by Lia Louis
“Oh,” I say as breezily as I can muster. “It’s been in a suitcase.”
She nods, a smile still on her face, but it’s changed from friendly and engaging, to almost mocking. She turns and says something to Lucille now, and I am left with Eliot’s eyes burning into me. I pretend I don’t notice, and instead avert my gaze to Tom on the dance floor. My cheeks are burning, my throat is dry. And now I feel a centimeter tall. Out of place was something I thought I just felt. I didn’t think it was something I looked. I lean across to Lucas. “I’m going to get another drink.”
“I’ll get it,” says Lucas, scrambling to stand. Eliot looks up.
“No, no, Luke,” I mouth, expression overanimated as you do when being drowned out by music.
“No, let me.”
“It’s fine; I want to,” I say loudly, and I scoot out from the booth before he can say anything else. I don’t have the money, not really, but I have my credit card on me if worse comes to worst, so I hold my almost-empty glass up to the table and mouth “drink?”
Lucas and Marie shake their heads, smiling, raising their full glasses, and Eliot smiles and says, “I’m good, thanks,” while Lucille and Mr. Aftershave don’t look up, enrapt in each other. Ana ignores me. Good. I was worried for a moment she might present me with a catalog of ironing boards.
I cross the floor to the blue-lit bar. I don’t really want another drink. I want something to do. Because as I sat there at the table, I felt myself lift from my body and view myself from a distance. Squashed there, beside my best friend—the man I am secretly in love with—and his beautiful and kind wife-to-be. Opposite Eliot, someone who was once one of my closest friends, and his stony-faced girlfriend, who won’t stop touching him, looking at him as if she can hardly believe he is hers. Lucille, who was falling in effortless love with a man she’d met an hour ago. Tom, all flaccid arms and cocky grins, yes, but happy, content, confident. And then there was me. Me. The girl in the old creased dress. The girl who loves someone she shouldn’t. A third wheel. A fifth wheel.
At the bar I order lemonade. I cannot afford the cocktail Lucas has shoved in front of me twice now, and I don’t want my head to get any lighter.
“Surely that’s exactly what you want,” Rosie would say if she was here, and I wish so much I was back at the hotel now, out the back, in the courtyard, chatting to her as she talks about her blog and why men should never wear espadrilles, while Fox smokes and Rosie pokes fun at his long words. I don’t want to be here. I don’t want to watch Marie, with her arm around Lucas’s neck, kissing the side of his face. He whispers to her, eyes drooping with too much whiskey, biting the side of his lip, smiling as he talks. The sight of it makes my stomach ache. I push my glass toward the bartender and ask for vodka to be added to my lemonade, but an arm is slung over my shoulder.
“Heeeeeeeey, Emsie.”
“Hi, Tom,” I say, shrugging out from under his heavy arm. He stands back, leans clumsily on the bar and grins at me.
“How’re we doing?”
I nod. “Fine.”
“Getting yourself a drink there?”
I nod again. “I am. Had enough of dancing?”
He laughs, throwing back his head, all white teeth and oval, flared nostrils. He’s Rosie’s type. Square-jawed and beardy, loud, “cheeky.” The type to come on cocky and strong in a club, but weeps on you the second you get him home and the time comes for entering you. “Maybe just for a minute. Can I get you a wee tipple?” He tries a mock Scottish accent.
“I already have something,” I say, holding up the tall glass just placed in front of me, and he laughs, nudging me with his shoulder. “I see that, Emsie. I just meant something else. Shots?”
I shake my head. “No, no thank you.”
“Suit yourself.” He leans against the bar, and I turn around, drink in hand, and freeze when I see Lucas and Marie kissing. Softly. Gently. Slow. Eyes closed. Tiny flashes of tongues touching. He hates PDA. Lucas has always said he hated it, and yet here he is, kissing, lips, tongues, arm pulling her tightly into him, no shame, no embarrassment whatsoever. Eliot turns, and I don’t look away in time, and he sees me watching. He tries a smile, closemouthed, almost regretful, and goes back to his drink. God, it’s like he knows and feels sorry for me. I wonder if he does know. And if he does, does that mean Lucas might know? No. No, surely not.
“So, what do we think?” The arm comes down upon my shoulders again, hot and heavy. “Best woman, eh, Emsie, and me. A fucking usher.”
I step to the side, but there is no escaping him, so I just stiffen and lean as far away from his hot, slurring breath as I can. I try to take a deep breath, to slow my racing heart. Because he’s just drunk. And it’s just Tom. It’s Lucas’s Tom. Present at so many of the birthday get-togethers we’d have as teenagers. Friendly, funny, cheesy Tom. Always too loud, too clumsy after too much to drink. Big, idiot Tom. That’s all. Nothing to panic about.
“I’m—I’m honored,” I say.
“Nah, nah, me too, babes, me too, I swear. I mean, I’d have loved to have been best man, but seriously, you and him…” His heavy eyelids close. “You’re fucking family, you know? The man adores you, and that’s… that’s sayin’ something.”
“And I adore him,” I say, attempting to free myself from him but failing.
“What?” he shouts into my ear.
“I said and I adore him!” I shout, leaning to move away from his hot breath, his arm like a heavy weight, and I can feel I’m starting to sweat, starting to fluster.
“Hard not to,” he says, then he pulls me tighter to him and shouts across the bar, “Eh? Eh, Luke? Ain’t that right, baby? We love you!”
He bellows so loudly that, even over the loud music, people hear, stopping what they’re doing and turn to look at us, at me, stuck to his side, his other arm flung into the air. Our booth sees us too—Lucas, Marie, Eliot, and Ana. Even Lucille and Mr. Aftershave Ad turn. Lucas’s face explodes into a grin and he holds his arm in the air, with his thumb up. “Love ya, Tom!”
And with that, Tom cheers, then squashes his sweaty, stubbly cheek to mine. Breath hot, aftershave-soaked skin pressing into mine. Panic. It rises like water in a hose. I pull away from him.
“Come on, you,” he laughs, oblivious, pulling me clumsily into him again, and I can feel it. Hot, raw panic, the thumping of my heart in my ears, in my throat, hands and feet tingling. I stumble away as he goes to put his arm around me, the way someone might duck at an incoming Frisbee.
“Don’t,” I say, and I can feel them all looking at me, and the music feels too loud, and the air too thick with alcohol and the smell of other people’s bodies. He puts his arm out again, grinning, as if this is all one big game, and as I stride back, he puts his arm out, like a barrier, trapping me between him and the shining, black bar. Then, grinning, he says, “What’re you doing, Emsie? Come here, talk to me. Plus, you know what they say, me the usher, you the—” And before I have even thought about it, my instincts, my fear, my panic, act on my behalf. As he moves toward me, I shove him. I put out two hands, one still holding my lemonade, and shove him hard in his hard, broad chest. He stumbles back, grabbing on to the bar to steady himself but knocks a number of drinks onto the floor with his arm. His hand grips the bar, hairy knuckles white, and two strangers help him stand again. And Tom is livid. His face fallen, eyes as wide as orbs, and his mouth open. He can’t believe it. He is in total shock that I have reacted in this way. I can barely get my breath, my head rushing with blood.
“I’m… I—I told you not to…,” I start, but my voice is lost in the music, and I see then that Eliot is there, looking at me, brow furrowed, standing behind me.
“Emmie?”
“What the fuck was that?” says Tom, and he steps forward. Eliot puts a large hand flat on Tom’s chest.
“Dude,” he says, “let’s just go back to the table, yeah?”
“She fucking hit me, man, did you not see?”
I can’t listen to any more
. I can’t bear to stand here, knowing he can see me. That Lucas watched that. That Ana saw. That Eliot and Marie saw. So many people are watching me, so they must have, too, and I cannot bear to turn around and see their faces, so I turn and walk away. I walk at speed, an almost-run, crashing into the one of the double doors that I push to open, but it’s bolted closed, and a woman touches my arm.
“Are you okay?” she asks me, and I ignore her, pulling the heavy door open, tearing outside, and stumbling onto the street.
* * *
Why did he do that? Why didn’t he listen to me? I had to, didn’t I? I had to push him away. I don’t even remember when it was that I lashed out, but it was the arm across the bar. It was the arm, the wristwatch, the not being able to get away, the hot breath, the sweaty skin pressed against mine. It felt like back then, for a second. Like being trapped in that classroom with Robert Morgan, his rough, sweaty hand squeezing my thigh, his fingers grazing the edge of my knickers, his words in my ear. “Come on, Emmeline. You think about this, don’t you? Don’t you? I do.”
“Emmie.”
I jump, look up, my chest rising and falling, my cheeks pounding with heat. Eliot. Eliot and his serious, judgmental face. Eliot, asking Tom to go back to the booth with him, as if I was some wild animal who needed to be restrained. His face. It’s the same face as that night of our nineteenth. He’d told his girlfriend. The girl with the ponytail and the drunken, spiteful smile. Eliot had told her about what happened to me. Everything. And she had let me know. The face he had in the bar—confusion, disappointment, judgment—was the face he wore back then as she told the whole party.
“Emmie, are you all right?” He steps forward now, ducking to look into my eyes, and I step back. “You’re shaking.”
“I’m fine. I know I shouldn’t have—I shouldn’t have pushed him, I know that. But—”
Eliot scoffs. “You should have. I wish I had. The man’s a dick. He was being a heavy-handed, inconsiderate dick.”
I look up at him and I want to cry because someone is being nice to me; is on my side.
“I panicked, Eliot. I know it’s just Tom, and he would never, but I—I just panicked.”
“Yeah well, he was fucking out of order, Emmie. Look, do you want to sit down? You look like you need to.” Eliot looks around quickly, at the length of tables—all full—lined up outside the hotel entrance, hand at his chin, as if working out a conundrum.
“I’m okay. I think I just want to head back.”
Eliot nods, dark brown eyes on mine, the lashes thick and jet black. “Well, Ana and I were thinking of going too, to be honest. I can call us a taxi. You can jump in with us.”
“Yeah, thanks. That’d be good.” I stare past him to the door, willing Tom to stay inside. I don’t want to look at him. Embarrassment surges through my bloodstream. Lucas. I want Lucas. I want to be back at the guest cottage like we used to. Like the night we went to a bar not far from here and sang karaoke—two days after Adam broke up with me. I sang a Bon Jovi ballad that I cried into the microphone. I want to go back and lie beside Lucas and watch quiz shows. The French ones I don’t understand a word of, Lucas translating them, tipsy, working his way through a pile of toast, and laughing every time I answer “Jason Donovan”—our default answer when we don’t know the correct one.
“We can walk, if you like, while we wait. I know with me, sometimes walking can help calm me down, and you must feel—”
“Eliot?” Ana, voice frosty, with the face of a disapproving police officer, appears, the doors of the bar closing behind her, a square fawn-colored handbag swinging from her shoulder. She asks him something in French. He gestures to me, then says, and only for my benefit, “Emmie just wants to go home now. I thought we could share the taxi, see her home safe…”
Then she speaks fast, sternly, eyes on Eliot the whole time, never once even acknowledging me, the heathen in the unpressed dress, and then Tom appears behind her, red blotches on his cheeks, shirt open down to the chest. He sees me but looks away, at his phone in his hand, and begins to walk away. Ana follows. Eliot calls after them in French, but she doesn’t react, walking straight and tall beside Tom, like a teacher who has just broken up a fight.
Eliot puts his hand on my arm. “Ana has said it’s best Tom leaves. He’s sharing our taxi.” He bites his lip, nostrils flaring. “It’s fucking bullshit, I know, but… look, I’m happy to come with you to the taxi rank and walk with you, see you home safe—”
“Em?” Lucas appears now, skin flushed, and when he sees me he speeds up, shoes scraping on the pavement. “God, are you okay?” He puts his arms around me, tight and safe and strong, smelling of aftershave and whiskey sours. I scrunch my eyes closed, hold him close, and when I open my eyes, fleetingly, a moment later, I see Eliot walking slowly away after Ana, hands in pockets.
“I’m sorry,” I say. “I overreacted, I know.”
“No,” he says. “He overstepped the line and you… you just reacted.”
“It—it was the way he stopped me. He—”
“I know,” he says. “Em, you don’t need to explain. You don’t need to say a word.”
He looks down at me, waits, but I can say nothing else. The adrenaline leaves my body as fast as it came, and then it all catches up with me. I cry into his shirt. And yes, I am crying because I’m embarrassed and I am crying because I’m shaken up, my whole body surging with the shame and guilt I thought was long-buried. But mostly I’m crying because my heart is aching, like a wide-open wound behind my ribs. Because I am alone, and I am scared. And I want to tell him I am, like I do everything else. But I can’t. With this, I can’t, and that’s what’s so hard.
Lucas looks down at me, pushes the hair out of my face, spidery strands sticking to the tears on my cheeks, and I see him swallow, Adam’s apple contracting in his neck. He stares at me, sadness clouding his eyes, and I feel it between us. Heavy. Like static. Neither one of us moves. Tell me, I think. Tell me you’ve made a mistake.
“Emmie,” he says. His lips remain parted, as if words are there, queueing up. But nothing comes.
“You’re—you’re getting married,” I say, my words barely there.
“I know,” he whispers. And for a moment I tense, because I really think he’s going to kiss me. I don’t want him to. But I do. All at the same time. But then he takes a deep breath and says, “God,” and takes a step back, as if he’s just been shaken awake. “D-Do you want—another drink, or… sh-shall we go back to the cottage?”
I will him to step back toward me, to tell me he doesn’t want this. To tell me he feels it too. But he runs a hand through his hair, straightens his shirt at the neck, and I see it happen, as if a button has been pressed. Confident Lucas is back. Knows-it-all, content-with-exactly-where-he-is Lucas.
“You stay,” I say to Lucas. “I’ll go back.”
He’d usually fight me on it, usually insist on coming with me, but he glances behind him, to the sounds emanating from the bar, and nods.
“You’re sure?”
“Positive,” I tell him, and after saying goodbye, I head in the direction I saw Eliot and Ana take earlier. I walk and walk, aimless, stopping only once to look up at the sky, stars like a spray of white paint on black silk, and want to ask it why? Why did you pull me toward him, for miles and miles, if this is how it ends up?
* * *
Mix CD. Vol. 4.
Dear Balloon Girl,
Track 1. Because
Track 2. I hate
Track 3. Watching
Track 4. You
Track 5. Sail away
Balloon Boy
X
“So, is this the bloke with the beard?”
Rosie scrunches up her nose. “Beard? Emmie, he never had a beard. Didn’t even have an ounce of stubble. Dunno what I was thinking, to be honest.”
I furrow my brow. “But I’m sure you said he was really hairy. Mike. Mike with the bike. And… beard.”
Rosie, mid prawn san
dwich, bursts out laughing. “It wasn’t a beard, you wally.”
“Oh, you thought it was a beard, but it turned out to be… dirt?” asks Fox as I push my finger through the tiny gap in my bag of Maltesers for the last one.
“No. God, you two are shit. Mike was the one with the pubes.”
“Ah. That’s the one. Easy mistake to make.” I crunch and look over at Fox, who is wearing the expression someone might wear when they have just heard someone say the moon landing wasn’t real and conducted in a studio.
“Um. Sorry?”
Rosie looks at him, pulling off a crust. “He had loads, Fox,” she says with a shrug, and stuffs the bread in her mouth. “Like loads. Like…” She looks around her, mouth full, as if searching for the perfect word to pluck from the sky. “A disco wig down a pair of trousers.”
I burst out laughing, watching Fox grimace as if trying to work out an algebra equation, before he says, “Well. I’m sure Mike would be thrilled to hear his crotch described in such a way,” and Rosie laughs.
“Thrilled,” she says. “Only my nan says that.”
“Only your nan and me,” Fox says, leaning into her, and sitting here in the sunshine on the beach with the both of them heals me like chicken broth does, like medicine. It was all I wanted to do when I got home from France last week; come to work and see them both, talk about dating and busy lunch shifts and Fox’s new paisley trousers. And pubes, apparently. I needed distance. Just a few days to gather my thoughts, to get back on track. It’s knocked me a little, that night at the bar, the same way hearing a song that was played at the Summer Ball used to, the way seeing a man in the street who looked like him—like Robert Morgan did. And it’s that weird little moment between Lucas and me on the street too; the hesitation. I have since put it down to drunkenness. Lucas is an affectionate drunk. New Year’s Eve is one of the examples, I see now. Our twenty-fifth birthday, when he pecked me on the lips and stayed there longer than he should have, and said, “I just really fucking love you, Em,” before puking onto the pavement. But the whole night made me crave Shire Sands. A quiet tea with Louise in the morning, Radio 4 mumbling in the background. Rosie and Fox. Toast in bed, a Hallmark movie. Some quiet time at home, to digest it all.