The Invitation_The perfect laugh-out-loud romantic comedy

by Keris Stainton

  Carl had started bouncing on the end of the branch to scare her, but Rob had shouted at him to knock it off. Piper wasn’t sure if he’d spotted the tears pricking her eyes or if he was just being nice anyway, but she’d appreciated it. Rob had never been as much of a dick as the other boys. He could be loud and stupid and lairy, same as the rest of them, but he’d always been kind, had never deliberately hurt anyone. He’d jumped down and moved until he was standing just under Piper and had held his arms up.

  ‘I’ll catch you.’

  Piper had shaken her head. She was the heaviest of all of them, she knew. She knew because once at Amanda’s she’d made everyone get weighed and there’d been no chance of Piper getting out of it. Going along with it had seemed easier than making everyone think she was self-conscious about it. But she knew that she weighed ten pounds more than Robbie.

  ‘You’ll get flattened,’ Piper had heard Carl say.

  ‘Fuck off, Carl,’ Rob had said without even turning his head, just looking straight up at Piper.

  She’d lowered herself as far as she could without actually letting go or jumping. Her arms had trembled and she’d been genuinely afraid she might wet herself, but then Robbie said, ‘It’s okay. Nearly there.’ And she’d let go. And he hadn’t even had to catch her. She’d dropped to the ground heavily, stumbled, and his hands had immediately gone to her hips to steady her.

  ‘Okay?’ he’d said.

  She hadn’t been able to speak – she’d just nodded.

  ‘Ignore them,’ he’d said. ‘They’re dickheads.’

  Piper had looked at his mouth. At his soft lips. Had let herself imagine that he might like her. That maybe he’d kiss her. Not there and then in front of everyone. But one day. Maybe. Somewhere.

  ‘I like chubby girls better anyway,’ he’d said. And ruined it.

  Chapter Eighteen

  When Piper got back to Aunt Connie’s, she was greeted by Buster jumping up at her legs and immediately rolling onto his back, his entirely body wriggling with joy.

  ‘Balcony!’ Connie yelled from the kitchen. ‘Before he pees!’

  Piper grabbed the giddy dog around his middle and rushed across the room, holding him at arms’ length, before depositing him on the tiny balcony where he immediately let go, a small puddle spreading across the concrete.

  ‘Honestly, mate, keep it together,’ Piper said.

  He scratched at the concrete a little before trotting back inside.

  ‘Nice,’ Piper said, looking down at the puddle. It was a good job her stomach had settled. But then she had Rob to thank for that.

  ‘Did you have a good time?’ Connie said, coming through to the living room.

  Piper closed one of the balcony doors and turned to look at her aunt, who was wearing the same clothes as yesterday, but with an apron over the top.

  ‘I did, thanks,’ Piper said.

  ‘How’s your head this morning?’

  Piper smiled. ‘Better than it was when I woke up.’

  ‘Have you had something to eat?’

  ‘Yes. Thanks. Rob made a cooked breakfast.’

  ‘Robbie Kingsford? I saw his mum in the bank the other day. What’s he doing now?’

  Piper frowned. ‘He’s a teacher. At Rocklands.’

  ‘Oh yes,’ Connie said. ‘I think I knew that.’

  ‘He lives in one of those new flats on the prom.’

  ‘Does he?’ Connie gasped. ‘More money than sense then.’

  ‘It’s nice. He’s got a huge balcony looking out over the river.’

  ‘I’ve got a balcony,’ Connie said, pointing. ‘It might be covered in dog wee right now, but it’s nice to sit out of an evening.’

  Piper smiled. ‘It’s lovely. The whole flat’s lovely.’

  ‘And I didn’t pay over the odds for it either. Tea?’

  ‘Please,’ Piper said. She sat down on the sofa and Buster immediately jumped up on her lap and turned around a couple of times before flopping down, hot belly over Piper’s thighs.

  Connie brought the tea through and then went into her bedroom for another box. Piper’s heart sank. She loved the ring Connie had given her, had been wearing it every day, but she knew Connie had some of her parents’ stuff to show her and she wasn’t sure she was ready for that. In fact, she was sure she wasn’t ready.

  ‘Now I know this is hard for you,’ Connie said, lifting out a photo album, ‘but it’s been eight years. And I’m not going to be here forever. I would hate to think something might happen to me and all these things would be lost.’

  Piper shook her head. She couldn’t look at the photos – there was no way.

  ‘You don’t have to look at them now,’ Connie said. ‘But take this home with you and look at them when you’re ready. But don’t leave it too long, eh?’

  ‘Okay,’ Piper said, her voice barely more than a whisper.

  ‘There’s these too.’ Connie handed her two small notebooks. Piper took them and then realised they were address books.

  ‘Your dad’s Little Black Book there!’ Connie said, laughing.

  Piper held her dad’s book, which actually was black, up to her nose. She didn’t really expect it to smell anything like him and of course it didn’t, but she had to try. She opened it, but as soon as she saw his smooth round handwriting on the first page, she had to close it again. She wasn’t ready.

  Her mum’s book was gold, the paper not dissimilar to fish scales – just holding it in her hand took her right back to sitting on the floor at her mum’s feet and fishing it out of her bag to look through. She suspected it may even contain pages she’d scribbled on. But she couldn’t look.

  Her phone pinged with a message and she put the address books down next to her, on top of the photo album. When she got home she’d have to find somewhere to put them where she couldn’t see them, but where they’d be safe until she was ready.

  ‘Rob’s going to give me a lift to the station,’ she told her aunt.

  ‘New Brighton?’ She looked confused. New Brighton station was only a few minutes’ walk away.

  ‘No. Lime Street. He’s going to pick me up.’

  ‘He was always a lovely boy,’ Connie said.

  ‘Yeah,’ Piper said, replying to his text. ‘He still is.’

  Chapter Nineteen

  Rob had suggested coming up to say hello to Aunt Connie (and Buster), but Piper had said he’d never get out of there if he did, so instead she headed downstairs to find him waiting in his car at the kerb.

  ‘Connie says you’ve more money than sense,’ Piper told him, as she opened the car door.

  ‘Shit, sorry,’ Rob said, apparently only just realising the passenger seat was a tip, covered with files and books, a McDonald’s bag in the foot well. ‘Let me…’

  He grabbed them all and threw them in the back seat. Piper sat down.

  ‘It was a Help to Buy thing,’ Rob said, pulling his seatbelt on. ‘The flat. You can tell her.’

  Piper tried not to look at how his T-shirt pulled away from his collarbone. It wasn’t a big car. They were sitting closer together than they had been at any point so far. She turned and put on her own seatbelt.

  ‘Couldn’t have done it otherwise.’

  ‘I tried to sell her on the balcony,’ Piper said. ‘But she’s got her own balcony, so that didn’t even impress her.’

  ‘She’s up there now,’ Rob said, pointing.

  Piper looked up and saw Connie on the balcony, looking down at them, Buster wiggling with joy – or possibly the need to pee – at her feet.

  ‘She mainly uses the balcony for Buster,’ Piper said. ‘He pees when he gets excited.’

  ‘We’ve all been there,’ Rob said, pulling away from the kerb.

  Piper snorted with laughter and then covered her mouth, but Rob glanced at her, delighted, and for a second they were right back at school, grinning at each other across a classroom. Piper felt like she was falling. Or that she was still and the world was tipping away from her.
She turned and looked out of the window, reaching one arm out to steady herself against the glove compartment.

  Rob turned onto Victoria Road. ‘Vicky Road’ they’d called it when they were kids. There was a pub they’d been to a few times – one where they weren’t that bothered about serving underage kids.

  ‘It’s all changed round here, right?’ Rob said, turning again onto Rowson Street.

  ‘Yeah,’ Piper said, resting her head on the glass for a second before turning back to look at him. ‘Loads of it’s still the same though.’

  They drove past the row of shops they used to go to on the way to the park and the prom. The chippy was gone, but the newsagent’s was still there. It was a canopied Victorian parade and Piper always worried that she’d come home to find it demolished, but not this time.

  It was weird, seeing Rob driving. He was so confident, looked so natural. Which… it was only driving. But still. And she couldn’t do it. His hands were strong on the steering wheel, muscles flexing in his forearms.

  ‘When did you learn to drive?’ Piper asked.

  ‘I got lessons for my eighteenth birthday.’ He glanced at her and then back at the road. ‘But I didn’t pass till I was twenty. Kept putting the test off.’

  ‘Did you pass first time?’

  ‘Course!’ He grinned. ‘What about you?’

  ‘Never had lessons. Don’t need a car in London really.’

  ‘I love it, driving.’

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘Yeah. Down the motorway, music blasting out. Great when I’m stressed.’

  They passed the library where Piper used to go with her mum after school and choose more books than she could even carry. And then they’d go on the playground before heading home. The library backed onto the cemetery.

  ‘Every time we came along here, my dad would say, “Dead centre of town”,’ Piper said, pointing at the cemetery. ‘For years I thought it really was. Like someone had measured it or he’d seen it on a map.’

  Rob smiled.

  ‘I was so pissed off when I finally got it. He thought it was bloody hilarious. I don’t think he realised I’d taken it literally.’

  ‘Are they…’ Rob said. ‘Your parents…’

  Piper shook her head. ‘No. They were cremated.’ Her voice cracked slightly, even though she hadn’t known it was going to. Even though she’d talked about it so many times without getting upset. Even though it had been years. But something about being home always brought it much closer to the surface than she ever usually allowed it to get.

  ‘Sorry,’ Rob said. ‘I didn’t mean to—’

  ‘It’s fine,’ Piper said. She looked straight ahead. ‘Honestly.’

  ‘Put some music on now, if you want,’ he said, gesturing at the glove compartment. ‘There’s CDs in there.’

  ‘Retro,’ Piper said, popping the door open.

  ‘The car I had before this one had a tape deck. For like three years I couldn’t pass a charity shop without checking to see if they had any I might listen to. For months, I only had Phil Collins’s No Jacket Required. That thing must be in every charity shop on earth.’

  ‘What’s in there now?’ Piper asked, turning the stereo on. ‘Can I just hit play or will it be something embarrassing?’

  ‘Do it,’ Rob said, smiling. ‘I’m not ashamed.’

  Piper hit play and the car filled with ‘Mr Brightside’.

  ‘Oh my god,’ Piper said, laughing.

  ‘What? It’s a banger!’

  ‘It is. I love it. It’s just exactly what I would have guessed you’d be listening to.’

  ‘Oh yeah, it’s easy for you to say that now.’

  Piper laughed. ‘I’m serious. It’s a total late-twenties-man-driving song.’

  ‘So what else is in there, if you’re so clever?’

  Piper tipped her head back so she couldn’t cheat. ‘Oasis. White Stripes. Kaiser Chiefs. Kings of Leon.’

  ‘Pfft,’ Rob said. ‘Obviously.’

  Piper pulled a handful of CDs out and shuffled through them. ‘Oh Rob. Such a cliché.’

  ‘There’s more!’ he said. ‘I’ve got Lorde’s new album.’

  ‘Oh thank god. Cos it was looking like a real sausage fest for a bit there.’

  Piper shuffled until she found Melodrama and pushed the CD into the slot. ‘Green Light’ started to play as Rob turned off the main road and down round the back of the shopping centre, past McDonald’s and the bus stop they all used to hang around at after they’d been to McDonald’s, past the pub they all got thrown out of once for being too noisy when the regulars were trying to watch the match, past the walk-in centre Piper had gone to when she’d broken her wrist in PE, and where Jim had taken Connie last month.

  When the chorus kicked in, Piper noticed Rob was drumming his thumbs on the steering wheel. She had a sudden realisation.

  ‘What happened to your band?’

  Rob laughed, turning to look at her. ‘Oh fucking hell. Yeah, we broke up. Artistic differences.’

  ‘Gutted,’ Piper said. ‘I thought you were going to be the new Coldplay. Ooh, Coldplay! I bet you’ve got Coldplay in there too, haven’t you?’

  ‘Shut it,’ Rob said. ‘Everyone loves Coldplay.’

  ‘Pretty sure everyone hates Coldplay, but okay.’

  ‘I saw them in Manchester a couple of years ago – they were brilliant.’

  Piper had forgotten this about Rob too. How he was so confident about what he liked and didn’t care what anyone thought. Given that Piper had spent her entire teens worrying what people thought and trying to second-guess what might be acceptable to her friends, it had fascinated her. If she’d dared to say she liked something out of the ordinary, the others would have ripped the piss endlessly. But if Rob said he liked it, they just accepted it. She’d always wondered where he got that confidence from. She’d even asked him about it once and he’d said something like ‘I just like what I like. I don’t give a shit what anyone else thinks’. That had been utterly alien to her. Although Holly was like that too. She didn’t understand why.

  ‘Perfect Places’ started playing as they pulled up to the Mersey tunnel. Piper flipped the CD over in her hand.

  ‘It’s on shuffle,’ Rob said, as he dropped change into the toll machine.

  ‘I was always scared of the tunnel when I was a kid,’ Piper said, as they pulled away. ‘I thought it might crack and water would come rushing in.’

  ‘I like it,’ Rob said. ‘It’s creepy. But the engineering’s amazing.’

  Piper smiled. ‘Design and Technology teacher.’

  Rob grinned without looking at her. ‘Yep. I could tell you how they built it, but—’

  ‘No, you’re fine, thanks. I can live without knowing.’

  The rest of the way through the tunnel they didn’t talk, just listened to Lorde and stared ahead at the road.

  ‘I always think of that Friends episode now,’ Piper said, as they emerged into the light. ‘“The One With the Metaphorical Tunnel”.’

  ‘That was an actual tunnel,’ Rob said. ‘And I know that because I am a D and T teacher.’

  Piper laughed. ‘I know. I just mean I get it stuck in my head.’

  ‘What’s it a metaphor for? In Friends?’

  ‘You know! Chandler’s seeing Janice and he’s worried it’s getting too serious and he’s got a fear of commitment, so…’

  ‘I’ve never seen it,’ Rob said.

  ‘What?!’

  ‘I mean, I’ve seen random bits of it cos it’s always on some channel somewhere. And I know about “we were on a break” cos that’s impossible to avoid. But I’ve never actually watched an episode.’

  ‘Why not?’

  He shrugged. ‘Don’t know really. No reason. I just haven’t.’

  ‘Oh my god. I think I’ve probably seen every episode at least ten times. I can’t believe you’ve never watched it!’

  Rob shrugged again. ‘Sorry.’

  Rob pulled off the main road a
nd onto a small cobbled side street.

  ‘So what’s the tunnel?’ he said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘You said the guy’s afraid of commitment, but what’s the tunnel?’

  ‘Oh. Um. I think it’s like the tunnel of love? At an amusement park? I’m not sure actually, now you’ve said that.’

  Rob pulled into a parking space and turned off the engine. ‘Much cheaper parking here.’

  ‘Oh, let me pay for that,’ Piper said. ‘And the tunnel.’

  ‘Don’t be daft.’ He took his seatbelt off and Piper watched for his T-shirt to pull away again. She wasn’t disappointed. ‘Have you got time for a coffee?’

  Piper checked the time on her phone. ‘Actually, I have.’

  ‘You can get me a coffee then. And we’re square.’

  * * *

  ‘I’d better get going,’ Piper said, forty-five minutes later.

  They’d sat outside the Costa on the station forecourt and they’d actually had time for two coffees – Rob had insisted on getting the second, despite Piper’s protests, and he’d bought a slice of carrot cake for them to share too.

  Piper shrugged her coat on and stood up, pushing her chair back.

  ‘It’s been really good to see you,’ Rob said, standing too.

  Piper blinked. ‘God, I really shouldn’t have had that last coffee. I’m buzzing.’

  Rob grinned. ‘Lightweight.’

  ‘Oh I am. But at least I’ll get some work done. Probably at double speed.’

  They walked to Piper’s platform and up to the train.

  ‘So thanks,’ Piper said. ‘For everything. For letting me stay and bringing me over and getting me off my face on caffeine.’

  ‘No problem,’ Rob smiled. ‘And sorry about that. Have you got some water?’

  ‘In my bag,’ Piper said.

  There were a few minutes until the train departed and they both stood, smiling at each other. He was so lovely, Piper thought. She didn’t know how she’d forgotten. She’d remembered how hot he was – and he was even hotter now, dear god – but she’d forgotten what a genuinely sweet person he was. What else had she forgotten about her other friends, her old life?