Chapter 6
Lando
“It’s genius, is what it is,” Serasi says—keeps saying. Has only mentioned a few thousand times today.
Now that I’m faced with the prospect of it, I’m struggling to agree with her. The smell alone is triggering my fight-or-flight response. It smells like an unidentifiable slab of raw meat and BO got together and made a baby.
Go me.
Granted, I’ve been holed up in a dusty, musty, crack den of an office building for the entire week, but I’m certain that if I weren’t now a slave to the machine, I could quit spending any time.
“Yeah, there’s no milk powder. I made sure the caterers knew about your delicate baby tummy,” Daisy says, grabbing a potato on a stick. Yep, a potato on a stick. “You’re safe.”
“Am I, though?” I scoff, eyeing the monstrosity before me.
Viscous brown chicken-flavoured liquid bubbles out the top of a spout and cascades over a four-tiered system of platforms before collecting in a pool at the bottom to be pumped straight back to the top again.
It’s gravy. The chicken-flavoured liquid is gravy, and the bubbling tiered system is a chocolate fountain.
There are roast potatoes on kebab sticks to dunk in a gravy fountain, and I am in my own personal hell.
“Oh my god,” Daisy whines with her mouth full of half-masticated tuber.
“See, what did I say?” Serasi says, one hand cradling Daisy’s Chloé-clad hip and the other brandishing no fewer than six roasties, each on its own individual skewer. “Genius.” She offers me a potato, but I decline.
“My stomach hurts enough already. I think there was dairy in my pudding,” I say, even though the waiters gave the vegans and me a fruit salad instead of cheesecake like everyone else.
Daisy’s shaking her head. She swallows her food. “Lan, you had grapes and fucking melons. Dad and Mathias made sure you had separate everything, and there was no cross contamination, I can promise you.”
She has a tone with me now, and I don’t know when I became self-aware enough to notice it, but I don’t like it. The tone and the self-awareness.
I haven’t had a moment alone with Daisy today. She got ready with Serasi in her little flat above the pub, and while I adore that place, there’s no way in hell a three-thousand-pound Chloé gown should be hanging out in that damp, cramped bedsit.
I miss our usual GRWM sessions. I had everything set up this morning: the music on standby, the snacks, the champagne.
I’d prepped the mannequins ready for our outfits, cleaned the bathroom myself because it wasn’t Elaine’s day to come by, and laid out a selection of fragrances that would pair well with Daisy’s dress, the function vibes, and the general theme of love. I’d even chosen a scent for Serasi.
But at ten thirty, precisely half an hour after I’d assumed Daisy and her girlfriend would arrive, I received a text.
Quick question. Do I stick the tape to my tit, or do I stick it to the frock?
It had taken me a few moments to understand that this meant she was trying to get dressed herself, at her place.
In a three-thousand-pound Chloé dress! Literally should be illegal. Also, the use of the word “frock” is criminal. I texted back.
Come here and I’ll sort it out for you.
Sorry, I forgot to say that the wedding party has to meet outside Hookborough Hall at 11 to do some reveal photos before the ceremony. We’re getting dressed here because it’s quicker. See you at 12 xx
My heart had somersaulted into my stomach. So they weren’t coming here before the wedding. I was going to get dressed alone and make my way to the ceremony alone. All the things Daisy had promised wouldn’t change have in fact changed.
The tape goes on your boobs first.
Make sure your skin is clean and dry.
Then I’d thrown my phone onto the bed and not looked at it since. Instead, I’d slumped into my desk chair, booted up my laptop, and typed into Google “What the fuck am I doing with my life?”
Unsurprisingly, it didn’t yield any useful results, so I switched to my favourite guilty pastime of online stalking Harry Ellis.
I’d found a new news article published earlier in the week in which his name was only mentioned in the accompanying picture’s caption.
The headline of the article was something like, “Is it time for a shakeup at the Cents?” and the photo was of Harry—just Harry—standing in the centre of the pitch with his hands on his hips and a frown on his face as he looked off into the distance, probably at the goal posts.
I read the entire article in case it gave any specifics about the choice of picture, or of Harry. It didn’t, but I did spend an inordinate amount of time staring at it.
I hate you. I really, really hate you. Why did you do this to me?
“I genuinely have a stomach ache,” I lie, and Daisy gives me that look that lets me know she doesn’t believe it. “I’m just not hungry. I’m not about to stick a potato in a melting pot of dust particles and other people’s mouth germs and then put that in my mouth. Ew.”
“Orlando Oakham-Goodwin, you once told me you gave a BJ to a man who claimed to be Jesus,” Daisy argues.
“I wanted to see the second coming of Christ,” I counter. Behind Daisy’s back, Serasi snickers. “Besides, he gave me diamond earrings.”
“Which he probably stole.”
I shrug. “So? What’s your point?”
Daisy lets out a long sigh. “I don’t really have one. It’s just that it’s Dad’s wedding and you’ve been nothing but miserable all day. Can’t you at least pretend to be happy for him?”
“I am happy for him,” I say, but the words are weak, and diluted further as another crowd of potato munchers joins us beside the gravy fountain.
Okay, time to be honest, I guess. “I just . . . missed you this morning. I thought things would be like old times, you know. I made snacks and got drinks ready and . . .”
I want to tell her about my horrible new job, and my horrible new colleagues with their disgusting shoes, and even though I’ve been working there nine to five every day this week, I still haven’t got a fucking clue what I’m supposed to be doing.
That all I’ve done so far is watch hour after hour of training videos, and go to meetings where I’m expected to keep my mouth shut at all times, and that I’ve spent more of my working day on Oakham Industries’ toilet, than I have at my desk.
I want to tell her I’m sick of her one-word answers to my texts.
Things have happened to me this last week that I naively presumed would never happen, and I miss my friend. I miss her unwavering support. I miss her dismissing everyone else as a “stupid prick” and taking my side no matter what.
“I’m sorry I’ve not been around as much this week,” she says as though reading my thoughts.
Daisy looks over at Serasi. Serasi takes Daisy’s hand in hers and nods, and I feel my wedding breakfast pitch up my throat.
“Lan,” she begins.
“Nope,” I say, because I can guess what’s coming. Visions of last week float through my mind. Of Daisy and me in Harvey Nicks, of her telling me they were planning on getting their own place together.
“There’s something we need to tell you.” The tone of her voice lets me know they’re not planning on moving to Bath or Bristol. Fuck, Cambridge is so far away.
“No there’s not. There’s nothing you need to tell me.”
“Lan, please, we need to have a chat. You’ve been avoiding my calls all week, not replying to my texts.”
Because I’ve been at work. Working a stupid nine to five, like a good little cog in the big-man’s machine.
“Can we meet up tomorrow?” she says.
“No.”
“Lan?”
“No.”
“Orlando?”
“I said no.”
“Fuck’s sake, Lando. I can’t keep doing this.
I can’t keep walking on eggshells around you.
” She holds up a hand to stop me from interrupting.
Not that I had any plans to. “I deserve to be happy too. You don’t get to choose what I do with my life.
I need space . . . I need . . .” She puffs out a long sigh. “We’re moving.”
My brain freezes for a few seconds. “Please don’t do this now.” I’m very grateful I didn’t eat any communal stick-potato. “Where? Moving where?”
Please not Cambridge. Please not Cambridge.
Daisy doesn’t answer for what must be close to a full minute, and when she does, she whispers. “Edinburgh—”
“What?!”
“It’s not like I want to move that far away from you, but . . . for now that’s where the best opportunity is.”
The marquee floor spins dangerously beneath my feet.
“For Serasi, not you. You can’t be thinking of going all that way just for her .
. . that can’t be true.” Scotland? My face is burning, eyes prickling with building tears.
Daisy’s on the brink of crying too, and Serasi looks shell-shocked. “I can’t deal with this right now.”
“Lan, please. Let’s just talk about it,” she begs.
There are no words. I shake my head in response and blink back the pain searing through my airways.
“When, then? When can we talk?” she pleads.
“Email me,” I say. It’s what my father said to me after Mum died. I was thirteen, and distraught.
“Email you? Fuck’s sake, Lan. Please—”
I don’t let her finish that sentence. “I need the toilet,” I say, pushing her out of the way and running through the marquee.
I’m not aware of my surroundings, can’t tell who’s witnessing my demise, but thankfully I don’t see Harry Ellis anywhere.
As expected, the house is deathly quiet. The catering staff are packing up and cleaning, getting ready to disappear into the night. I head straight to my room but falter as I reach the top of the stairs and hear Tim Gunn’s voice floating down to me. Wait, did I leave my TV on?
Twenty years of sneaking about has taught me which floorboards are creaky. I pull my boots off, and like a cat that’s also a ballerina, I slip soundlessly into my bedroom.
My closet door’s open, and inside, staring at my perfume collection whilst drinking my father’s wine straight from the bottle is . . . him.