‘It’s going to be great!’ Alex says, finishing the last mouthfuls of his lasagna and patting his gently rounded tummy in satisfaction. ‘Have you thought of any more quotes you can use?’
Donna nods, using her napkin to dab neatly at the corners of her mouth. ‘I actually wrote some myself.’ She takes a deep breath. ‘Your love burns like a flame!’ she announces triumphantly. ‘Isn’t it très romantic?’
I snort over my water glass until I realise that she’s not joking. She’s serious. Your love burns like a flame? That’s not romantic. That’s an STD.
‘I like it!’ Alex says tactfully, ever the people pleaser. ‘We should come up with a bunch more over the weekend, darling. And did you get your final list of scents decided?’
‘I’ve got lemon, of course, and vanilla and freshly cut grass.’ Donna counts off on her fingers. ‘I can’t decide on the last two though… Maybe lavender for a candle that says “Dream, Sleep, Love, Live”. Or maybe a rose-scented one for my “Live every moment of your life!” one.’
‘What do you think, Olive?’ Alex asks, sweetly bringing me in to the conversation. Even he can see Donna’s tendency to completely overtake all dinner chat. I wonder if he’s ever brought it up with her? Hmm. Probably not. Alex likes an easy life and criticising Donna in any way would likely bring him a world of hassle.
I shrug. ‘Why don’t you do one or two wildcard scents?’ I say. ‘Like maybe a candle scent that no one has ever come up with before? Like… your high school crush’s leather jacket? Or the cold side of the pillow? Or maybe even long grass instead of freshly cut grass? So many candles are freshly cut grass. But long grass smells delicious! Especially if there are daisies in there. Long grass is so underrated.’
Now it’s Donna’s turn to snort… ‘A leather jacket candle? Thanks for your input, Olive, but I think I’ll pass.’
Before I can say anything else Donna turns back to Alex and launches into a speech about different types of wax moulds, which I can already tell is going to be long and extra detailed. At that point I decide to make my excuses and take off to bed.
‘But… It’s The Big Bang Theory in twenty minutes!’ Alex points out.
‘It’s cool, I’ll catch up tomorrow!’
‘If Olive wants to miss out on Sheldon’s hilarious antics, that’s her choice,’ Donna says, patting Alex on the shoulder.
‘Are you sure?’ Alex asks me as I back away towards the stairs.
‘Definitely! I need an early night anyway. I’m visiting Birdie tomorrow.’
The pair of them bow their heads, nodding super sympathetically like they do each time I mention Birdie. I take the opportunity to quickly wave goodnight and leg it up the stairs two at a time.
After a quick scroll through Instagram and an episode of Fawlty Towers on my laptop, I lay my head on the pillow and close my eyes. But as I try to fall to sleep I can think of only two things: that bloody library scene in Atonement and Norris’ out of the blue change to sea bass…
Chapter Three
Text from Birdie: Hurry up, Brewster, I miss yooooou. Don’t forget coffee. Also, there is a new doctor here and he is hot. I plan to take him as a lover. Fucked-up kidneys or no fucked-up kidneys, ya girl gotta get laid!!!
The next morning, I wake up with a strange sense of excitement and dread in my stomach. It’s the feeling I always get when I’m visiting Birdie in the hospital. I’m eager to see her because she’s my favourite person who ever existed. But I’m visiting her in the hospital where her most recent lupus-related organ troubles have had her stuck for the past eight weeks. Which is horrible. So horrible that I can only think of the whole thing in a vague abstract way. I still can’t get my head around the fact that the doctors don’t know how long she’s got left to live. I push the thought out of my head as soon as it arrives and focus on thinking of ways I can brighten her day.
After a quick shower, I change into a mustard-coloured shirt dress, slip on my comfy black flats and leave the house, grabbing a takeaway coffee for Birdie on the way. After men, glittery clothes and the art of Egon Schiele, coffee is her favourite thing. But the hospital stuff tastes like a stagnant puddle so I bring her the good stuff. Plus, she won’t let me through the door of her room if I turn up without it.
On the bus to Manchester Royal Hospital, I replay, for the gazillionth time recently, the moment I met Birdie. I love daydreaming about it because it was one of those rare moments when you know something amazing is happening exactly as it’s occurring.
I was at the library in my first year of university, trying my very hardest to focus on writing my essay about The Canterbury Tales, when a short girl with a brunette pixie crop plonked herself down at the table noisily, spilling a little splodge of hot coffee onto the table.
‘Fuck sorry! Sorry, you guys!’ she said loudly to the other students at the communal table, mopping up the spill with her big orange woolly scarf. Her accent was pure New York, but she looked French in that totally cool Parisian way. Big sad eyes, bluntly lopped off hair, pale, haughty cheekbones and a dinky nose. She was wearing a chic black vest and black tulle skirt that fanned out far too widely to be appropriate in a dowdy old Mancunian library.
I remember being annoyed at the interruption. I barely found enough time to study as it was, working so many hours at Joan’s Fresh Fish in order to even afford my tuition. And here was this American, gabbing on and spilling her coffee, no respect for the sacrosanct ways of the library.
‘Oh, I’ve ticked you off!’ she said to me, as she opened up an old tatty laptop where the ping of it booting up was set at full volume.
I rolled my eyes. ‘No.’ I whispered, pointing at my notepad. ‘I just have to get this done.’
‘Will you be quiet?’ Another guy at the communal table shushed us furiously. ‘It’s basic library etiquette, gosh.’
Ignoring him, the girl leaned over to peer at my book. ‘Chaucer. What a bore! But better than Van Gogh. Total nutcase.’ She pointed at her own book: Masters of Post-Impressionism.
At that point I couldn’t help but smile. This girl didn’t give a single shit that she was annoying everyone. And because I was completely the opposite of that, it fascinated me.
‘What’s your name?’ the girl said, her voice cheerful and booming.
The other lad at the table was starting to turn puce in the face. To avoid him blowing a gasket, I tore a sheet of paper from my notebook and scribbled on it.
Shhh! My name is Olive Brewster.
With a nod, the girl read it, took my pen and scrawled on the paper, her handwriting big and loopy.
I’m Birdie. Birdie Lively. I just moved here after a terrible heartbreak in my homeland, USA. I don’t know anyone yet and I like the look of you. We should become best of friends, probably. What do you think? Tick this box for yes. There isn’t a box for no, so you can’t say no.
My eyes almost popped out of my face when I read it. English people didn’t make friends this way! I certainly didn’t. And not with a gutsy American who flouted library quiet rules. But how could I resist? At the very least I wanted to hear all about this terrible heartbreak in her homeland USA. That sounded very intriguing to a girl who had never even been on a date.
I slowly picked up my pen and ticked the little ‘yes’ box Birdie had drawn.
And when she smiled at me, dazzling white American teeth sparkling, her big sad eyes shining in a way that made me feel like I was way cooler than I was, I fell in love with Birdie Lively. And from that instant onwards, as simple as that, we became best of friends.
At the hospital, I walk quickly through the sterile green-floored corridors. There are brightly coloured murals all over the walls in an attempt to brighten up the place. But the effort is futile because most everyone walking past the art looks too sad or poorly or tired to notice it. I turn a corner and enter the double doors that lead to Birdie’s ward.
Poking my head around the door of her room, I grimace as I see she’s had even more framed prints
of her favourite modern art hung up onto the walls. I don’t like that’s she’s settling in here. It’s like she thinks she’s not going to be coming home. In a frame next to her bed is a picture of her and I on a summer picnic at Heaton Park. She’s giving the middle finger to the camera. I’m laughing at her doing it. I have the exact same photo beside my bed at home.
‘What’s the magic word?’ she calls out when she spots me.
‘I come bearing actual real coffee.’
‘Then… you may come in.’ She grins, ushering me inside from where she’s sitting crossed-leg in a big pale blue chair by the window.
I hand her the takeaway coffee which she pounces upon as if it’s the uninvented medical treatment that will save her life. I’m pleased to see that Birdie’s cheeks are less pale today. Other than the drip in her arm, she looks completely normal in worn jeans, a soft wheat-coloured jumper and sparkly gold slippers. You’d have no idea she was so poorly.
‘You look good!’ I say, wandering over to her bed and emptying the plastic bag of things I’ve brought with me. Nail polish in a daring crimson red that I know Birdie will love, a big bag of chocolate buttons, some of those Korean sheet face masks that make you look like something from a horror movie and a jigsaw puzzle I found in the hospital gift shop.
‘Thank you, my Brewster,’ Birdie says, immediately opening the buttons and offering me one. ‘Is that jigsaw puzzle for you?’
‘No, it’s for us?’
‘You can fuck off if you think I’m doing a jigsaw puzzle.’
I blink. ‘Jigsaw puzzles are fun! And therapeutic.’
‘I agree.’ Birdie nods. ‘If you’re eighty. And living in 1973.’
I pick up the box and clasp it to my chest. I love a good jigsaw puzzle! All the pieces fit together exactly as they’re supposed to. You can’t lose at jigsaws! ‘This one is of a beautiful house! Look!’ I point at the picture on the front of the box. It’s a big detached country house surrounded by pretty flowers and magnificent trees. A bit like the house in Atonement.
‘It’s creepy as fuck. Look. The front door is a bit open.’
I squint at the picture on the box and see that she’s right. The front door of the house is ajar.
‘So? It’s probably a hot day.’
‘Or someone broke in and did a murder? I’m telling you, shit went down in that jigsaw house. I can just tell.’ She raises an eyebrow and munches down on another chocolate button.
I laugh. ‘Fine. It’s a bit creepy.’
Birdie shuffles in her chair, moving her slippered feet under her bum. She looks so elegant doing it. I could never sit cross-legged on a chair without looking all awkward and smooshed up wrong.
Instead I perch on Birdie’s hospital bed as we chat about what’s been going on with us in the few days since we last saw each other. If it was up to me, I’d visit her every day! But Birdie vetoed that on account of the fact that she doesn’t want me stuck in here as well as her. She’s thoughtful like that. We text multiple times a day, but there are always new things to discuss with best friends. At uni, we would spend all day together and then call each other in the evening to discuss what we were going to have for tea.
Birdie clutches her stomach and laughs loudly when I tell her about Donna’s shit candle quotes. I embellish the story and add a few made-up rubbish quotes for her amusement.
‘Live, Listen, Look, Laugh, Life, Love, Listen again!’ I say. ‘Enjoy life and love and dreams and live! In the rain! Also believe!’ I do a little impression of Donna as I joke around, looking faux contemplatively out of the window, a finger to my chin. Then I mime smelling a candle and put on an Italian accent. ‘Ooh, Mamma mia. This one smells like the most authentic lasagna!’
Birdie shrieks with mirth and, although I feel a bit mean about taking the mickey out of Donna, having Birdie be impressed with me, the sound of her laughter echoing around the room, is completely worth it.
When she’s finally stopped giggling, Birdie finishes the last of her coffee and takes a deep breath. ‘So. Brewster. I have been thinking about a guy.’
‘Ooh, yes the doctor you texted me about!’ I rub my hands together. ‘What’s his name? What’s he like? Do you think he fancies you back? He obviously will do.’
Just because I’m not interested in love affairs for myself, it doesn’t mean I don’t like hearing about Birdie’s (many) dalliances. She’s definitely more equipped than me to deal with the inevitable fallouts and heartbreaks from love and sex. Though after seeing it destroy my family, I do worry that one day she’ll fall too hard and it will break her. But it hasn’t happened yet. Emotionally, this girl is as strong as steel. But I guess knowing you’re going to die young will do that to you.
‘The doctor is hot,’ Birdie says. ‘His name is BJ. Not ideal, but I can get over that because his muscled arms are the size of legs and he’s got this Irish accent that gives me the flutters.’
‘Are you sure that’s not your arrhythmia?’ I ask worriedly.
Birdie rolls her eyes. ‘My heart might be weak as shit but I know the difference between a medical palpitation and a horny one.’
‘Fair enough,’ I say, wondering what on earth a horny palpitation feels like. It sounds terrible.
‘Anyway, the man I’m talking about is not Doctor BJ. I’ve been thinking about a different man.’
‘Oh! Who?’
Her big dark eyes meet mine.
‘Chuck.’
‘Who?’
‘Chuck Allen.’
My mouth drops open. Chuck Allen is the man who broke her heart in her ‘hometown USA’. The one she mentioned in her note to me that day we first met in the library. He was supposed to be coming to England with her to study in Manchester, but at the last minute accepted a place at Princeton and stayed in the US. Birdie couldn’t afford the tuition there, so came to the UK alone and heartbroken. I don’t know much more about Chuck than this. Birdie always got tearful when I asked, told me he was ancient history and changed the subject to something more upbeat.
‘Why are you thinking about him?’ I ask. ‘Don’t we hate him? I hate him. I don’t know him but he made you sad. So I super hate him.’
Birdie smiles sadly. ‘No. I never hated him. He did break my heart though. But he’s been on my mind a lot these past few weeks.’
‘Don’t think about Chuck Allen!’ I say, taking hold of her hands. ‘Think about happy stuff! Like Doctor BJ’s leg-sized arms and nice coffee and shit performance art and YouTube videos where two species of animals are best friends, and glittery things… and getting better!’
Birdie sighs, her smile dropping for a moment. I mentally punch myself in the face. We both know she’s not getting better. The surgery she’s having on her kidney in two weeks will hopefully give her more time, but beyond that, it’s pretty hopeless.
‘Sorry,’ I say.
‘Don’t be daft,’ she replies, squeezing my hand. Even here, now, stuck in the hospital, Birdie is tougher and braver than I will ever be. ‘And I wasn’t thinking about Chuck in a bad way. I was thinking about him in a good way. I’ve actually been thinking that, well, maybe he was the one. I mean, I’ve never met any other man I felt that way about.’
‘What about Chef Greg?’
‘No.’
‘What about Big Peen Pablo?
‘No.’
‘What about Aaron the clumsy drummer with a heart of gold?’
‘No. Although I did like him a hell of a lot… But none of them meant as much to me as Chuck.’
‘Oh!’ I say. ‘Right! Wow. I always assumed he was nothing more than a distant memory to you!’
Birdie tucks her dark cropped hair behind her ears. ‘I’ve had so much time to reflect in here, and in my situation you do a lot of thinking. And, well, I think that Chuck Allen might have been… my Big Sexy Love.’
‘No!’ I gasp. ‘Your Big Sexy Love? Seriously? After all this time? After he broke your heart? No! Really?’
Birdie nods and shrugs
one shoulder. ‘Really.’
Wow. That’s pretty big. Scratch that. It’s epic.
The pursuit of Big Sexy Love is a thing Birdie told me about that first night after we’d met in the library. We’d headed off on a long walk around the campus, shared our entire life stories and discussed what we hoped for in our futures. She said that she wanted to experience love. But not just any love, Big Sexy Love, as she called it. The kind of love that made you sleepless and excited and devoted and crazy. Dramatic, all-encompassing, can’t live without them, the sun shines out of their bum love. Big Sexy Love.
I countered with the notion that feeling so over the top in love about anyone sounded horrible and uncomfortable. How would you get anything done if you were feeling all those feelings all of the time? And what if they let you down? What if they buggered off and left you behind, like my parents did? Then what? Nah. I told her that my version of Big Sexy Love would be a dependable love. Steady. Someone who had a reliable job and turned up on time, and didn’t make you lose your head. Someone lovely and consistent and secure. Someone who would never leave. In my fantasy at the time, this someone had sideburns and an unwavering five-year plan.
‘Oh Birdie, I’m sorry,’ I say, my heart squeezing with pity. How awful to be so young and thinking about lost love. Lost Big Sexy Love, even! As if her life isn’t already totally unfair. Shit.
She fiddles with a bit of fabric on her jumper sleeve and bites her lip. ‘I want Chuck to know that I forgive him. For choosing to go to Princeton instead of coming with me to England. I… want him to know what he meant to me. I don’t want to… go… with him thinking that I hate him. I want him to know he was my Big Sexy Love.’
I nod, touched at her generous heart and try to hold down the tears that spring to my eyes.. She’s so sweet. She’s got all this going on and she’s worried about letting an old boyfriend who, sounds like a bit of a shit to be honest, know that she loved him big time.
Big Sexy Love: The laugh out loud romantic comedy that everyone's raving about! Page 2
