Chapter 4 #2
‘Might as well start as we mean to go on,’ Clare continued. ‘Grab your purse, wipe that snot off your face, and let’s go. First beer’s on you and you’d better not tell me you don’t drink pints. Or even worse, that you don’t drink at all. Because if that’s the case, we’re not going to be friends.’
‘I drink, but…’ I tailed off. I didn’t dare confess I’d never had a pint in my life. University was going to be full of learning experiences and perhaps drinking pints was one I should embrace.
Six hours and way too many pints of Irish ale later – another new learning experience – Clare and I started a lifelong friendship. I also started a horrendous hangover.
I’d automatically assumed that my two best friends would bond immediately.
Elise visited me at university the following term and I couldn’t wait to introduce them.
The first hour in the pub seemed to go well but I returned from the ladies to find them in a heated debate about the value of marriage.
It had been handbags at dawn ever since.
‘Ready,’ Clare said, pulling me back to the present. ‘You can start passing stuff down.’
I handed down boxes and crates from the deep top shelves.
‘What’s in all of these?’
I shrugged. ‘Haven’t a clue. Mum and Dad brought them down last year. They got sick of nagging Ben and me to clear out our old bedrooms so they could re-decorate so they did it for us.’
Clare looked at the pile she’d just created. ‘It’s all your childhood crap then? Are we going to find naked Barbie dolls with shaved heads and dodgy old school photos?’
‘Possibly. A lot of it can probably be ditched.’
Clare knelt on the floor and started rummaging through a crate. ‘This one’s boring,’ she said a few minutes later.
‘What’s in it?’ I looked up from the box of old board games I’d found.
‘Mainly old schoolbooks. I want an interesting box.’
‘I’m not sure any of them will be interesting. Why don’t you try that cardboard one?’
Clare crawled over to the box, ripped off the parcel tape and started rummaging. ‘Ooh, what’s this?’
I looked up as she pulled out a rolled-up piece of pale pink paper with a dark pink satin ribbon tied round it, like a scroll.
Oh no. She’s found my—
‘“Life Plan of Sarah Louise Peterson, age almost fourteen,”’ she read as she unfurled it. ‘You have got to be jesting.’
I put my hands over my eyes and felt my cheeks burn my palms. Trust me to direct Clare to the most embarrassing box in the world ever. She wanted interesting? She’d just found it.
Life Plan of Sarah Louise Peterson, age almost 14
Age 20–21: Meet gorgeous, kind, generous, funny, rich boyfriend with dark hair and blue eyes
Age 22: Get engaged (Update Age 22: Big fat fail. Single now. Try 26???)
Proposal: On a red dragon boat on the boating lake in Hearnshaw Park. (Update Age 22: proposal abroad – Venice? Rome?)
Ring: Gold with sapphires and diamonds (Update Age 22: platinum with solitaire diamond)
Age 24: Get married in pretty church. Reception in Sherrington Hall
Dress: Big white dress with puffy sleeves and long train. Wear tiara and veil. Hair piled in curls on top of head. Princess for the day! (Update Age 22: ivory dress with short train, no puffy sleeves and perhaps not so BIG! Yes to sparkly tiara. Still want to be a princess!)
Bridesmaids: Lots of bridesmaids wearing peach frilly dresses with big sleeves (Update Age 22: Eek! Just Elise and Clare. NOT peach! Definitely no frills or big sleeves)
Age 26: First child – boy
Age 28: Twins – one of each
Age 30: Fourth child – girl
(Update Age 22: 2 children. What was I thinking?! And might need to revise age due to engagement fail)
Animals: A dog, 2 cats and a rabbit
Home: Cottage in Old Town with sea views, garden, roses round the door – just like Auntie Kay’s
Life: Will live happily ever after with husband who adores me just like Mum & Dad and have children who are funny, clever and beautiful. Will NOT be alone like Uncle Alan. Ever.
I swear it took twenty minutes before Clare managed to finish reading it out loud – essential for maximum humiliation effect – because she was laughing so much.
‘My sides hurt,’ she said finally, wiping her eyes. ‘I don’t know what’s most funny – you writing it in the first place or you taking the time to update it in your twenties. In your twenties. And you called yourself a princess. In. Your. Twenties.’
‘It was an important document at the time.’ I folded my arms and glared at her.
I meant it. Written shortly after I’d found Uncle Alan, my Life Plan had been deadly serious and was my way of avoiding ending up like him.
I’d really believed it would happen. ‘And I’ll just point out that I was an emotional wreck after splitting up with Andy when I added to it.
And very drunk. You know I wasn’t in a good place after it ended with him. ’
Clare nodded. ‘I remember. So, Sarah Louise Peterson, aged thirty-and-eight-days, what exactly have you achieved off your Life Plan?’
‘Two cats.’ I looked towards Kit and Kat curled up on the duvet. Tears pricked my eyes from the overwhelming disappointment of it all. ‘How useless am I?’ My voice caught in my throat.
‘Not useless,’ Clare said softly. ‘Sad? Yes. Pathetic? Yes. An eejit? Yes. But not useless.’
‘I think there’s a compliment in there. Somewhere.’ I smiled weakly.
‘There is.’
We sat in silence for a while.
‘What if I never meet someone?’ I said eventually. What if I never get married and have kids?’
‘Then you don’t get married and have kids,’ she said, shrugging.
‘So what? You can’t force these things. Actually, you can, but you wouldn’t get your happily ever after.
Would you rather be married to your man Jason right now with a gremlin on the way and be miserable, or would you rather be single again with the possibility that it may or may not happen? ’
‘Neither. I’d rather be single than with Jason. Definitely no regrets there. But I don’t like the thought of that being the case for the rest of my life. I always wanted to marry and have a family.’
‘That’s pretty obvious from reading this.
’ Clare rolled the scroll up again, put the ribbon round it and gently placed it back in the box.
‘I know you won’t want to hear this, but you need to get over this ridiculous obsession with getting married.
It’s not the answer to life, the universe and everything you know. ’
‘And you’d know that because you’ve been married how many times?’
Clare closed the flaps on the box and pushed it aside. ‘None,’ she said, ‘as you well know. But that’s not the point. I know plenty of married people and, believe me, it’s not the happily ever after you seem to have built it up to be.’
‘It is for some.’
‘Like your parents? I think you’ll find they’re pretty unique. I know you see them as your role models and you want the same, but surely even you must realise that what they have is not the norm.’
‘Maybe not. But it shows that true love and true compatibility exists.’
‘For a very small minority of people. For most people, marriage ends in divorce.’
‘Cynic.’
‘Realist. And if they don’t divorce, they trundle on with neither party making the other happy but not quite being miserable enough to call it quits.
Don’t look at me like that. It’s a fact.
And the very notion of having a written plan that says you must be married at a certain age…
Really? Seriously, Sarah, if it happens it happens.
If it doesn’t, it doesn’t. Get used to it. ’
I sighed. ‘The thing is, I know I don’t need a man to fulfil some missing gap in my life but I want to meet someone special. I want the happily ever after.’
‘Need. Want. What’s the difference?’
I thought for a moment. ‘Remember our last shopping trip. You didn’t need those expensive beige shoes but you wanted them, didn’t you?’
‘Beige shoes? I take it you’re referring to that stunning pair of nude Manolo Blahniks?’
‘Whatever. Shoes are shoes.’
‘Wash your mouth out.’
‘Do you see my point?’
‘I guess so. Although I still maintain I both wanted and needed those shoes.’
‘Of course you did. Because you only own two hundred pairs already.’ I twiddled with my ponytail.
‘There’s one other reason why I want to meet The One.
As it says on the plan, I don’t want to end up like my Uncle Alan.
’ What killed me about his death was that the autopsy revealed a massive hypo three days before I found him.
Three days. Poor man. I tried not to think about how long he’d been on the floor, knowing he was dying, before taking his final breath. All alone. What a horrific way to go.
‘It’s tragic about your uncle. And I genuinely do get why that would—’
Ding dong.
Clare and I looked at each other.
‘You expecting someone?’ she asked.
I shook my head and scrambled to my feet.
‘If it’s Mr Right, tell him his timing’s impeccable.’
I flung open the door to find Elise on the doorstep a day ahead of schedule.