sides of her hands chopped across his shoulder blades. She’d put on one of
her salon CDs, all breathy panpipes and swishing waves, and he thought of the CDs arranged alphabetically on Hannah’s bookshelves—Michael
Bublé and Lady Gaga and Kylie Minogue and Paolo Nutini. He thought of the two of them sprawled on Hannah’s deep red couch
reading the Sunday papers, with Michael Bublé singing about stardust.


Hannah’s bookshelves, Hannah’s couch. Even after sharing it with her for more than a year, he’d never regarded the house as
theirs, always hers. It was officially hers, of course. She’d bought it three years before they’d met, and she’d taken in
a housemate to share the costs. When Patrick replaced the housemate, he and Hannah had split the bills and mortgage repayments,
and he’d repainted the entire downstairs, sorted out the garden, and bought the patio furniture she’d never gotten around
to, but it was always Hannah’s house. Maybe on some level he’d known that it wasn’t his final destination.


“Roll over.”

It had been Hannah who’d led him to Leah. He’d complained of aches and pains after a longer-than-usual bout in the garden,
digging up her ancient box hedge and replacing it with willow fencing, and Hannah had dropped in to Leah’s salon the following
day and bought him a gift certificate for a massage.


She hadn’t asked him about the woman he’d met, the woman he was leaving her for. He’d expected her to, he’d been ready to
tell her the truth—it was the least she deserved—but she hadn’t asked. She’d find out soon enough, of course: Like most Irish
towns, Clongarvin was too small, and he was too well known. How would she feel when she heard Leah’s name, knowing that she
herself had been the one who’d brought them together?


Leah moved from his chest to his legs, stroking from knee to thigh in strong upward movements. For such a petite creature,
she gave a massage that was deep and satisfying. She eased his legs gently apart and began to knead his inner thighs, using
slow, circular movements with her knuckles. As she inched toward his groin, he felt himself stiffening pleasantly in response.


“Why, hello there,” she smiled, and Patrick reached for her, sliding the robe off her shoulders, and Hannah was forgotten.

It was the longest two hours of her life, but she’d gotten through it with nobody having guessed. She smiled and thanked them
all for their help—her parents and Adam, and Adam’s two cousins, and one of their girlfriends whom she’d met for the first
time a week ago—and she drank the champagne when they toasted her success, and she ate enough Dover sole not to arouse anyone’s
interest, although every mouthful of her favorite fish was an effort.


She told them that Patrick was in bed with food poisoning, and they all accepted it—why wouldn’t they?

“Oh, the poor thing,” her mother said. “I’ll never forget how awful I felt after those prawns that time—remember, Stephen?”

“I certainly do,” Stephen answered, winking at Hannah. “Not one of your finer moments, I’d have to say.”

Geraldine shot him a stern look. “Very funny.” She turned back to Hannah. “What did Patrick eat?”

“Er, sausages, I think.” Hannah watched as Adam filled her glass, and willed the conversation to move on.

Near the end of the meal, when she was doing her best with a slice of lemon cheesecake, Adam leaned across and said quietly,
“You okay? Anything up?”


She shook her head. “Just a bit stressed about the opening, that’s all.” Her face was rigid from smiling. She hated lying
to him.


Of course she’d have to tell him. She’d have to tell her parents. But not tonight, when she’d hardly taken it in herself.
Maybe it was good that she had this distraction while Patrick’s bombshell was still so fresh and raw. Maybe by the time she
got home, the first shock waves would be receding and the urge to smash something or have serious hysterics would have passed.


But the thought of the dark and empty house waiting for her, the thought of going home to nobody, the thought of all the unanswered
questions, caused a new stab of despair. She lifted her glass and drank too quickly, splashing a little red wine onto the
front of her horrible black dress. No matter, she thought, dabbing roughly at the damp patch. Who’d see a stain on black?
And anyway, she wasn’t planning to wear it again. She hated it, and now it was the dress she’d been wearing when Patrick had
broken up with her. It was the breakup dress. How could she ever look at it and not remember?


He’s gone. She said the words in her head, and a dart of pain shot through her. She pushed her glass toward the wine bottle. “More,”
she said to Adam. “Just a bit.” Not too much or the truth might come out, and then the night would be ruined for everyone.


She shared a taxi home with her parents, having truthfully pleaded a headache when the others began talking about a nightclub.
The driver with the woolly hat was still on duty, the same soft jazzy music still wafting from his speakers, the same appley
smell in his cab. Hardly surprising, Hannah supposed, in a place the size of Clongarvin to have the driver who brought you
out taking you home again. She sat beside her mother in the back, afraid suddenly that Patrick would still be in the house.


“I must say I really like that restaurant,” Geraldine said. “The food is just right, and they don’t give you huge portions
like other places.”


“Mmm.”

How long did it take to pack up your half of a relationship? What if he were just leaving now, what if they met him on the
doorstep, surrounded by cases? She should have stayed out longer, ignored her pounding head, and gone on smiling for another
hour or two.


“And that waitress couldn’t have been more helpful.”

“No.”

The house was dark, and there was no sign of a suitcase outside. Hannah’s heart sank as she opened the taxi door, wanting
him there now as fervently as she’d dreaded it moments earlier.


“We’ll wait till you get inside,” her mother said. “Have you your key out?”

The hall was warm. Patrick’s leather jacket was missing from its usual hook. His keys, still attached to their fish-shaped
key ring, were on the hall table. His golf umbrella was gone. She kept her coat on as she walked slowly through the house.
His laptop, his books, his CDs—all absent. His toothbrush, his pajamas, his slippers, his clothes. His aftershave, his razor.
His tortoiseshell comb. The toffee-colored bathrobe she’d given him for Christmas, less than two weeks ago.


She crunched on something as she crossed the bedroom and bent to pick up an earring. She remembered the biscuit tin falling
to the floor earlier and now saw it sitting back on the dressing table with her jewelry inside. She dropped in the stray earring
and sat on the bed, feeling bereft.


He was gone. He’d left her, and he was gone. He’d met someone else, and he’d packed up everything and left her. They were
over. There was no “they” anymore.


She kicked off her shoes and pulled back the duvet and climbed into bed in her clothes. In her new black dress and black coat
and blue scarf, in her foundation and mascara and eye shadow and blusher and lipstick. She curled into a ball and closed her
eyes. She wrapped her arms tightly around herself, yearning for his. Wanting the warm weight of him on top of her, wanting
his mouth tasting hers. Wanting to pull his pillow toward her but afraid of what that might do to her.


She wished she’d had more to drink.

Patrick lay on his back in the dark, wide awake. Leah was facing away from him, a faint asthmatic wheeze to her breathing.
He moved his head and saw 2:35 blinking redly on the front of the clock radio. The room was brighter than Hannah’s bedroom
at night, the cream curtains no barrier against a streetlight directly outside. There was more traffic here, too, on Clongarvin’s
second-busiest street. He’d get used to it.


He was going to have to get used to a lot of things.

He turned onto his side and reached toward Leah, stroking the line of warm, naked skin from hip to rib cage. She made a soft
sound as he moved his hand to rest on her breast. He suddenly found himself remembering Hannah’s breasts, how much fuller
they were. He pushed the image away and ran a thumb slowly across Leah’s nipple, back and forth, feeling it stiffen in response
to his touch. Leah stirred again, her breathing lengthening, and pressed her body back into his, her hand sliding onto his
thigh. He reached past her flat stomach, and she drew a breath slowly as his hand found its way between her legs.


Hannah was sweating when she woke. The clock beside the bed read 3:11. There was a tightness around her throat, and something
was bunched uncomfortably at her waist. She pushed the duvet back and groped for the lamp switch. As the room flooded with
light, as she took in the empty space beside her, as she looked down at her rumpled clothes, it all came flooding back.


She swung her legs out and stood on the floor. She unwound her scarf and pulled off her coat, and let them both fall. She
tugged at the black dress until the three giant buttons popped, one by one, and clattered across the wooden boards. She dragged
the dress over her head, yanked off her tights and panties, and unhooked her bra. She threw everything in the vague direction
of the laundry hamper and reached under her pillow and pulled out her gray tartan pajamas. She put them on and regarded her
ruined face in the mirror.


He was gone. He was in another woman’s bed now. After fifteen months together he’d left her—and she hadn’t had a clue that
anything was wrong.


“He’s gone,” she said aloud, her voice sounding surprisingly steady. “He’s walked out on me.”

The shock of it was still raw, the abruptness of his departure still hard to take in. But of course, if she were perfectly
honest—and the dead of night was the easiest time to be honest—wasn’t the real shock not that he’d walked out on her but that
they’d ever gotten together in the first place?


He wasn’t her type, and she certainly wasn’t his. She’d been aware of him before they’d met—the man who had edited the local
paper for several years wasn’t averse to having his very photogenic features appear quite regularly in his own society pages.
He was also known personally to Joseph Finnegan, who owned the bakery where Hannah worked—and if he wasn’t exactly a regular
customer there, he certainly put in an appearance from time to time.


All the same, he and Hannah didn’t come face-to-face until she’d been working at Finnegan’s for the best part of ten years—and
that encounter might not have happened if she hadn’t taken an hour off one day for a dental appointment.


She’d arrived back at the bakery to find Joseph behind the counter, as usual. He was serving a customer as she pushed the
door open.


“Hannah, there you are. Do you know Patrick?”

His bulk took her by surprise; in the photos you wouldn’t realize quite how big he was. His woody scent was pleasant, if a
little overpowering. The smile came instantly and looked well practiced.


“I don’t believe we’ve met,” he said, his big, warm hand not so much shaking as cradling hers. Turning back to Joseph.“Where
have you been hiding her, you scoundrel?” Hannah thought, Flirt, but felt the color warming her face