14
“Hello dear,” my mum says when I pick up her call.
“Hi mum,” I mutter, still sorting through my floordrobe and looking for a very specific pair of leggings to put on.
It’s just after midday and I’ve yet to do anything productive, mostly because I can’t find those leggings. Thankfully, I don’t have any actual deadlines today and I’m certain my boss doesn’t give a fuck. If he does, he doesn’t show it very well.
“How are you?” she asks, except it’s one of those questions my mum always asks where she kind of doesn’t need an answer, she just needs to check off the list that she asked me.
“Fine,” I reply. Like I’m actually going to tell her how I feel.
“I’m good too, thanks dear,” she retorts sarcastically.
I roll my eyes, even though she can’t see me and sit on my bed. “Sorry, I was hunting for a pair of leggings,”
“You know you’d be able to find things better if you stopped leaving everything on the floor,”
Honestly, I think she must have cameras in my flat. She hasn’t even been in this flat, but here she is, pointing out my flaws from the other end of the country.
“How did you even know I was looking on the floor?” I ask, squinting into the corners of the rooms to check for those cameras.
“I lived with you for eighteen years, Delaney,” she says, as if she truly is sick of me. She phoned me!!
I sigh, “Are you saying you don’t think I’ve changed?”
She chuckles, “I doubt it. You were always messy, your sister was the neat and tidy one,”
I roll my eyes again, wondering how many times I’m going to do that during this phone call.
Scarlett was always the one. No matter what it was, she was always the one. The clever one, the pretty one, the kind one, the one who could swim farthest, the one who kept her room clean, the one who could keep her boyfriend.
I don’t need my mum to say these things to me out loud. I am very aware. But it still hurts to hear. This isn’t even a bad one. It shouldn’t cut me deep that my mum thinks my sister was tidier than me, what does that even mean? Does it even matter? But after a lifetime of never being quite as good as my sister, even the smallest of digs hurt.
“So, what time will you be getting here?” she asks, very unaware that she just cut my soul one more time.
“Uh, we’ll be there around 6, I think, but Tilda wants to meet us at the pub, so we will probably just dump our stuff and go straight back out,” I say, still not fully engaging and still considering all of the ways I have never lived up to my sister in my life.
“Sorry, did you say we?” she asks.
That pulls me back in.
“Yeah,” I say tentatively. I remind myself I have been preparing for this. Emme has me psyched up.
“Who are you bringing? You haven’t mentioned anyone,” she says, and I can actually hear the frown in her voice. She’s the most overbearing mother in the world, and I’m going to need to be extremely clever to make her believe that I have been dating Miles for the five months we agreed on.
Very little gets by her. You can try your hardest not to tell her anything, but she is a master of dragging it out of you. So, even though it has never served me once to have her opinion on my life, she still knows everything about it. Guess I’m a sucker for punishment.
“Miles,” I say, “I’ve been seeing him a while and Tilda suggested I bring him,” I add. Tilda was manipulated into suggesting as such, she just doesn’t know it and never will.
Bow down to Emme’s marketing tactics.
“Who is Miles?” my mum asks with the air of a person trying to pretend she’s not interested. She can’t wait for me to spill. I can imagine her on the edge of her seat just waiting to get her claws into more gossip about my life .
“The guy I’ve been seeing,” I say, “Remember I told you he took me to that place that did the vegan fish and chips?” I ask innocently, as though I am not lying through my teeth.
The next step: mixing truth with lies. A guy did take me to a restaurant that did vegan fish and chips, but it wasn’t Miles, and that guy did not get a second date for reasons I don’t wish to disclose.
“Oh, I didn’t know that turned into anything,” she says, and I’m trying to work out whether she actually remembers that guy or is just pretending to.
“I wasn’t sure at the time,” I say, continually weaving like a fucking pro, “But recently it got more serious,”
She is silent for a moment and then she sighs, “Oh, that’s fantastic dear,” she says, “It will make it all less awkward for everyone now that you’re dating too. You know Caleb is going to be here with Nicole,”
“Yes, Mum, I know,” I say, trying not to show how much it irks me that she speaks about Nicole as if she’s an old family friend. I suppose she is; my mum has known Nicole since she started working in the Tesco at the corner of their road when she was sixteen. I do wish she didn’t talk about her with so much affection in her voice though. And if anyone feels awkward, shouldn’t it be Nicole? She was the other woman after all???
“Well, we’re going to be at a meal with Tilda’s family on the Friday evening before the rehearsal on the Saturday,” she says, “And with you both being in the wedding party, I wouldn’t want your awkwardness to override Tilda’s day,”
I roll my eyes for the third time wondering if they’ll get stuck that way soon. “It won’t, mum. And, anyway, it was Tilda’s idea that I bring him,”
Wouldn’t want everyone else to feel awkward, huh, mum? What about your fucking daughter who mostly wants to die when she thinks about the fact that she is going to have to stand opposite her ex and the girl he fucked behind her back—but go off.
“She probably wants to avoid the discomfort too,” my mum says, as if she and Tilda have already discussed this, “It would probably have made more sense to have Nicole as her bridesmaid with the amount of time they spend together these days, and the photographs would have so much symmetry with both the couples in them,” she adds.
I close my eyes, wondering if she’s ever going to stop, but she continues digging. The woman could dig through to the other side of the planet at the rate she’s going.
“Not that you won’t look lovely in the photographs too, dear,” she says, as though she’s realised what a fucked-up thing she just said, “But wouldn’t it have been lovely if you and Caleb had worked out. Your wedding photos would have matched,”
“Well, I guess he can match them with Nicole,” I say, pulling my legs up on my bed, dragging my laptop to me, and putting my phone on speaker. If I distract myself enough, I’ll want to die less.
“Oh no, I don’t think they’re ready for marriage yet,” she says, “Nicole is only twenty-six, you know. She’s finally applying to university too. She thinks she’s going to try to go to Manchester Met, like you, isn’t that funny,”
I roll my eyes again and they start to ache, “I went to the University of Manchester, Mum,” I say, as if that means anything to anyone other than Uni of Manchester Alum. And Nicole is not that much younger than me. What does only twenty-six mean? And why does being a year younger give her a free pass, but my mother has asked me when I’m going to settle down every Christmas since I was twenty-one?
“Oh yes,” she says, “Well, at least it’s close enough so she can commute. I think she thinks she and Caleb may break up if she moves there like you did,”
At this, my mouth falls open and I stare at the phone for a moment, wondering if my mum really does believe the reason Caleb and I ended is because I moved to the city thirty fucking minutes up the road and not because he stuck his dick in the girl she’s currently gushing over. You know, the girl who is probably worried that if she leaves Caleb at home to go to uni he might, oh I don’t know, fuck someone else. She, of all people, knows what he is like, surely.
“Are you still there, dear?” she asks, “I know it’s hard to hear about Nicole but she’s in our lives now, ”
I mean, she isn’t, is she? She’s in my mum’s life, and apparently Tilda’s life. But there is actually no real reason why my ex-boyfriend’s sidepiece should be in my life.
“Sure, Mum,” I mutter, opening a new tab on my browser and contemplating searching for ‘emancipation as an adult.’ “So, is there anything in particular you needed to tell me about the wedding, or were you just asking when we would arrive?”
“Oh no, dear,” she says, “I’m sure Tilda can keep you up to date,”
“Great, I’m going to go then,” I say, and before she can even take a breath I hang up and sigh for about two fucking hours trying to expel the negative energy my mum brings, even over the phone.
My phone buzzes and I grin when I see its Miles.
Miles : Anything to report?
Delaney : Just hung up. Nothing new. Think my mum might actually prefer Nicole (the ex’s new girlfriend) to me. It’s getting worse.
Miles : She talked to you about her?
Delaney : Oh, you’re not ready for the batshit crazy that is my family, honey.
Miles : I am excited.
Delaney : Only a sadist would be excited for the clusterfuck that next weekend is going to be .
Miles : Didn’t you tell me you liked sadistic, morally grey men?
Delaney : In romance novels. In real life, I need a Golden Retriever.
Miles : Or a man who knows about boobs going overboard?
Delaney : Or that.