Emma Ever After

by Brigid Coady

  The photo didn’t look any different from ten others in the gallery. Ed and Frankie were doing a less than stellar job of holding hands as Ed stared grumpily into the camera. Honestly it looked like Ed was holding her thumb.

  Emma of last week would have tutted and despaired. But this Emma… every little tell was good. She didn’t need this to be perfect.

  She skimmed across the pose. She wasn’t sure who’d told Frankie that wearing a wolf jumper was a good idea, she looked like a throwback to the Eighties and not in an ironic way. She would’ve been better with a tacky Christmas one.

  There, Emma had to enlarge the photo to check but in the background, wearing the same beanie he always did was Will. Far enough away that unless you looked closely you would think he was merely another person out for a Christmas morning stroll.

  And she knew the BOTP fandom looked at everything closely. This would be her smoking gun.

  But if she greenlit this one, would it be enough for the fandom to work out what she was trying to say? That she was flagging to them that, contrary to popular belief and what the gossip columns said, Will and Ed were spending Christmas together. Keeping the Wed Pulley rumours alive and well.

  And they were spending Christmas together, that wasn’t a secret with the Mega! team. Si had been complaining that trying to hide Will and his large and noisy family from any nosey neighbours should come with extra pay.

  When she’d originally heard she’d been exasperated that they couldn’t play along for even one day. But now… she got it. When you worked out what you wanted and how you wanted your life to be, the lies grated. Like lemon juice on a paper cut.

  It was everything that Gee had always said it was.

  She noted the numbers on all the photos that showed some part of Will. She attached them to a reply.

  This was it, she hesitated. If she did this there was no going back. If she started on this road she couldn’t turn around. This would eventually mean she would lose her job.

  Looking up she realised that she had managed to tune out the whole dinner table conversation.

  ‘Boopsie is such a talent, and so attractive. If only she got a bit of notice. Maybe you could follow her?’ Janice said, fluttering her eyelashes at Gee.

  Her mum had started to cry over the stuffing about all the poor starving children in Syria. Derek and her dad were caught in a passive aggressive stand-off over the last roast potato.

  Was a job worth keeping up this sort of pretence? If the thought of another Christmas felt like this to her, what did it feel to the BOTP boys?

  She pressed send, her heart beating so fast, she was almost gasping.

  There. A blow to one of what she thought were the foundations of her life. It didn’t feel as scary as she’d expected.

  She closed her laptop with a snap.

  ***

  ‘Bye, safe travels.’ She said as she air-kissed her mum’s cheek. Her dad had his coat on and was still glaring at Derek. Janice was hanging onto Gee as if he were a Christmas gift that she had found under the tree and was desperate to get home and unwrap.

  Gee was beginning to look hunted.

  Damn, she was probably going to have to check his social media and get Janice to remove photos she was pretty sure she’d been taking all day.

  Ushering them out, Janice the last to leave as if she couldn’t put Gee down, Emma waved briefly and closed the door.

  Leaning her back against it, she closed her eyes. Never again. She was going away next year. Maybe there would be Christmas cards but if Mum and Derek wanted to visit the Alps she would give them recommendations.

  They weren’t her family, she’d had to make her own.

  Emma walked into the living room, it was empty. She could hear Gee rattling dishes downstairs and chatting with Johnnie.

  There was a warm feeling in her stomach, and she felt relaxed for the first time all day. Maybe they could get through this. They still had to speak properly, but maybe he wasn’t going to throw her out just yet. And if they could survive this she would even smile sweetly. Okay, not sweetly but she would try and smile when he brought Jamie round. It was a small price to pay.

  Because she wanted to keep this. Her wonderful patchwork chosen family, she didn’t want to stay hidden behind all the masks and walls anymore.

  She sat on the top of the stairs leading down to the kitchen and leant her head against the bannister… This was her favourite part of Christmas, it always had been. The time when it was real, with traditions they had grown over the years. The silly presents that they exchanged when her parents had left. She need to make it right. God, she hoped she could.

  Her phone vibrated in her pocket, she pulled it out.

  Did you know? That I was in the background? Or are you really clueless?

  The sender was Will. She chewed on her nail. This was the final step, she still had the chance to step back from the edge of the cliff. There was still plausible deniability.

  She typed out Yes, I knew about the photos. I chose them. And pressed send without pausing.

  If she stepped back now she would never be able to meet Gee’s eyes again. She might have been clueless before, but not now. She couldn’t turn her head and pretend. She could see her monochrome-planned world retreat. Should she delete her Google doc with all those Gantt charts? Before she could make the decision, there was a reply.

  Are you playing us or are you for real?

  Of course, they wouldn’t trust her. Why should they?

  I’m sorry for before. I’m now a completely committed follower of the Rainbow Bop Bear. She pressed ‘send’.

  Emma logged into to her personal Twitter account, took a deep breath and pressed follow. Maybe the fans would never put it together that she was following the bears, but Will would get the message. She was all in.

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  ‘I have a food baby,’ Johnnie complained from where he lay on the floor in front of the fireplace. Georgie the pug snuffled beside him.

  ‘I said you didn’t have to finish the whole nut roast on your own,’ Gee said, sprawled out on his sofa.

  The food debris had been cleared and they were in the living room. Emma curled up on the corner of her sofa. Her laptop was open on the table. Not that she needed it, she’d handed over media monitoring duties to Max half an hour ago. He’d call her if there were any issues. It had been tempting to spill the truth. Who knew that when you got truthful it ran away with you, made you euphoric? But she’d stopped herself, she couldn’t do much if she got herself fired before she’d done any damage. The pap shots were now out in the world, all the stories had been written and approved before the Christmas break. Journalists like Don Warton merely waiting for the photos to accompany the narrative she’d dictated.

  How had she never seen this for what it was?

  ‘Okay, I feel like you two still have some making up to do.’ Johnny struggled to get himself up off the floor.

  ‘Are you sure you’re okay to go home?’ Emma asked.

  ‘Who said anything about going home?’ He looked confused. ‘I’m going upstairs to the spare room. Don’t make too much noise with the make-up sex.’ He leered as he picked up Georgie and shuffled out.

  Strangely the silence he left wasn’t as uncomfortable as it should’ve been. It was more relaxed than it had been in days.

  ‘I swear to god, one day I will end him.’ Gee muttered with his arm over his eyes.

  ‘No, you won’t,’ she replied. ‘You’ll have no one to mother.’ She yawned.

  ‘I’ll end you…’ He took his arm off his eyes and turned his head as he said it with a smile.

  ‘Hey, not before presents.’ She couldn’t help but smile back as she felt the most relaxed she’d done in days. Even with unemployment looming over her like the ghost of Christmas Future.

  ‘Presents? More like a piece of a coal,’ he joked. ‘Okay, I’ll be Christmas elf.’

  Presents, crap. Suddenly her inspired and heartfelt present that s
he’d thought up yesterday didn’t seem so inspired anymore. It had the potential of destroying the little equilibrium they’d attained. Hopefully the other gift that she’d bought would make up for it if it fell flat.

  ‘Sure. Do you want more wine?’ she asked as he got up and went to get the last presents from under the tree.

  ‘Yeah.’

  She poured them both a glass of red wine, the liquid shining dark and deep with the twinkle of the fairy lights behind it.

  ‘Here.’ He passed over a two large, gift-wrapped boxes. The paper was a repeating pattern with a cat wearing a Christmas pudding hat pulled over its eyes.

  She raised her eyebrow at him.

  ‘It was cute, okay.’ He grumbled as he sat back down with the two packages she had wrapped for him. One, a small red damask paper wrapped present, and the other a gold envelope. They both looked flimsy compared to what he was giving her.

  She couldn’t help but smile at his embarrassed frown.

  ‘Go on then,’ he said, gesturing to her to open the presents.

  Carefully, she unpicked the tape from one end trying to not rip the paper. Cats in pudding hats had Gee written all over it. The moody boyband bad boy with a marshmallow centre. She wanted to save it, hide it in her drawer and look at it to remind her of him. Because she knew he wouldn’t have used the paper on anyone else’s presents.

  She pushed the paper back and a plain white box was revealed. She lifted it from her lap and shook it.

  ‘Stop mucking around,’ he grumbled, his arms folded across his chest.

  She wiggled the top open, smiling and pushed apart the gold tissue paper from the top. Her hand brushed against velvet. Soft and giving, the colour was ruby red. Its glow rivalled the wine they were drinking. And she knew what it was, she had felt that glow when she’d spun in front of a mirror wearing it. On her lap was the red velvet trouser suit that she’d tried on for the Christmas party. The suit for a rock star, not a PR person. And she was neither.

  ‘But…’ She couldn’t stop stroking it.

  ‘You looked so happy wearing it, so free. You…’ He coughed. ‘Like you could do anything, absolutely anything, not just what you had written down in your file. I wanted to see you look like that again.’

  ‘Thank you,’ she whispered. He knew, he always got what she was about. He knew that any freedom of choice scared her, that she had to shackle it. Put everything into calm boxes. But this… this was him telling her to let go. Did that mean he’d be there to catch her if she fell? Was this a promise that it wasn’t too late?

  ‘No worries,’ he said, coughing again. She couldn’t tell if he was blushing, his back was to the tree and the lights had him in shadow.

  ‘You open yours now, the red one,’ she said, saving the second box. She needed for him to open that one. To show she understood.

  ‘Okay.’ He was just as careful with the wrapping as she’d been. It was very unlike his usual frenzied ripping, leaving bits of paper that she’d still be picking up weeks later.

  Maybe she shouldn’t have done this. No, she had to, it was what she needed to do. Her heart was racing, she wiped her now sweaty hands on her jeans not wanting to ruin the velvet suit.

  He opened the box, reached in and pulled out a mask.

  It was a red felt mask with a sparkle of sequins at the corner of the eyes. It was the one she’d worn at Halloween. The one she should’ve taken off before making their kiss real. It was too late for that but maybe it wasn’t too late for her to make him understand.

  ‘Ems?’ He asked, cradling it in his hands.

  ‘I wanted you to have the last mask I have. I wanted you to look after it because I’m never going to need a mask again. I promise I’ll stop hiding behind them. Because I know it made me hard and…’ She swallowed back the tears she could feel welling up. ‘…not careful with people. I was too busy hiding to see anyone else. So, the mask is my promise to you, the promise I’ll do better.’

  She wanted to look away. If he didn’t get what she was trying to say then she wasn’t sure how she could tell him any better that she was trying to change.

  He met her eyes, holding the mask in his hand as if it were precious.

  ‘Thank you. That means a lot.’ He smiled sadly. ‘But…’

  Bugger. There was always a ‘but’.

  ‘It can’t be just words, Ems.’

  ‘I know,’ she said. ‘I know.’

  She wouldn’t tell him about her new plan, because if he knew there was any plan he’d probably throw a fit.

  They broke their staring and reached in synchrony for their glasses.

  ‘Are you going to open the last one?’ he said after they’d both taken such large mouthfuls they’d drained half the glass.

  Emma repeated the careful unwrapping, and the heckling she’d usually get from him was absent as he watched her in silence. It wasn’t as comfortable as before, it felt fragile, like any wrong word could break them.

  The box was long, brown and had the Gucci name printed on it. Only he would wrap something from Gucci in paper with cats in hats on it.

  ‘What did you do, Knightley?’ she asked with a grin.

  ‘I’m not sure what you mean, Woodhouse.’ He smiled back.

  Maybe he was re-using one of his boxes from the shirt he’d bought, she thought. It seemed too big and deep for that, though.

  Carefully she took off the lid. The first thing she saw was the Gucci logo tissue paper. So not a reused box. It was almost too pretty to move, she thought, as she folded that back.

  Oh. Wow.

  Burnished burgundy leather, not marred by fingerprints. The boots were nestled in an explosion of tissue paper. She could see the gold and red dragons chasing their way across the instep. The gold buckle at the top twinkled at her. She reached towards them but didn’t want to touch them, to mar their perfection.

  They looked even more glorious than they had in the shop.

  ‘Gee, you shouldn’t have.’ She knew it was the typical Christmas present unwrapping words but she meant it. What had she done to deserve these?

  ‘We’re family, Emma. Families have disagreements but we know what each other needs. Even if some of us forget or get in our own way.’ He raised his eyebrows, she blushed. ‘And I knew how much you loved these boots, even if you couldn’t say it so…’ He made a gesture as if to say, ‘and there you go.’

  She wasn’t going to cry on the most perfect boots she’d ever seen.

  She wasn’t. Quickly she put the lid back on the box, hiding them away so when the salty water fell it hit the box and rolled off. Nothing to blemish the leather.

  ‘Just open the envelope,’ she said while she still could.

  She heard the rip of paper.

  ‘Oh, you beauty.’ Gee whispered. ‘Woodhouse, you genius.’

  She looked up to see him grinning at her affectionately.

  ‘Oh, come here,’ he said, getting up, pushing the box off her knee as if he didn’t care.

  She squawked and tried to save it. But he pulled her over, his arm round her shoulder, and held her to his side.

  ‘Tickets to ComicCon, and a meet and greet with Tyler Hoechlin, Dylan O’Brien and Austen Wentworth. I bloody love you.’ He kissed her temple hard.

  A hug and a kiss. A friend’s kiss but a kiss all the same.

  It was more than she had expected.

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  ‘It isn’t working.’ Si shouted. ‘Why the fuck are Google searches for “Wed Pulley” still rising?’ He looked around the conference room waiting for someone to tell him.

  Si had dragged them all to the meeting at Mega!’s offices on the Wednesday after Christmas. No one wanted to be there. Emma was happy that McKee had decided not to show. She looked down at the table, not needing to see the screen to show the stats that Si was raging about. Luckily Si’s temper was hot enough that her desire to smile was squashed.

  ‘These “fauxmances” were supposed to be about killing the rumours
not making them more obvious. What the hell… We now have rumour upon rumour. They’re breeding like bloody rabbits!’ She looked up, wondering if she’d find Si frothing at the mouth, but instead he was scowling at her as if it was her fault.

  Which it partly was but he didn’t need to know that. She looked back down to stare at the table.

  The professional part of her wanted to say that if they’d stuck to her original plan it would’ve gone much better. But that still didn’t take into account the fact that whichever story he’d gone with they would’ve still been forcing the narratives on a set of boys who were determined to undermine it. At least this way she couldn’t get blamed.

  She was only glad that none of the band were in the meeting.

  ‘So that means we’re going full on with the Freddie New Year kiss, yes?’ Dan looked positively gleeful. He was even rubbing his hands.

  She rolled her eyes up and looked at the ceiling. The man had no finesse and no soul. He was the sort of person who thought if a man was photographed holding someone’s bag or carrying their coat they must be dating. It seemed all he cared about was the free trip to New York for New Year’s Eve that he was getting, he was fairly vibrating at the thought. Obviously knowing his new girlfriend would be off fauxmancing with someone else didn’t seem to bother him at all.

  She was so tired. The easy truce that she and Gee had come to over Christmas had started to break. He seemed to be texting on his phone more than usual. She’d noticed it at the pub last night. Most of the people he spoke to were sitting round the table – her, Johnnie, Harry and Lewis. And yet, his phone screen lit up every few minutes. When he’d ducked out to take a call. She couldn’t help but smack her glass hard on the table.

  She was glad that Lew had looked at her and kept his mouth shut. She didn’t need any more advice. At least not yet.

  Emma stared across the conference table at Jamie. He was ignoring Si but it seemed for a different matter. He obviously had his phone in his lap and the colour fluctuated in his cheeks as he blushed and smiled down at it. Probably texts from Gee. Because that was what was happening. It wasn’t as if she were stupid, and Jamie deserved a nice bloke. But why hers? It hurt, she thought, rubbing her chest as if she could massage the heartache away.