Chapter Forty-One
forty-one
Lanie
Lanie sat on a bench in the lobby of the Royal Mahal catering hall in Tooting Bec. Tonight, the ballroom was conservatively decorated with balloons and streamers for the rehearsal dinner Jonah’s family was hosting the evening before the wedding. Tomorrow, according to her explicit directions, it would be festooned with enough cascading foliage and white flowers to look like a garden in spring for the reception.
For now, Lanie cradled her face, her head pounding out of her skull. She could barely think. And when she did, it was about that message she’d left on Ridley’s voicemail, which made her head pound even more.
The one where she’d sloppily told him she loved him. And to top it all off, she’d professed that she’d never had a better lover. Said she touched herself— yes, like the Divinyls song —when she thought of him.
Oh God . She groaned.
“A-whatis dis? Get up, nuh gyal!” one of her distant relatives said in their strong Antiguan accent, accompanied by a sucking of their teeth. “Eh-eh.”
The sound was like nails driven into her skull. Lanie probably looked a mess, dressed up in a fuchsia floral cocktail dress and kitten heels, but nursing a raging hangover. “In a minute,” she whispered.
“I’ve got it, Auntie,” a male voice said as someone sat beside her.
Lanie glanced up. Jonah shoved a huge bottle of water into her hands. “I’ve been handing these out like party favors. What did you guys do? You all knew we had this tonight.”
Lanie looked at him again after taking a big swig. As always, Jonah looked dapper wearing a fawn-brown Nehru jacket and matching pants with a pocket square and a black scarf over his shoulders.
“I think we thought we’d sleep it off? But apparently only Gem did.” Her cousin was a glowing vision, floating around the banquet hall as if she’d never touched a drop of alcohol last night.
“Well, the rest of you look bound for the rubbish bin.”
Lanie did her version of a “bah humbug” noise, sweeping her hand at him in disgust. It was Gemma’s fault she felt like this—in more ways than one. It was Gemma’s fucking hen night and she’d damn near insisted everyone overindulge. And it was their argument outside the pub that made Lanie call Ridley in the middle of the night to profess her undying love. Now, he wasn’t even calling her back. She had no idea if she even still had a date for the wedding tomorrow.
Though historically, men had hightailed it away from Lanie at the first suggestion of anything serious, Ridley seemed better than that, but maybe he’d just been more strung out on the sex than the rest. Because, yes, Lord , the sex had been that good. Really good . But then she’d had to go say something stupid like I love you. And perhaps now he’d gone to ground.
Tears prickled at Lanie’s eyes. She thought all the rest between them was really good, too. Good enough to stick around for.
“Look, Lanie.” Jonah turned and took the bottle from her, placing it by their feet before taking her hands in his.
She groaned at the words. What manner of after-school-fucking-special bullshit is this about to be?
“We’ve known each other a long time,” he began solemnly. “And you’re one of my best friends. And I really love you. I do, you believe me, right?”
Lanie’s head pounded, feeling like her brain was about to leak out of her ears. She didn’t have the patience for this.
“But you have to grow up and get over me.”
She shook her hands free of Jonah’s grasp, more annoyed that the motion made her head hurt than by what he said.
Although...how dare he?
“Oh, you think I’m upset about you?” Lanie laughed scornfully, which rattled her brain more. “Get bent, Jonah! It would have been nice if you’d said something like this back when you fucked me!”
“Keep your voice down!” He looked around, alarmed.
“Why?” But she did lower her voice because even alone in the hallway, with this many aunties, uncles and cousins from both sides roaming around, the walls had ears. She grabbed her bottle, ready to move. “Leave me alone, will you?”
“Melanie, wait,” he begged. “You’re right. I should have been straight with you years ago. But in my defense, we were young.”
“Twenty-one is not all that young, Jonah. You had me out here looking like a simp, like you didn’t actually tell me you loved me. But I guess that was just pillow talk, huh? Used to tell that to all the girls when you were coming in them, did you?”
He winced and Lanie cringed inwardly at how crude her anger had made her. Impulse control was a real bitch, and Lanie, unfortunately, still didn’t know her. She wasn’t about to apologize though, because she was still hurt. Twelve years later, it still fucking hurt.
“You know you were my first,” he hissed.
Mine too, which made it all the worse , Lanie thought. “What I know is, you made me feel delusional. Like I imagined it.”
“I know.” Jonah nodded. “And I have no excuse. I’m so sorry, Mel. I was sorry then too. But I didn’t know how to fix it. As soon as it happened, I knew it was a mistake.”
“Wow, thanks.”
“No, I mean, it was a mistake because I was confused. I thought the way I loved you—and I do love you, Mel, so, so much...” Jonah rubbed his temple, struggling. “I thought it was the big way, you know, like you were my one true love. ’Cos I’d watched all the same movies as you: Love, Actually , When Harry Met Sally , Four Weddings and a Funeral , Sixteen Candles , Some Kind of Wonderful . Most of them with you —so I really thought we were Keith and Watts too.”
Tears formed in Lanie’s eyes as she snorted in amusement. Guess Jonah suffered from limerence too.
“It was only afterward that I realized our love wasn’t like that. I liked the idea of us, but the connection was...different. But by then, I was so afraid I’d lose you by rejecting you that I just freaked out and tried to pretend it hadn’t happened at all. Like we could go back to how things were before we hooked up.”
Tears streamed down her face, ruining her makeup and making her eyes ache and her head throb more.
“That’s your excuse for how you’ve been treating me the past few months too?”
“Is that fair? You haven’t been exactly wonderful either, Melanie.”
Well, okay. Recently, as Narcisa might have said, she may have been acting like her ass was up on her shoulders.
“You gaslit me, Jonah. For years! Made me look stupid and feel insecure,” she cried. “How’d you expect me to act? For me to throw you guys a goddamned parade? And yet I practically planned your wedding anyway. That should have gotten me something.”
Her mother was right: all her work hadn’t counted in her favor. It might even have made her look more delusional to people. Muggins here planned a whole wedding of the man she loved to another woman. She tried to find a napkin or something to staunch the torrent of tears even though she knew saving her makeup was a lost cause. Gemma was gonna kill her.
Jonah handed her his silken jacquard pocket square. “I know. I know. And I am sorry.”
“You let everyone in the neighborhood think I was some pathetic lovesick dummy...for years! What stopped you from just saying something years ago?”
“Could I have? Would that not have meant the end of our whole friendship?”
Lanie knew how intense she’d been back then. How she still was. Look at this thing with Ridley . She put her head into her hands, then straightened again, staring daggers, pointing a freshly manicured finger at him.
“But it would have been my choice. And your consequences. You took that choice away from me by stringing me along.”
“You’re right. And for that, I will spend years—”
“The rest of your wutless life!”
He sighed. “The rest of my wutless life, making it up to you.”
“Start by treating my cousin like the princess she is.”
“I’m already on it.” He smiled at that.
“You do know that doesn’t mean emptying your bank account, right?”
He smiled shamefacedly. “Yeah, I’m getting that.”
“Good.”
Jonah reached over to wipe the last stray tears from Lanie’s face. “Eek,” he said, examining his hands. “You’re gonna have to wash it all off and start again.”
“Gee, thanks, Captain Obvious,” she said snarkily, rising from the bench in search of the bathroom.
“We’ll talk again later, yeah?” he asked.
“We better.”
“And, Mel. I do love you.”
“I know, Stupid. Love you too.”