by Amy Muscat
“Yeah sure, did you want me to pick you anything up?” I hear a rustling noise in the background, along with the chatter coming from the people around her.
“No. My Nan just called me, and she’s asked if we wanted to go around there for dinner. I tried to tell her we had already had plans, but she knows how to guilt trip, someone, Is that okay?” I ask her hesitantly. If she didn’t want to come, I would understand, but I had promised her that I would come around for dinner and I didn’t want to let her down. Plus, I really did want to see her.
“Yeah, that’s fine! You sure you want me to come with? Don’t you want to spend time with her?”
“No, it’s fine, love. Trust me, my Nan will end up cooking for a small army, and I guarantee you there will be other members of my family there.” And you’ll be the perfect buffer when they start asking questions about whether I had a boyfriend yet or not, I think to myself. My family was nosey; they liked to know what was happening in everyone’s lives, and okay, that was normal, but my family like to take it to another level. “It’ll be fun, Hales, trust me.” Please say yes, please say ye–
“Okay. Sounds like fun,” she accepts easily. Oh, I did love this woman. “Well, I'm almost back to the hotel, now. What should I wear?” She sounded worried.
Bless her.
“Just wear something comfortable, Hayley, my Nans not like that; she wouldn’t even blink if you turned up at her house in a black bag.” I laugh just thinking how my Nan would probably say something like how you should put on a big, statement necklace and it would make the whole ensemble.
Hayley says okay, asks what time we’re meant to be there, and that she’ll see me soon before she hangs up.
I drop my iPhone on the bed next to me before I sigh to myself and push my body up to start creaming everywhere. Once I've done that, I start blow drying my long blond locks and then straightening it.
I'm just spraying some Chanel on when there’s a knock on my door.
“One second!”
I rush out of the bathroom and open the door to Hayley, who’s wearing a pastel pink swing dress that hangs off her shoulder, and a pair of white Converse. Her short hair has been curled into small waves; she looked lovely. Fresh-faced and young.
I tell her as much and she says thanks and that I looked great, too. I look down at my outfit and smile. Last week, my Mum and me went out shopping, and we had come up with an idea; she got to pick an outfit for me and visa versa. Her and my Dad had been going out for a date, and she wanted to wear something new. I had ended up picking up a beautiful dress from Donna Karen– my Mum had balked at the dress. I told her that everyone needed an LBD and that my Dad would think she looked hot! My Mum had blushed and then agreed to the dress. Then she had pulled me from the shop once I had paid for it and had taken me to Saint Laurent on 57th Street. She picked out a lovely smock dress that was floral-printed and had a school girl-style retro charm to it. I'd paired it up with a pair of black diamond– encrusted gladiator sandals.
“Thanks, hun. Come on then, let’s go.” I grab my bag, and door key, before shutting it behind me.
When we get outside, it’s chilly and the sun has already gone down. I tell Hayley about not wanting to drive because I would most probably have a drink, and I didn’t want to drink and drive.
“That’s okay, I get to tick black taxi off my list,” Hayley grins.
I smile her and her list.
We walk down the road to where the ten or so black taxis are lined up, waiting for a customer. We jump in and I tell him the address of where we are heading.
“It feels so strange,” Hayley says, pushing her frames up her nose, and tucking her hair behind her ear.
“What does?” I ask, shifting and looking at her.
“Driving on the other side of the road.”
“Ah.”
“You an American, love?” The taxi driver asks Hayley, through the little window, where we’re separated.
“Yep, I'm a New Yorker through and through,” she grins proudly.
“What about you, love? You sound like a Londoner, but you have a twang in your voice,” the cabbie says to me.
“I am a Londoner, but I've lived in New York City for almost six years now.”
“Oh yeah? Whereabouts are you from?”
“East London.”
“Ahh, that where you going now? Going back to reminisce?” Black cab drivers are known for being nosey; they always end up asking you a hundred and one questions.
“Naw, we’re going to see my Nan,” I reply back to his questions.
He nods and says that that’ll be nice. It will; I've missed my dear ol’ Nan.
Twenty minutes later, and we’ve arrived at my Nan’s house. After paying the cabbie his fare, we jump out and walk to her front gate. Unlatching the gate, we walk through the front garden, and up to the front door, where I knock three times and we wait.
“Hey, are you sure I look oka–” Hayley started to ask, but she was interrupted by the door opening.
I look up and see my Nan, and she’s standing there with the biggest grin on her face.
“Hi Nan,” I say rushing towards her.
“Alright, sweetheart?” She replies, wrapping her arms around my shoulders, as mine wrap around her small waist. “Oh, it’s so good to see you.”
I step back and take her in; dirty blonde hair mixed with grey. A face that was showing signs of age, but she looked beautiful in her long navy-blue maxi dress, and when I looked down and spotted her slippers on her feet, a laugh slipped free.
Oh, Nan.
Following my eyesight, my Nan shrugs her dainty shoulders. “What? They’re my comfy shoes.” Then she looks over my shoulder and spies Hayley standing there.
“Oh. Hello, you must Charlotte’s friend, I’m Marilyn, her Nan.” My Nan says to Hayley while walking over to her, and taking her hand and holding out to shake Hayley’s.
“Hi! I'm Hayley, I'm Lottie's assistant, and it’s lovely to meet you.”
“Friend too.”
“What?” Hayley asks me, taking her eyes away from my Nan and looking up at my curiously.
“I said ‘friend too’. You're not just my assistant, Hales, you're my friend, too.” I smile.
“Oh.” She murmurs clearly embarrassed. “Of course… of course we’re friends,” her cheeks are flushed pink, but now she has a smile on her pretty face.
When I look over to my Nan, she has a grin on her face. “Right, come on then, let’s go inside; dinners almost done.”
We follow my Nan into the house, and as we walk through the hallway, I look up and see pictures mounted on the walls. My Nan is a picture person; she said that even though we have our memories, it was always nice to have physical evidence of those cherished memories.
There was a photo, blown up, of my Nan and granddad on their wedding day. They looked so happy that day, their smiles reaching ear-to-ear. Then surrounding that photo was pictures of all of their children at their own weddings; my Dad, his two brothers and his sister. Then below those were pictures of their children i.e. my cousins and myself.
We follow her into the kitchen. There I find my aunts Grace, Carla, and Kate sitting at the kitchen table with glasses of rosé wine. Carla and Kate were married to my uncles. My cousins Bobbi, Kelly, and David Jr. are milling around the kitchen island, laughing and joking. They were younger than me by a couple of years.
“Look who’s arrived,” my Nan shouts out over the noise that seems to always accompany this house– one of the reasons why I didn’t want to stay here.
Simultaneously, they turn see me, and then…
“Lottieee!” They shouted, again in sync with each other. It was like they had practised it.
I met everyone in the middle and gave each of them a hug before I turned around and introduced Hayley to them all. Hayley became her normal shy self and murmured a quiet hello.
Chuckling, I pulled her over to where all the alcohol was sitting, and poured us each a rosé
wine.
“Mmm… that’s nice,” I say around the rim of my wine glass. “So, where is everyone else?” But as I ask this question, I hear laughing coming from the back garden. I walk over to the window and peek through the blinds, and I see my uncles all standing around the BBQ, drinking beer, laughing and talking. I look to their right and see the rest of my cousins sitting at the table, playing what looked to be Blackjack.
“Found them. I'm gonna go say hello. Nan. You coming, Hales?”
Hayley nods her head, still mute, and I smile at her before walking to the back door that leads to the garden.
As we walk out, I shout out, “Hi guys!”
Again, as one they turn and smile as they see me.
Their greetings differed from hi love, hey, alright girl, and Lottie!
I walk over to my uncle's first and give each of them a hug, introducing them to Hayley, and telling my uncle Dave that Hayley and I would have a cheeseburger.
“Okay, they should be about five minutes,” Dave says as he flips the burgers and turns the sausages over.
“Cool, thanks, Dave,” I tell him before we walk over to where my cousins are sitting.
“Hey guys, this is Hayley,” I say waving a hand to Hayley. “Hales, these are my cousins: Tommy, Sarah, and Calum.”
“Hello,” they chime together.
“Hi, it’s nice to meet you.” She waves at them all, her gaze lingering on Calum before she blushes and darts her eyes away. I hold in a smile. “Oh, what’re you playing?”
“We’re playing Blackjack, but we are about to play poker if you want in,” Calum replies, clearly checking her out.
“Awesome, I'd love to!” Hayley says excitedly.
“You playing, Lott's?” Sarah asks me, tilting her head. I watch as her long auburn hair falls over to one side.
“Yeah, I'll play. We playing for money?” I ask, pulling a chair out and planting my arse in it.
“Yep. We were just playing two quid a person, but we were going to go for a fiver each in the pot; what’re you saying?” Tommy says, slipping a cigarette between his lips and lighting it up. I watch him inhale a breath, hold it, and then blow out the smoke.
I missed smoking sometimes, like when I was stressed out or pissed off. But I hadn’t smoked since my first year in New York. I had stopped smoking not long before I had met Peyton. It had been fucking hard to quit, but I had persevered and succeeded. I hadn’t smoked for almost five years now, and even though sometimes I craved it– especially when I was drinking– I'd remember how far I've come. See some people would say that giving up smoking cigarettes didn’t even come close to giving up drugs or drink, but I'd disagree. I think smoking; drinking, gambling, and taking drugs were all in the same category. Every one of those things is addictive. Everyone had his or her vices, both good and bad, and smoking was in the bad category.
Lost in my thoughts, I forgot to answer Tommy’s question until he called out my name.
“Lottie! Hello,” he said waving his big hand in my face.
I snap my head back. “Sorry, I was lost in my own world then. Yes, five pounds each in the pot, you in Hales?”
“I am.” She had a sly smile on her face.
“Good, let’s do this shit,” Calum says and deals the cards. “Everyone put his or her money in.”
We all stick five pounds into the glass that’s placed near the middle of the wooden table.
When I get my two cards, I grip their edges and look at my cards: Queen of Hearts and a Ten of Clubs. Not bad.
Calum deals the flop. The cards are a two of Hearts, a six of Diamonds, and a King of Hearts.
Okay, this is good. I could try for a Royal flush.
“Call,” Sarah says.
“Call,” Tommy repeats.
I call too, but when it’s Hayley's turn, she surprises me by saying raise.
“Raise. Two bucks– I mean two pound,” and she places a two-pound coin into the pot.
I watch as Calum raises his eyebrows at her and calls her two-pound, all the while smirking at her.
Sarah calls, but Tommy folds saying fuck that. He tosses his cards. He had a two and a three of Clubs. Smart move, Tommy-boy.
I call and watch as Calum flips over the Turn card. It’s a Queen of Spades!
Yes!
We all call, and wait for the River card, and it’s a… fucking Ace of Diamonds!
Damnit! Oh well, I've still got the pair of Queen’s on my side. Hopefully, I will–
“Ace pair, fuckers!” Calum shouts in joy.
Sarah throws her cards on the table and I see that she had a pair of six’s. Just as Calum’s about to take the pot, Hayley clears her throat pointedly.
“Three of a kind…” She says flipping her cards over and shows us her two cards: Ace of Clubs and Ace of Spades.
She beat him! She actually beat him!
“Thanks, Calum, but I'll be having that,” Hayley grins smugly as she snags the glass that holds the pot from Calum’s hand.
His face right now… Total Kodak moment.
“What the flying fuck?” Gobsmacked. That was the only adjective I could think of that described the way Calum looked right now.
“Oh don’t get your knickers in a twist, Cal,” Sarah says and whacks his arm.
When he just scowls at her, like a big baby, we all bust up laughing again.
And that was how the rest of the night went; us having a laugh, my Nan coming out and making sure we were eating, drinking, and having a good time.
I've missed my family, and I was glad that I had come over tonight.
“GET OUT OF THE WAY you fucking idiot!” I shout at the man in front of me on his bicycle. The fucking prick was coming into the driving lane when cyclists had their own fucking lanes!
I hear Hayley giggling next to me.
“What?”
“Nothing. You just make me laugh with your road rage.”
“I haven’t got road rag– fuck you arsehole!” I call out to the man as he quickly flips me the middle finger.
“Oh really?” She asks sarcastically, raising an eyebrow at me.
Okay, maybe I did have a road rage…
I concede, agreeing with her. When we drive past the next set of traffic lights, I do a left and then another right.
“In two hundred yards, take the next left and you will be at your destination,” the Sat Nav says. Then ten seconds later it says, “In one hundred yards, take the next left and you will be at your destination.”
“Okay! Fucking Hell, why do they badger on and on?” I ask out loud.
“It’s sort of their job, Lott's,” Hayley grins at me, and I see the mirth in her eyes.
“It was a rhetorical question…” I mumble.
She just shakes her head, and I see it’s in amusement, and goes back to texting on her phone.
One hundred yards later, we’ve reached our destination; Layla Wrights house. We step outside the car and walk over, but stop just outside and we take in her house. It’s not the best or well-kept house I've ever seen. The paint was flaking and peeling away from the red door, and the bricks look like they could do with a good rendering.
But they say don’t judge a book by its cover, so I wasn’t going to do that.
“Ready?” I ask Hayley.
“Yep.”
I knock on the door and wait.
“One second!” A voice calls out.
I heard the clicking noise that accompanies locks, and then the door opens and I'm shocked at what I see. The woman standing in front of me wasn’t some late twenties or even early thirty-year-old woman like I was expecting, it was a young girl– maybe about nineteen/ twenty-years-old.
She was very pretty with her short bobbed black hair and forest-green eyes. She was wearing a black maxi-dress and a multi-coloured kimono; it both slimmed her figure and accentuated her curves at the same time.
“Layla?” I ask her, just in case. It might not be her; the girl standing in front of me might’ve been Layla�
�s sister.
“Yes. Are you Miss Carter?” At my nod and smile, she grins and holds her hand out to me. “Hi, it’s lovely to meet you,” she said giving my hand a light shake.
“Hello, it’s great to meet you, too. This is my assistant, Hayley, may we come in?”
“Oh sure, sure! Sorry, where are my manners? Come in,” she steps back and lets us come in before shutting the door and locking it– with three bolts. “Go through to the living room.”
We walk through the hallway and into a cream and brown coloured living room. It’s very clean but small. There's a small two-seater sofa, and small TV mounted on the wall, and in the corner there's a dining table that fits four. We move over to that and take a seat.
“Would you like a drink? Tea, coffee, water, juice?” Layla asks, shifting nervously from foot to foot.
Both Hayley and I ask for a coffee– last nights drinking session still lingered.
A couple of minutes later Layla came back with our coffees. “There we go.”
It was quiet for a minute as we all take hesitant sips of our hot drinks. But then I start talking. “Okay, so first off I just wanted to tell you that I absolutely love your novel. I completely fell in love with James and Kaci, their story was just… epic.”
I watched as a red blush heats her cheeks. “Thank you. That means a lot to me.” She smiles, her white teeth shining at me.
“You're most welcome. Can I ask how old you are?” I ask.
“I'm twenty, I turn twenty-one in a couple of weeks.”
“How old is your child?”
“Kent is almost two,” Layla says frowning at me.
“Wow, you were nineteen when you had him?” She nods, frown deepening, and I see that she looks slightly upset, and it take me a second to realise why. “I'm not judging you, Layla! I promise you. My best friend was a year younger than you when she had her little girl, and I've never judged her, not once. I actually look up to her, she did some things that she’s not proud of, but she did it because she’s too proud and very independent. But she did what she did so she could give her little girl everything she wanted.” I tell her thinking about how Peyton had stripped a couple of days a week. Okay, yes. I understand that it’s legit, there're doormen there and Jimmy, (the owner of the strip club) is probably one of the nicest guys I've ever met. He really does take care of his girls. But, I was always worried that something would happen to Peyton– and it did! Only it was because of Keller's crazy-arse step-Mum and her psycho stepson. She was kidnapped and she almost died, but even after all of that she never regretted becoming a stripper because it brought Keller back to her.