by Lindsey Kelk
‘He didn’t say anything about mass murder but you never know with my dad, he’s a taciturn man,’ I said, clutching my wine but not drinking. It had been a rough week on that front already and I was such a lightweight. The thought of even taking a sip made my stomach turn. ‘You’re right though, something’s up. They’ve actually spent money on this. They literally told me nothing about this evening – I thought it was going to be a bottle of Blue Nun and a bag of dry roast peanuts. But you know what my mum and dad are like, they never tell me anything.’
Admittedly, my mum had done a much better job of this birthday party than she had with mine. The room looked lovely. A dozen round tables covered with elegant white tablecloths and elaborate floral centrepieces filled half the room while gold and silver balloons floated above the dance floor, swaying out of time to the Sinatra that was playing over the PA system. It was all very swish and there wasn’t a single bin bag or handy vac in sight.
‘And I don’t want to scare you but it’s an open bar,’ Abi whispered. ‘Something’s definitely going on.’
‘Oh god,’ I said, gulping the wine straight down with a shudder. ‘Do you think he’s dying?’
She shrugged and nodded. ‘Or transitioning.’
‘It can’t be either,’ I said, peering into the crowds to search for my parents, just in case. ‘They bought a new car a month ago and there’s no way he’d waste money on a Volvo if he thought he was about to die and when I tried to explain Caitlyn Jenner to him, he said he was too old to bother with all that and left the room.’
I hadn’t seen Abi since our summit on Wednesday evening and we’d been playing telephone tennis ever since. To be fair to my friend, I really hadn’t felt like talking. It had been a long three days of ridiculously long shifts in the surgery followed by unwelcome paperwork sessions and, most evenings, I’d topped off the day with a fun cry in the bath. It was a mystery to me how Adam could even consider walking away from such a prize.
‘So, I’m going to ask you before everyone else does …’ Abi fiddled with the plunging neckline of her beautiful deep green dress. She was not dressed for the sixty-fifth birthday of a family friend, unless she was trying to finish my dad off. ‘Is you-know-who coming?’
‘Adam?’ I asked.
‘No, Voldemort,’ she replied. ‘Of course, Adam.’
‘I don’t know,’ I said, pushing up onto my tiptoes to peer over the crowd. ‘I really don’t. We still haven’t spoken—’
‘This is ridiculous, Liv.’ Abi’s face was a picture of empathy with just a hint of homicide in her eyes. ‘He’s your boyfriend, you can’t just rattle on like this. I’m going to call him.’
‘No, you’re not,’ I said, slapping her phone back into her bag. ‘I spent all afternoon trying to come up with excuses for why I haven’t heard from him that didn’t end with me crying and drinking vodka under a table. This is not the time to make that dream a reality.’
‘I would have been under the table with a bottle by Thursday night,’ she said, dropping her head onto my shoulder, giving me an unrestricted view of her rack. She had amazing boobs. ‘You’re my hero.’
‘Then I won’t tell you about the empty bottle of vodka under my dining table,’ I replied. ‘You still think it’s going to be all right, don’t you?’
Not even all the music and laughter and happy chatter that filled the room could fill the pause before she spoke again.
‘I’m trying to think of a way to make not hearing from him all week positive,’ she said. ‘But I’m struggling. Is this the part where I’m supposed to take you shopping then we both get makeovers and disappear on a life-changing holiday to Tuscany?’
Ooh, Tuscany.
‘Well, you’re shit out of luck.’ She emptied her wine glass into mine, filling it to the brim. ‘Because I haven’t got any money, I can’t take any time off until April, and your hair is really nice as it is. Don’t be ridiculous.’
‘You’re such a failure.’ A small smile worked a group of muscles in my face that hadn’t been used in almost a week. ‘I think you need to check your “best friend” job description, Abigail Levinson.’
‘They definitely sound like Cassie things to me,’ she replied. ‘Are they coming?’
‘Couldn’t get a babysitter,’ I told her, watching three teenagers huddled together on the back of a bench outside, passing a bottle of something underneath their coats. I wondered if they needed a fourth. ‘You’re stuck with all the BFF duties.’
‘I thought you were my best friend?’ Abi waved to David who was edging into the room with a total lack of conviction. He hated what he referred to as ‘old people parties’, especially when the majority of the attendees were the same old dears who asked him when he was going to find a ‘nice girl and settle down’ every time they came into the surgery. ‘You should take David to Tuscany. He’ll be better at it than me anyway.’
‘Better at what?’ he asked, giving me a fist-bump. It was always best not to start any rumours at a village party; gossip spread like wildfire in Long Harrington and the two women who ran the library would have me barefoot and pregnant with his triplets in under three minutes if they so much as saw a hug.
‘Olivia Addison’s Magical Break-Up Makeover,’ Abi replied with elaborate jazz hands. ‘I’m thinking haircut, boob job, burn all her clothes and then we move to Paris to live in a five-star hotel. Shenanigans ensue.’
‘I thought you said I had nice hair?’ I asked.
‘Or, we could move to Las Vegas,’ he suggested, one hand swooping in a wide arc in front of my face, painting an invisible picture, the other on Abi’s shoulder before she knocked it off. ‘And I meet a wonderful, gentle but feisty stripper named Harmony who is only dancing to earn money to pay for medical school, she takes us to her favourite blackjack table, Abi wins it big and we all live happily ever after in the high roller suite.’
‘And where will I be during all of this?’ I asked, taking one more sip of wine to confirm my hangover and putting it back on the bar. ‘How does that help me?’
‘Taking care of the lions at the MGM casino,’ he said, picking up my glass of wine and chugging half the glass. Great, now we’d all had a go at it. ‘Obviously.’
Abi reached out to take hold of my hand. ‘I know this isn’t easy and I know we’re taking the piss.’
‘We are?’ David said. ‘Oh. Shit.’
‘But you’ve got to look at the opportunities here.’ She grabbed a handful of peanuts from the bowl on the bar and shovelled them into her mouth. ‘Firstly, you haven’t actually properly broken up yet. And secondly, OK, things might not work out exactly as you thought. That doesn’t mean things can’t be great. If you could be anywhere right now, where would you be?’
‘Miami, on the beach, cocktail in one hand, Karlie Kloss in the other,’ David replied.
‘And back in the real world,’ Abi said, eyes on me. ‘What would you be doing, if you’d never met Adam? If you could be anywhere in the world, doing absolutely anything, what would it be?’
Once upon a time, I would have had a thousand answers tripping off my tongue but now I had nothing. It was too easy to get stuck in your own life, wrapping yourself in layers of the every day. I was too busy paying the electric bill, bingeing on the new series of something I wouldn’t remember in six months and making sure I always had milk to bother with dreams. I wasn’t just stuck behind my break-up blinkers, I’d built so many walls around myself, I could barely see the sky.
‘Japan,’ I said, scratching around in my brain for anything that had been parked on the ‘maybe’ or ‘not right now’ shelf. ‘I’ve always wanted to go to Japan but I haven’t suggested it because I knew Adam was worried about money and it’s so expensive.’
‘Three tickets to Japan!’ David said, easy as that. ‘What else?’
‘I’m not paying for all three of us,’ I corrected.
‘One ticket to Japan!’ David said. ‘What else?’
‘I always thought I’d
end up somewhere other than here,’ I said, casting an eye over the room that was filled with faces I’d seen almost every day since I was a little girl. ‘I mean, Abs, we only made it fifteen minutes down the road for uni.’
‘I know,’ Abi said with a consoling sigh. ‘I thought we’d move to London afterwards. How come we’re still bloody here?’
I gazed out the window and indulged in a vision of myself skipping through a cityscape in heels I couldn’t possibly walk in and wearing a far too colourful outfit. This was why Carrie Bradshaw was a journalist and not a vet, I realized. Significantly more opportunity for glamour and significantly less chance of going home covered in something’s vomit. I really had made some poor life decisions.
‘You don’t have a mortgage, you’re not tied to anything.’ Abi gave me a tiny smile, even though I knew she didn’t love this chain of thought. ‘Nothing stopping you, babe.’
A tiny spark of something that could be lit up inside me, and it was almost too frightening to look at directly. I couldn’t even choose between two different flavours of ice cream, the idea of the entire world opening itself up to me was terrifying.
‘The world is your lobster,’ David waved a hand off into the distance. ‘As long as you promise to always send me and Harmony a Christmas card, wherever you end up.’
‘Liv, did your mum invite Adam’s parents to the party?’ Abi asked, taking the double glass of wine out of David’s hand and putting it back into mine.
‘Of course,’ I replied. ‘But they didn’t RSVP. I think his mum’s away.’
‘His mum is not away,’ she said, nodding across the room. ‘His mum is here.’
I followed her gaze across the room to see two older men, each hugging an older woman. My parents and Adam’s parents.
‘Oh god, they’re talking to each other,’ I whispered, desperately looking for an escape route. I wasn’t ready for this. I didn’t know what to say to them. ‘Is he here as well?’
‘I can’t see him,’ Abi said, craning her neck above the crowd, her boobs threatening to burst free as she went up on her tiptoes. ‘Do you want me to do a lap of the room?’
‘I’ll go,’ David offered. He leaned forward and took a slurp out of our group wine glass. ‘If I find him, I’ll signal.’
‘What’s the signal?’ I asked, a flush creeping up my chest and neck as both sets of parents continued to chat.
‘Oi Liv, Adam is here,’ he suggested, waving his arms around in the air. ‘Does that work?’
‘Perfectly,’ Abi said with a grim nod. ‘Now, let’s get you sorted out.’
Without another word, she bundled me backwards into the ladies, pushing our sixth form French teacher out the door in the process.
‘Pardon,’ she called as the door swung shut. ‘Je suis désolée.’
‘Why are we in the toilets?’ I asked.
‘We are in the toilets,’ she replied, turning me around and shoving me into a toilet stall, ‘because if Adam’s parents are here, Adam is probably here too and you are dressed for your dad’s birthday party.’
‘It is my dad’s birthday party,’ I replied as she yanked her obscenely low-cut dress over her head and tossed it over the toilet door, her hands on her hips in her bra and pants. They matched. I was impressed.
‘Abi,’ I said calmly. ‘You appear to have removed your dress.’
‘Take that off,’ she ordered, pointing at my delightful, very ladylike, navy-blue polka-dot ensemble. ‘Right now.’
‘But if I take it off, I too will have removed my dress,’ I replied. ‘I’m not sure what you’re going for here, Ab.’
She rolled her brown eyes and crossed her arms over her magnificent bosom. ‘You haven’t seen Adam since the car-park incident, correct?’
I nodded.
‘And regardless of his recent behaviour, you do still want to be with him, don’t you?’
I nodded.
‘Then take that bloody frock off, you look like you’re dressed to meet the queen,’ she commanded. ‘And then stuff your bra with bog roll. We’re going to need to pad you out a bit if you’re going to pull this off.’
My heart was pounding at the thought of seeing Adam and also at the thought of stripping half-naked in the lavs of the Bell. This was not standard Saturday night behaviour for me.
Any more.
We’d all done things we weren’t proud of as teenagers.
‘Do you really think wearing your dress is going to magically make our relationship all better?’ I said, yanking handfuls of Kimberly-Clark toilet paper out of the dispenser.
‘No,’ she admitted as she zipped me up. ‘But it will make you look amazing. And Liv, if you really love him and you really want to sort this out, looking amazing the first time you see him can’t hurt.’
The edges of my mouth began to flicker as I smiled at her. Abi had little faith in relationships and I knew she must be itching to call Adam everything from a pig to a dog. She’d always been protective of me, ever since we’d met.
‘I’m guessing he hasn’t said anything to his parents,’ Abi, ever the analyst, theorized while she dressed me. ‘They seemed awfully chummy with your mum and dad. If my boyfriend had packed me in and then his parents turned up to a family party, my mum would run them through with a chainsaw.’
‘Yes, but my parents are a lot more repressed than yours,’ I reminded her as she pulled my sophisticated dotty number over her head and attempted to restrain her chest so I could zip her up. ‘My mum is probably apologizing for raising such a disappointing daughter and offering to reimburse all the Christmas presents they bought me.’
‘What are you going to say to him?’ she asked, rolling her shoulders uncomfortably. This was a sacrifice that would not soon be forgotten. Mainly because she was unlikely to let me forget it. ‘If he’s out there?’
I looked down at my chest and my elevated rack looked right back up.
‘I’m not sure I need to say anything,’ I said, meeting Abi’s eyes.
I burst out of the toilet stall, prodding at my tissue boobs. They weren’t as impressive as Abi’s by any stretch of the imagination but I wasn’t used to seeing so much of them outside of my own bathroom. Adam wouldn’t know where to look which I supposed was the point.
‘He’s here,’ David shouted, bursting through the toilet door, making me, Abi and the hand-drier jump. ‘He’s here, Adam’s here.’
‘It’s definitely him?’ I asked, my heart pounding so hard I could actually see my bog roll padding move.
David nodded. ‘Yeah. I think so. I mean, yeah. Pretty sure it was him.’
‘It’s not that hard a question,’ Abi said. ‘You’ve met the man before.’
‘Well, I was trying to get to the vol au vents before your mother ate them all,’ he told her. ‘Then I saw a very tall blond man bothering Liv’s dad so I left the buffet empty handed and came straight in here to report back. You’re welcome.’
‘Such a martyr,’ she said.
‘Can I go now?’ David cast his eye around the pink tiled bathroom. ‘I really don’t like to spend too much time in the ladies unless there’s a BJ in the offing.’
‘Then you’d better go,’ Abi said.
‘You’ll succumb to my charms eventually, Levinson,’ he replied, waggling his eyebrows before slinking out the ladies’ loos. He was wrong, she wouldn’t. Other than being six years younger than we were (and Abi never dated younger men), he had once drunkenly informed Abi that she was his great white whale and asked if she would like to see his Moby Dick. He had more chance of getting Adam into bed.
‘You’d never know I spent all week weighing mouse spleens, would you?’ Abi asked, fluffing out my hair. ‘Right. Let’s do this.’
‘Do what exactly? I whispered, still staring at my boobs. There was so much boob.
‘That part is up to you,’ Abi said, patting me on the backside. ‘Remember, you can do anything you want to do.’
‘Go home?’ I asked weakly.
‘Anything but that,’ she replied, pushing me out of the bogs. ‘Go get ’em tiger.’
‘Olivia …’ My mum, neat and tidy in her navy blue Jacques Vert special, opened her arms to give me a very tiny almost hug. ‘What are you wearing?’
‘Nice to see you too,’ I said, hoisting up my plunging neckline as far as it would go. Across the room, over by the buffet table, I saw Adam’s dad leaning on his walking stick while his mum, unmissable in a fuchsia sari, repeatedly reached out for a canapé before frowning, shaking her head and moving along to the next platter. Wherever Adam was hiding, he was not with his parents. It felt ever so slightly as though there were a spider in the room but I wasn’t sure where it was lurking.
‘I was just speaking to Adam’s parents,’ Mum said, inclining her tasteful bob towards the Floyds. ‘His mother just came back from India. Did you know she’d been to India?’
‘Oh, India, that’s right,’ I replied, not sure I did know. Adam’s mum was always off somewhere. Wellness retreat in Costa Rica, watercolour lessons in the Lake District, wine-making course in the South of France – all while his dad sat at home, watching the snooker. And they were just about the happiest couple I’d ever met. ‘She looks well on it.’
‘Where is Adam?’
Someone was bound to ask sooner or later, I supposed I should have been thankful it was my mum.
‘On his way,’ I lied. I’d spent hours coming up with answers to that question, he was at work, he’d joined the army, he’d become a Scientologist and no longer believed in celebrating birthdays other than those of Tom Cruise and John Travolta. And that was the best I could come up with?
‘I’m sure he’ll be here soon,’ Mum said. Bugger me, it worked. ‘Is that a new dress, dear?’
‘Where’s Dad?’ I asked. Over at the bar, Abi and David raised shot glasses in my direction but I still couldn’t see Adam.
‘Oh, he’s about somewhere,’ she replied. ‘He’s been bouncing around all day.’