Wilde About the Girl

by Louise Pentland

  ‘Of course,’ Kath reassures her.

  ‘And Mummy?’

  ‘Both of you. More than ever.’ This time the serious tone is gone and a more jubilant one replaces it.

  And with that very emotional but very clear breakthrough, we wander back up the winding road to where both cars are parked, hug for a long time until Lyla says, ‘Guys! Mummy! Kath! You’re squashing me,’ and we head home for an afternoon of classics – spag bol and crappy YouTube vlogs. Bliss.

  KATH WAS RIGHT. DEREK would want her to continue living life filled to the brim with happiness, and that’s what I’m going to do, too. I like Edward being in my life. Maybe I’m not ready to throw myself into a full relationship, but he brought me joy and I recognise that now.

  I bite the bullet and FaceTime him. I don’t send a warning text or dither about. I just brush my hair a bit with my fingers, wipe the smudged mascara from under my eyes and press ‘call’. Hashtag brave.

  I stare back blankly at a video image of myself, waiting for him to pick up. It’s quite late here, so a decent time for him there, so I’m hopeful he can answer.

  ‘Heeeyyy.’ Edward’s face and voice boom into life.

  ‘Hey you! Just thought I’d check in and say, well, “hey”, haha,’ I respond awkwardly. Maybe I should have rehearsed this just a little bit.

  ‘Oh, right. Cool. Hey, haha,’ Edward says back even more awkwardly. God, this is going from bad to worse.

  ‘So, how are things?’

  ‘Yeah, awesome, things are awesome. We’re expanding the business so my job is expanding, too, which is cool. Buying up more stores, searching out new stockists, it’s awesome.’

  ‘Awesome!’ So, I think we’ve covered that – it’s definitely all awesome.

  ‘How’s things your end? Any more fashion shows in the pipeline?’

  ‘No, not for now. We’re back with our local jobs right now, and next summer we’ll have the film franchise gig. Remember we won it from New York last year? Well, they begin shooting again next year, but in the UK, so that’ll keep us busy, I think …’ I trail off. Since when did we only talk about work stuff?

  ‘Oh, neat,’ he says in his British accent but with his distinctively American vocab, and that smile. I do like that smile.

  ‘So, I wondered if you’re back in England anytime soon? I’d love to hang out,’ I venture.

  ‘Well, not for a while, but I’ll let you know when I am.’

  ‘You’ll be back for Christmas, though, you said. To see your mum and dad?’ I say hopefully.

  ‘Yeah, I don’t know … I haven’t thought that far ahead yet,’ he says vaguely.

  I give up. He clearly doesn’t really want to go anywhere with this and I’m starting to sound a bit desperate. This isn’t my best life, this is living my life like a saddo on FaceTime at nine o’clock on a Sunday night, trying to get a guy back into me who was into me but who I pushed away. Fuck this, I’m going to bed.

  ‘OK, well, let me know if you are and if you want to hang because I think it’d be fun, but no worries if you don’t!’ I say in my classic faux-cheerful voice usually reserved for Lyla.

  ‘Will do!’

  And we say our goodbyes before ringing off.

  I’m not sure that’s what Derek would’ve called living life to the full.

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  DECEMBER

  THE WEEK LEADING UP to my thirtieth, Lacey is buzzing with excitement about my party. I’ve told her not to work too hard or go all out since she’s seven months pregnant now, and, deep down, I’m a bit worried I don’t have enough friends or pizzazz to be worth an actual party. A couple of drinks in a nice bar maybe, but a party just for me seems uncomfortably exuberant and I’m not sure it sits well.

  Lacey assures me that she’s enjoying it, it’ll be small and classy and nothing over the top. She’s sworn to me there won’t be strippers, fishbowls or hideous forced fun party games with balloons between knees, but this assurance has fallen on deaf ears. It was Lacey who organised my twenty-first and those three things basically sum up what the party was, with the addition of my vomit on Simon’s shoes at 2 a.m. and him being so cross he didn’t speak to me all the next day. Such sweet, tender memories.

  Anyway, with no details to go on except ‘meet me at Dovington’s at 7.30 p.m. and we’ll go from there’, and the fact that Kath has offered to have Lyla for the night, I’m completely in the dark.

  My birthday falls on a Sunday, but with the party on the Saturday evening, I can spend the day luxuriating. Kath collects Lyla at 11 a.m. for a fun-filled day of making lavender flower crowns, apparently, and I, quite shockingly, head to the gym. I’m going to be so healthy in my thirties. I’ll treat my body like a temple and work on core strength for body and mind. I’ll probably even turn vegan and maybe I really will go minimalist.

  The gym’s quite busy, though, and I make the executive decision to just do a ‘power fifteen minutes’ on the bike and call it a day. It’s never a good idea to overexert yourself at the first hurdle, everyone knows that. The sauna and steam room are a lot less busy and, in my expert opinion, I’m working out my mind in here. I’m calm and collected and reflective, and I’m basically just sweating out all the fat stores. Very valuable time spent. I promise myself I’ll come back next week.

  Back home, I feel energised and serene. I am a goddess. A twenty-nine-year-old goddess with a lovely home, a beautiful daughter and a solid four friends. I have my shit firmly together. It’s only 2 p.m., so I’m going to have some spaghetti hoops on toast and watch TV for a bit, like all successful twenty-nine-year-old goddesses do.

  RIGHT, I HAVE A wardrobe spilling out with clothes but apparently nothing at all ‘dressy’. I know this, really; I’ve always known this, but I did think I had some nice pieces. Apparently not. Apparently everything is either denim, jersey or summery. Lacey’s told me to ‘dress up’, so I’m assuming we’re going somewhere special.

  Why have I never invested in a selection of winter cocktail dresses? I’m going to put this on my list of things to do in my thirties (as well as work out, consider veganism and be a minimalist. A minimalist with an emergency selection of winter cocktail dresses).

  For a moment I consider the silky shell dress I wore to Lyla’s birthday, dressing it up with tights, heels and a blazer, but it looks ridiculous. It looks like ‘Mum’s having a go’, and that’s not the vibe I’m going for. I push each hanger back and forth until I notice an old crumpled plastic bag at the back of the wardrobe, and lift it out. Inside is the skirt and top combo I wore to that fateful night at the OXO Tower with Theo. I’d forgotten how beautiful this skirt is – it’s made of layers of black lace and tulle and in between the layers are tiny stars embroidered in gold thread, which are barely visible until the light catches them and then they look like the night sky – and how incredible I felt in it. Well, how incredible I felt on arrival. By the time I was leaving, with hot wax up the backs of my calves (don’t ask) and my heart in pieces, I didn’t feel so incredible.

  I try it on and look in the mirror. It’s so flattering. It’s not the skirt and top’s fault that Theo didn’t want me. It’s not my fault either, I don’t think. I was never going to be what he wanted, who he wanted. The skirt doesn’t deserve to live a crumpled life at the bottom of the wardrobe, the skirt deserves to enjoy its life and feel beautiful, whether a man validates it or not. That’s that decided, then.

  My favourite part of any getting ready process, unsurprisingly, is the make-up. I spend so much time planning, organising and applying other people’s that I rarely spend time on my own face. Today is all for me, though, and I sit at the dressing table for a happy hour with vlogs playing on my phone as I apply a good base, make my skin luminous, tend carefully to my brows and accentuate the almond shape of my brown eyes with the most beautiful shimmering shadows, perfectly blended. It’s only your thirtieth once, so I take a further twenty minutes applying individual lashes to give myself a full, fluttering effect, and by th
e time I’ve swept on a deep crimson lipstick, I feel gorgeous. Actually gorgeous.

  Being the thoroughly modern woman I am, I make the most of this opportunity to take approximately six hundred selfies, as it would be a crime to let this look go to waste. I text the best one to Lacey.

  So excited!!!! *champagne emoji*

  Me too!! *party popper emoji* she pings back.

  Would it be easier for me to just grab a cab to yours or meet you in town? I ask. Dovington’s seems like such a weird place to meet before a night out.

  No, just head straight to the shop, I’ve left your present in the back room – oops! she replies straight away.

  Ah, bless you, I don’t expect gifts! Just a night out is enough for me. A bit of excitement! Might even go wild and have a cheeky flirt with the finest bachelors Cambridge has to offer, haha. *kiss emoji*

  Wilde by name, wild by nature! she sends back.

  Since I’m ready early, I give Kath a call to check Lyla’s OK and isn’t causing any Derek/Colin-related havoc. I can hear music in the background and Kath assures me Lyla’s had a lovely time making flower crowns for everyone and dancing about to ‘all this modern music’. I can only assume by ‘everyone’ she means the middle-aged mad lot from Cupcakes and Crochet Club, who will sit tomorrow afternoon in the church hall with their balls of wool and their perms beautifully adorned with lavender wreaths. God love Kath.

  THIRTY-EIGHT

  WITH THE FINAL TOUCHES of highlighter and lip gloss applied, I look out of the window to check for the taxi. It’s running late, and I notice that snow has very gently started to fall and is lightly settling on the street below. I’d usually groan about traffic delays and schools being closed, but just in that moment, standing in my restyled skirt and feeling so special, it looks like magic. It feels like the sky is acknowledging my birthday too, showering me with frosty white confetti as a celebration.

  Typically, since I was dressed and ready an hour early, the taxi arrives twenty minutes late, and so by the time I pull up to Dovington’s, I’m slightly frazzled and have sent several apologetic texts to Lacey (who says everything’s fine and she’ll just wait out front). I’m out of the car, £7 lighter and with no ‘sorry for the delay’ from Mr Ambivalent Cabbie.

  ‘Robin! You’re here!’ comes Lacey’s familiar voice. She looks an absolute vision standing outside the shop in a deep berry-coloured jersey maxi-dress that falls beautifully over her bump and makes her hair look like actual gold. I look up from shovelling my change into my clutch bag and before I can reply, it hits me.

  Dovington’s isn’t Dovington’s. Well, it is, but it’s not like it usually is. It’s not an out-of-hours florist’s with a few promotional posters in the window. It’s breathtaking. The posters are gone, the huge three-foot vases of bouquets that sit in the window are gone and the shelves and cabinets that are usually groaning under the weight of succulents, gifts and more flower arrangements have been pushed back to the walls. I can see that lighting the much-bigger-looking-than-usual room are strings and strings of warm white fairy lights. They go backward and forward across the ceiling as well as cascading down the walls, making the whole shop look magical. Hanging from the ceiling between the fairy lights are paper pompoms, much smaller than the ones we made for Mother’s Day, in berry, gold, moss and purple. All around the edges of the room I can see displays of winter bouquets with eucalyptus, deep red roses, twig sprays with glitter and, of course, since Kath has surely had a hand in this, lavender.

  ‘Lacey, I don’t know what to say – this must have taken you days!’ I stammer, still standing on the street.

  ‘Nope, everyone helped!’ She beams, placing a hand lovingly on her bump.

  ‘You shouldn’t have gone to all this trouble – not in your condition. You’re supposed to be resting,’ I say, welling up and walking over to her and grasping her hands.

  ‘I told you, I wasn’t alone. Kath, Colin, Mum, Dad, Karl and your posh mum friends all came to help! Even that Skye from your office messaged saying she’d be happy to give us all makeovers before you arrived, if we wanted them,’ she says, fluttering her lashes and showing off a hint of holographic glitter in the corners of her eyes.

  ‘Oh my God, I don’t know what to say, I really don’t know,’ I laugh, while trying not to cry.

  ‘Don’t say anything then, let’s go inside – it’s freezing!’ She loops her arm through mine, walks to the door, pushes it open and as the warm air hits us, a surge of people come forward from the back of the shop shouting, ‘Surprise!’

  ‘Oh my God!’ I half shout, half cry, bringing my hands up to my face.

  ‘You didn’t think I’d do things by half, did you?’ Lacey says, being the first to hug me.

  The shop is suddenly bustling with people, all smiling and hugging me, wishing me Happy Birthday and saying ‘you look beautiful’ and lots of other lovely things. There’s Gillian and Finola with their husbands; there’s Karl, Tina and Michael (Lacey’s mum and dad), Natalie and Martin, Skye and muscle man Neil (who looks slightly sulky, but I can let that slide), and there, in the middle of them all, Terri from Dovington’s and Piper!

  ‘Piper!’ I squeal, practically skipping over to hug her. ‘You’re not in New York!’

  ‘Nope, I had loads of holiday accrued anyway for Christmas at home, so I figured coming a few days early wouldn’t hurt!’

  ‘Ah, I’m so glad you’re here. I’ve missed you!’

  ‘Me too! Let’s go out over Christmas. I want to get wrecked on this side of the pond.’

  ‘Absolutely!’ I say, feeling a particular wave of excitement washing over me, something I’ve missed for a long time.

  I’m so giddy with people and music, and the glass of champagne that’s magically appeared in my hand, it takes me a moment to register the ‘Mummmyyy,’ Lyla shouts out as she pushes her way through the throng to get to me.

  ‘Bluebird! I didn’t know you were going to be here,’ I say, scooping her up and thinking how perfect she is. She’s wearing a soft moss-green dress with lilac lace scalloped edging round the cuffs and hem with a matching lilac lacy collar. Round the waist is a lace belt garnished with little pearls. ‘Where did this dress come from?’ I ask, amazed at how gorgeous it is.

  ‘Auntie Kath made it for me! We set up your party today. I made floral crowns in the back room with Kath and Colin put up all the lights. It’s been a huge secret, Mummy.’

  ‘Did anyone ever tell you you’re the best, Lyla Blue?’ I say, squeezing her even tighter than before.

  ‘I know! Do you want a crown? They’re eucalyptus, lavender and berry and then I sprayed them all with a sprinkle of glitter to make it look like frost!’ she says, jumping up and down on the spot in anticipation, eager to show me now that I’ve released her from the squishiest hug ever.

  ‘I can’t think of anything I’d like more. Go and get them,’ I say, watching her run off into the crowd and seeing Kath walking towards me, with Colin in tow.

  ‘You’ve done all this. It’s amazing!’ I say, hugging them both.

  ‘You deserve it, lovey. It’s been such a year,’ Kath says in my ear.

  ‘Many happy returns of the day!’ Colin toasts his glass with mine just as Lyla comes running back with about ten of the beautiful crowns, all looped onto her arms.

  ‘Wow! So many,’ I say, taking one off and balancing it carefully on my head.

  ‘Yep, there’s enough for all the ladies! I thought the men could have one too, but Colin said to save them for the ladies because they’re the real princesses tonight.’

  ‘Ah, that was very nice of him,’ I say, noting how she isn’t glaring at him or letting us know how much she despises him.

  Once Lyla has shown me all the components of her handiwork about four times over, I leave her holding Kath’s hand and make my way further back into the shop to find Finola, Edgar, Gillian and Paul standing with full glasses near a wall of photos.

  Before I can take in what the photos are of (or perha
ps I’m avoiding it because I have a sneaking suspicion it’s a memory wall of hideous snaps Lacey has taken and stashed away over the years), I do a double-take at Finola.

  ‘Finola, you look ravishing!’ I say, reaching out to take her elbow and air-kissing both cheeks.

  ‘Well, darling, I decided to take a leaf out of your glamorous book and make a bit of an effort,’ she says, matter-of-factly.

  ‘Christ! I wouldn’t say I’m very often glamorous!’ I laugh.

  ‘Anything that’s not horse muck or Vaseline is glamour to me, dear. I made a good fist of trying this glamour thing at home, but maybe fisting isn’t my thing,’ she says innocently. I know what she means, but I wish she wouldn’t say ‘fisting’ so vigorously, and I try not to chuckle. ‘Then your chum Lacey messaged me and said that nice blonde whippet from your work was offering to do us with her make-up kit and she fixed me right up, didn’t she, Edgar?’

  ‘She did, dear. You look very fine,’ Edgar says with no emotion at all, but it seems to make Finola blush. I smile at how lovely she looks and at how nice Skye has been to her. She’s all right, under all the pretentiousness (Skye, I mean, we all know Finola’s a good egg).

  ‘Now, let’s just take a minute to appreciate this wall, shall we?’ Gillian interrupts, with a mischievous glint in her eye.

  ‘Oh lordy, I dread to think what we’ve got on here,’ I say, stepping over to take a proper look.

  We stand a bit closer, looking at each photo by the (thankfully) dim glow of the fairy lights, and I find myself simultaneously laughing and cringing. There are all the classics, like me and Lacey on the school field during a heatwave with our shirts rolled into crop tops; a photo of me dressed as Sporty Spice, Lacey as Baby Spice and three of our old classmates as the others; a few Lacey’s mum must have taken when were eight or nine and wore old puffed-sleeved bridesmaid dresses in the garden to ‘put on a show’ for the grown-ups. Then as we move along you can see us growing up a bit. The toxic green fishbowl of my twenty-first birthday with all of us sucking on giant straws; a hideous out-of-focus shot of me kissing Simon in a club at uni (not sure why Lacey’s left that up, maybe to remind me of the good times?); me holding Lyla in the hospital the day after she was born; Lacey, Piper and me on the first day I moved into Granny’s old house, surrounded by boxes but holding up mugs of wine, and then lots of nice, more recent photos of me that I’ve uploaded to Instagram, often including Lyla.