The Invitation_The perfect laugh-out-loud romantic comedy

by Keris Stainton

  ‘I think I need to head back,’ Piper said, when he inexplicably suggested getting a third drink.

  ‘Yeah?’ Lee said. ‘I’ll walk you to the Tube.’

  Piper had already wondered if there was a way to get out of that, but she hadn’t come up with anything. Still, it was only another ten minutes. They left the pub and headed up the lane around the back of the gardens. They’d only taken a couple of steps when Lee slid one hand down Piper’s arm and used it to turn her towards him. He stepped up close, pressing her back against the wall, and leaned in for a kiss.

  ‘Um…’ Piper said.

  ‘Oh god!’ he said, stepping back. ‘Sorry. I just thought—’

  ‘It’s okay,’ Piper said. ‘I just… I really need to get back. It takes an hour and that’s if I don’t miss the bus, so…’

  ‘Yeah,’ Lee said. He wasn’t meeting her eyes but then again he had spent quite a lot of the last hour looking at her cleavage. ‘Sorry. Let’s go.’

  The walk to the Tube took place mostly in silence. Piper asked him a couple of questions about how long he planned to stay home with his parents, where he thought he’d live when he’d saved up enough, but she mainly got just one word answers. By the time they hit King Street, she’d given up altogether. It was only when they got to the station that Piper realised they were both getting the same line. And it was only when they were seated on the Tube that they realised they were both going to Finsbury Park. They tried to make awkward conversation as far as Earl’s Court, but then gave up and took out their phones. Piper read a book while Lee played some game with red and blue dots that made him mutter ‘fuxache’ under his breath every few minutes.

  They got off the Tube at Finsbury Park, walked to the bus stop, and were finally able to go their separate ways. Piper couldn’t even read on the bus, she just rested her head on the window and stared out at the world.

  * * *

  ‘How did it go?’ Matt called from the sofa, as soon as Piper was through the front door.

  ‘Awful,’ she said, kicking off her shoes and shrugging off her coat. ‘I somehow managed to arrange the world’s most drawn-out bad date.’

  She told him about it as she poured herself a glass of wine and sat on the sofa next to him, pulling her feet up underneath her.

  ‘What are we watching?’

  ‘Documentary about Tom Petty,’ he said.

  Piper stood up again and fetched her laptop from her bag. She might as well get another blog post drafted and ready.

  Matt nudged her thigh with his foot. ‘You look delish, by the way. No wonder Boring Colleague tried to snog you in a hedge.’

  Piper snorted. ‘That was weird. There was no way he could’ve thought I was up for it.’

  ‘Probably thought he might as well get a quick fumble out of it,’ Matt said, without looking up. ‘You know, so the evening wasn’t a total write-off.’

  ‘Lovely. How romantic.’

  ‘Men are pigs.’

  ‘Sing it, sister.’

  Piper had almost finished the blog post – about the shoes she’d been wearing that day along with some musings on walking while fat – when Matt uncurled himself from the sofa and then stopped, saying ‘Pass us your phone.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Just give it here.’

  ‘You’re not thinking of messaging Rob, are you? Or Lee?’ But she was already handing it over.

  ‘Course not. What do you take me for?’ He snapped a photo and handed the phone back to her. ‘Look how great you look.’

  Piper was rolling her eyes before the phone was even back in her hand, but she stopped when she saw it.

  ‘Wow.’

  ‘Right? I quite fancy pushing you into a hedge myself.’

  ‘Shut up,’ she muttered, turning up the brightness so she could see the photo better. She was leaning back on the sofa, her laptop balanced on one thigh, her other leg bent at the knee, foot on the edge of the cushion. She was staring into the phone – at Matt – with a ‘what now?’ expression. She looked tired, but determined. She looked big and soft and comfortable. She looked in the photo exactly how she looked in her own head and always struggled to capture in photos.

  ‘You should take all my photos,’ she said, immediately clicking through to Instagram.

  ‘No way,’ Matt said, heading for the bathroom. ‘I’m no one’s Instagram bitch.’

  Piper uploaded the photo, added a couple of filters just to even out the colour and captioned it ‘My happy place is on the sofa with bae (my laptop)’.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Making herself walk in was the hardest part. As she’d known it would be. But Piper had gone to the loo and done the Wonder Woman Power Pose first, staring herself down in the mirror. She knew she was meant to say affirmations aloud, but she certainly wasn’t going to risk someone walking in and overhearing her mumbling ‘You are a badass bitch’ at her reflection, so she just thought them instead: You are awesome. You can do this. You’re not the girl you used to be. You are strong with amazing tits.

  Her tits did actually look amazing: the sequinned silver kimono dress she was wearing had a plunging neck and a twisted waist that made her boobs look even better than usual. She loved it. And her silver shoes. And her bright pink lipstick. She grinned at herself in the mirror. She looked good. She felt… terrified, but that was fine – she just needed to get out there, get a drink and find someone to talk to.

  She pushed open the door and stood there for a second, looking around the room. It was square and plain – cream walls and ceiling, polished wood floor – but with, at one end, floor to ceiling windows overlooking the river and the fort. The ceiling was dotted with small lights flashing different colours – pink, blue, orange, green – and a long table ran along the far side, the buffet already set out but covered with cling film and foil. Chairs and small tables were dotted around the edges of the room, leaving a space at the centre for the dancefloor, but as yet no one was dancing.

  There was no one she recognised. No one to talk to. And though it was possible there were people there she’d known at school, she didn’t want to risk getting saddled with a virtual stranger for the evening. So she made a beeline for the bar instead. She was on her second gin and tonic when Rob walked in. She would have seen and recognised him instantly even if the room had been heaving, but attendance was still pretty sparse. A few people had arrived since Piper, including one of her PE teachers with a much younger man hanging off her, but still no one she wanted to talk to. Rob was the first of her friend group to arrive.

  He was wearing a navy suit and a white shirt and he looked… Piper drained her drink. She didn’t know whether she should approach him or wait for him to find her. She didn’t know how to stand. How did she usually stand? Where did she keep her arms? She put one hand on her hip – half Power Pose? – and gripped her empty glass with the other.

  ‘Another, love?’ the barman asked.

  Piper made a sound, but she couldn’t have said what it was. Or what it was meant to be. She felt like Rob was moving in slow motion. Like when the female love interest was introduced in a film with a wind machine. There was no wind machine. And no slow motion. But if Rob was moving at normal speed, why was he still over by the door? He was looking around, but didn’t appear to have seen Piper yet. Unless he’d seen her and was pretending not to see her. Piper wished her brain would shut the fuck up.

  ‘That’s four,’ the barman said, pushing another drink towards Piper’s hand.

  ‘Three. That’s my third,’ she said, tearing her eyes away from Rob. The barman had tramlines shaved into his left eyebrow. Was that still a thing?

  ‘Four quid,’ the barman said. And grinned.

  ‘Oh god,’ Piper said, shaking her head at herself. ‘Sorry.’

  ‘Old boyfriend?’ He nodded towards Rob.

  ‘No.’ She took a fiver out of her bag and passed it over, before picking up the glass and taking a sip. ‘Just a friend.’

  The barman
handed over her change and she dropped it, loose, into her tiny bag.

  Rob hadn’t made it much further into the room. The guy who’d arrived with Miss Crowley, the PE teacher, was talking to him, laughing and gesturing. Rob looked slightly confused. Piper wondered if Miss Crowley’s boyfriend had been at school with them, but she didn’t recognise him. Also that would be gross. Although Miss Crowley was hot. Half the school had had a crush on her.

  Why was she glued to the bar pondering her old PE teacher’s love life? It was getting ridiculous. She’d been hiding for long enough. If Rob wasn’t going to come over, she’d have to go over to him. She pulled her shoulders back, pushed her chest out and… nothing. She couldn’t do it. Fuck. Maybe one more drink. Even though she’d promised herself she wouldn’t get drunk.

  ‘Piper?’

  She knew that voice. She turned to see Maxine Williamson smiling at her. Oh god.

  ‘How are you?’ Maxine said.

  Maxine looked exactly the same as she had at school. Exactly. Piper suspected she’d even had that same dress back then: a tight red vest dress with a lacy shrug over the top.

  ‘You look amazing,’ Maxine said. ‘I love your dress.’

  Piper smiled. Maxine had been kind of annoying at school. Clingy and needy. But she had no side to her and she’d always been sweet to Piper. Every now and then Piper had tried to casually withdraw from the friendship, but Maxine had never taken the hint.

  ‘You too,’ Piper said. ‘It’s good to see you.’

  Maxine smiled at her. ‘Still living in London?’

  Piper had just started to reply when Maxine put her hand on her forearm and squeezed. ‘Have you seen Robbie?’

  ‘Um,’ Piper said.

  ‘He looks so hot. You had such a crush on him, remember?’

  Piper shook her head. ‘I didn’t. We were friends and—’

  ‘You told me you did,’ Maxine said. ‘Don’t you remember?’

  God. ‘Oh yeah.’ Piper forced out a laugh. ‘I’d forgotten that.’

  She’d told Maxine she had a crush on Rob and Maxine had told her she’d once given a teaching assistant a handjob in the school car park. It hadn’t really seemed like a fair exchange of information.

  ‘He’s coming over,’ Maxine said, her voice squeaking a little with excitement. Just the sound of it took Piper all the way back to school. The two of them standing on the upstairs balcony, looking down at Robbie in the hall downstairs. Maxine asking Piper why she didn’t just ask him out. Why? Why? Why?

  But she was right. Robbie was coming over. He was walking across the dancefloor towards them. In slow motion. With his suit jacket blown back by a wind machine, hair ruffling lightly. Piper blinked. Yeah, he was just walking towards them normally, like a person.

  ‘Hey!’ he said, stopping in front of them, staring directly at Piper.

  ‘Hi,’ she said.

  She couldn’t think. Her brain was a complete blank and she had no idea what her face was doing – it felt frozen. She’d known she was going to see him, so why hadn’t she had the foresight to come up with some devastating opening line? She tried to mentally Power Pose, but it didn’t help. And Rob had looked away.

  ‘Maxine.’ He gripped her by her upper arms and went in for double cheek kisses. Piper braced herself for the same, but instead he wrapped both arms around her and squeezed lightly, mumbling, ‘It’s so good to see you’ into her hair.

  ‘You too,’ she said into his chest. He smelled delicious, smoky and warm.

  When they pulled away, Piper felt flustered, like her hair was all over the place, lipstick smeared, smoky eye turned panda-ish. Her breath was caught somewhere behind her breastbone. This was ridiculous. She shouldn’t have come.

  ‘Good to see you both,’ Maxine said and then winked – actually winked – at Piper. ‘I’m going to go and…’ She waved her hand to suggest mingling and Piper noticed more people had arrived. She could see Mel over by the window and the back of someone she thought was probably Dawn talking to the DJ.

  ‘You look amazing,’ Rob said, looking her up and down.

  ‘Oh pfft,’ Piper said. Even though she did look amazing. She knew she did.

  Rob grinned. His teeth were straight. He’d had a brace when they were kids. One of those double-track ones.

  ‘You look good too,’ Piper said. She took a breath. That was almost a sentence. She tried for more. ‘Nice suit.’

  ‘Interviews and weddings,’ he said, shooting his cuffs.

  ‘Nice.’ Her mind was blank again. Had she ever seen Rob in a suit before? She couldn’t think when she would have done. School uniform didn’t count. Although he had always looked good in it.

  ‘Can I get you a drink?’ he said to her enormous relief, since she’d just been thinking about him in school uniform – what the fuck?

  ‘I just got one actually,’ she said. ‘Can I get you one?’

  ‘No you’re good. What are you having?’

  ‘I really don’t need—’

  He gave her a look. And it was a look she remembered from ten years earlier. It was a look that meant this is what’s happening – are you in? It was the look he’d given her when they’d sneaked into the golf club party Rob had overheard Mr Young, their Geography teacher, talking about: incredible buffet, free booze. They’d got so hammered that Piper had dared Robbie to streak across the golf course, which he’d done, inevitably, and then she’d thrown up in a bunker. For a while, there was a grainy CCTV photo of the two of them on the wall in reception. It was the look he’d given her when he’d told her his aunt had adopted two horses and invited him to come and ride them. Well, he’d told Piper they were going to feed and groom them at first, but when they’d got there – some strange smallholding off the side of the dual carriageway – his aunt had saddles and helmets ready for them and seemed to have no idea Piper had never even been near a horse, let alone ridden one. (It had been so much fun. Rob, it turned out, had been riding since he was a child, but Piper’s arse had been murder for almost a week after.)

  ‘I can’t get drunk,’ Piper said now. ‘I’ve already had too much.’

  Rob just smiled at her. ‘Of course you can. You have to, in fact. It’s a school reunion. The only way to get through these things is hammered.’

  Piper shook her head. ‘You haven’t changed at all.’

  ‘Nor have you,’ Rob said, smiling at her. He looked fond. And appreciative. It made the hairs on Piper’s arms stand on end.

  ‘I just need to go and—’ she said, waving towards the dancefloor like Maxine had done. ‘Back in a min.’

  ‘I’ll come and find you,’ Rob said. ‘We should probably mingle. A bit.’

  As she crossed the dancefloor, towards the big window where she could see the sky had darkened to a deep blue streaked with pink, Piper resisted the urge to look back. If Rob was watching her, it would be distracting. And if he wasn’t, it would be disappointing. She made sure to swing her hips a little. Just in case.

  Chapter Fourteen

  ‘So have you two kept in touch then?’ Mel asked, nodding towards Rob.

  ‘Hello, Mel,’ Piper said, sarcastically. ‘How are you? Good to see you!’

  ‘Sorry.’ Mel grinned wryly. ‘How are you? Good to see you. I saw you on Hey, UK! You were really good. That other woman was a right stuck-up bitch.’

  Piper sat down next to her old friend. She looked, like she had on Facebook, basically the same.

  ‘She was okay really,’ Piper said.

  She had no idea why she felt the need to defend Naomi Jones. She hadn’t been particularly nice to Piper and the article she’d written had been vile.

  ‘Did she believe it all?’ Mel asked. ‘Or was she just trying to be Katie Hopkins or something?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Piper said. ‘I didn’t really talk to her.’

  ‘Did you talk to that chef?’ Mel asked. ‘He was hot.’

  ‘Little bit,’ Piper said. But she didn’t get to give Mel any detai
ls, sparse as they were, because Rob arrived with their drinks. Noticing Piper had one already, he put hers down on the table in front of the window and held out his own glass.

  ‘To reunions!’

  ‘To reunions,’ Piper and Mel echoed, clinking their glasses.

  ‘And to Piper finally making it home,’ Mel said. ‘We going to the Magazines after this?’

  Piper laughed. ‘Aren’t we still barred?’

  ‘Under new management,’ Mel said. ‘You’re fine.’

  ‘Is that why you moved away?’ Rob said. ‘Cos you were barred from all the pubs on the Wirral?’

  ‘And whose fault was that?’ Piper asked.

  ‘You never got in trouble anyway,’ Mel said. ‘You always left before it all kicked off. ‘Goody two shoes.’

  Piper shook her head, even though it was true and they all knew it. She’d never been able to understand how her friends didn’t seem to mind getting into trouble. Piper had never wanted to let anyone down. Still didn’t. But she always seemed to manage it anyway.

  ‘Have you seen Dawn?’ Mel asked.

  ‘Not yet,’ Piper said.

  Mel nodded towards the door and when Piper looked over she saw Dawn – an enormously pregnant Dawn – heading towards them.

  ‘Oh my god!’ Piper said. ‘Dawn!’

  ‘I know.’ Dawn shook her head, sending her tassel earrings swinging. ‘I’m like the size of a fucking house.’

  ‘When are you due?!’

  ‘Not even soon,’ Dawn said, sitting down on Mel’s other side. ‘It’s twins.’

  ‘Holy shit.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘You’ll be fine,’ Mel said. ‘You’ll be amazing.’

  ‘I’m trying to talk my mum into taking one off me,’ Dawn said. ‘We could alternate them maybe.’

  Piper grinned at her. She was the same. Exactly the same.

  ‘Like, I didn’t think I’d be able to look after one. I can’t fucking believe I’m going to have to look after two. I went to an antenatal class the other day and the woman was talking about me feeding them both at the same time, like… one under each arm? And I was like “fuck that noise”. Can you imagine? I’m not a milking machine. I’ll do them one at a time or not at all.’ She looked Rob up and down. ‘Sorry to launch straight into tit chat.’