“…and I’ve never forgotten how it made me feel. Like I was part of something, connected. Like I’d found another family – one that went beyond my flesh and blood. One that shared the things I loved, even if the people in it weren’t the people I’d have imagined I could be friends with. It made me happy. I walked home with my dad, and I felt like I was glowing inside. When he passed, that was what I remembered. We’d not seen eye to eye for years by then – even after we’d patched things up, it was never quite the same between us. But that convention – if you can call it that – he took me to that because I think he knew it would make me happy, and it did. And ever since then, I’ve wanted to make other people feel the same way. That’s why I started the conventions, in the back rooms of pubs. I was doing it for that feeling, for other people – and for me. They got bigger, and then bigger again, and then suddenly it was a business and it was what I did all the time. It went from being a part of my life to being my life.”
Now, that I can identify with.
He lowers his voice so it’s barely more than a whisper. “I didn’t realize the impact it was having on my relationship with your mother, the impact it was having on her. Not until it was too late.”
“You know I never blamed you for Mum leaving.”
He blinks at me as though I’ve surprised him. Then he smiles. “You don’t blame her either though, do you?”
“No.”
“I don’t. I loved your mother. Still do.”
“I know.”
“And in her way, she feels the same…”
“Ummm. That’s debatable.”
“But I won’t make the same mistake again.”
Bea. That’s what this is about. I should have known. He looks me right in the eye, as though he thinks he’ll be able to see whether I understand by peering into my eyes. All he’ll see is that I need a good night’s sleep, preferably starting before midnight.
“It’s okay, Dad.”
“I always thought that about me and your mum – thought it was okay. And then…” He shrugs. “I just don’t know where the time went. And now, with you, you’re almost grown up – and I still don’t know where it goes.”
“Here.” I tap the top of the table. “The time goes here. I can show you the paperwork to prove it.” I sigh, and pick at the edge of the table. “I didn’t want to let you down. I’m sorry if I did.”
There is the longest, longest pause, and I’m so afraid.
And then, at last…
“No, Lexi. I’m sorry.” He pushes the glass away from him, then slides it closer again, staring at a wet ring on the wooden surface. “I’ve never been the best parent, I know.”
“Daaaad…”
“No, let me say this. When you were little, I was away and I was working and I let your mother do it all – and then suddenly, she was gone and you weren’t a baby any more. You were a whole person, a person I didn’t know. And if I’m honest about it, I don’t think I ever really tried to work out what being a parent was. I was just me and I thought if I was me and you were you we’d muddle through somehow. Doing the conventions together, I hoped it would be our thing. It would bring us closer together, make us a team.”
“And they have. We are.”
“I thought so. But then you go and lock yourself in an empty convention hall with a boy and—”
“I said I was sorry! Anyway, I told you, we got locked in.”
“Lexi.” He gives me a withering look – the one he uses on suppliers who won’t cut a deal. “You and I both know that’s a lie. At least give me that, would you?”
“Mmmmphgffllfkkmaybe.” I doodle my finger through a puddle on the tabletop, only realizing I’m drawing a heart when I finish. And then wondering what, exactly, I’ve just stuck my finger in. I think it’s just condensation, but…I wipe my finger on the edge of the booth.
“This boy, then.”
“Aidan.”
“The writer.”
“Author.”
“He wrote that book, didn’t he?”
“Authors usually do.”
He laughs quietly. “You’re so like your mother.”
“Good.”
“And so like me.”
“Umm.”
“This Aidan. You like him?”
“I think so.”
“You think so? That doesn’t sound like my daughter. She’s usually so sure of herself, even when she shouldn’t be.”
“All right, all right. I like him, okay?”
“Would you like to invite him to the wedding?”
“What?”
“The wedding. Would you like him to come?”
“I can ask him? Really?”
“If you like him…”
“Thank you!” I throw my arms around him in an awkward sideways hug, and feel him hug me back. “Thank you! Are you sure? I mean…”
“It’s not me you should be thanking. It was Bea’s idea – she thought you might want to bring someone along. I spoke to her last night – before all this, I should add. I’m not sure I would have even considered it otherwise.”
It was Bea’s idea?
He must have felt me stiffen because he leans back and looks at me sternly. “I know you think… Look, Lexi, I know Bea and I haven’t been together that long, but this feels right. It is right. You should give her a chance.”
“I have. I mean, I am.”
“She makes me happy.”
“Good. I know.”
“And she’s very fond of you.”
“She hardly knows me, Dad. She hardly knows you.”
“She knows me perfectly, Lexi. She knows who I am – she sees me, for good and bad.” He pauses. “Maybe you should give her the chance to see who you are too?”
There’s no answer to that, is there? I stare at the edge of the table, feeling precisely eight years old.
This is clearly enough of a heart-to-heart for my father, who drums both hands smartly on the table. “We should be getting some dinner. Are you hungry? Marie and Paul were saying the fish and chip place down on the beach is pretty good if you fancy it?”
“I’ll just go change my top. Give me five minutes?”
He nods as I slide out of the booth – but when I reach the lobby, I stop and double back.
“Dad?”
“Hmm?”
“I get it from you. Being sure of myself. I get it from you.”
He smiles – even though he tries to hide it by looking at his watch. “I thought you were getting changed?”
You’d have to know my dad as well as I do to hear that his voice cracks as he says it.
To:
From:
Date: 7 July; 03:47
Subject: Missed call
Hey Lexi,
Sorry I missed your call earlier – I’m in Detroit for a meeting with the film producers. No idea what exact time it is at home, but I’m pretty sure it’s night-time-ish and I didn’t think you’d appreciate a wake-up call
;)
Speak soon.
Aidan
To:
From:
Date: 7 July; 07:45
Subject: Re: Missed call
Authors aren’t allowed to use the Winky Face Of Idiocy. If an actual real-life, properly published big-shot writer can’t express himself without resorting to a bunch of random punctuation marks then I don’t know what kind of world this is.
Btw: was calling to ask if you want to come to my dad’s wedding.
Lexi
To:
From:
Date: 7 July; 07:49
Subject: Re: Missed call
“Random punctuation marks”? You do know using them to express yourself is LITERALLY what they’re FOR, yes? As in, the difference between:
Today I helped my uncle, Jack, off a horse.
And…
Today I helped my uncle jack off a horse.
To:
From:
Date: 7 July; 07:50
Subject: Re: Missed call
Btw: are you asking me out?
A
To:
From:
Date: 7 July; 07:52
Subject: Re: Missed call
You’re SUCH a loser
;p
L
To:
From:
Date: 7 July; 07:54
Subject: Re: Missed call
But you still called me a big-shot writer, didn’t you? x
To:
From:
Date: 7 July; 07:58
Subject: Re: Missed call
Shut up.
And you didn’t answer my question.
To:
From:
Date: 7 July; 08:02
Subject: Re: Missed call
You didn’t answer mine. x
To:
From:
Date: 7 July; 08:10
Subject: Re: Missed call
My dad’s wedding is hardly a date though, is it? Although if you’re weird enough to think it is, then FINE.
So are you coming, or what?
To:
From:
Date: 7 July; 08:12
Subject: Re: Missed call
Well, in that case I’d love to. A x
To:
CC:
From:
Date: 7 July; 08:14
Subject: Re: Missed call
Lexi, might I remind you that other people have access to this email address and use it for actual work purposes – not just for flirting?
Dad
To:
From:
Date: 7 July; 08:15
Subject: Re: Missed call
Whoops.
L X
[12 messages have been moved to the Bin. Undo?]
Sam looks from me to the rubbish skip and back again.
“Nope. You’re on your own.”
“Sam…” I have tried pleading. I’ve tried begging. I’ve even tried bribing her, but it’s no use. She cannot be bought. Even though technically, this is kind of her fault. I open my mouth to tell her this, and all she does is fold her arms across her chest and nod at the skip.
“You’re up, Angelo. Tick-tock – it’s half past already.”
“You’re going to make me climb into the hotel rubbish bins on the day of my father’s wedding. I’m his best-person-thing, and you’re making me go through the bins.”
“Mmm…yep.” She pulls at a strand which has escaped the giant bun she’s forced her hair into.
I try again. “My father’s wedding.”
Nothing.
Clearly my best friend has as much mercy as she does conscience.
“You know, you could at least offer to help.” I grab the top of the rubbish skip, level with my shoulders, and pull myself high enough up it to swing a leg over and drop into knee-high hotel garbage in my brand-new leggings. Luckily it’s not the kitchen bins that get emptied into this one, so it’s mostly bags of shredded paper – but still.
Sam’s voice is annoyingly clear over the sound of rustling paper and plastic as I start sifting through junk. “I could offer to help, but then you’d be missing the chance to really work through your issues.”
I kick a yellow plastic bag full of what looks like yesterday’s newspapers up and out of the skip. “I don’t have any issues. Other than the fact I’ve – no, wait, you’ve – managed to throw out all Bea’s schedules. That’s a pretty big issue right now.”
“It’s called an order of service when it’s for a wedding, Lexi.”
“I don’t care what it’s called. I don’t need to care what it’s called. I just need to find a bag full of them.”
There was something sticky on that last rubbish bag I picked up. I force myself not to retch. A bright blue bag, that’s what I want; a blue bag that I safely tucked under a table in the ops office, all ready to take up to my room last night. At least, it was safely tucked under a table until Sam picked it up and threw it out. This, however, is not the story that Sam tells. Oh no. In Sam-world, I asked her to throw out the blue bag and give me the orange one.
Which I did not.
At least…I don’t think I did.
Did I?
The look on Sam’s face when I discovered a bag full of used stationery and Bede’s crisp packets at the end of my bed, instead of Bea’s beautifully laid out and printed service sheets for the wedding, suggests that perhaps I might not be remembering that conversation as clearly as I’d like.
What can I say? It was late. I was tired.
Neither of these will cut it with my dad. Or Bea.
Hence: the skip.
“You found them yet?”
“Oh, yes. Yes, Sam. I found them straight away. It’s just that it’s so relaxing in here I thought I’d, you know, hang out for a while.” Was that a flash of blue? Right down at the bottom of the pile of bags?
The further I go down through the layers, the worse the smell gets. It’s not “rotten” bad, but it’s not exactly nice. More like…mouldy metal with a hint of stagnant pond, mixed with that weird smell you get on buses in the summer. Something damp falls sideways against my ankle and I make a mental note to throw my leggings in the bin the instant I get back to my room. If I didn’t have to walk all the way back through the lobby, I’d make the whole process several stages shorter and just leave them here – but I think that might be pushing our luck with the hotel staff a little too far.
Another glimpse of blue.
“I think I can see it!”
I burrow down through the rubbish…and there it is. My bag. Well, Bea’s bag. And it’s still tied shut and it’s not wet and it doesn’t have any non-specific ooze on it or anything.
“Victory!” I hurl myself at the side of the skip, waving my prize above my head. Sam reaches up and grabs it, leaving me peering out at her. “Hey!”
“I think I’d better look after that, seeing as you’re clearly set on sabotaging your dad’s wedding.” She says it with a grin, but it still stings. She was kidding. Of course she was kidding.
“I’m not sabotaging anything. You picked up the wrong bag, Sam.”
“Did I? Or did you tell me the wrong bag?” Somehow she manages to narrow her eyes and raise one eyebrow at the same time.
“Oh, go find someone else to practise psych on. What about Bede? He’s a writhing mass of neuroses – do him. You’d be able to get a whole essay out of him at least.” I shake my head at her and lean on the top of the skip. Mistake. So that’s my top going in the bin too then. “Any chance of a hand out of here, maybe?” I hold my arms out to her, but all she does is shake her head and clutch the bag closer to her chest – which is brave because, ooze or no ooze, I know where it’s been. She eyes me over the top of it.
“You said, ‘They’ve only been together a year, and they don’t even live together.’”
“You’re bringing that up now?”
“Well, you did.”
“And they had. And they don’t. And that was a couple of months ago, so…”
“It was the way you said it. I know you, Lexi.”
“I didn’t say it like anything! Jesus, Sam…”
She watches me, and I watch her watching me and I know what’s going through her mind. I’d probably be thinking exactly the same if I were in her position and she was the one rifling through a rubbish skip. Although, come to think of it, I’d probably be too busy laughing.
Which Sam isn’t doing.
“You really believe I’d do something to spoil my dad’s wedding?” My voice comes out small and fragi
le because I don’t even want to give the words shape, never mind weight. “You’re not serious?”
“No. Not, like, on purpose.”
“Sam!”
“I just think…” She pulls at another strand of hair. If she’s not careful, that whole topknot is going to explode like a firework and there’ll be hair everywhere. “I just think that maybe, on some level, you kind of wish it wasn’t happening so soon. That’s all.”
“Sam?” I half-climb and half-fall back out of the skip. It’s not elegant, but at least it gets the job done. “I promise, I’m okay. I know everyone thinks I have to be a bit not okay, but I really, really am okay. The wedding’s okay, my dad’s okay, Bea’s okay. It’s all okay. Okay?”
“You have…something…in your hair.” She reaches for it, whatever it is, to pull it out – then changes her mind. “No. I think I’m just going to…mmm.”
“D’you think I’ve got time for another shower?” I ask hopefully, and watch as she looks me up and down, sniffing.
“If we have to, we’ll make time for you to have another shower. It’s not optional.” She pats the bag under her arm. “I’ve got these. You get” – she waves a hand in my general direction – “that.”
Back in the shower in my hotel bathroom for the second time in an hour, I scrub my hair to remove all lingering echoes of Eau de Skip. But that look on Sam’s face still bothers me. She really is sure she picked up the bag I asked her to – and it’s not like her to get something like that wrong.
I’ve tried and I’ve tried…but I can’t remember what I said.
Maybe it was late. Maybe I was tired. Maybe I was just distracted?
Maybe, however much I try to talk myself into it, subconsciously I’m just not ready for Dad to get married. Will I ever be?
By the time I’m showered, dressed and ready and have tracked my father down in the hotel lobby, one of my shoes is already rubbing. I can feel it every time I pick up my foot. That doesn’t bode well. I clear my throat and tap my watch – which, being bright pink rubber, doesn’t go with the blue-dress-and-big-swooshy-net-petticoat Bea has somehow persuaded my dad I should wear today – but it’s no use. Dad’s still engrossed in his conversation with the director in the middle of the lobby.
Unconventional Page 17