Colin
===
Iris sat down on the narrow ledge that passed as the bus shelter's bench. Not that there was much bench - it was a beam that would make an Olympic gymnast cautious - and even less shelter from the rain, bouncing like marbles from the shelter's metal roof. All but one of the toughened-glass windows were smashed through and the one that remained was a spider-web of cracked glass. She turned up the collar of her soaking rain coat and cursed the rain, her bitch boss for making her work late and the joker who had pranged her BMW, forcing her to wait for the night bus.
A hot bath and chilled white wine waited for her at home. Perhaps some relaxing music and scented candles, too. Iris could almost smell the jasmine, feel the warm water against her skin, hear the music lulling her to sleep. Her eyelids fluttered ...
She remembered that supposedly romantic weekend in London. The shows, the restaurants, the shopping, the mind-blowing sex. The final, humiliating dumping that still hurt after all these years.
The pistol-cracks of high heels on concrete flagstones interrupted her waking dream. Fragments of that last scene at King's Cross station scattered through her mind like windblown leaves.
Iris squinted up into luminous violet eyes. The woman's head was haloed by the yellow streetlight and Iris couldn't see her face, just those eyes.
"He wasn't worth it, was he?" the stranger asked. She took a seat next to Iris.
Before she could stop herself, Iris replied: "He was married to his job. His schedule and mine would never match up."
"Stop making excuses for him. You knew he was a bastard the moment you met him. Do you even know what his job was?"
Iris looked at her inquisitor. The woman's lustrous brunette hair was perfectly styled. Not a smudge on her lipstick, her mascara nor her eye shadow. Her black leather coat was dry. And her perfume was exotic, without being overpowering. How had she gotten here without getting soaked to the skin? Iris wondered.
"He said he was in sales," Iris said. "But ..."
"... he never said what he was selling," the woman finished Iris's sentence for her.
"He sold me a lie," Iris murmured.
"And you weren't the only one." The woman offered Iris a pink Post-It note with six names on it: hers was at the top. "It seems you were the lucky one."
"Who are these women?" Iris wanted to know. "And what do you mean, lucky?"
"You didn't give him what he really wanted. The others, he took for every penny and even more." The woman stood, towering over Iris, who shrank back, cowed by her sheer presence. "It falls to you to fix the many things he has broken."
"Why me?"
"You're the only one with an ounce of sanity remaining." The woman gazed into Iris's eyes.
The hiss of air-brakes, the smell of diesel and the rumble of a heavy engine disturbed this strange tableau.
"Here, love," said a man's voice. "Are you waiting for this one? It's the last of the night."
Iris, jolted back to her senses, looked up at the bus driver and around the shelter. The woman had vanished; only the faintest trace of her perfume remained.
Iris boarded the bus and looked back over her shoulder at the now-empty shelter. "Did you see another woman at the stop?" she asked.
"No, love. Just you," replied the driver as he sorted out Iris's change. "Long day?" he asked as he handed over the money. "You look done in."
"Yeah. Long day," Iris agreed. Long and weird, she thought.
She took a seat as the bus pulled away and looked vainly in all directions for the mysterious woman. I must have been half asleep, she concluded as she settled back in her seat.
Iris fumbled to find her phone. The next level of her word game was waiting; she had had six 'please come back' text reminders during the day. As she pulled out her phone, a small piece of pink paper landed in her lap.
There were six names on that paper and hers was at the top of the list.
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