Chapter 4
Theo
Planning a wedding in 2 weeks should be considered an Olympic sport. Especially when you’re planning it with Astrid Cartwright, that should at least warrant a gold medal.
“Trust her to thrust this on us literally 2 weeks before, how am I supposed to find someone to do it at this short notice?” She moans, angrily scrawling a biro around on her notepad. She was talking about the cake. In fairness, when mum said she wanted us to help organise the wedding, I felt physically ill. There’s so much that goes into a wedding, the venue, the guests, the cake, the clothes, the catering, a complete ball ache if you ask me. Why can’t weddings just be simple anymore? You know, a quick and easy elopement?
Call me unromantic, but if you’re in love with someone and know that you want to spend the rest of your life with them, why be materialistic and garish? Why did it suddenly have to be what everyone else wanted? A fabricated display of affection for an eager crowd. Why couldn’t it just be about two people in a little registry office, gazing into each other’s eyes and making a promise to one another. I don’t know, to me, weddings nowadays were just reduced to show. Thankfully though, mum had only assigned us on cake-duty. For now, at least.
“You can use her name you know.” I mutter, growing peeved at Astrid’s evident distaste towards mum in the last few years.
“Oh I’m sorry,” she says, putting her pen down and looking up at me now with a devilish smirk, “Trust Maggie.”
I roll my eye both figuratively and literally. Mum used to practically worship the ground Astrid walked on, they were essentially best friends. But I guess as Astrid started to pull away from me in recent years and morphed into the version of herself that she is now, mum must have caught onto the change. Bear in mind, I don’t miss the snarky remarks mum makes about Astrid, I don’t enjoy it, but Astrid seems to play up to it, like ticking off my mum gets her high, and that’s why I don’t entertain it. She’s no better than her.
It had been a few days since mum announced the news, and Astrid had taken it upon herself to become even more overbearing than usual.
“At least mum told you during your school holidays, so you have time. I’ve had to book days off that I’d rather not use doing this, so you could be in a worse position. ”
She looks ready to erupt now, “Yes Theo, because I have this endless supply of school holidays where I’m doing absolutely nothing every day apart from lying in bed and sticking my finger in my arse. It’s not like I have tons of work to do.”
I feel the bitterness rising inside my chest now, “You get 6 weeks off Astrid, come off it! I haven’t had 6 weeks off since we were in school.”
She guffaws, “ This is what I’m talking about! You don’t get it. 6 weeks off does not mean 6 weeks off from work. I’ve got marking, lesson planning, cutting, sticking, endless shit to do. I maybe get one week of down time, that’s if I’m lucky.”
I audibly yawn, tired of the same fight. “And what for? The money is shit anyway.”
Standing up from the chair and stamping her feet firmly on the ground, she shrieks, “FOR THIS! To pay the bills, to pay the mortgage, to pay for food.” I swear I see tears start to pool in her eyes that immediately make me shiver with guilt, “sorry if the money I make ‘isn’t good enough’ for you Theo. I’m trying my best for us.”
“Astrid, you know I didn’t mean it like tha-”
“ Don’t!,” she shouts, cutting me off.
“You ask what it's all for?,” she lets out a dry laugh looking between the two of us, “I don’t even know anymore.”
◆◆ ◆
“Yes, but can you do it for Friday 20 th ?” She asks over the phone, impatiently tapping her fingers on the table.
Astrid had been on the phone to probably about fifteen different bakers over the afternoon, trying desperately to locate someone who could make a three tiered wedding cake in just over a week’s time. She’d tried a nicey-nice approach originally, hoping that she could sweet-talk someone into the task ahead, but came out with nothing. I could tell that she was losing her patience now though, she was doing that thing she always did where she started aggressively chewing her nails, hissing at the painful sensation. I knew this because she often did it with me whenever I was getting on her last nerve, which was most days. I prayed for whoever was on the receiving end of that line, they really didn’t want to face the wrath of an Astrid special.
“Oh my goodness, you’re a life saver Mark!” She sings, waving her hand around in the air, her smile reaching her eyes. I’d forgotten how soul-destroying that smile was. That beautiful smile I’d wished could be only for me.
Dramatically chucking her phone down on the side, she lets out a relieved exhale .
“Success?” I ask, warily.
“Three-tiered wedding cake, next Monday, check!” She jumps around on the spot, picking up a pen and swiping a huge satisfying tick on her notepad. For a moment there, I saw a glimmer of my Astrid. It sounded pathetic that my heart yearned for the woman she used to be, but I felt that it was warranted, she was still in there. She had all the zaniness and zest for life as she always did…just not for me it seemed.
Her smile squashing to a neutral expression as she turns to me, acting almost embarrassed that I saw her fleeting moment of excitement, she says firmly, “make sure you go and pick it up from The Hokey Cakey at 3:00pm on Monday.”
I snort, “ The Hokey Cakey? What sort of name is that.”
She puffs her cheek in annoyance, “The kind that’s going to make sure your mum has ‘the best day ever’ thanks to me, because of course, you were incapable of ringing anyone yourself.”
That’s how she was going to play it. “I rang the first time!,” I argue.
“Yeah, once , and then gave up. If we left it at that, Maggie wouldn’t even have a cake for her wedding and it would inevitably be my fault, of course not her precious little pumpkins .”
I could feel myself getting on the big old defence at that point.
“Oh, just give it a rest will you. Or I might not even bother going to pick it up at all if you’re going to be like that.”
Her eyes widen in horror, “I can’t get there, it’s in Surrey!”
“ Surrey?!” I add in shock. Surrey was literally over an hour away from us and I had work on Monday.
“That’s the only place that would do it for Monday Theo!,” she bellows. “You know I can’t drive there.”
I cross my arms now, “using me as your own personal taxi service as usual then? Don’t you think it’s about time you book your driving test?”
“We’re not going there.” She deadpans, frowning.
“I’m just saying- you’d be pretty buggered without me.”
I knew I shouldn’t. But I was like a dog to a bone, I just couldn’t help myself. It did piss me off that she literally expected me to just take time off work willy-nilly, she didn’t even attempt to book a bus that she could almost definitely get herself. But I knew that was a bridge that wasn’t even worth crossing at this point.
Shaking my head in exhaustion, I reply, “I’ll do it. But once I do, promise to stop moaning at me for the rest of the week, wedding included? I don’t want to ruin mum and dad’s day with pointless bickering.”
Astrid whips out a hand like she was ready to make a business deal but ended up sounding more like one of the children she teaches, “ You promise to stop moaning at me and it’s done.”
Opting for the easier route of a peace offering, I accept her hand and firmly shake it. “Done.”
I just hoped we could stick to it.