by Sophie White
‘Which is why I’ve set my sights on seducing Sam. At the wedding! It’s Friday week. He finally caved and invited me as his plus one.’ Ali grinned. ‘I am going to seduce the shite out of him.’
‘Well, you’ve never looked more alluring.’ Liv brought up the list for the baby’s room on her phone.
‘Thank you. I happen to agree.’
The IKEA trip was eye-opening for Ali. ‘I’d no idea babies needed so much bullshit,’ she remarked as they finished loading up the car.
‘Yeah,’ Liv agreed, swinging into the driver’s seat. ‘Imagine how much crap it’d be if Nella wasn’t donating some of her old stuff.’
Ali hopped in beside her, pulling out her phone to check the time.
‘Right, I’ve gotta get home and finalise everything before rehearsals tomorrow. I cannot believe this is really going to happen!’
‘I know,’ Liv agreed, steering them out of the car park. ‘I’ll be honest, when you first told me, I would have bet my life on you never getting a word of it down on paper.’
‘Thank you!’ Ali would have been pissed off if she wasn’t also completely stunned that she’d done it. ‘I’m really hoping this leads to more things. I know it’s stupid to put too much on one four-night show, but I just feel this real pressure to make my mark before the kid comes and my life is over and I turn into a one-woman buffet for this grabby baby.’
‘I get that,’ Liv replied. ‘I’m like that about the thesis, well, apart from the life-ending bit. My life will be continuing apace.’ She winked. ‘Though Amy and I have been talking about trying to get away for a bit after the deadline.’
‘What?’ Ali tried to keep the terror out of her voice, but Liv’s hasty backtracking suggested she hadn’t been that successful.
‘Just for a couple of months, maybe. I’ve been doing this thesis for a year and a half. I just need a breather. And Amy thinks the Insta-game is this close to imploding, so she wants to plan her career pivot.’
Liv’s deadline was just months after the baby was due. Ali knew it was selfish to expect Liv to co-parent her Tinder Baby, but whenever she’d thought ahead to those newborn days, it was a montage of her and Liv doing the baby thing. Always. She wouldn’t allow herself to imagine Sam in that picture out of self-preservation. Suddenly it seemed more crucial than ever to get Sam back.
Unless she wanted to move in with Mini. But, oh God, no way. Frankly, it would probably lead to a murder-suicide situation. Safer for everyone concerned for Mini and Ali to only see each other for finite periods in neutral locations. Speaking of, she’d completely forgotten her mother was coming to the rehearsal tomorrow. They had agreed she could vet any of the lines she didn’t like. It had seemed like the sane thing to do when she announced the planned show to Mini but now, with the prospect looming, she was nervous.
My So-Called Best Life had become something much more personal as the weeks and months of development had passed. What she’d thought originally was a funny, quippy show about how crazy Instagram was had ultimately become a hopefully funny, quippy show about how crazy she was. And Instagram. But mainly her. She’d also written far more about Miles and Mini than she’d planned, and she knew Mini could very well object. It was definitely going to be tricky. Terry had agreed to come along as moral support and perhaps to help if Mini needed convincing.
‘Ali?’ Liv’s alarm cut through Ali’s churning thoughts. ‘Please don’t look so worried. It’s not even definite yet.’
‘Oh God. No. Sorry, it’s not you and Amy going off. That sounds really good.’ Ali pulled a smile together as best she could. ‘Sorry, I was just thinking about Mini. I’m showing her the show during rehearsal tomorrow.’
‘Ahh. OK. Shit.’
Ali laughed. ‘Yep, that sums it up, just about, I’d say.’
‘Maybe she’ll like it?’ Liv sounded doubtful.
‘I hate it.’
The production tech was trying very hard to look as if he wasn’t listening in to Mini’s assessment of My So-Called Best Life as he fussed with leads in the corner of the stage.
Mini was front row centre with Erasmus, as always, by her side, on his phone.
Ali stood onstage feeling winded from the gut-punch of Mini’s words and exhausted from her second full run-through of the day. She was fully off-book now, which was amazing, but the look on Mini’s face was draining the life out of her. Fuck. She hates it. Great. Whatever she wants changed will need to be rewritten and re-learned and, if it’s dialogue from either Rational Ali or Thirsty Ali, re-shot. Great, great, great.
‘So just to clarify’ – Terry was stepping out from his seat behind the curtain – ‘you hate … all of it?’
‘All of it?’ Mini repeated vaguely, momentarily distracted by Erasmus showing her something on his phone. She muttered instructions to him and then returned to the matter at hand. ‘Where were we? Ah yes, the ending. Look, I hate the ending. It’s too flaccid. You need more of an emotional climax there. In my opinion,’ she added as a diplomatic afterthought.
‘OK, so you just hate the ending.’ Ali rolled her eyes. ‘You know, when you’re giving feedback, just a blanket “I hate it” is kind of misleading.’
‘Hmmmmm?’ Mini was back leaning into Erasmus’s phone. ‘No! Tell him that, Turner or no Turner, there’s no way he’s withdrawing any more blood this week. Good God.’
Erasmus nodded and resumed tapping.
‘Edmund.’ Mini sighed exasperated. ‘Ali, it’s excellent, pumpkin. Well done. I love the bit about Miles and the dumb-waiter at the restaurant. I’d forgotten that story. I think you need to sort the ending, though. Ali and Sam need to get together at the end.’
‘But it’s not fiction, Mini. I can’t just pretend we do when we haven’t.’
‘Why can’t you? He’s not coming to the show, is he?’
‘Well, I don’t know. I hope so. I don’t know for definite. But, no! That is too demented. Stop it with your lunatic suggestions.’
‘All right,’ Mini replied mildly. ‘Just a thought. Maybe a song at the end or something. That always gets people going, emotions-wise.’
Ali had to laugh. Mini talked about emotions as if they were a completely distant, oddly quaint concept.
‘Maybe a song is a thought, Ali,’ Terry interjected. ‘Like, conclude with an announcement, like a title card in a film, sort of wrapping up the narrative and then play them out with a song.’
‘I like it.’ Ali grinned. ‘It’s very Miles, actually. Something like “At the time of going into production, Ali and Sam are still only tentatively communicating through flirty GIFs’’.’ Ali scoffed slightly. ‘Then I could do ‘Que Sera Sera’ on the ukulele. There won’t be a dry eye in the house.’
Chapter 25
‘When Schmiddy told me he’d asked Sinead to marry him, I assumed he’d got her pregnant and I was like “Careful now, man, get proper confirmation of that, there’s a lot of ‘pregnant for the ’gram-itis’ going around”.’ The groomsman, Paddy, roared laughing at his own opener while, beside her, Ali felt Sam tense.
‘You see our mate, Sam, who’ll be up next to tell you all about the J1 in San Diego, was caught out like this and since then it’s been kind of a cautionary tale.’ Paddy grinned at Sam mischievously. ‘And tonight, he’s actually brought the cautionary Whale here with him.’ He accompanied this with an exaggerated wink, clearly thrilled at his own wit. ‘Welcome, Sam’s not-so-little-bit-on-the-side, Ali! Now you have checked that bump’s not a pillow, right, Sam?’
Oh Jesus. Ali made sure to keep smiling awkwardly, hyper-aware that now most of the room was craning to get a look at her.
At this point, Schmiddy grabbed the mic and in a moment of extremely honourable self-sacrifice barked, ‘It’s me you’re supposed to be slagging, you eejit.’
‘Hahaha, yeah, sorry, mate, couldn’t resist. Back to the man of the hour: Schmiddy-boy.’ Paddy recovered the mic and ploughed on with the kind of terminally unfunny slaggology all best-man speec
hes seemed to be made of.
Sam remained stony-faced beside her and Ali wanted to maim this Paddy fucker. They had been getting on quite nicely up until this point. The drive from Dublin to Strokestown House, where the festivities were on, was nice. She’d regaled him with tales of the show preparations and generally tried to sound as normal as possible. She couldn’t help but feel like she was trying to re-audition for a gig she’d already once had: Sam’s girlfriend.
Now this idiot – she tuned back in momentarily to catch him saying ‘when the under-nineteens would go on tour, what happened on tour stayed on tour, if you know what I mean? Except for Schmiddy Óg. He brought the herpes back from Carrick-On-Shannon as a souvenir, heh heh heh’ – was reminding Sam publicly of the humiliation she’d inflicted on him.
‘Is Paddy a bit of an arsehole?’ She leaned into Sam.
‘Yep,’ he said through tight lips.
‘Right, we’ll leave it there, Paddy.’ Schmiddy’s father, whom all the lads revered and feared and inexplicably called Macky, snatched the microphone back from the still-guffawing Paddy. ‘Glad you were entertained by that drivel, yeh gobsheen. Right, good man, Sam, your turn.’ Macky passed the mic across the top table and Sam stood to address the room.
‘Cheers, Macky. So, as Paddy already mentioned, I’m Sam. I’ve been friends with Schmiddy and Sinead for years and when they told me they were getting married, I assumed it was ’cos of the rental crisis. That’s an upside no one’s really acknowledging – crippling rates are actually bringing people together and reviving the lost art of getting married young. Now, I love you both equally but sorry, Sinead, Schmiddy has the edge. You see, back on our J1 in San Diego, Schmiddy was the mammy of the house and once a man brings you a full Irish in bed after a night on the sesh, well, you know yourself, he’ll have your heart for ever. Anyway, I don’t know shit about true love, but I know that you two are the best team, the best allies I’ve ever known. And as much as Sinead doesn’t deserve Schmiddy, Schmiddy doesn’t deserve Sinead either. They’re two of my favourite people in the world. When Schmiddy had Delhi belly when they were travelling, Sinead was amazing. She didn’t have anything to do with him, of course. She has way too much self-respect for that, I’m happy to report. But she took pictures of him at his lowest moments and shared them in the group chat, which was one of the greatest acts of giving I have ever witnessed. Like I said, I don’t know dick about marriage but if on your wedding day you’re beside your favourite person in the world, then you’ve got a pretty good chance and after that it’s just about compromising all the time, fighting over dumb stuff, taking the bins out, making the tea, taking pictures when Schmiddy’s in bits for the group chat and never, ever forgetting that you’re each other’s favourite person. To Schmiddy and Sinead.’
Ali tried to keep her head down. It was very exposing here at the top table and she hadn’t expected to be quite so moved by Sam’s speech.
Don’t cry Ali, she warned silently, they already think of you as unhinged. Do not make this wedding all about you and your botched relationship.
‘To Schmiddy and Sinead,’ the room shouted gaily, clinking glasses.
‘And to you for a really fucking nice speech,’ Ali whispered to Sam. He smiled back tightly. She sensed the very nice and conventional wedding was throwing their own dysfunctional situation into unpleasantly sharp relief for him. ‘I always wanted a real family,’ he had told her the day he realised she’d lied to him for months about a fictitious baby. Weddings were shit for people with fractured families, Ali mused. She herself had sat through the father-of-the-bride speech practically holding her breath the entire time, afraid that any exhale would draw out an unstoppable and wildly inappropriate gush of grief.
Ali didn’t think she’d particularly like a big wedding with top tables and party favours and father-of-the-bride speeches but, still, now she’d never get the chance to sit through a corny speech, rolling her eyes at the cringey dad-jokes. If she and Sam got married, their top table would be fairly cobbled together, she sighed. Poor Sam had no one but his sisters – his dad had never been on the scene. She, at least, had Mini. She wasn’t the most maternal, but Ali knew for a fact that Mini would provide her with an alibi should that ever be necessary and, really, if that wasn’t suffocating maternal love, then what was? Sam lost that demented devotion when he was just a little boy, Ali reflected. He was up now having the arm yanked off him by Macky and a stream of other burly, red-faced men all moulded in the likeness of Schmiddy.
‘Good man, Sam. Good man.’
The speeches had, mercifully, concluded and Sam had been the only person to talk about Sinead beyond how beautiful she looked. God, weddings are the pits. People were beginning to mingle now, and Ali started to carefully drift away from the top table. It had been very, very odd sitting there among complete strangers, who only knew that she was a dangerous, pathological liar. Ali wished she could knock back about nine proseccos and skip straight to tomorrow’s hangover.
‘Ali! We did not think you would come!’
Ali spun round to find the WAGs of Sam’s BoysLyfe WhatsApp group descending in a blur of taffeta, tulle and spidery eyelash extensions.
‘Hi, yeah, well, I heard there would be cake.’ She smiled.
‘Oh my God, you are huge.’ Orlaith’s eyes widened and she leaned back as if she couldn’t quite fully take in Ali’s vastness. ‘Huge.’
‘Yeah.’ Ali was feeling dangerously kamikaze after Paddy’s little speech. ‘That’s what happens when there’s a real one in there.’ She shrugged.
This had the desired effect of stopping them in their tracks.
‘Ha ha, yeah,’ said Ellen, the one with the misfortune to be hitched to Paddy. She looked uncomfortable at Ali’s abrupt pronouncement and Ali softened slightly. This is stupid, she realised. You need to get these women onside if you are ever going to get Sam back. Women are the brains of every operation, Ali, even Sam’s WhatsApp group. If she could charm the WAGs, the boyfriends would fall into line.
She smiled at each of them. ‘Sorry, I just figured I’d say it before anyone else did.’ She squirmed a little, letting them see her unease. ‘I know what you all must think of me. God, you should hear what I think of myself these days. It’s a dark place in here sometimes.’ She tapped her head. ‘I know it must sound weird, but I’m really glad that all the shit hit the fan in a way. I hate that I hurt Sam so much but I was out of control, sick in the head, like, and I needed reality to smack me in the face for me to realise how bad I’d been for so long. Obsessing over Instagram, watching my numbers like a crazed bitch.’
Ali could see that something in their expressions was shifting.
‘I even set up fake accounts to like and comment on my own posts,’ Ali continued. ‘So pathetic, but I was completely addicted.’ Ellen, Ali noticed, was beginning to nod slightly.
‘Yeah,’ she breathed. ‘It can be really easy to just be sucked in. In my line of work in the wellness sphere, it can be so toxic. I’m a life coach,’ she filled Ali in. ‘I’m there supposed to be counselling young women on how to resist comparison syndrome and then I’ll be on the couch at night fuming over all the life coaches I know getting massive followings online.’ She shook her head sadly.
‘But, Ali, you are still on Insta, right?’ This slightly barbed question came from Rhona, the longest-running and, therefore, chief WAG. She’d gone to school with Sam and the lads before getting together with Ed in college. ‘You can’t be that cured.’ She folded her arms and narrowed her eyes.
‘I’m working on it.’ Ali tried to keep her tone light.
‘I heard you were “working on” a one-woman show about humiliating Sam.’ Rhona clearly wasn’t interested in any bridge-building.
Jeez, chill your tits, Rhona, Ali thought, while outwardly she was just about clinging to a shard of a smile in the face of this oh-so-polite interrogation.
‘The show is mainly about what a complete dick I’ve been,’ she replied flatly. ‘A
nyway, I think I’m going to go soon. It was so nice to be here, but I don’t want to make it awkward. Plus, I’m so freakin’ tired from being pregnant.’ She shrugged and smiled wearily. The WAGs now looked quite divided: Ellen and Orlaith were nodding sympathetically while Rhona was clearly still sceptical. ‘Hopefully I’ll see you guys at the show. I’m giving Sam a whole bunch of tickets.’ Ali turned and plunged back into the swarm of wedding guests still milling around the top table. She grabbed her coat from her chair and her clutch bag from the table. She scanned for Sam but couldn’t see him in the scrum around the bar or in the mosh pit on the dancefloor where, in the grand tradition of Irish weddings, everyone was jumping around to Riverdance while a lone uncle was slumped on a chair, apparently sleeping, in the middle of the chaos.
Ali loved a bit of wedding shenanigans but with a ten-pound lump sporadically kicking her in the vadge from the inside, she knew there was no point hanging around, plus Sam had remained oddly stiff and formal with her. Thank God the wedding was not too far a drive from Dublin. She’d catch up with the latest episode of Under the Influence on the way home and go to bed with a bag of M&Ms and a bit of Benson and Stabler – the lead detectives in the Special Victims Unit. I really need a new show, Ali mused as she ducked through the crowd into the jacks for a safety pee – pregnancy seemed to be an endless exercise in bladder management. The urge could hit her with barely a moment’s notice, and all she needed was a rogue sneeze while trying to hold a pee in and game over, knickers full of wee.
She settled on the jacks and was watching some Stories with the sound down when she heard voices outside by the sinks.
‘Did you see Sam’s face when Paddy started up?’
‘Oh God, poor guy. But even more juice, did you see Rhona when he walked in with your one, Ali? I bet Rhoners thought she’d nab Sam no probs after BumpGate.’
Ali X’d out of Insta to focus better on what was being said just outside her stall.