Chapter Three
Chapter Three
Before I can come to terms with what I’ve agreed to, Frannie is sending me daily emails with links and schedules. I’m suddenly expected to have an opinion on cake flavours, and what shade of caramel suit Theo would look best wearing. The venue at least is a no-brainer, Frannie’s family is Spanish on her Father’s side, and her grandparents live in a beautiful apartment in Mijas Pueblo, a small town in the municipality of Mijas, pronounced ‘Mee-has’, set into the heights of the Andalusian mountains, looking out over the Mediterranean Sea. A family friend runs a hotel a short drive outside the town.
‘That’s why our guests won’t have to pay too much.’ Frannie had explained, ‘Theo and I have our own savings and both sets of parents are contributing. I’m wearing my Abuela’s wedding dress so we’re only paying to have it altered a little. The wedding itself will be in a little local chapel, and the reception is in a local hotel where the guests can stay. I’ve spoken to my parents and you’ll be staying with me at my grandparents’ house, so there’ll be no charge at all for you.”
The fact that I don’t have to pay is both a relief and a source of anxiety. It removes the best excuse I have. I am officially going to the wedding. I will have to see George again. When Frannie left the house after visiting I had gone up to bed and allowed myself to imagine a few scenarios in which I was still able to avoid it. I considered falling ill at the last minute, or having a family emergency just as I was setting off to the airport. But I feel stupid even thinking about it. I start to irritate myself. That I would seriously consider missing my best friend’s wedding out of embarrassment is ridiculous. It occurred to me after Frannie had left Adam and Jay”s house, that George may not even remember what I had said to him. It had been ten years ago, and I hadn’t seen him since. I had made sure of it. More than that, he might not remember me at all. It is likely that Frannie has brought me up in conversation intermittently, but if he hasn’t seen me in a decade, I’ve probably faded from his mind. Perhaps if he has completely forgotten me, we have the chance to meet again, this time as two adults, rather than a lovestruck teenager and a bewildered twenty-year-old. We could become friends, and I could finally stop worrying about what might happen when I see him again.
I lie in bed taking heart from this thought and, when I reply to Frannie’s latest deluge of links the next morning, I feel a flutter of genuine excitement for the first time since the invitation arrived on my doorstep.Full of warm feelings, when Frannie asks me for a song to put on the playlist for the reception, I suggest Meet Me at Midnight, the Star Girlz hit from our childhood, that we had danced to together so many times.
That takes me back! she replies as we message back and forth. I wonder if I still remember the routine…
If you do, you have to do it on the dance floor in your wedding dress!
Only if you do it with me!
Though Frannie and I had never truly fallen out of one another’s lives, it feels good to suddenly be speaking regularly again. We had spent a few years only catching up about big things, and the fresh wedding discussions lead us back to our old talking points; her family’s habits, songs and books we’re enjoying, and what our old school friends are doing now. Just a few weeks later Frannie invites me to Mijas.
‘We need to see the priest, and have some discussions about the venue,’ she says, as we sit in narrow wicker chairs outside a small coffee shop with a takeaway cup each. ‘But it’ll also be nice to have a little break up there together with my family. It’s so peaceful. The town is beautiful, this little village in the mountains. We’ve got a flight to get there in the afternoon, but there’s a later flight closer to you, so you may as well take that and we’ll collect you at the airport once we’ve picked up the car. We’ll be there before dinner.’
‘How much are the tickets?’ I say, but Frannie interrupts me before I’ve finished.
‘You’re not paying anything!’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Of course! It’s all budgeted for. It’s part of the wedding preparations. It’s going to be so much fun. Nisha hasn’t seen you for ages either! She asked if you still had the pink ombre hair from your graduation photos.’
Nisha is Frannie’s sister, and the eldest child of the family, two years older than George. I had known of her before she had known me, an effortlessly cool and unflappable teenager who was always winning certificates and prizes for spelling competitions and chess club, and she had stayed that way as long as I had known her. Sharp and collected, but a little cold, without the fierceness of her younger sister, or the warm glow of her brother.
‘Is the rest of your family coming too?’
‘Everyone but George.’ she says, ‘He’s staying behind because his girlfriend is having some big work event.’
If I didn’t know Frannie as well as I do, that sentence would have sounded completely innocuous, but there’s a slight exaggeration in the way she says girlfriend that my brain picks up, even if my ears don’t quite register it.
‘I didn’t even know he had a girlfriend,’ I say, as neutrally as I can, ‘that’s how long I’ve been away.’
‘Oh yes, it’s not been that long but she’s coming to the wedding as his plus one. He’s even paying for her flights and their hotel room when we told him he doesn’t need to.’ She scoffs, unimpressed.
‘What a terrible person,’ I joke.
‘He’s just too nice for his own good,’ Frannie says.
‘That’s how I remember him too.’ I say. I work hard, perhaps a little too hard, to keep my voice level and expressionless, because Frannie looks at me. I take a sip of my coffee to give myself something to do, and think of something to distract her.
‘How is Theo feeling about it all?’ I ask, inspiration hitting. ‘He’s never been out there has he?’
‘It will be overwhelming for him, it always is. But it’s a good chance for him to get to know that side of the family. He came to Jaipur to meet Mum’s parents last year, but he’s never met my grandparents on Dad’s side’
‘Have you met his?’
‘I have, they took us to Osaka where they grew up last year, and they met us in Japan after we got engaged. They’re lovely, but much calmer and quieter than I’m used to. I’m a bit worried my family are going to scare them. My plan is for them to meet Nisha and George in the next few months, so they get used to the most normal people, and then I’ll slowly ease the rest of them in.’
I take off the needed days from the stationery shop from my untouched annual leave, and soon I’m packing the most weather-appropriate clothes I have and trying to choose which book to read on the plane: a chunky thriller novel or an elegant philosophical novel, translated from French. I decide that this is a good chance to meet the rest of Frannie”s family before seeing George again, but that when I do, he will barely remember me. I decide that this is a fresh start for us both and that the wedding, instead of a terrifying ordeal, is a chance to shake off the ghosts of that one single event that I have allowed to steal precious moments of my life. I pack both books. I lie in bed the night before the flight, trying not to feel the nerves unspooling in my chest, to feel only excitement. I have barely closed my eyes before my alarm goes and I must leave for the airport in the grey morning.
I leave a cold, gloomy London spitting with rain, and when I step out at the other end of my journey it’s as if I’ve flown to a different universe. The weather is glorious, an expanse of blue sky that makes me feel small and humble, and the warm gentle wind cups my face like a childhood sweetheart. As I leave the glass doors at the front of the airport I see Frannie in a sand-coloured dress and wide sunhat, standing with an obnoxiously large piece of paper on which she has scrawled ”HYDRANGEA”.
‘I’m not responding to that,’ I say, feigning walking past her.
‘Oh come on, I had this massive sign, “Hydie” would have been too short.’
‘Can I see this?’ I say, reaching for the sign. Frannie hands it to me and, before she can stop me, I crumple the sign and stuff it into a nearby bin.
‘No fun,’ Frannie laughs, ‘come on, Nisha’s got the car parked up here.’
We reach a dusty silver hire car, and Frannie takes my bags and puts them in the trunk.
‘Hi, Hydie. How’ve you been?’ Nisha smiles at me from the driver’s seat as I get into the back with Frannie.
‘I’m okay,’ I say back. ‘How are you? Long time no see.’
Bizarrely, she looks almost unchanged. Her brows are stronger and the hair that used to live in a long sleek ponytail has been cut to just above her shoulders, but like Frannie, she is instantly recognisable as the same person I knew ten years ago.
‘Hello,’ another voice says from the front passenger seat, and a small tanned face looks round at me. It’s a little girl, with round eyes, long, light-brown hair and an earnest, heart-shaped face.
‘This is Lila,’ Nisha says, ‘my daughter.’
Frannie often talked about her niece so I wasn’t surprised to meet this new-to-me addition to the Flores family.
‘Hello,’ I wave.
‘You’re Hydie,’ she says, ‘Auntie Frannie’s friend.’
‘I am. Nice to meet you.’
‘Lila’s going to be my flower girl,’ Frannie says, ‘do you want to tell Hydie about the dress we’ve just picked for you Lila?’
We continue on in the pleasant but slightly stilted conversation one has with an eight-year-old as Nisha starts the car. After a long drive through a flat, dry landscape we begin to ascend through the mountains and I glimpse stretches of a clear, bright sea between the trees that line our route.
As we wind around the roads, the town of Mijas Pueblo comes into view, nestled into the mountains like a sleeping cat. I see clusters of creamy white buildings and terracotta-coloured roofs arranged in haphazard streets, occasional pools and patches of green grass are studded through the town, like gems set into plaster. Nisha parks at the hotel which sits a few miles from the town like a huge glittering beetle with its glass windows reflecting the sunlight. From there we walk along a long path up the mountain, wheeling our cases and carrying our bags, until we reach the town. We walk through narrow cobbled streets lined with gleaming white houses until, partway up the incline of the town, we reach a street where Lila points at one of the buildings. She runs ahead and I watch the flash of pink as the soles of her trainers smack against the dusty driveway.
‘You didn’t bring much.’ Frannie says, taking the bag from me and swinging it over her shoulder. I don’t reply, but follow her silently towards her Grandparent’s house which is similar to most of the buildings in Mijas, with the same wide white walls and orange tiled roof. It makes me think of a large, glamorous woman in a white sundress and straw hat. I imagine Mijas Pueblo as a summer party full of these giantesses, all dressed to impress, who’ve accidentally arrived in the same outfit and are deciding to make the best of it. Along the length of the building is a balcony, guarded with a railing of thin black iron, and leaning against it are a tall older man with dark curls, and a younger, shorter man in a polo shirt with straight black hair, who I recognise as Theo. The younger man grins as he sees his fiancée walking up the driveway, and Frannie’s father waves as we approach. The men turn to go down the stairs in the house to greet us.
The area by the front door is scattered with flowerpots, all painted in glossy jewel-coloured tones, teal and amber and scarlet. Closer to the house I see a small grey cat slinking between the pots and, just a few metres behind it, Lila trying to edge her way towards it, her eyes wide and her lips pressed together in concentration.
‘Lila!’ Nisha shouts sharply. The cat bolts, disappearing over the garden wall. ‘What have I told you about chasing her?’
Lila stands and stamps her foot, crossing her arms petulantly.
‘I nearly had her. Why did you do that?’
‘Because that cat doesn’t want you bothering her. That’s why she runs away.’
The girl looks longingly at the spot at the top of the wall where the cat”s tail has whipped out of sight. ‘But she’s so cute. I just want to stroke her head.’
Nisha shakes her head and carries on walking.
‘That poor cat. It lives with the family across the road. It was having a fuss-free life before we all showed up, and any time Lila’s here it doesn’t get a second to itself.’
The noise of talking and activity spills out through the door before we can step inside. The front room, though reasonably large, is rendered cramped by the sheer volume of people inside it. At least fifteen men and women of all ages sitting on sofas, on chairs clearly taken from other areas of the house and placed wherever there is room. A few people standing on the patio in the back having flung open the doors to make more space. A loud cry of delight comes from a tiny elderly lady who sets eyes on Frannie and begins to get up from her chair. Frannie calls to her in Spanish and runs over, saving her from getting up by enveloping her in a big hug. The family descends on us, fawning over Lila, taking Frannie’s hand and holding up the ring, embracing Nisha and speaking to me in different levels of English all at the same time, so that I cannot hear the words I understand over those that I don’t.
Through the sea of people steps a beautiful, curvy Indian woman in a green dress, with long black hair that, since I last saw her, has become threaded with grey. Frannie’s mother beams at me and opens her arms wide. The clinking sound of her bracelets is like the smell of a house I once lived in, the memories flooding back. I gladly step forward and embrace her as her arms fold around me.
‘It has been too long my darling,’ she says, and I have the surprising feeling that I’m going to cry. Sameera calls her younger daughter over from the group and holds each of our hands.
‘How lovely to see you two together again,’ she says, ‘Frannie please take Hydie upstairs, her room is on the left next to yours.’
‘Next to mine? I thought we were giving Hydie the front bedroom?’
‘We were, but that room has a desk and George needs it to work from.’
I feel like I am being thrown forward, as though the world has stopped spinning suddenly beneath my feet.
‘George is here?’ I say, trying to keep my voice level. Sameera smiles.
‘Of course, you two won’t have seen one another in years! Yes, wonderfully his plans were cancelled. He didn’t have time to take leave from work so he’s up there on calls. But he’ll be down for dinner. Speaking of which,’ Sameera looks over her shoulder at where Lila is holding the hems of her dress and spinning while her family adores her, ‘you’ll both be needed to help with dinner. Feel free to take a few minutes for yourselves but be back down for seven.’
Frannie leads me back to where we brought our things.
‘Nisha and Lila are staying at my aunt and uncle’s a little way away,’ she says, ‘so we’ll leave their luggage here.’
We take our bags and walk up narrow steps to the second floor, with a long carpeted landing and several doors.
‘You’re here next to me,’ Frannie pushes a door open, white with small blue flowers painted on it, ‘shall I knock for you in five minutes? It’s always chaos making food but hopefully we can just find a corner and chop things.’
I step into my room, hearing her knock gently on a door further down the hallway and say a casual hello. A muffled male voice calls out in reply. All of a sudden the panic returns. I had come to terms with seeing George eventually, but, all of a sudden, eventually has become today, with no time to prepare.
In spite of myself, I take a look in the small mirror sitting on the windowsill, looking at my skin, dehydrated from the flight and my hair, somehow both unkept and flat. I pull a hairbrush and some moisturiser from my bag and try to wrangle myself back into a presentable person before starting to organise my things. The room is snug but comfortable, with the same faded pistachio-green carpet and dark, wooden furniture as the rest of the house. I unpack my clothes on the small double bed, laying my things out on the crisp white bedding with old-fashioned detailing, before finding them a place in the narrow wardrobe and slightly sticking chest of drawers. I set out my one bottle of perfume, tinted lip balm and books on the bedside table. I take off my clothes and put on a pretty blue sundress, before changing my mind and putting my jeans back on, pulling on a clean white blouse, and meeting Frannie back at the top of the stairs.