Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Sixteen
I see the text from George that night on my phone an hour before I answer it. Once I’ve read it I put my phone down and have a bath, using a bubble mix that I have been saving since Christmas, deciding that I deserve a ‘Lavender Sugar Cookie’ scented treat. I put together a salad lunch of green beans and fresh pasta, tossed with feta, lemon and walnuts and eat with Jay and Adam, who studiously avoid asking how I am. Then I sit on the sofa in my pyjamas and open my messages.
Hey, just dropping a message to say I’m so sorry for last night. If there’s any way I can make it up to you let me know xx
I had been expecting the text. Could have predicted the wording even. And so I reply, having decided what I would say hours beforehand.
Hi. It’s all good, don’t worry about it. See you at the wedding if I don’t before x
And then I turn my attention away. Frannie has replied to my message, so we arrange to meet for dinner after work later in the week. When that evening comes around I finish up at the stationery shop and take the overground to the apartment building where Frannie lives with Theo.
When I get there Frannie buzzes me into the building and I take the lift up and follow the corridor round as per her instructions. She opens the door before I knock and pulls me in for a hug. I hug her back and she leads me into her home. I’d visited her flat a few times before, but she’s redecorated since. The walls of her living room are cream, with a dark green couch and several vases of flowers on the coffee table, windowsill and cabinets. I find myself looking at a tall clay vase with fresh peonies in it. For a moment I can’t tell why it’s caught my attention, but then realise with a jolt that it’s the same vase that George had beside his couch. The blue and white vase filled with the fern plant.
‘It’s nice isn’t it?’ Frannie says, in an uncanny echo of George. ‘Our aunt Patricia, you met her in Mijas, bought matching ones for me and the siblings. It was sort of a joke about how we would always fight as children if she bought us different presents, but actually, they suit all of our homes even though we put different things in them.’
‘What does Nisha put in hers?’ I ask.
‘She loves baby’s breath. I think the last time I went to her place she had a bouquet of it with gladioli and statice. She likes flowers that look like they’re spraying into the air. I like a more solid, chunky look.’ She reaches out and gently pets the tops of the pink peonies as though they are little pets. ‘And I think George has some big green leafy things. Ferns? Something manly.’
I change the subject. ‘Does Theo want any help in the kitchen?’
‘He’ll be fine.’ Frannie says, ‘We’ll say hello then leave him to it. I’ve got a surprise for you.’
I follow her into the spacious kitchen where Theo is peeling the rind from a lemon into neat curls next to a pot of bubbling pasta sheets.
‘Hey Hydie.’ he says to me without looking up.
‘You’re so good at that.’ Frannie says. ‘I always get that bitter pith underneath.’ She opens a cupboard door and reaches to the top shelf, pulling down three highball glasses.
‘It’s a school night and Theo needs to be up early, so we can’t go crazy.’ She says placing them on the counter and retrieving a tray of ice from the freezer. ‘But I was thinking we could do mocktails.’
She mixes lemon juice, cucumber water and seltzer, pouring it over ice and garnishing with the rinds of lemon peel that Theo has coiled into thin, bright spirals.
When we have our drinks I follow Frannie up her stairs, treading softly on her pale grey carpet, walking across her landing to the room she shares with Theo. I almost laugh at how perfectly Frannie it is. The walls are a pale lilac, the bedding deep violet, the wardrobe and bedside tables minimal and Venetian, matching a huge vanity with a mirror and wingbacked chair, scattered with nail polish bottles, skincare and perfume. The whole room sparkles.
‘What?’ she asks, clearly reading my expression as I cast my eyes around.
‘Does Theo sleep here too or…?’
‘Oh, don’t,’ she rolls her eyes, ‘He has a study where he works which is full of sports memorabilia, and a gaming room which is a shrine to every film and TV franchise he cares about. Trust me he’s all good. I’m the one who needs to keep one room as a sanctuary.’
She takes my drink and puts both glasses down on coasters on the bedside table.
‘This is why I brought you up here.’ She opens the wardrobe and reaches for a zip-up suit bag. ‘I was going to bring it to Nisha’s barbecue but this will do. I need you to try this on.’
I stifle a gasp as she opens the bag and carefully pulls out a bridesmaid dress. It’s a soft, pale seafoam green, a wrap dress in a satin material that catches the light as Frannie holds it by the hanger and turns it around for me.
‘What do you think?’ she asks. ‘I think it will really suit you.’
‘It’s perfect.’ I reach out to touch my fingertips to the fabric, cautiously, as though worried I’ll stain it.
‘Try it on,’ Frannie says, holding out the hanger for me to take from her. ‘I just need to know if we need a different size or if it needs to be altered.’
Frannie drapes it across my outstretched arms and I carry the dress like a princess to her bathroom. Gently and carefully I take off the jeans and top I arrived in and step into the dress. Frannie’s bathroom mirror only shows my head and shoulders, and I stare at my reflection, wishing I had done my hair, the blonde waves messy against the beautiful fabric and the delicate neckline.
Frannie makes a high-pitched noise, very unlike her, as I step out of the bathroom.
‘Look at you Hydie, you look gorgeous.’ She jumps up and turns her full-length mirror towards me. Frannie has always had exquisite taste, and the dress is no exception. I can feel the high quality of the fabric, of the cut and stitching, from the way it sits so neatly against my body. The colour brings out the cool, blush tones of my skin, making me look brighter and fresher. The simple sweetheart neckline and short floaty sleeves frame the top of my figure, while the skirt expands into light Grecian pleating that grazes my shins.Frannie gets up and pulls my hair off my shoulders and lifts it into a coil at the nape of my neck.
‘I’m thinking with your hair like this,’ she says, taking a finger and looping a thin strand of hair from my forehead out so it drifts down into a single curl. ‘I think you’ll look perfect.’
For a brief moment, my treacherous mind wonders what George would think if he saw me, what he will think when he sees me. The thought is unwelcome, a match lighting in a cluttered room, and I snuff it out before anything else catches light. It is not important what my friend’s brother thinks about me. It is important that Frannie is happy with how I will look at her wedding. I repeat these two sentences in my head like a mantra as Frannie turns me round checking that the dress fits. She concludes that it fits perfectly, but that the skirt needs to be two inches shorter. I stand still as she slides a tiny safety pin into the inner stitching of the dress where it needs to be cut.
Afterwards, I change again, not wanting to stay in the dress in case anything damages the delicate fabric. Frannie shows me what she’ll be wearing before and after the wedding. Her Abuela’s dress is gorgeous but heavy and ornate, so outside of the chapel Frannie will be wearing a beautiful silken trouser suit in a deep plum colour. She zips both back into fabric bags and tucks them back into her wardrobe. She sits in her vanity chair while I sit on her bed. I can smell Theo’s cooking downstairs.
‘I meant to ask,’ she says, twirling a coil of lemon peel in her glass ‘We now have room for a plus one if you want to bring anyone. I realised I never even asked you, which was rude of me. You’ve never mentioned anybody, but when you can’t come to things I sometimes wonder if you’ve just got other - obligations.’ She puts a stress on the word. She’s pretending to be joking but I can tell she’s been dying to ask me for weeks.
‘I don’t need a plus one,’ I say immediately. Frannie’s face falls. I hesitate, wondering if I should tell her anything. In the end I decide on a version of the truth.
‘I thought there was someone for a while,’ I say ‘We met through mutual friends and I liked him. I thought he liked me back, but I think I was wrong. I don’t think he feels the same way.’
Despite my attempts to seem casual as I speak, my words catch in my throat slightly and I feel, with horror, the sting of tears at the corners of my eyes. I quickly take a drink hoping Frannie hasn’t noticed. But when I put it down she stands up from the bed and takes my hands in hers.
‘Well he’s a fool,’ she says, ‘and if you want to be set up with an endless line of cute boys who would go head over heels for a bookish little blonde in a cardigan just say the word, I definitely know one guy at least.’
‘Maybe another time,’ I laugh ‘but for now, safe to say I don’t need a plus one to your party. Maybe Lila can invite that boy she likes.’
Frannie laughs, ‘Camilo? Maybe. Though I think she”d prefer to invite Paloma the cat.’
Theo calls from downstairs. The smell of the dinner is glorious and we return to the kitchen to find the dining table set for three, and a large oven dish of bubbling lasagne in the middle. As we seat ourselves at the table a thought occurs to me.
‘Why do you suddenly have an extra plus one?’
Frannie gasps and Theo says ‘Frannie have you not told her?’
Frannie puts her hands out in front of her, as though preparing me for life-changing news.
‘Rowena,’ she says slowly, ‘is officially out of the picture.’
‘It”s the scandal of the century.’ Theo says, dishing up lasagne onto our plates while Frannie continues.
‘And get this Hydie. They’ve been broken up for months. Months! And George didn’t tell us. Why would he not tell us that he’d finally ended things with someone so completely obviously wrong for him? Why wouldn’t he tell us he’d finally turned his brain back on?’
‘Why indeed?’ Theo mutters. I catch his eye and smirk.
Between us we tactfully change the subject, bringing Frannie’s attention back to wedding plans. It’s all falling into place, she tells me, the food, the flowers, the guests. I nod along silently, occasionally interjecting to say that something sounds lovely, or that a quirk they’ve decided on is a good idea. It all sounds so involved. Long strings of emails and phone calls, endless negotiating and adjusting. And yet Frannie thrives on it all. So does Theo, I realise, who is enthusiastically joining in with his own laundry list of objectives that have been ticked off. As I watch them I realise that they trade back and forth between being the admirer and the admired, praising one another’s hard work and always pointing out to me if the other is underselling some part they played in creating the perfect day for themselves.
I’ve never had a partner that came close to someone I felt as though I wanted to marry. I had boyfriends here and there, mostly good men, relationships that ended because we weren’t quite right for one another. I never thought much about a wedding day because I had never felt it was right to have such concrete ideas about what you want before you know who you want it with.
It occurs to me, as I listen to Theo and Frannie talk, that perhaps part of the point of planning a wedding, a big elaborate day when two people could visit a registry office and have done with it, was the intense planning. A lifetime’s worth of admin, logistics and compromise, compressed into a matter of months, which served as a baptism of fire for the experience of married life. And I feel as I sit with them, Theo serving seconds of lasagne while Frannie pours another round of mocktails, that they would do just fine.
But I also feel lonely. The realisation creeps up on me as I watch the tender fondness they have for each other. I have never observed their relationship so close up before. Any couple can post photos of staged love, or write earnest captions on social media. But the way Frannie’s fingertips linger against the back of Theo’s hand as she puts his drink down on the table, the tiny smile they exchange when they speak, visible only for a moment. It isn’t a show. It isn’t put on for me, to either impress or exclude me. It’s part of the fabric of their relationship. An intimate language made of tiny gestures that convey over and over again, ‘I love you’. It’s not something I have ever really identified in any of my relationships, the last of which had lasted only four months, over two years ago. And I feel very bereft all of a sudden.
When George and had connected again, when he had come to me in his bedroom, I had felt as though maybe the absence of meaningful relationships in my life had been because he had been the right one all along. Though I hadn’t consciously realised it, I had hoped that the fifteen-year-old I had been, had met the right man for her, just ten years earlier than she should have. But I had been wrong. I was on my own. A lone bird in a nature documentary, endlessly calling into the void while all around it others pair and make their nests.
After dinner, I say goodnight to Theo at their front door, as Frannie puts on her shoes to walk me to the bottom of the flat.
‘See you soon.’ He gives me a big hug. ‘We’re so happy you’ll be there with us.’
‘I’m happy too.’ I smile at him. I’m not lying. I’m holding my loneliness in one hand, and holding my love for them in the other. I contain multitudes.
Frannie walks me down to the glass doors at the front of their apartment block. We hug goodbye and, to my surprise, she kisses the side of my head, her lips pressing briefly against my hair above where it’s tucked behind my ear.
‘What was that for?’ I smile, as we half pull away.
‘I just love you,’ she says, ‘I’m a bit overwhelmed thinking about this wedding, there’s so much happening and so much to think about. It’s like my mind is waterlogged with it. But then I remember it’s just a day. It’s just paper. The important thing is that Theo and I will be married, and we get to share the day with all the people we love. And I’m so excitedthat you’ll be there.’To my surprise, I hear her voice hitch slightly, as though heavy with emotion and I put my arms around her again, feeling her jaw resting against my shoulder.