She’d had a fight with Mal shortly before the first reveller had arrived, and the words she’d said had left a bitter taste in her mouth that no amount of sparkling wine seemed able to drown.
He’d been so … proprietary. Of her. He’d not liked the dress she’d bought for this occasion, and had had altogether too many opinions about it. She’d told him he didn’t have—and would never have—the right to tell her what to wear. He’d told her she represented him now, and that people would think he approved of her choices—like the blush pink dress with the plunging backline that she wore now. And their argument had ended with her reminding him that a husband should support his wife’s choices, not make them for her.
He’d not liked that. Not at all.
There were red flags flying all over the place.
Could Abigail really marry a man who thought he had the authority to tell her what to do? Sure, she’d “won” the argument: she was wearing the dress. But it was a hollow victory because he’d ruined her day, and on more than one occasion she’d cursed this dress for all the trouble it had caused.
Except, it wasn’t really the dress’s fault, was it?
And that wasn’t the only thing.
Her cupcake centrepieces weren’t here. Not for lack of trying on her part. She’d practiced for weeks, foregoing any distractions or breaks outside of work, and she’d spent all of yesterday and this morning putting her masterpieces together. But here she was and here they weren’t. When she’d finished the last flourish, she’d stepped back from the centrepieces and she’d cried.
Mistaking her tears for disappointment, Mal had said, ‘There was always a chance they wouldn’t work out. They’re close. You got pretty good. Stand with them, I’ll take a photo. I’ll get you some flowers for the ends of the tables. That’ll be classy, won’t it?’
He’d then proceeded to mistake her speechless heartbreak. For what, she still didn’t know.
Abigail was keeping to the fringes of the crowd. She wasn’t enjoying herself, and she felt powerless. She couldn’t talk to someone about their fight. Not at their engagement party, not without sounding like a bitch complaining about the happiest of men standing with his nearest and dearest. She’d overheard him retelling the story of his proposal at least a dozen times tonight. What was interesting about that, was that the details had changed. He’d omitted their fight and made being caught in a lie somehow charming. Will, his failed alibi, had been given a greater role. To the point that Will was pretending to have known about Mal’s plans all along.
How had Mal managed to manoeuvre a clever, self-aware man like Will Anand into misremembering his own part in a lie?
Discomforted, Abigail lifted her wine flute to her lips again and drained it.
The sense that she was making a mistake was growing stronger by the hour, but she didn’t know what to do about it. Did she end a now very public engagement because Mal had been irrational a few times? Did she walk away from this relationship because it wasn’t all roses and walks on the beach? Nobody was perfect. She certainly wasn’t. And she was strong enough to ride out the worst of his moods. She was wearing this dress after all.
But did she want a lifetime of riding him out? Did she want a husband she had to remind to respect her choices?
She thought of Louisa. Vehemently supportive Louisa over ten thousand miles away in Sydney, unable to be here because she was late into her third trimester. Abigail wanted to speak to her. Her foggy brain tried to calculate the time difference but failed. It was likely too early for a call, but was there ever really too early between sisters? And for something like this?
Louisa was the youngest of the pair, but since settling down with an Australian she’d met whilst backpacking, she’d seemed to take on the caregiving, protective qualities usually reserved for an older sibling. She’d never met Mal, so what she knew of the man was limited to Abigail’s stories and her own internet stalking. Which meant she would be on Abigail’s side.
What a novelty.
It had been so long since someone here had been immovably in Abigail’s corner. Somehow over the course of their relationship Mal had coaxed all of her friends over the line. They were staunch in their high opinions of him, and had possibly forgotten that they had been her friends first. She couldn’t complain to them about her fiancé any more than she could complain to Mal’s mother. Abigail and her faltering opinions of everyone’s favourite publican were so apart from the crowd now that her voice would surely echo in the space Mal had created around her.
She imagined her sister, curled up in bed with her considerate, effusive husband, a man of which Abigail thoroughly approved of, and felt pierced by the distance. Louisa would listen to Abigail’s concerns as sure as she would have moved hell and high water to get Abigail’s centrepieces to this party if she were here. They’d worked out the earliest wedding date between them—the earliest time Louisa felt she could travel with the new baby—but it was too far away. Abigail needed her sister now. And there might not even be a wedding at this rate. There were just too many things that Abigail couldn’t look past anymore. It was like the veneer had worn through in places, and what she saw beneath Mal’s public front was ugly.
There were people moving amongst the crowd carrying trays of food and drink, smartly dressed hospitality students that Mal was paying generously for their time. Abigail caught the eye of a small woman with a blunt fringe and signalled her over. She reminded herself to smile.
Intending to trade her empty glass for a full one, Abigail extended her arm but misjudged. The lip of the glass hit the edge of the tray, and because the woman hadn’t properly distributed the glasses, she wasn’t able to absorb the impact.
The tray, and all its passengers, crashed noisily to the ground. The snap and chime of breaking glass cut through conversations, and before Abigail could even begin to apologise, all eyes were on her. She glanced at her audience then dropped to her haunches to help clean up the mess.
The band played on. After Abigail had put the sixth broken stem back onto the tray, people began to lose interest, but they didn’t immediately return to their broken sentences. Abigail’s name was crossing everyone’s lips. She knew this. And she almost cared.
‘I’m so sorry,’ she said again to the unsmiling woman opposite her.
‘It’s no problem,’ the woman said. Although it sounded like a problem. She looked up when another waitress arrived with a dustpan and broom, and reached gratefully for it. ‘Can you get this lady a water?’
The second waitress glanced at Abigail then hurried away.
The water that was pressed into her hand less than a minute later was in a plastic cup.
Abigail apologised again and got unsteadily to her feet. She felt slightly shamed by the women, but her mind was already focused on something else. She set her cup down and ventured single-mindedly into the crowd.
She was, however, intercepted within moments. Long fingers curled around her arm and steered her off course, then mother and daughter were face-to-face in a tête-à-tête Abigail would have upturned another tray to avoid.
‘This is the party of the year,’ Marissa said, and it was like all the class and sparkle of the night had infused her voice. She was the best version of herself; poised, affable. Some might even say charming. But when Abigail looked at the slick lipstick covering her mother’s mouth she imagined snake venom.
It took Marissa only moments to get to the point. ‘Everything is flawless. Everyone is here. Do better. Be better, for heaven’s sake. You’re embarrassing yourself.’
‘I’m not embarrassing myself,’ Abigail hissed. ‘Just you.’
‘Me and your husband-to-be.’
‘Always a club,’ Abigail muttered. ‘Mal and Marissa versus Abigail. Your pride was a fleeting thing, then.’ Evidently Marissa had come down from thinking the world of her eldest daughter for securing such a favourable romantic match. Emboldened by her own building outrage, Abigail leaned closer and lowered her voice. �
�Ask me why I’m drinking so much. Show some maternal instinct.’
‘I don’t care why you’re drinking so much—’
‘Then leave me alone.’
She shook off her mother’s claw and lurched away from the conversation.
Moments later, Abigail found her Master of Ceremonies at a table in the far corner of the room, sitting with his wife and teenaged daughter, delivering the punchline to a clearly amusing joke. Ned Tomas was a large, balding man with a smile for miles. He was the Deputy Leader of the Council, and if charisma could be bottled, this man would be a supplier. Everyone adored him, and Mal had struck up a friendship with Ned over a shared interest in soccer. They had lunch together at least once a fortnight, and being the silver-tongue that he was, Ned had all her guests charmed and in check.
She let the little group’s laughter pitch then trail off before she interrupted them.
‘I’m sorry, Ned?’ She raised her hand a fraction, as if she were a student in a classroom instead of a grown woman at a party held in her honour.
Ned was serious about his duties as MC, so he was on his feet and moving around the table towards her before she could put her hand down.
‘Who am I tossing out?’ he asked, reaching her side. He made a show of stepping between her and the crowd at her back.
She turned, smiling.
‘I’ve been working on my technique.’ Ned put his arms in front of his body and grasped at an imaginary person’s clothes. He swung his arms back, pretending as he did to be holding a person’s body weight, then pitched forward. He shot his arms above his head, and Abigail obliged him with a cheerful, ‘Strike!’
Still seated, his wife and daughter applauded.
Ned laughed, then made himself be serious. ‘What do you need?’
‘I want to skip the speeches,’ she said quietly.
There was so much liquor and doubt toiling in her underfed, overwhelmed body that what she really wanted to do was skip the spectacle.
Ned’s gaze flickered over her shoulder. ‘But Mal has something special planned,’ he said. ‘He’s quite proud of it.’
‘He can share it privately,’ she replied, ‘after the party. Please start organising people for group photos? If we keep people busy they won’t even notice.’
She suspected Mal’s special speech would be a crowd-pleaser, but she wasn’t confident in her own ability to smile through it. To act flattered and love-struck, and ever the adoring fiancée. Not now, not when she was so unsure about so much.
It would be better for Mal’s guests and Mal’s pride to be spared whatever B-grade acting she could muster in this state. The photos would be hard enough to get through.
The first time since their argument that Abigail came within touching distance of her fiancé was when they were staged in front of the venue’s feature wall; a striking combination of irregular rock tiles, trailing ferns, and blue-lit tumbling water. Mal extended an arm towards her and she moved within the circle of it. She couldn’t conceal her stilted affection with as much apparent ease as him, but she tried, for appearance’s sake.
Family came first. Mal’s smiling, proud parents, then Abigail’s ostentatiously dressed, expressive mother. Marissa made people laugh when she posed between them, her smile almost as wide as a side plate, then she pressed a lingering kiss on her future son-in-law’s face. Long enough for the photographer to recognise a moment and capture it. A few people pressed their hands to their chests, moved by the scene.
Abigail didn’t get a kiss.
As their families moved away and their closest friends moved forward, Mal squeezed Abigail’s hip. He leaned down, and murmured in her ear, ‘I trust you’re drinking water now, darling.’
Abigail didn’t reply. She didn’t like being chided.
He squeezed her hip again, but this time it felt less affectionate and more pointed. ‘Don’t embarrass me,’ he said.
She eased away. Just enough that her body was no longer pressed against his. She looked up at him and smiled beatifically. ‘I don’t intend to. That’s why I cancelled the speeches.’
‘You—’ But Mal’s reaction was absorbed by a sudden crowd around them, pressing in close and smiling towards the photographer. His agitation morphed into amiableness so quickly that his agitation might never have been there. He tried to pull her back against him but she resisted.
He had an arm around her, and by Abigail’s thinking that was enough.
She smiled for friends and strangers for what felt like an age. When her balance was particularly unreliable she clung on to anyone but Mal. Then it was finally time to wrap this disaster up. She was becoming increasingly unhappy, and it would take being alone to stop feeling this isolated. Away from everyone’s congratulations and scrutiny she could think about what came next. She could call her sister. She could fall apart.
‘I’m going to do my speech now,’ Mal said. They were standing alone by the water feature. Their guests had wandered back to their tables and groups. He leaned towards her and lowered his voice. ‘Pull yourself together and stand beside me.’
The authority in his voice made something in Abigail’s body rise in defiance. She rolled her head away from the warmth of his breath and closed her eyes. ‘I’ve drunk too much,’ she said.
‘No kidding.’
‘I’m upset about my cupcakes. I’m upset about our argument. I just want to go home.’
The fingers that had begun to guide her back to the party now gripped and restrained. She tried to pull free but Mal’s hold was strong. ‘After my speech,’ he said.
Abigail stared up at him, and with that tone and that expression, his ugliness was back. She gave a sharp twist and dislodged his hand, then retreated from his reach so he couldn’t grab her again. She said, ‘You can deliver your speech to your fans. I’m going home.’
And packing my bags, she thought, in that moment decided.
Mal pressed his eyes shut, pushed his thumb and forefinger against his eyelids, then snapped his hand down to his side. ‘Fine. Fine, but wait. I’ll tell Ned we’re leaving. We can slip out the back without making a fuss.’
There was a beat of silence in which she knew he expected her to thank him. But she couldn’t. Inexplicably, she didn’t feel victorious. Winning this battle would have been going home alone. Going home with him suddenly didn’t seem like a much better option than staying here. In fact, staying here seemed safer.
Safer? Where had that thought come from?
Mal’s expression was pinched and his shoulders were drawn up. His pitch was irregular—rising and falling in unexpected places. And the way he was looking at her. Something big was coming, a storm, and Abigail didn’t want to be one of those people standing in the middle of the street dodging plate-sized hailstones, she wanted to be inside. Safe. Whatever safe translated to in this situation.
‘Stay right there,’ he commanded, pointing at her feet. ‘It’s probably best you don’t go back inside anyway.’ He said this parting shot as he was stepping away, but if it pierced Abigail’s skin, she didn’t feel it.
Her fingers were pushing against the fabric of her dress, searching for the seams of the pockets he’d disliked so much. They may have been a step away from true femininity, as he’d said, but they were practical as hell. She withdrew her phone and called a taxi.
Mal didn’t have his keys. They’d only brought her set. Even if he got back minutes after her, he would be locked out. She could slip out the back door with a suitcase even as he was banging on the front door. Because she knew now that he would bang. He was minutes away from accessing a temper of the likes she’d never seen before, and Abigail knew in the marrow of her bones that she never wanted to see it.
She slipped through a side door and reached the street without seeing any of her guests, and minutes later, she was dropping onto the back seat of a taxi that had blessedly been in the area.
Back home, she didn’t waste time changing out of her dress. She hurried into the guest bedroo
m, dragged her suitcase out from the wardrobe, and carried it into the bedroom she shared with Mal. She lifted underwear, bras and socks from her cupboard drawers by the armful. Hangers clattered and bounced off the carpet as she pulled blouses and trousers from the wardrobe. She was tossing shoes on top of the pile when she heard it.
The front door opened, then slammed.
Abigail pulled the lid over the mess within the bag, zipped it up and dragged it to the floor. Her mother’s key. Marissa must have given her spare to Mal. Unless it was her mother, uncharacteristically aware of her daughter’s state of mind and keen to help?
She looked up hopefully.
It wasn’t Marissa.
Mal stepped into the bedroom looking every bit like a lightning storm set to snap and flash. He’d undone the top two buttons of his collared shirt, but everything else about him was utterly presentable. They stared at each other wordlessly. He was waiting for her to speak but there were no words in the world that she wanted between them—for there were no words that could improve this situation.
She swallowed and flexed her fingers against the handle of her suitcase.
‘I’m leaving’ seemed redundant. That much was clear by the bag at her feet. ‘I’m scared’ seemed too much an exchange of power. ‘I’m sorry’ was just untrue. What was left to say, except to ask him to step out of the doorway so that she could pass?
Mal took a step towards her. Then another.
Abigail didn’t believe he would hurt her physically. His tongue was a blade, and surely all the weapon he would need. It was devastating in its effect.
But then his face contorted. And in the instant between one expression and the next, she realised that she was wrong. That he would do the unthinkable.
He grabbed the material of her dress and hauled her forward. Material stretched then tore, and she lost her footing and fell. He used his foot to push her onto her back, then he stepped either side of her legs and dropped his full weight on top of them. She moved to sit up, but with one hand he knocked her head down onto the carpet with a sickening, thick thump.
Have Your Cake Page 12
