What a disaster this outing had been. She’d drawn a lot of cash that morning, and her bank cards were also gone. She couldn’t go into a bank to withdraw money because she had no ID with her—her passport was at the guesthouse and there was no time to fetch it, because she’d planned to go straight from the London Eye to join her friend Jess for lunch.
Half an hour later, feeling shaken by the crime, appalled by the amount of money she’d lost, and thoroughly annoyed with London, Cassie walked into the pub where they were meeting. She was ahead of the lunchtime rush, and asked the waitress to reserve a corner table for them while she went to the bathroom.
Staring at herself in the mirror, she smoothed down her wavy auburn hair and tried a cheerful smile. The expression felt unfamiliar. She was sure she’d lost weight since she and Jess had last met, and she thought critically that she looked too pale and too stressed—and this wasn’t only due to the trauma she’d been through earlier today.
Exiting the restroom, she was just in time to see Jess walk into the pub.
Jess was wearing the same jacket she’d had on when they’d first met more than a month ago, both on their way to au pair jobs in France. Seeing her brought the memories flooding back. Cassie remembered how she’d felt as she boarded the plane. Frightened, uncertain, and with serious misgivings about the family she’d been assigned to. These had proven to be well founded.
In contrast, Jess had been employed by a lovely, friendly family and Cassie thought she looked very happy.
“It’s good to see you,” Jess said, hugging Cassie hard. “What fun this is.”
“It’s so exciting. But I have a crisis on my hands,” Cassie confessed.
She explained about being pickpocketed earlier.
“No! That’s awful. What bad luck that they found other wallets, but not yours.”
“Could you loan me some money for lunch and bus fare to get back to my guesthouse? I can’t even withdraw cash at a bank without my passport. I’ll transfer it back to you as soon as I can get online.”
“Of course. It’s not a loan, it’s a gift. The family I’m working for has come to London for a wedding, and they’re all in Winchester with the bride’s mother today, so they threw money at me to enjoy London for the day. After this, I’m going to Harrods.”
Jess shook back her blonde hair, laughing as she shared the cash with Cassie.
“Hey, shall we take a selfie?” she suggested, but Cassie declined.
“I have absolutely zero makeup on,” she explained, and Jess laughed and put her phone away.
The lack of makeup wasn’t the real reason, of course; she was trying her best to stay under the radar. The first thing she’d done after arriving in London was to change her social media settings, turning them fully private. Well-meaning friends might say something, and the path could be traced. She didn’t want anyone knowing where she was. Not her ex-boyfriend back in the States, and certainly not her ex-employer and his legal team in France.
She had thought she would feel safe once she’d left France, but she hadn’t realized how accessible, and interconnected, the whole of Europe was. Going straight back to the States would have been a more sensible choice.
“You’re looking amazing—have you lost weight?” Jess asked. “And are things going well with the family who employed you? You said you were worried about them.”
“It didn’t work out, so I’m no longer with them,” she said carefully, glossing over the ugly details that she couldn’t bring herself to think about.
“Oh dear. What went wrong?”
“The children moved to the South of France, and the family didn’t need an au pair anymore.”
Cassie kept it as simple as possible, hoping a dull explanation would prevent any further questions, because she didn’t want to have to lie to her friend.
“I guess that happens. It could have been worse. You could have worked for that family everyone’s talking about where the husband is standing trial for murdering his fiancée.”
Cassie looked down hurriedly, worried that her expression would give her away.
Fortunately they were distracted by the arrival of the wine, and after they’d ordered food, Jess had moved on from that juicy morsel of gossip.
“What are you going to do now?” she asked Cassie.
Cassie felt ashamed by the question, because she had no coherent answer. She wished she could tell Jess that she had a plan and wasn’t just living day to day, knowing that she should make the most of her time in Europe, but feeling increasingly uncertain about her situation here.
“I’m not sure. I was thinking of going back to the States, finding work somewhere warmer. Florida, perhaps. It’s expensive to stay here.”
Jess nodded in understanding.
“I bought a car when I arrived. Someone at the guesthouse was selling it. That took a lot of my cash.”
“So you have a car?” Jess asked. “How awesome!”
“It has been wonderful. I’ve gone on some amazing drives out of the city, but using the car with the gas and everything, and even day-to-day living, is costing more than I expected.”
Hemorrhaging money without any prospect of earning income was stressing her out and it was reminding her of the battles she’d gone through when she was younger.
She’d left home at sixteen to escape her violent and abusive father, and ever since then she’d had to look after herself. She’d had no security and no savings and no family to fall back on, because her mother was dead and her older sister, Jacqui, had run away a few years earlier and had never been in touch again.
Living on her own had been a case of month-to-month survival for Cassie. She’d sometimes only made it by the skin of her teeth. Never mind having peanut butter at month’s end;
