The Invitation_The perfect laugh-out-loud romantic comedy

by Keris Stainton

  Rob shrugged, smiling. ‘It’s fine.’

  ‘I won’t tell you about the state of my nipples though. Save that for later. And I can’t even have a fucking drink. Jesus.’

  Rob left to get Dawn a J2O and the three of them looked at each other. The DJ was playing ‘Uptown Funk’, but it wasn’t yet loud enough to interfere with conversation, the dancefloor was still empty.

  ‘I was trying to remember when you were last home,’ Dawn said to Piper. ‘Since… you know.’

  Before Piper’s parents died, she meant.

  ‘I’ve been home,’ Piper said. ‘But I usually just stay one night and don’t go out or anything.’

  ‘Where d’you stay?’ Dawn asked.

  ‘With my Aunty Connie.’

  ‘Fuck me, is she still alive?!’

  Mel spat out a mouthful of beer, snorting with laughter and wiping her chin with the back of her hand. ‘Jesus, Dawn. You don’t change, do you?’

  ‘Sorry,’ Dawn said. ‘But wasn’t she dead old when you lived here?’

  ‘She’s eighty-three,’ Piper said.

  ‘And she’s your aunty? I always thought she was your nan.’

  ‘No, my grandparents died ages ago,’ Piper said. It wasn’t quite that simple, but she wasn’t going to get into it. ‘And she’s actually my great-aunt. She’s my mum’s aunt.’

  ‘Ah right,’ Dawn said. ‘I was dead sorry, you know. About your mum and dad. They were lovely.’

  Piper had known this would happen – how could it not – but she had to swallow hard and blink tears back anyway. Sometimes it was fine and she could talk about it, but other times…

  ‘Sorry,’ Dawn said, reaching over and squeezing Piper’s knee. ‘I didn’t mean to upset you. Do you want me to tell you about my piles? Take your mind off it.’

  ‘I’d rather talk about my dead parents,’ Piper managed to squeak out and Mel and Dawn laughed.

  A tear spilled anyway and Piper wiped it with her fingertips, turning to look out of the window at the fort and the river. For so long – for years, since she’d left really – she’d wondered what it would be like to be home, to hang out with her friends again. She thought they’d resent her for leaving the way she had. She thought at the very least they wouldn’t want to spend any time with her. But this felt the same as it always had. This felt like nothing had changed at all. It was nice. But also a little disconcerting. She’d spent years trying to become a different person, to leave the old Piper behind. If she’d succeeded – and she’d thought she had – how come she could fit back in so easily?

  Rob pulled a chair over and sat just in front of them. He leaned back and crossed one ankle over the other knee and Piper felt a bit stunned at how much like an actual adult he looked.

  ‘What?’ he said, looking back at her.

  ‘Oh god.’ She laughed. ‘You just look like such a grown-up! It’s weird.’

  ‘Me? Dawn’s creating new humans.’

  ‘Yeah, but she looks pretty much the same,’ Piper said.

  ‘And she sounds exactly the same,’ Mel agreed.

  ‘But you used to be skinny and, like, a teenage boy and now you’re like—’

  ‘A maaaaaaaan,’ Dawn said dramatically.

  Piper laughed. ‘Right.’

  ‘He wasn’t this hot at school, was he?’ Dawn said, looking at the other women.

  Rob laughed, ducking his head, rubbing one hand over the back of his neck.

  ‘He was,’ Mel said, glancing at Piper. ‘Well, maybe not this hot. But hot. Wasn’t he, Piper?’

  Piper blinked at her. She couldn’t even look at Rob.

  ‘I don’t know,’ she lied. ‘I always thought he was a massive dork.’

  ‘I was definitely a massive dork,’ Rob said.

  ‘Seriously though,’ Dawn said. ‘Do you, like, work out or something?’

  Mel shrieked with laughter. ‘Was that meant to be a pick-up line? Because this really isn’t a good time.’

  ‘Oh give me a break,’ Dawn said. ‘I haven’t had sex for six months. Carl can’t get near me with this.’ She gestured at her enormous belly. ‘And he doesn’t want to anyway. Do you know what he said? “What if I hurt the baby’s head?” I said, “Don’t flatter yourself.’’’ She rolled her eyes. ‘But the hormones give me the right horn. Pregnancy is bullshit.’

  ‘You remember when we used to tell you you needed more male friends?’ Mel told Rob. ‘This is why.’

  ‘I’ve got male friends!’ Rob said. ‘I had male friends back then too.’

  ‘Yeah, like two of them,’ Mel said.

  ‘So?’ Dawn said. ‘What do you do then? I’m going to need a personal trainer cos by the time I get these buggers out I’ll be a right fat bitch.’

  Piper’s face felt hot. She forced herself not to react. Dawn didn’t seem to even think about it.

  ‘I used to go to the gym,’ Rob said. He shifted his leg, pressing his knee against Piper’s. She looked at him, surprised, but he was still looking over at Dawn. ‘But I mostly just run now,’ he finished.

  ‘Oh yeah,’ Mel said. ‘I remember seeing that on Facebook. You did that muddy one.’

  ‘And an Iron Man!’ Dawn said, sitting up straight and bracing her arms against her knees. ‘I remember seeing it now. Cos I remember wondering then how you’d got so big.’

  ‘Jesus,’ Mel said. ‘Keep it in your pants.’

  ‘Yeah,’ Rob said. ‘I did an Iron Man a couple of years ago. Wouldn’t do that again though, it was too fucking hard.’

  Mel snorted.

  ‘The Tough Mudder was okay. I’m not bothered about anything like that though really. That was just what I did to make myself keep running. I do it automatically now. Feels weird if I don’t.’

  ‘I don’t do anything like that,’ Mel said. ‘I’ve got a step counter on my phone and if I’ve got the day off work the only steps I do are between the sofa and the fridge.’

  ‘Where do you work?’ Piper asked Mel. She was relieved to be able to change the subject. The thought of Rob running, or Rob covered in mud, or Rob doing whatever you did in an Iron Man – swimming? Cycling? Rolling tyres and pulling trucks? – was making her flustered. Not to mention the fact that he’d noticed Dawn’s casual fatphobia and had made a point of letting Piper know he had.

  ‘Wetherspoons,’ Mel said. ‘Just along the front there. I’m Assistant Bar Manager. Been there since it opened.’

  ‘Do you like it?’ Piper asked.

  ‘It’s a good laugh,’ Mel said, shrugging. ‘What about you?’

  While Piper told Mel about her job, Dawn was asking Rob about his. Piper wanted to listen – she realised she still couldn’t believe he was a teacher – but she couldn’t do that and talk to Mel at the same time. Every time she let her eyes drift over in his direction, she’d look back to find Mel looking smug. She’d never told Mel she’d fancied Rob when they were teens, but she was sure she knew. Mel always knew everything about everyone. She was one of those people.

  ‘Ooh!’ she said suddenly. ‘I love this song!’

  Piper glanced over her shoulder and was surprised to find that while they’d been talking a few people had actually started dancing.

  ‘Come on, Rob,’ Mel said, grabbing his hand as she passed Piper.

  Rob let himself be pulled onto the dancefloor.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Piper heard Claire before she saw her and immediately felt fifteen again. She could feel her shoulders starting to curl, her belly fluttering with nerves. But she wasn’t fifteen any more and Claire couldn’t do anything to her now. (Her brain immediately started suggesting the many and varied things Claire could do to her, from knocking her off her chair to that bucket of blood she’d discussed with Matt, but even she knew they were pretty unlikely. At worst, she’d blank her.)

  Piper straightened up, pulling her shoulders back, and looked over at Dawn, who was rolling her eyes.

  ‘Who’s she with?’ Piper mouthed.

  ‘L
auren,’ Dawn said, not even bothering to lower her voice. They probably wouldn’t hear over the music, but still.

  Piper really wanted to turn round and look. Claire and Lauren had been inseparable at school. Claire had been the leader and Lauren basically her henchwoman and she couldn’t quite believe they were still at it now. But maybe they weren’t. Maybe they’d changed completely and were embarrassed when they looked back.

  ‘Piper!’ Claire said, from just behind Piper’s shoulder. ‘I didn’t know you were going to be here!’

  Piper turned and looked up at her teen nemesis. She looked basically the same, just more polished. Her hair was glossier and clearly professionally highlighted rather than home-dyed. She’d been a fake tan addict at school and while she now had a healthy glow, she wasn’t orange. Her smile still didn’t reach her eyes.

  ‘You look well,’ she said.

  Paige almost laughed. ‘Thanks. You too.’

  ‘I saw you on breakfast TV. I couldn’t believe it was you. I’d never do something like that, but good for you.’ She looked Piper up and down and Piper stared back at her, holding her breath.

  ‘Rob’s here,’ Lauren said and Piper looked away from Claire to look at Lauren. She’d hardly changed at all: still too blonde, too tanned, her dress too tight, like a copy of Claire with the wrong filter.

  ‘Yeah, he’s sitting there actually,’ Dawn said, pointing at the seat next to Piper. ‘So you should probably…’

  Claire looked over at Dawn and laughed out loud. ‘Bloody hell. You look like you’re about to burst.’

  ‘Another good reason for you to get out of the way,’ Dawn said.

  Piper stared at her. Dawn had been the same at school. She just didn’t give a fuck. Piper had both admired her and been intimidated by her. She remembered Dawn having a go at her once – they were on the mossy rocks in front of Vale Park, she thought, though she couldn’t think why they would have been down there. Dawn had told her to worry less about what people thought of her. All it had done was make Piper worry what Dawn had thought of her.

  ‘Nice to see you anyway,’ Claire said. ‘I saw your Carl the other night in the Ship. He was talking to that barmaid, you know the bulimic one?’ She did a sad head tilt.

  * * *

  ‘Still a cow,’ Dawn said, as soon as Claire and Lauren had gone. ‘Pair of cows. You’d think they’d have grown out of it by now.’

  Piper smiled. So far everyone she’d met had been pretty similar to who they’d been at school. But she wasn’t. Was she? She’d worked really hard not to be.

  * * *

  Claire had known Piper liked Rob. Piper didn’t know how she knew because she worked really hard to hide it and thought she’d succeeded. But then one day, they’d been in the park, sitting on the edge of the bandstand, while the boys played football on the grass. Claire had been smoking and Piper had been wondering whether she should ask to try or whether that would just lead to humiliation. And why did she even want to try anyway? Just to fit in with the other girls? Or because she was bad at trying anything new and really bad at doing anything bad?

  ‘He’d never go out with you, you know,’ Claire had said.

  Piper’s stomach had dropped immediately. Like it did when her mum drove too quickly over the railway bridge on the way to the big Tesco.

  ‘What?’ Piper had said, before she’d had a chance to think better of it.

  ‘Robbie,’ Claire said, leaning forward, her elbows on her knees and looking past Lauren to Piper. Mel had gone to join in the football ‘for feminism’ and Dawn had already gone home to look after her little step-brother. ‘He would never go out with you. So there’s no point in fucking gazing at him all the time.’

  ‘I wasn’t,’ Piper said. And she didn’t think she had been. She was just watching them play football. Not just Robbie. Sam and Mark and Mel. Robbie had just stopped and pulled his jumper over his head and she’d looked then because sometimes his T-shirt came up too and revealed a strip of his stomach, but apart from that… she definitely hadn’t been staring. She didn’t think.

  ‘Maybe if you lost some weight,’ Claire said.

  And even though Piper had known it was coming – it had been inevitable – she still felt like she’d been punched.

  ‘I don’t—’ Piper tried.

  ‘He’s nice to everyone, Robbie,’ Claire continued. She wasn’t looking at Piper any more – she was watching the boys and Mel. ‘But you really shouldn’t think that you have a chance. Because there’s just no way. So I don’t want you to embarrass yourself. You know, more than you already have.’

  Lauren laughed.

  Piper looked at her feet, dangling in front of the bandstand. At her new silver glitter Converse. She knew Claire was just being a bitch. She was like that literally all the time – everyone knew it. Piper wasn’t sure why they still tolerated her hanging out with them, but she just always seemed to turn up. She watched her feet and thought about moving away and never having to see or talk to Claire ever again. She couldn’t wait.

  * * *

  By the time the buffet was uncovered, everyone but Dawn was pretty drunk. The DJ had switched from current hits to noughties classics and everyone (again, apart from Dawn, who was sitting in the window seat, alternately scrolling her phone and filming everyone for Snapchat) was up dancing.

  Claire had been dancing with Rob for a while, so Piper danced with Mel and Maxine and anyone else who danced over to them. Mel was incapable – had always been incapable – of dancing seriously, so she was busy making up little routines and nudging Piper to get her to join in. At one point, Piper found herself dancing with Miss Crowley’s boyfriend, his hands on her hips, his mouth up against her ear while he tried to say something Piper couldn’t hear over the music.

  Over his shoulder she saw Rob watching them, his eyebrows pulled together in a frown. Claire was yelling something up at him, her face bright, but he didn’t seem to have noticed. The next time Piper turned around, Claire had gone and Rob was right behind her, reaching for her hand. She held it out and let him take it and then he was twirling her under his arm and she staggered on her heels, remembering that she’d been planning to take them off, had intended to bring a pair of Converse with her for later, but then she’d forgotten all about it.

  The song ended and Rob was holding her hand and pulling her across the dancefloor again. She entertained a short fantasy about going to the bathroom and straddling him on the loo, but then they were back at the buffet and he was pulling a breadstick out of a pot like he was picking straws. She had no idea where Miss Crowley’s boyfriend had gone.

  ‘I thought we could dance and then eat and then dance!’ he said. He looked so proud of his plan that Piper started laughing again. She’d laughed more tonight than she could remember laughing for a long time.

  ‘Oh fuck,’ Rob said.

  The breadstick was sticking out of the corner of his mouth like a cigar and Piper wanted to poke it with her finger. Or steal and eat it. Where was her drink?

  ‘What?’

  But then she realised. ‘Sex on Fire’.

  ‘This is sick and wrong,’ Rob said.

  Their teachers – Mr Rogers, the history teacher; Mr Davis, geography; Mrs Chipchase, French –were all dancing, gyrating and singing along with ‘Sex on Fire’.

  ‘It’s a good job Mr Rich isn’t here,’ Piper said. ‘Sexy beast.’

  Rob rolled his eyes at her. She grabbed a sandwich and hobbled over to the window to find her drink.

  ‘You okay?’ she asked Dawn, who’d pulled one of the chairs over and had her feet up on it. ‘Need anything?’

  ‘I need to get these fucking babies out, but other than that… Is there any chicken legs left?’

  By the time Piper had got Dawn chicken legs and another drink for both of them, Rob was dancing again.

  ‘Come and dance with me!’ he yelled at Piper.

  It was the Arctic Monkeys. ‘I Bet You Look Good on the Dancefloor’.

 
; As Piper headed over to Rob, she remembered him singing it on the prom one night years ago – standing on a bench, head thrown back. The rest of them had thrown chips at him and eventually a seagull swooped down to steal them and Rob acted as if it was a fan, badgering him for an autograph. He’d had a half-decent voice too. Piper had even thought his band might actually do something. If they’d spent more time rehearsing/playing and less time messing around/drinking.

  ‘Stop thinking,’ Rob said, his mouth near her ear, his arms around her. She leaned back against him and tried not to pretend he was her boyfriend, that she still lived here, that this was her actual life.

  She turned in his arms and grinned, singing along with the song.

  * * *

  Piper was exactly at the point of drunk where she absolutely should stop drinking, but probably wouldn’t. She’d had a couple of glasses of water and eaten a couple of sandwiches and a chicken leg from the buffet and now she was more interested in dancing than drinking.

  ‘They just brought out a bowl of crackling!’ Rob yelled directly into her ear.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Crackling! Proper crackling!’

  He seemed so excited that she let him tug her back over to the buffet table where he presented a metal bowl of crispy stuff as if it was some sort of treasure.

  ‘It’s pork scratching?’ Piper said, peering into the bowl.

  ‘Oh my god,’ Rob said. ‘No.’

  He popped a piece of crackling directly into her mouth and she giggled before saying, ‘Oh my god.’

  ‘I know! I haven’t had proper crackling for ages. It’s the best.’

  ‘Oh my god.’ It was crunchy and also soft and salty and a bit sweet and it might have been the best thing Piper had ever tasted in her life.