The Accidental Family

by Rowan Coleman

  “ ‘You could always have asked me out,’ I said, because I was a kid and a bit of an idiot.

  “And she hopped off the wall and wound her arm around my neck and said, ‘I’m the girl, girls don’t make the first move.’ And then she kissed me, and we stayed like that, necking on her front wall, until the sun came up.”

  Sophie steeled herself against the disappointment she felt at knowing that Louis had ever spent hours kissing anyone but her, but it was useless, the jealousy swept through like a fire through kindling. She knew he had a past, of course he did, he’d been married to Carrie, but the idea of him ever loving anyone else the way he loved her, even some fifteen-year-old decades ago, hurt her almost more than she could bear.

  “For that whole summer we were inseparable,” Louis went on. “We spent every day together, just us two. I didn’t see my mates for weeks. It was an amazing time, it was like …it was like …”

  “A wonderful dream you didn’t want to wake up from?” Sophie asked him.

  Louis nodded. “Yes, except that I had to. She left, or rather her family left, almost overnight. I couldn’t believe it. I didn’t know a thing about it.”

  “Even though you saw her every day.”

  “Toward the end of the holiday she didn’t want to see me as much, lost interest in me, I suppose. When I phoned her she was never in. And I never saw her in town anymore. None of her friends seemed to know what she was up to. Then I walked past her house one morning, hoping she’d come out, and it had a Sold sign outside it. It was already empty, they’d gone. I knocked on a neighbor’s door and she told me Wendy’s dad had got a new job up north. He’d moved them all in one weekend, just like that. I never heard from her again.”

  “Never?” Sophie asked him.

  “Nope.” Louis shook his head. “I was heartbroken, destroyed, it took me ages to get over her, I suppose because I really thought we were soul mates …”

  “Soul mates?” Sophie asked. She hoped that Louis was her soul mate, but if he’d already had one in his lifetime she wasn’t sure. She wasn’t sure exactly how many soul mates a person could encounter in one life, but she got the feeling that if it was more than one, then the whole concept was rather less special than she’d been led to believe.

  “Yes, silly teen love, you know—plus she was the first girl I had sex with, that was a big deal.” Louis dropped that bombshell casually, as if it were the least important detail.

  “You slept with her!” Sophie couldn’t stop the betrayal in her voice.

  “Sophie, come on, it was years ago. At our age we’re bound to have a past, you can’t be jealous, can you? After all, you weren’t a virgin when I met you.”

  Sophie wanted to say “only technically” but didn’t.

  “No,” she lied instead. “No, of course I’m not jealous.”

  “We’ve got it!” Bella ran in clutching several pieces of paper, closely followed by Izzy, whose arrival caused Artemis to discreetly retreat to the top of the bookshelf where she was far less likely to have to ward off unwanted advances from a small girl who just wouldn’t believe the cat didn’t love her.

  “We’ve designed the perfect dress for you, Aunty Sophie,” Bella told her, delivering the sheets of paper into her lap. “Only on here we’ve written the ‘purrrrfect’ dress because we’ve drawn it on a cat. It’s a joke that is funny, do you see?”

  “Yes, I do see.” Sophie took the piece of paper, smiling at the confection of glitter glue and felt-tip that Bella and Izzy had presented her with. “It’s marvelous and I shall certainly bear it in mind when I select a dress.”

  Sophie half-listened as the girls began to chatter, filling her in on all the dress’s design points, like its secret going-to-the-toilet skirt-lifting device and refrigerated pocket for perishable items.

  What was the point, she wondered as she listened to Bella’s plans for a pony-themed wedding, of telling Louis that everything about Wendy Churchill made her feel uncomfortable, tense, and as if she was in exactly the wrong place, with the wrong man, at the wrong time? That for a second Wendy made her feel like the interloper she sometimes suspected she might be in Louis’s life. That was nothing more than her usual paranoia and neuroses manifesting themselves in new, cruel, and unusual ways. Other than a woman she didn’t know being slightly rude to her, and Louis doing exactly what she had asked him to do, recounting an incident from his past, long ago, nothing had really happened. And besides, it wasn’t as if she would ever have to see Wendy Churchill again.

  Later that night as Sophie lay in her single bed in the B & B, gazing at the roses that circled the floral ceiling fixture, she found herself going over and over Louis’s story, adding details and embellishments of her own, images of Louis and Wendy walking hand in hand in unknown sun-drenched cornfields. She closed her eyes and tried her best to think about something else, anything else, fingering her engagement ring, which still felt odd on her finger. Still, thoughts of Louis and Wendy crowded her muddled, foolish head. Eventually she sat up, switching on the lamp next to her bed. Wearily she climbed out of bed to make use of the tea-and coffee-making facilities that Mrs. Alexander so kindly provided in every room and made herself a hot chocolate, then climbed back into bed to look once again at the wedding-dress designs the girls had made her promise she would pin up above her bed. And as she looked closely at the drawings, reading all the labels that Bella had so carefully spelled out in her best handwriting, picking up the more outrageous details that Izzy had added, Sophie felt the tension in her chest subside and a slow-spreading warmth take its place.

  Louis, her first love, her soul mate, had asked her to marry him, she realized, as if his proposal had only truly just sunk in. He’d asked her to be with him and his daughters for the rest of her life, and she couldn’t imagine anything more wonderful. It was everything she wanted. He was everything she wanted and she was going to marry him. All at once Sophie realized with a rush of adrenaline that the time to sit on the fence and wonder about her future was over. Now was the time to leap into tomorrow and embrace and enjoy the one thing she knew was going to complete her. She was going to be Louis Gregory’s wife and she could not wait.

  Five

  Sophie arrived on Louis’s doorstep at the crack of dawn, surprised to find him and the girls already up.

  “Hello,” she said, kissing him warmly on the lips. “I was coming over extra early to make you all a surprise breakfast.”

  “Ah well, you’d have had to sleep over for that,” Louis said, his arms encircling Sophie as the girls watched, nudging each other and giggling. “I’ve got to get my gear ready for that fiftieth-anniversary lunch in Penzance tomorrow. I’m re-creating the wedding photos of the happy couple outside the church they were married in. It’s seriously sweet. You should see them, Sophie, Mr. and Mrs. Harris, met and fell in love when they were fifteen, married before they were twenty, and still as happy and as crazy about each other now as they were then. Who says young love doesn’t last, hey?”

  “Me,” Sophie told him happily as she sat down at the kitchen table with the girls, who were making their way through their customary Sunday-morning piles of toast and jam. “I woke up this morning and realized that hardly anybody knows we are all getting married. And I thought, we need to tell everyone we possibly can. We need to start making calls!”

  “We do?” Louis said, sitting down next to her. “You really want to tell everyone?”

  “Yes, of course I do,” Sophie said. “I can’t wait for the whole world to know that I’m marrying you.”

  Despite her enthusiasm, it was Louis who got to work making calls as soon as he cleared the breakfast dishes and settled the girls down with a box of Legos in the front room. He trawled through his old address books and rang his friends. Sophie, on the other hand, paced in the kitchen, her joy battling a barrage of nerves. She wondered why she found it so much harder than Louis to break the news. Perhaps it was because he didn’t have a mother to tell, Sophie thought. If he had a
mother to tell, he would be feeling much more nervous. Of course he did have an ex—mother-in-law to tell, but as of yet they had not discussed whose list that particular name should be on, although Sophie guessed from Louis’s carefree and joyous demeanor that he wasn’t expecting it to be on his.

  What she was really afraid of, Sophie realized as she ran the ball of her thumb over her phone’s keypad, was of the people she loved and cared about not taking her seriously. She needed them to understand exactly how happy she was, how serious she was about marrying Louis, and, more than anything, she needed them to be happy for her.

  Deciding she needed to be alone to make her calls, Sophie took herself out into Louis’s garden and sat on the bench that the girls had nicknamed the fairy bower because it was located under a trellis smothered with a creeping rosebush that, at the merest gust of wind, scattered soft, silky pink petals on whoever was sitting beneath it. On this thankfully warm and dry Sunday morning, with the last remnants of the summer’s heat just detectable in the air, the remaining roses had already shattered during an earlier shower, littering the seat, a faded pink confetti of petals.

  As she scrolled through the names in her phone, she made a mental list of who to call and in which order she would tell them. Then she crossed off the names she least wanted to tell until there was nobody left on her list and she had to start again. Finally she decided the only fair way was to do it alphabetically. Taking a deep breath Sophie found Cal’s name and pressed Call.

  “What now? Sick of sharing your lover with a sheep?” was Cal’s friendly greeting.

  “Oh, how very professional,” Sophie said. “You can tell that McCarthy Hughes is going to hell in a handbasket—you were never that rude when I worked there.”

  “That’s because you were always a rudeness-free zone—in all senses,” Cal said. “Besides, it’s Sunday morning and I’m still in bed. In fact, you’re lucky not to be interrupting anything. So come on then, tell me, which crisis of confidence are you having this week? Have you discovered you’re allergic to clotted cream? Are you afraid the locals might try and burn you in a wicker man? Only you’re going to have to hurry up if you want me to dispense my usual pearls of wit and wisdom, as I have to prepare for a breakfast meeting with your old friend Jake Flynn tomorrow morning. He wants us to do the Christmas party again this year, and it’s got to be bigger and better than the last one, and so far no one has had any ideas to top the cruise ship so …have you got any ideas?”

  “You’re meeting Jake?” When Sophie heard Jake Flynn’s name, she forgot completely about her news, and Cal’s question, which normally she would have pounced on in delight as tangible proof that McCarthy Hughes did miss her among its ranks even if Cal swore that her absence from the office went entirely unnoticed. Jake Flynn, a handsome New Yorker, was the man Sophie had been endeavoring to fall in love with when Louis walked into her life. At the time, Jake had been her most important client, as she had been planning for his organization a huge Christmas party on an ocean liner that regularly docked at Tower Bridge. She’d been mildly attracted to him from the start but had been using their professional relationship as an excuse not to have to do anything about it. Once, before Bella and Izzy, Sophie had been the queen of not acting on her feelings, of living her life at arm’s length. The old Sophie would have been quite content to have conducted her own particular brand of long-distance romance with Jake indefinitely—one that involved him not knowing about it at all.

  When Cal had told Sophie Jake liked her, she refused to believe him, but when Jake himself told her he was interested in her, it became hard to ignore. He’d been sweet and patient and so understanding when Sophie had decided to take time off from work to look after the girls. He’d even kissed her with all the charm and expertise that any woman could ask of any man. Except that by then Sophie had already met Louis, and even if she didn’t consciously know it, it was Louis who was constantly occupying her thoughts. She would never know what could have happened between her and Jake if she hadn’t met Louis, if a more quiet and conventional romance might not have developed over time. If perhaps now, nearly a year from their first meeting, there might have been an engagement announcement posted in the New York Times. Probably not, Sophie reasoned. There had been nothing between her and Jake except a sort of long-distance attraction. There had never been any heat, and with Louis heat was a constant, simmering presence, on the point of boiling over the second he walked into a room. A heat that she could look forward to basking in until their own fiftieth anniversary and beyond. In a blink Sophie forgot Jake and remembered what she was so desperate to tell Cal.

  “Yes,” Cal said, interrupting her thoughts. “Jake couldn’t have been that brokenhearted when you legged it, because we didn’t lose their account—thank god—it’s practically the only thing keeping us afloat right now. Anyway, for their transatlantic offices the Madison Corporation are having a big hands-across-the-ocean Christmas bash that we’re organizing. So far it’s the only big event we’ve got booked. You know how important this account is, especially now with everyone’s head potentially on the chopping block. And your ex-nemesis and my new boss Eve’s given it to me. I can’t afford to screw this up, Soph, so I need you to tell me exactly what you would have done in this situation, even though I’m certain that it would be exactly what I’m going to do, I’m just double-checking, that’s all, as you were once quite good at your job.”

  “Let me get this straight,” Sophie said, happily distracted from the purpose of her call. “You are asking me for professional advice. You are admitting that you miss me and that you still need my considerable knowledge and expertise. Is that right?”

  “No.” Cal was adamant. “Well, maybe a little. I’ll be honest, I’m terrified, I just want to get this right. No one wants to get on the wrong side of Eve. Marshal from accounts got on the wrong side of Eve; two weeks later he turned up temping as a waiter at one of Eve’s events. She put a cigarette out on his tray of canapés. Rumor has it that she ruined his professional reputation from here to New York and now all he can get is a job washing up. I can’t be a part-time waiter, Sophie, I can’t. Besides, I have the hands of an eighteen-year-old milkmaid—they must never know the horrors of detergent. Say you’ll help me and then never speak of it again, please. That’s what a real friend would do.”

  “Well, I’m guessing your budgets have been cut …”

  “Like you wouldn’t believe,” Cal moaned.

  “So think outside the box, Cal. All the obvious venues will cost too much, and the last thing you want is a cut-price version in some awful low-rent convention center.”

  “I know! But what? Where? I’ve wracked my brain, Sophie.”

  Sophie thought of the Tate Gallery in St. Ives, a wonderful modernist building made up of white concentric circles, angles, and other shapes. It would be the perfect place for a party.

  “Start ringing places that don’t cater for events. Everyone needs extra revenue right now, so try museums, galleries—even empty buildings awaiting redevelopment will have someone who owns them desperate to get some return. Look for anywhere that’s a bit different and see if you can get the space for less, perhaps with some sort of cross marketing as an incentive. You know, hold it in a gallery with the opportunity for guests to purchase art. Or in a beautiful house that’s on the market. Promise them the kind of guests who might buy. If you cut your venue fees, then you won’t have to skimp on the catering or entertainment.”

  There was a short silence.

  “I’m only going to say this once and then you and I are both going to forget that these words ever left my mouth. You are a genius, Sophie, and I love you. I think you might have saved the day.”

  “Of course I have—you can take the girl out of the city but you can’t take the city out of the girl.” Sophie smiled, enjoying feeling that buzz once again. “And when you see Jake, give him my love, I mean my best wishes, won’t you?”

  “I will, but he won’t care,” Cal rep
lied breezily. “He’s got this über-sexy girlfriend he brought with him when he was meeting with Eve, some New York chick, groomed to within an inch of her life—stunning and slightly scary. You know the type.”

  “Really, that’s great,” Sophie said, more than a little surprised, considering the reason for her call, that she felt rather peeved. “I’m happy for him.”

  “Great, everybody’s happy for everybody—so tell me what you’ve got to tell me, and we can get on with our lives.”

  Sophie’s mind went blank for a moment and then she remembered.

  “LouisaskedmetomarryhimandIsaidyes,” she gushed, keen to get the sentence out of her head and into the ether before she lost her nerve.

  Sophie braced herself, but nothing happened except for a long and highly uncharacteristic silence on the other end of the line.

  “And I didn’t even have to buy any Wellingtons,” Sophie added with a touch of childish triumph that she supposed wasn’t all that becoming for a blushing bride-to-be.

  She waited for a response from Cal, but he was silent.

  “Cal? Are you still there?” Sophie said impatiently.

  “Louis. Asked. You. To. Marry. Him?” Cal said each word slowly and heavily, each one weighted with disbelief. “Bloody unbelievable!”

  “Yes, it’s great, isn’t it?” Sophie prompted him. “Isn’t it?”

  “But why?” Cal asked her.

  Sophie had been expecting many things from Cal, sarcasm, of course, a pretense that he had seen this coming from several miles off despite all his declarations that Sophie would never get near an altar, and, finally, she had been looking forward to the kind of warm goodwill that characterized the real friendship beneath the thin veneer of cattiness and sarcasm. But she had not expected that question at all.