I Heart Forever

by Lindsey Kelk

  It was the most horrifying thing he could have said.

  ‘It’s not a shit sandwich, Joe, it’s a shit buffet,’ I said loudly. ‘There’s no bread, there’s no butter, there’s just shit. Loads of different kinds of shit. One kind of shit held together by two other kinds of shit and forced down someone’s throat and that someone is me.’

  He blanched at the metaphor as I fell back against my chair and carefully covered my stomach with my arms. Wasn’t it my passion he said he was interested in? It probably wasn’t a good idea to expose my unborn baby to so many expletives at once, but if it was going to live with me for the next eighteen or so years, it was better that it became desensitized as early as possible.

  ‘I don’t want your job,’ I told him, pushing my hair back from my hot face. ‘I know that might not make sense to you, but it was never in my plans. It’s not what I’m good at.’

  ‘I think you’re underestimating yourself,’ Joe replied, straightening his tie. ‘You have a skill for nurturing talent, you’re good at it. And you’re the heart and soul behind Gloss, I know that. You’re the person who made this brand a success.’

  ‘I didn’t make the brand a success, I made the magazine a success,’ I insisted, standing up on the other side of his desk. I paused for a moment to steady myself in my badass high heels and wished I’d listened to my gut instead of my Pinterest board. ‘Gloss is my magazine, not my brand. I care about every word that goes into it, and every person that writes every word, every person who reads every word. Delia made it a real magazine, Spencer made it a brand, what I did was show up every day and do something I loved.’

  He looked up at me, considering his response without a flicker of emotion in his eyes.

  ‘I hear what you’re saying.’

  When he finally spoke, his words were perfectly measured and managed, all his years of executive training shining brightly, and I really, really wanted to punch him right in the mouth.

  ‘And I understand your concerns.’ He stood up too and was suddenly towering over me. ‘You don’t have to give me an answer right away, of course you should take the weekend to think about this, it’s a big move, but we would like an answer on Monday.’

  ‘Monday,’ I said, nodding to myself. ‘OK. And what happens if I don’t take the job?’

  Joe shrugged, the easy smile completely vanishing from his face.

  ‘Then we no longer have a role for you at Spencer Media,’ he said, returning to his seat. ‘And I’ll be very sorry to see you go.’

  Nodding to myself, I turned to leave with the job description in my hand.

  ‘Could you take the trash can with you?’ Joe asked just as I reached the door. ‘And you should look into some of those lactose pills. You can buy them over the counter now.’

  ‘Awesome, yeah, thanks,’ I said, coming back for the bin and tucking it under my arm as I let myself out of his office. ‘I’ll definitely do that.’

  A shit buffet and a bin full of vom.

  What a way to start the weekend.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  ‘What would you do?’ I asked Jenny in the car on the way from The Union to Prune. ‘I mean, really, what can I do? I’ve got to take the job, haven’t I?’

  ‘It’s not like they’re moving you down to the mailroom,’ she replied, scanning the job description as we bumped over another pothole. ‘This is huge, Angie. You’d be a director, you’d be in charge of an entire global brand, the travel alone … it would be really exciting for the right person.’

  ‘For the right person,’ I agreed. ‘But I don’t know if that’s me. How can I nick off to Sydney to check on the Australian edition of the magazine if I’m breastfeeding?’

  ‘Are you sure they won’t hire you a wet nurse?’ she asked, handing me back the piece of paper. ‘If not, it’s the only thing they aren’t going to give you.’

  ‘I get that it’s an amazing offer,’ I said, gazing out the window as we slowed down in front of Webster Hall to let someone cross the street. We’d seen Alex play there so many times. ‘And I am in no position to be turning down that kind of money right now. Joe made it very clear that it’s this job or no job. So why do I feel sick?’

  ‘You always feel sick,’ she reminded me. ‘You have for months now, you’re pregnant, remember?’

  ‘It’s not baby sick,’ I said, punching her in the arm. I exhaled as we pulled away and turned down 3rd Avenue. ‘It feels wrong.’

  ‘What would you do if there was no baby? No mortgage, no Alex? What would you do if it was just you?’

  ‘Get on a plane in my bridesmaid dress and move to another country without consulting anyone?’ I suggested, hopefully.

  ‘Only an idiot would do something like that,’ she replied, resting her head on my shoulder. ‘Did you talk to Delia?’

  I shook my head. It was a sensible question, but every time I’d picked up the phone to dial her extension, I hadn’t been able to do it.

  ‘Did I tell you she cancelled on dinner?’ Jenny asked. ‘She swears she’s still coming to the wedding, but something came up tonight or so she says.’

  ‘I hope she didn’t cancel because she didn’t want to see me,’ I muttered. I didn’t mean it in the slightest. I very much hoped that was the reason she’d cancelled. ‘Plus, there’s the Cici thing to think about. That could be amazing if it’s done right.’

  ‘But that really would be a crazy risk,’ she said. ‘Alex is right, startups are hard, even if they have all the money in the world and all the best people. Plus, it’s Cici, and she’s kind of the devil.’

  ‘She has sort of grown on me,’ I admitted. ‘A bit like a very attractive form of mould. Or Justin Bieber.’

  ‘And what did Alex say?’ Jenny pulled out a Chanel mirror and tapped at her cherry red lip gloss. ‘He’s smart about this stuff, right? That’s why you married him.’

  I opened my bag and checked my phone for the thousandth time that day.

  ‘He hasn’t said anything,’ I told her, trying to control my wavering bottom lip. ‘I haven’t been able to get hold of him all day. He was gone when I woke up – I assumed he’d gone for a run. Now, nothing.’

  ‘What do you mean he was gone?’ Jenny looked puzzled. ‘He’s coming tonight? To dinner?’

  ‘I hope so,’ I nodded. ‘He’s supposed to be bringing Mum and Dad, and if they had to find their own way on the subway, we’ll all be in trouble.’

  ‘I’m thinking about getting Mason tagged,’ she said with a disgruntled sigh. ‘A little microchip in the back of his neck, like they do with shelter dogs? It’s really the only way to be sure you know where they are all the time.’

  ‘Twenty-four hours ago I would have told you not to be ridiculous,’ I said, putting my phone away and placing the folded job description beside it. ‘But if you find someone who will do it, can you let me know?’

  ‘Your mum said I had to dress up,’ Dad said, meeting me and Jenny at the door of the restaurant, umbrellas in hand.

  ‘You look nice,’ I replied. ‘It’s nice, but it’s not fancy.’

  ‘I knew it wasn’t dressy,’ he said, loosening his tie and throwing evils at my mum who innocently busied herself with her handbag.

  ‘On the cruise, we dressed for dinner every night,’ Mum said. ‘We were asked to sit on the captain’s table five times. That was more than anyone else, you know. Until your dad started reading books about serial killers …’

  ‘Impressive,’ I said, looking over her shoulder for my husband. ‘Did he have any fish fingers?’

  ‘Not a one,’ Dad replied, indignant. ‘That’s another thing to add to the list, thank you, Angela.’

  ‘Any time,’ I told him. ‘Where’s Alex?’

  ‘He sent your dad a text message to say he might be late,’ Mum said. ‘We thought he was with you.’

  Alex had sent Dad a text message? He’d ignored me all day but he’d sent my dad a text message?

  ‘Can I see?’ I asked, as nonchalant as humanl
y possible.

  Dad handed me his phone. There was a smiley face emoji. This wasn’t from Alex, he didn’t speak emoji, he’d definitely been kidnapped. Someone had kidnapped my husband and I’d been so preoccupied with some corporate twonk, I hadn’t even noticed. I handed the phone back.

  ‘Are you coming inside or are you going to stand out there in the rain?’ Dad said, holding the door open. ‘I’m sneezing just looking at you.’

  ‘I’m coming,’ I said, joining everyone inside, shaking off my umbrella and placing it carefully in the rack by the door.

  ‘What time do you think Alex might get here?’ Dad asked, sticking to my side as Mum ran across the room to hug every single woman who had been on Jenny’s hen. I stifled a smile as Sadie reared backwards, shielding her nose with both hands.

  ‘Not sure,’ I replied, texting said errant husband as we spoke. ‘I think his phone must have died, I haven’t heard from him.’

  ‘Hope he didn’t lose it,’ Dad chuntered, eyeing the entire room with great suspicion. ‘Expensive things, phones. Pricey bit of kit.’

  ‘I’m sure it’s fine, Dad,’ I said. ‘He was probably working on something with Graham and forgot to charge it. Wouldn’t be the first time.’

  ‘Not cheap,’ he added, just to make sure I understood.

  Ignoring him as best I could, I checked my own phone to see if Alex had replied but there was nothing. His backpacking extravaganza had really taken the shine off the boy’s texting skills. Before he’d been sans WiFi for two months, he’d been very good at letting me know where he was and when he’d be home. I didn’t need him on a digital leash, but when I’d sent several poop-face emojis and one ‘I really need to talk to you’ message, a quick unicorn in return and maybe a ‘how’s the mother of my unborn child doing?’ wouldn’t have gone amiss.

  ‘Dad,’ I said. ‘How did you feel when Mum told you she was pregnant?’

  ‘Chuffed to monkeys,’ he replied, looking at his watch. We hadn’t even sat down to dinner yet and I could tell he was counting down the hours until he could leave. ‘Couldn’t have been happier.’

  ‘You didn’t freak out or anything? I asked. ‘You didn’t panic? You were loads younger than me and Alex, surely you must have had a bit of a wobble.’

  ‘Maybe a bit,’ he said. ‘But things were different back then, sugarplum. You didn’t worry about things, you put your head down and you got on with it. We were married, we wanted kids. I knew it would happen sooner or later and well, here you are.’

  Clearly I was the most wanted baby in the history of the world.

  ‘So, you weren’t worried about anything?’ I knew I was pushing my luck. My dad was a wonderful man but unless he’d had a couple of sherries after Christmas dinner, the likelihood of getting an emotional breakthrough was slim to none.

  ‘I worried you’d have two arms, two legs and one head,’ he said, crossing his arms as my mother tittered like a schoolgirl at something Mason’s brother said across the room. ‘Other than that, I was just happy to have you.’

  ‘Great,’ I said, an eye still on my silent phone. ‘Thanks.’

  ‘Of course, there was that one day right before you were born when I went a bit loopy and took myself off to Skegness for fish and chips and your mother thought I wasn’t coming back,’ he added. ‘But other than that, no, it was all right as rain.’

  ‘Wait, what?’

  ‘What about what?’ he asked.

  ‘You nicked off to Skeggy without telling Mum, right before I was born?’ I prompted. ‘How long were you gone for?’

  ‘Only overnight,’ he said, as though a man going missing for twenty-four hours in the mid-Eighties was no cause for concern. ‘I just fancied a day at the seaside, that was all, and it occurred to me that I wouldn’t be able to pop off for the day once you arrived. Your mother wasn’t best pleased and your grandmother was even less impressed, but I had a lovely time. Even had a Mr Whippy on the seafront.’

  ‘You drove hundreds of miles to spend the day in Skegness right before I was born and you didn’t tell Mum you were going?’ I just wanted to make sure I had my facts straight before I had my breakdown. ‘What were you thinking? Mum must have been so worried. They didn’t even have mobile phones back then.’

  ‘Your mother is always worried,’ he said with an added ‘pfft’ just to make sure I knew he thought I was overreacting. ‘I went for a drive to clear my head. It’s different for dads, Angela. You’ve got that baby with you all the time. Even before it’s moving around and kicking, you know it’s there, don’t you? It can take a bit longer for a dad to come to terms with how much his life is going to change.’

  ‘How much his life is going to change?’ My voice picked up an octave and I noticed Erin and Thomas looking over. ‘I’m going to push a human being out of me. The only thing that’s been removed from my person until now is that piece of Lego I got stuck up my nose when I was six and I can’t say that was a treat.’

  ‘Why don’t I get us a drink?’ Dad suggested. ‘Get me a drink, I mean. Do you want some pop?’

  ‘Maybe I would like to run off to the seaside for the day and eat ice cream and ponder the meaning of life. Not a Mr Whippy, though, because I can’t have soft serve, because I can’t have anything, because I’m bloody pregnant.’

  I was shouting. I was shouting at the top of my voice.

  ‘What time did you say you thought Alex might get here?’ he asked, looking for an assist from his wife. ‘You seem a bit tense.’

  ‘Because I am a bit tense,’ I snapped. ‘And I don’t know when he’s bloody well going to get here because I don’t bloody well know where he is, do I?’

  ‘Hey, Angie?’ Jenny tapped me on the shoulder with a pointed look on her face. ‘Could you come to the bathroom with me for a moment?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said, still staring daggers at my dad. My poor, clueless dad. ‘I’m coming.’

  ‘What the fuck is going on?’ Jenny hissed, locking the door to the single stall behind us. ‘Where is Alex?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ I replied, laughing hysterically. ‘He’s gone. Won’t answer my texts, told Mum and Dad he’d be late. Your guess is as good as mine. Thailand maybe? Cambodia? Who knows.’

  ‘No, he’s not ruining my wedding.’ She pulled her iPhone out of her bespoke Edie Parker ‘Mrs’ clutch and dialled Alex’s number while I panted at myself in the mirror. Hysterics were not my best look.

  ‘Hey Alex, it’s Jenny,’ she said. I knew she was leaving a voicemail and I knew he wouldn’t listen to it, but there was no point in trying to stop her. ‘I’m not sure where you’re at right now but I would love it if you could get your sorry ass into a goddamn cab and show up to my goddamn rehearsal dinner because if you don’t, so help me god, Alex Reid, your baby is going to grow up with a single mother and that is not fair. I’m serious, if you don’t get here inside sixty minutes, I’m going to hunt you down and murder you, you motherfucker. OK! See you soon!’

  She hung up the phone, inhaled, smiled and exhaled happily.

  ‘And that’s how we deal with that,’ she said, scrunching up her nose and kissing me on the cheek before letting herself out of the lav. I turned on the tap and ran the water until it was icy cold, dipping my hands under the flow. As if by magic, my phone buzzed into life with a message. A message from Alex.

  ‘Shit shit shit,’ I gasped, fighting with the paper towel dispenser as the screen went black. Rubbing my hands dry on the arse of my borrowed Marchesa mini dress, I prayed I hadn’t pulled off any sequins and opened Alex’s message.

  Hey, can’t make dinner, tell Jenny I’m sorry. I’ll be back in tomorrow.

  What. The actual. Fuck.

  Before I could type exactly what I was thinking, another message came through.

  I love you xo.

  I stared at the screen, trying to make sense of it all. This wasn’t like him. He knew you don’t bail on someone’s rehearsal dinner, let alone Jenny Lopez’s rehearsal dinner. He didn’t even
know what sorry meant, she was going to kill him. And most importantly, where on god’s green earth had he gone?

  ‘Are you still in there, love?’ I heard Dad ask on the other side of the door.

  ‘Yes,’ I replied in a quiet, dangerous voice. ‘Sorry. I lost my temper.’

  ‘That’s all right,’ he said. ‘No worse than when you were sixteen. There’s about to be dinner, if you’re coming out.’

  ‘I’ll be out in a second,’ I promised. ‘Don’t eat my mash.’

  It was still raining outside, I could hear it from inside the bathroom. It had to be pouring it down. I sat down on the toilet and attempted to calm down, still wondering where Alex might be.

  ‘You’re overreacting,’ I said out loud. ‘He’s probably recording with Graham, lost track of time, and realized it was too late to make dinner. That’s all this is.’

  Not showing up just wasn’t like him. Ignoring my messages just wasn’t like him. Shouting at me and throwing cushions around the living room just wasn’t like him.

  Oh fuckityfuckfuckfuck. Fuckadoodledo.

  He’d gone to Skegness for fish and chips and he was never coming back.

  ‘It’s nothing,’ I told myself. ‘Dad came back and Alex will too. At least you know he’s OK.’

  My blood pressure aside, everything was fine. I wasn’t going to ruin Jenny and Mason’s evening by having a meltdown in the toilets. We’d already had one of those while planning this wedding, and I was fairly sure that was the limit. Alex hadn’t left me, he hadn’t gone back to Thailand, he hadn’t got on a plane to England then driven himself to Skegness for fish and chips, and he wasn’t dead.

  At least, he wasn’t yet.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  ‘So,’ Jenny held out her hands. ‘Whaddya think?’

  I opened my eyes, already holding a tissue underneath each one. I was nothing if not prepared. I’d expected her to look good, I’d anticipated a very pretty dress, but even if I’d been able to magic up a dress from my own imagination, I’d never have been able to create something this wonderful. Her hair was pulled back, braided into a perfect crown and threaded through with the most delicate strings of Swarovski crystals, making it look as though fairies had kissed her on the head as she’d walked by. Delicate curls hung around her face, grazing her cheekbone perfectly and framing Razor’s stellar make-up job. Rose-pink lips, soft smoky eyes, flawless skin. Maybe there was something to this giving up sugar malarkey.