Dominic
Have you ever watched one of those films, intended to be amusing, where the main character makes a series of agonising blunders while you’re shouting, ‘No one would ever do that, you fucking idiot,’ and it makes the whole thing borderline unwatchable?
That’s exactly what’s happened in my real life this week.
On Tuesday I realised that it was Stella’s kid’s first birthday party on Saturday afternoon.
And while I don’t have any huge yen to hang out with a baby, I haven’t seen Stella much since our night at hers and I miss her.
She’s been half-hearted over messages and I want to catch up.
Plus she’s about to go back to work so who knows when she’ll be around to hang out again, and I want to see if her sister is as great as she sounds because maybe that’ll be the one woman who can convert me to commitment.
(Joking, mostly.) So, I write STELLA BIRTHDAY PARTY on a Post-it and put it on my fridge, which functions as my diary.
On Wednesday, Florrie came over. You can see where this is going, I’m sure.
She arrived on my doorstep carrying a bunch of tiny white flowers, wearing denim shorts so short that they were basically pants, and I almost melted.
We went inside and shagged for two hours, at which point she was understandably parched and went to the fridge to get a bottle of water, while I was half asleep and gloriously post-coital.
She came back to bed and slid herself under my arm, breathing gently, smelling like maple syrup and vanilla. ‘When’s Stella’s party?’ she asks.
If she had asked literally any other question, I could have got out of it.
What kind of party? Where’s Stella’s party?
Is it Stella’s birthday party? Any of those, easy.
But when is a complete nightmare. I rack my brains trying to work out whether there’s a day she’s mentioned some unmissable plan so that I can pretend I think it’s then, and then backtrack later.
But with Florrie, nothing’s ever concrete – she’s a human manifestation of a summer breeze.
‘It’s on Saturday,’ I say, my chest contracting.
Florrie says nothing. She’s not stupid. I mean she’s literally not stupid, she’s got a degree in French and Spanish from UCL, but she also takes courses in psychology from the Yale distance learning program and reads lots of books about how people’s brains work so I assume she knows that silence is a powerful tool.
I also know that silence is a powerful tool and yet it works on me, completely.
‘It’s on Saturday,’ I say, the words spilling out. ‘It’s not her party, it’s actually for her daughter.’
‘She has a daughter?’
‘Yes,’ I say, realising that I’ve been really very parsimonious with the data. ‘She’s called Rose and she’s going to be one on Saturday.’
Florrie wrinkles her nose. ‘And you’re going to the party?’
‘She’s having a load of friends along; first birthday parties are usually more about the parents than the kids, honestly.’
‘Oh,’ she says. And then she asks the question that I knew she was going to ask, that I was completely and utterly dreading. ‘Can I come?’
I try to say no. In fact, I do say no. The first thing I say is, ‘No! Florrie, you’ll hate it. You’re far too. . .’ And then I trail off, trying to find a better word than ‘cool’, and totally fail. ‘It’s not your scene,’ I venture. ‘You don’t seriously want to go to a kids’ party?’
I realise that asking the question is my major mistake, because now I’ve basically given her the option.
‘I want to go where you go.’ She smiles, running her hands over my chest. This obviously isn’t really true because she wanted to go to a squat rave last week where I very much wasn’t. But there’s clearly no way through this. I’m going to have to say yes, then just cancel at the last minute.
‘Sure,’ I say, my voice several pitches higher than usual. ‘That would be great.’
To make things worse, my cancelling-last-minute plan is scuppered when she stays over the night before and wakes up next to me.
I consider suggesting that we sack the party off, but that would let Stella down.
And I consider faking an illness, but that’s getting into a new frontier of deceit that I just can’t bring myself to broach.
So that’s how I found myself in the back of an Uber, Florrie wearing a sheer, pink cotton dress, which entirely shows both of her nipples, me holding a huge, pink unicorn toy with a bow on it.
‘Hey,’ I say, as we turn onto Stella’s street and I’ve left it until the absolute last possible moment.
‘Just to say, I don’t think her friends and family know that we’re occasionally.
. .’ I search for the word. ‘I think her friends and her family think she’s not.
. .’ I’m really hoping Florrie is going to jump in at some point.
‘No one knows that she’s been seeing me, so can we just keep things really light and not mention it? ’
Florrie looks worried. ‘That’s so sad. Why don’t her family know?’
‘Because she’s just had a baby and she doesn’t want them judging her for getting laid, I’d imagine.’
She looks even more worried. ‘I really don’t like bringing deception into my dynamics.’
‘I know that,’ I say, as we pull up outside the house.
There are balloons on the door and the front lawn has been mown.
She must have hired a gardener. I’d have done that for her, if she’d asked.
‘’I know that,’ I say, feeling like I’m negotiating with a terrorist. ‘But we have to do no harm, right? Our dynamic has to stay transparent, but she hasn’t consented to being outed as open, so we should respect that, right? ’
Using ethical non-monogamy babble seems to work so those TikToks I watched have clearly paid off.
‘You’re right,’ she says. ‘We should uphold her right to disclose as she feels ready.’
I breathe a sigh of relief and tap my phone to give the driver a massive tip as we approach the door.
‘Dom!’ Stella says, opening the door, obviously shocked to see us. She’s wearing a blue dress and she’s got Rose on her hip. Rose looks bigger. How can she be that much bigger in six weeks? ‘Hello!’ she adds, obviously trying to pretend that she knew I was coming. ‘And this must be Florrie?’
Her recall is impressive. She goes to give Florrie a hug, and Florrie half flinches as Rose reaches out one, probably sticky, hand to touch her hair.
‘Baby!’ Rose says.
‘Sorry.’ Stella laughs. ‘She can only say “baby” and “dog”, so that’s actually a compliment.’
I look at Florrie, waiting for her to respond. She doesn’t. She looks at me, then at Rose, then at Stella, then at me again.
‘How was the journey?’ Stella asks.
‘Fine,’ says Florrie.
‘Good,’ I say. ‘I mean we should really have walked, it’s like twenty minutes, but, you know.’
‘Sure,’ she says. ‘I’m going to get some ice for the Pimms, everyone’s in the garden, you know where things are – Florrie, the loo is that way – and help yourself to anything. There’s a beige buffet but there’s other bits in the fridge if you’re hungry, plenty of vegetarian and vegan stuff.’
‘I’m not a vegetarian. Or a vegan,’ Florrie says sharply.
‘Sorry!’ Stella says, flushing. ‘I must have confused you with someone else.’
We go out into the garden and I take a beer, grateful that Stella’s the kind of person who serves alcohol at a children’s party. Florrie pours herself a very large glass of rosé and puts her hand into mine, for the first time ever. Is she nervous? She’s never struck me as socially inept before.
‘Are you okay?’ I ask.
‘Yes,’ she says. She takes out a pouch of tobacco and starts to roll a cigarette. A group of other parents standing at the far side of the garden look at me. ‘I don’t know if this is a smoking— I mean, I’m not sure you can. . .’
‘We’re outside?’ she says, with ice in her voice.
‘I know but there are kids everywhere,’ I say, once again feeling like she’s about to blow up a building if I don’t say the right thing. She puts the rollie back into her bag.
‘I don’t like kids,’ she says.
Right. I’m not really sure what to do with that statement because we’re at a child’s birthday party, which she specifically asked to attend. ‘I get that,’ I say. ‘I’m not, like, a huge devotee of them myself.’
She looks up at me, the freckles on her nose starker because she looks paler than usual. ‘Can we go?’
I look around. ‘I don’t think we can leave right now. Why don’t we do an hour and then we can go? There’s a really nice pub up the road; I’ll buy you an ice cream on the way.’
She half smiles. ‘Okay.’
A woman who looks a lot like Stella, and weirdly also nothing like Stella, approaches us with a plate of snacks. ‘Do you guys want one?’ she asks, holding them out with a flourish. ‘They’re all organic and kid-friendly with no salt so they’re obviously horrible.’
I laugh. Florrie does not.
‘I’m Dom,’ I say. ‘Are you the sister?’
‘I am,’ Louella says. ‘Nice to meet you. You must be the handyman! We love you – you’ve saved Stel a fortune. I don’t suppose you make house visits a bit further afield? I’ve got a picture that needs hanging. . .’
‘Sorry,’ I say. ‘Needy single mums are the only clients I take on.’
‘Classic,’ Louella replies. ‘That bitch gets all the luck.’
I laugh again. Florrie doesn’t, again, which seems to alert Louella to her being there.
‘Sorry, I’m so rude. I’m Louella, most people call me Lou. Are you Dom’s girlfriend?’
‘Yes,’ Florrie says.
‘Dom’s been such an angel to Stella,’ Louella says. ‘You’ve got a good one.’
Florrie says nothing.
‘I love your dress – it’s dreamy.’ Louella soldiers on, unbothered by carrying the conversation apparently. ‘Where’s it from?’
‘It’s vintage,’ Florrie replies.
‘Love that – where did you find it? I feel like all my go-to places are so barren for good stuff at the moment, just like wall-to-wall old Zara.’
‘I don’t really like to share where I source my pieces,’ Florrie says, smiling. ‘Otherwise they get too popular.’
I might not have two X chromosomes but even I can tell that this is a bad thing for one woman to say to another woman.
‘Right,’ Louella says with a smile. ‘Well, I should try to force these horrible snacks on some other victims. Have fun.’
I watch Louella go and wish I’d made a better impression, or at least any impression.
‘Who is that?’ Florrie asks.
‘Stella’s sister. Rose’s aunt.’
‘Oh.’
Florrie surveys the party with a look of distaste. ‘How long do we have to stay?’
I try to look like I don’t think this is a staggeringly rude question.
‘Uh, another half hour or so.’ I want to add that I’d imagine everyone is probably going to be keen for us to leave because we’re standing in the corner talking to each other and being rude to anyone who does attempt to make conversation with us.
But I don’t. I increasingly think this might be my final date with Florrie so it’s probably incumbent upon me to see it out with good grace, so she doesn’t pay an internet witch to put a curse on me, or start an Instagram account about what a bad man I am.
At the other side of the garden, Stella is sitting on a striped rug, eating a cupcake messily.
She laughs and wipes her hand on the rug, then feeds Rose a tiny bit of icing.
They’re in their own little world, those two.
I’m not sure it would much matter if any of the rest of us weren’t here and yet, somehow, I’d really like to be sitting on that rug with them.
Stella says something that I don’t hear and everyone laughs, and I wish I knew what she’d said.
Twenty minutes later, we’ve had a stilted conversation with another couple who’ve brought a baby.
They met Stella and Gavin through something called Bump and Baby, which seems to be a sort of training programme for new parents.
They talk about Gavin as if he died in a terrible accident instead of bailing because he’s a twat.
Florrie answers questions about what she does for a living (student), all of which make her sound like she’s about twenty-one and make me sound like a complete pervert.
‘Shall we go?’ I ask Florrie.
‘Sure,’ she says.
I hug Stella tightly as I say goodbye. ‘You’ve done an amazing job.’
‘Turns out kids’ parties are a doddle, just balloons and unlimited carbs.’
‘I meant more generally,’ I say quietly.
Florrie is waiting by the front door and it’s unreasonable to keep her waiting.
‘This whole thing, your mum-ing. You’re a rockstar.
’ I kiss her on the forehead and then follow Florrie out into the street.
She starts striding in the direction of the nice pub I bribed her with earlier.
I barely talk on the way there because I’m replaying the party and the weekend, and also trying to convince myself that I don’t have to break up with Florrie because I could probably just be busy and avoidant, and let her get the message at a distance. But then she surprises me.
We sit down outside the pub. I get her a glass of wine and me a pint, and she rolls a cigarette. ‘I’m sorry,’ she says.
‘For what?’
‘For being shit, at the kids’ party.’
This is a genuine surprise. ‘You weren’t that bad,’ I lie.
‘I was rude. Or at least, I seemed rude. I find stuff like that really hard, I can’t work out what to say to people like that.’
‘People like what?’
‘Kid people.’
‘Oh,’ I say, processing this.
She shakes her head. ‘I don’t like kids, don’t want them, and places like that freak me out.
I don’t know what to ask and it’s just like, standing inside this whole life that I really, deeply don’t want to have, and I freak out that I’m going to tell someone how much I hate it, so I say the wrong thing.
Or I say nothing and then everyone thinks I’m horrible. ’
I want to tell her that she didn’t seem horrible, but we’d both know that was a lie. ‘Why did you want to come?’ I ask gently.
‘I wanted to meet Stella,’ she says, fiddling with her lighter.
At this point I feel very, very bad. Because I should now tell her that there was a misunderstanding, and Stella and I are just mates who’ve snogged once and nearly snogged a second time.
‘I get that,’ I hear myself say. ‘That makes sense.’
‘Maybe we could all get dinner together sometime,’ she says. ‘Talk about non-kid stuff.’
The idea of telling Stella, even if we were in some mystical polyamorous set-up, that we couldn’t talk about Rose over dinner makes me feel weirdly defensive of her.
‘Sure,’ I say. ‘At some point, let’s talk about doing that.’
She looks happier, which makes me feel less guilty, even though it absolutely shouldn’t.
‘Do you want another one?’ She gestures at our almost empty glasses. It’s the first time she’s ever offered to buy me a drink and it feels churlish to refuse.
‘Sure,’ I say. ‘That would be lovely.’