Just My Luck(55)

We’ve made a baby.

I need to talk to Ridley I suppose. Although how am I going to say what I have to? It kills me but I miss him so much. It’s so uncool of me not to just straightforward kick-him-out-of-bed-hate-him. I didn’t know until now that it was possible to hate and love a person at the same time. I miss the way when I’m with him I feel strangely light-headed. The way he moves, effortless and loose, thick hair, dark and curly. Backpack flung over his shoulder. I used to cling to his other shoulder as casually, as intrinsically. I miss the feel of his hands on me. I miss the way he throws back his head when he laughs, exposing his lumpy Adam’s apple. His laugh is the best if I’ve caused it. I miss the conversations we had. ‘What’s your greatest fear?’ He asked me this as he trailed kisses up and down my thigh and hip. His lips were gentle, tender and yet also hot. Right then, I had none. No fears at all. He made me fearless.

‘Weird question,’ I pointed out.

He smiled. ‘Yes, I guess it is. I was hoping you’d say, losing me.’ He looked shy, sheepish. I grinned.

‘Yeah, that’s it,’ I replied, indulging him. He came towards me and kissed my mouth. Through his kisses, I murmured, ‘Losing you and not doing this again are my fears.’

He momentarily stopped kissing me and stared at me with a fabulous intensity, his dark eyes boring into me, like he knew me inside out. ‘Then you are totally safe. Which is all I want. I want to protect you and keep you safe forever.’

This was quite caveman as an approach, but it bothered me less than it should.

The conversations we had were the sort you can’t have with anyone else, not even Megan. I miss the musty smell of his balls. Obviously, I hate him too.

Or maybe not obviously.

Not at all.

‘Dad, are you going to ask Jennifer and Fred to the party?’ I ask as we are examining Sara’s map and timing plan of the evening’s ‘flow’.

‘Your mum isn’t keen.’

‘Yeah, but they’ve apologised, right? And set the record straight about them not being in the lottery.’

‘You think I should forgive them?’

Dad keeps his eyes on the plan. He marks up a suggestion in pencil, swapping the crepe stall with the taco cabin, so that the sweet options are all on one side of the big marquee and the savoury on another. I’m not sure it should be regimented but don’t want to get into it with him as we might get off track. It’s because he seems caught up in something else that I feel I dare admit, ‘Maybe.’

‘What if they bring Ridley along? Do you want to see him?’

‘God, Dad, no. No way.’ Yes. Yes, more than anything. ‘I mean if they bring him along, I’m cool with that but I don’t want to see him.’

Dad looks at me now. Steadily. Unblinking, he searches my face for something. Whatever he was looking for he must be satisfied, as he says, ‘I might ask them then, if you are OK with it.’

I shrug. Dad gets me.





26


Lexi


Monday, 20th May

I look out of the window and see that the dark grey cloud, which has hovered all day, has now swollen to stretch across the entire sky. Rain is imminent. I wonder how much progress my family has made today. Jake, Emily and Logan are all at the party site helping pitch the marquee. Actually, if only that was true, then I’d be there with them lending a hand. To be accurate, they are stood about watching other people mow the field, pitch the marquee, lay the dancefloor inside the marquee. I haven’t joined them because I don’t want to endorse our children’s idleness and increasing belief, encouraged by Jake, that they can pay someone else to do everything for them.

We now have a cleaner and she does our ironing too. She’s a lovely woman and I’m sure Jake’s right, I probably will get used to the idea of someone throwing bleach down my loo and emptying the bathroom bin. Eventually. I can’t deny that our house has never been tidier; in fact it’s immaculate as it has benefited from two thorough goings-over this week, the first one I did before our cleaner arrived.

As much as Jake loves his brand-new Ferrari, which he took delivery of last week, he doesn’t clean it himself. Yesterday he got someone to come around to do a specialist inside and out clean, even though it’s only a whisper away from pristine. Certainly, a far cry from the state we used to allow the old family Volvo to get into. The inside of that always reflected the fact it had served years of hard labour ferrying us around; a foot deep of crisp packets, banana skins and Diet Coke cans was the norm. Whenever I drove it, I kept the window down an inch to try to disperse the stench of rotting food, sweaty sports kits and dried mud. Jake has got rid of the Volvo. He’s bought a new Audi Q7. In metallic brown. It’s undeniably gorgeous. He says it’s my car.

‘Mine?’ I wouldn’t have chosen brown.

‘Well, the family car. You know, because we can’t all fit into the Ferrari.’

I haven’t had a chance to drive the Audi yet, but I have been a passenger and it definitely smells better than the Volvo.

Jake and the kids have been at the party site all day. Emily keeps sending me photos of the props and rides arriving and being unloaded from huge vans and lorries. Her photos are pretty good, and I want to show that I’m interested so I reply with a series of exuberant messages. Awesome!! Amazing! Wow! And a string of overly jolly emojis. Sometimes I have to admit emojis are a godsend; they save us from ever having to articulate anything tricky. Emily has yet another new phone, the second in as many weeks. She told us that she dropped her first one when she was trying to carry a takeaway coffee and snapchat someone at the same time. ‘Why weren’t you more careful?’ I grumbled when she finally admitted this to be the case. I could hear my father’s voice singing in my head, easy come easy go. A reprimand that carried such force when I was a child and I instinctively knew that nothing had come easy to my parents, who worked long hours at hard jobs to provide for me and my sister.