Undone(56)

chapter thirty-three


Mum and Dad want to meet Lucas. I tried telling them it wasn’t going to happen – under any circumstances – but Dad’s coming over all Father-in-a-crap-American-sitcom. You know the ones . . . the daughter’s going to prom or whatever and her date arrives to pick her up. Dad answers the door and interrogates the poor boy while the daughter puts the finishing touches to her make-up upstairs. I have no idea whether this actually happens in real life.

I don’t like what I see in my parents’ eyes when they ask about Lucas. It’s worse with Mum, but I can see Dad feels it too, even though he’s making a show of being the gruff, over-protective father. It’s hope. I put hope in their eyes and soon I’m going to rip it away from them in the worst possible way.

They want me to invite him over for dinner next week. Mum gets all excited looking at recipe books and asking about his likes and dislikes. I don’t tell her that I have no clue what he likes to eat and really could not care less. Instead I make stuff up: he likes meat and pasta and Chinese food, but isn’t too keen on fish or sweetcorn. Mum looks up from her latest cookbook acquisition – with some voluptuous woman on the front, all pouty and ridiculous. ‘You two must be a match made in heaven – liking all the same things! Actually, thinking about it, he’s probably pretending to like what you like. I remember when your father and I met I said I liked that awful music of his, and he said he enjoyed going to the ballet! Ah, the things we do for love . . .’

She’s staring into space, all misty-eyed. I’m staring at her, wondering how we can possibly be related. Noah barrels into the kitchen, looks from me to Mum and back again, says, ‘You two look weird,’ grabs an apple from the fruit bowl and runs out again.

I call Lucas and he thinks it’s just about the funniest thing in the world that my parents are so keen to meet him.

‘Sasha wouldn’t let me anywhere near her parents till we’d been going out for three months!’

The implication of this statement is enough to stop me in my tracks.

‘Jem? Are you still there?’

I clear my throat. ‘I . . . yeah.’

‘Are you OK? You sound a bit . . . I dunno.’

‘I’m fine. I . . . just . . . Is that what we’re doing? Going out?’

He laughs like he doesn’t even know the meaning of awkward. ‘What exactly did you think we were doing?’

I shrug before I realize how pointless that is. ‘Um . . . I didn’t . . . I thought we were just hanging out, I guess.’

‘Hanging out, I guess? Huh. Well how about we make this more formal? Jemima Halliday, would you like to go out with me?’ His voice is slick as olive oil.

I leave him hanging for a second longer than is comfortable. ‘OK.’

‘OK?! All I get after laying my heart on the line like that is an OK?!’ His mock outrage makes me wince.

‘Sorry. Yes, Lucas Mahoney, I would like to go out with you.’

‘That’s more like it.’

We talk some more – making arrangements for him to come over for dinner. I can’t get off the phone quick enough. When I do I throw the phone on the bed like it’s the one to blame for my current situation.

I am officially going out with Lucas Mahoney.

Lucas Mahoney is my boyfriend. I’m disgusted with myself. And more than a little bit impressed.

I’ve been counting down the days till the July letter. There’s no way I’m opening another one late.

Jem,

I’ve been sitting here for God knows how many hours, slowly but surely losing the plot. I owe you yet another apology. What was I thinking? All these stupid challenges. You must be so f*cking angry with me. I wouldn’t blame you if you’d torn up every last one of these ridiculous letters and decided to forget all about me. Who the f*ck do I think I am? Trying to change you from beyond the grave, like some kind of ghostly Gok Wan.

Anyway, what I’m trying to say is: I hope you’ve ignored everything I asked you to do. I hope you’ve stayed your glorious, lovely self. And if you haven’t, well, I hope you’re happy with the changes you’ve made and you don’t hate me too much. It’s too late for me to start again with the letters, I’m afraid. I’m so very tired. This isn’t quite going the way I planned it. It was all so clear in my mind. Everything made sense and I was so sure I was doing the right thing for everyone.

You know what I wish? I wish more than anything that I wasn’t gay. It’s not as easy as I made it look, you know. There are things I never told Everything’s so much easier for you straight people. The world is set up to work in your favour and you don’t even appreciate it. Before you get all righteously indignant, I’m not talking about YOU you, I’m talking about the GENERAL you.

Sometimes I used to imagine us two getting married, can you believe that? I used to imagine what life would be like if I didn’t like boys. Because you know what? If I didn’t like boys, I would be truly madly deeply in love with you. But I DO like f*cking boys. Oops.

I’m not stupid, Jem. I know full well how you feel about me. I think I’ve known for longer than you’ve known yourself. You’re really not that good at hiding your feelings. You should work on that if you don’t want to get your heart tramped all over. There I go again – telling you how to live your life. . . I just can’t help myself, can I?! So anyway, all I can say is that I’m flattered. That you would spend all your time with me when you could have been off chasing boys who would actually want to do rude things with you. God, now I sound really up myself, don’t I? I can’t seem to say the right words no matter how hard I try. I just want you to know that I wish I could have felt the same way about you. I wish that more than anything. I think we could have been happy together, you and me. If only