The Dilemma(43)

‘Fine. Not great,’ I amend. I’m beginning to lose track of whether I still have my migraine or not. Although I’m no longer lying, because a huge band of pressure is building up inside my head.

‘Is that why you forgot to shave?’

I run a hand over my chin. She’s right, I did forget.

‘The drinks are on the lawn,’ I tell them.

‘Are you trying to get rid of us?’ Dad jokes.

‘Only until everybody has arrived. Why don’t you go and see Nelson? He’s got some news I’m sure he’d love to share with you.’

‘Sounds intriguing. Catch up with you later, Adam.’

More people arrive. I chat to them for a bit, take their phones, the bowl nearly overflowing now, send them up the steps. I can’t remember who’s arrived and who hasn’t. I fish my own phone from my pocket but nothing has come in since that message from Izzy. I feel the now-familiar wave of panic. Where are you, Marnie? I ask silently. Shouldn’t I have heard from you by now?

I check the time; it’s eight o’clock. The party is supposed to go on until two in the morning, when the music has to stop.

I don’t know if I can do this.





Livia


Josh stands on a chair, his tanned legs showing under the cut-off jeans he’s wearing with a loose white shirt. I watch as he waves his arms at the guests, who are busy chatting, trying to attract their attention. Max steps next to him and taps a fork against his bottle of beer until there are only murmurs.

‘Hello!’ he shouts and people cheer back.

I’m standing with my friends from work, smiling at Josh when, out of the corner of my eye, I see him. He’s standing in front of the marquee wearing a tuxedo with a red bow tie and my stomach clenches horribly. He looks so confident and sure of himself that for a moment I don’t know how I’m going to be able to bear being in the same place as him. Since I found out about him and Marnie, I’ve managed to avoid him completely, arranging dinners with other friends, pretending to be ill so that Adam would have to cancel the dinner he’d arranged at ours – although it wasn’t really a pretence, because the thought of having to sit down and eat with Rob made me physically sick. But I was damned if I was going to cancel the party I’d dreamt about for so long. All I needed was to avoid him, I told myself, which wouldn’t be difficult with another ninety-nine people around. But now that it’s here, the reality is very different.

The rush of hate I feel is so violent that I have to turn away for a second, and my cheeks flare as I try to control my breathing.

‘So for tonight,’ Josh continues, ‘we have a musical adventure for you all! At certain times during the evening I’m going to play a song that one of you chose, and it’s up to you to guess who chose it.’

There are more cheers and laughs and I try to focus on this, everyone’s enjoyment, to take my mind off Rob.

‘Do you understand?’ he cries.

‘Yes!’ everyone shouts back.

‘Then let the party begin!’

‘Celebration’ starts playing through the speakers, and before anyone can stop me I move away from the marquee and go and stand at the top of the steps, as far from Rob as I can. Max is hovering nearby, filming and taking photos, and I’m glad he insisted on being the photographer because otherwise we might not have had any. Adam confiscating everyone’s phones was so unlike him I nearly laughed, thinking at first he was joking. We’d never talked about a no-phone policy, so it must have been a spur-of-the-moment decision. Maybe he was worried that people would spend half of the evening checking their messages, but I don’t think any of our friends would do that.

I take a few deep breaths. This moment of solitude amongst so many people has calmed me and I smile as I watch my friends laughing together, already having a good time. I smooth my dress down, rearranging the skirt so that the hem is straight, and flattening the material that has bunched slightly around my waist. I’ve been worrying about this dress since I bought it, wondering if it was the right thing to wear, wondering if people would think, because of the colour, that I was trying to re-enact my wedding. But I’ve only had compliments and no-one has said that I look like a bride.

I did have a moment earlier, though, after I’d done my hair and make-up. As I checked my appearance in the mirror, I suddenly thought of the roses Marnie had sent me and ran downstairs to get them. Back upstairs, I took them from the vase, dried the stems with a towel and put them to one side while I slid into my dress. Then, before looking at myself in the mirror, I picked up the bouquet and held it in front of me, like a bride would, walking up the aisle. When I looked up and saw my reflection, tears sprang to my eyes.

I wish there’d been someone to take a photo so that I could have taken it out and looked at it in secret, a reminder of what could have been. But there was only Adam and Josh, and I was too embarrassed to let them see me playing at being a bride. I stared at myself for a long time, imprinting the image on my brain, because I wanted to remember how I might have looked on my wedding day. And then I raised the roses to my face and breathed in their heady smell.

‘Thank you, Marnie,’ I murmured. ‘Thank you for making it possible for me to see.’

The sad thing is, if she had been here, and if what has happened hadn’t happened, we’d have shared the moment together, messing around and giggling. Maybe later, once everyone has left, I’ll ask Adam to take a photo of me with the roses to send to Marnie. Or if I preserve the roses, I can wait until she comes home at the end of the month, put the dress back on, and recreate the scene for her. But I’m not sure I’ll feel like dressing up then.