“Moving on, then,” Alex said, taking over the scrolling. “How do you sort on this?”
He and Mum basically took over, sharing dresses back and forth. While they were busy with the first site, I opened up ASOS on my phone and scrolled through that to see if there was something that caught my eye. Most of it looked way too casual to suit the formal, but one thing did jump out at me. It wasn’t something I ever thought I’d like, but there it was.
“This,” I said, sitting up.
“What?” Mum asked.
I spun my phone to the camera. “Can you see it?”
“Where’s it from?”
“ASOS.”
“What is it?”
I typed the name of it in the chat and we waited a few minutes while Mum looked for it.
“Lemme see?” Alex asked, holding his hand out.
I passed him my phone. He looked at the picture, then looked at me, then looked at the picture. Finally, he smiled.
“I think you’d look awesome in that.”
So did I. It was a pale pink thing – a colour I could pull off even with the red-head in me – thin straps, a-line with a flared skirt, and what looked like hundreds of fake petals all over it. It looked feminine, but grunge-able at the same time.
“Oh, you could pair it with your boots,” Mum said, obviously thinking the same thing as me. “Make it more you. Do you have your boots?”
I nodded. “I’ve got my boots.”
“And your black cardy?”
I nodded again. “Like I’d go anywhere without my black cardy,” I scoffed with a smile.
“Well, that was easier than I expected,” Mum said happily, sitting back in her chair and picking up a glass of wine.
“You’re telling me,” Alex said, almost mimicking Mum’s pose, just minus the wine.
After a few sips, Mum leant forward again. “You guys are room 605?” she asked.
“Yep,” Alex answered.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“Ordering this dress,” she said. “You can’t wear it if we feel so pleased with our find that we forget to actually buy it.”
I nodded to Alex. “She’s a thinker.”
“She is,” Alex laughed.
“So, I guess I’m wearing a dress,” I said, sighing in resignation but actually kind of looking forward to it.
Chapter Twenty-One
Driving with Ms Wilson or, as Alex called her, Aunt Tam was not as terrifying as I’d first expected it to be.
Firstly, she had very similar taste in music to Mum so I recognised a bunch of the songs she played. Secondly, when Alex complained about the music selection, the first thing out of her mouth was, “Driver picks the music, shotgun shuts his cake hole”. Anyone who quoted ‘Supernatural’ had to be okay, right?
I sat in the back seat, mostly content to listen to Alex and Tamara – which she’d insisted I call her as soon as we left school grounds – chatting and laughing, or staring out the window and pretending I was riding a horse alongside the car. A weird thing I’d done since I was very little.
I’d thought arriving at Acacia had been an awe-inspiring sight? Arriving at the Landrys’ winery was nothing short of spectacular, especially as we’d arrived after dark and the place was set up for a wedding. Fairy lights were strewn everywhere; though trees, around pergolas, across the driveway. The whole place was lit up and it was magical. If this was the way the Landrys did weddings, I could get on board.
“All right, warning time, Lottie,” Tamara said as we came up to a more homely looking house. “My sister is a bit…”
“Insane?” Alex muttered.
“I was going to say intense,” Tamara said as she pulled to a stop. “She’s a perfectionist.”
“That’s putting it mildly,” Alex said as he hopped out of the car.
Tamara swivelled to look at me. “I’m sure he’s explained his relationship with his parents is…tense. It means a lot that you’re here with him for this.”
I suddenly felt that my presence meant a whole lot more than I’d realised. It didn’t freak me out, and for a second it felt like it should, but it humbled me.
I nodded to her. “Thanks.”
As though the serious moment was now over, Tamara nodded. “All right, let’s go and face the horde.”
We both got out and I saw Alex was being greeted by a bunch of people on the verandah. Tamara smiled at me as we made our way over.
“Just wait until you try the cake!” a guy who looked a lot like Alex, but older, was saying to him.
“Have you lost weight?” a woman asked him. “I don’t know what we’ll do if your tux doesn’t fit.”
“Sylvie!” Tamara called, pushing her way into the woman’s arms.
“Tam, there you are,” she said. Then pulled away from her sister and looked to Alex. “Aren’t you going to introduce us your friend?”
His friend was more than happy to just sit in the shadows and not be noticed by anybody, but that seemed like it wasn’t going to happen.
“Why don’t we get inside first?” Tamara asked. “Where’s Loz?”
Alex gave me a reassuring smile as Tamara ushered everyone else inside and left just the two of us outside.
“Doing okay?”
I nodded. “Fine.”
“I forgot how much social interaction this was going to be for you.”
I smiled at the sentiment. “All good. I’m just here for you.”
I held my hand out to him and he took it before leading the way inside.
The noise was immense as he led me down the central hallway.
It was a double-fronted cottage, the kind Mum had always wanted. Left and right were rooms, some doors closed, some open. We walked past a staircase leading upstairs and another presumably to a cellar. Finally, the hallway opened out into a huge, obviously modern open plan living area, complete with fire place.
“There he is!” a young woman cried.
“Hey, Loz,” Alex nodded as she came over.
She looked at me with a big smile. “This must be Lottie. Hi. I’m Eliza. Alex’s soon to be sister-in-law. Everyone calls me Loz.”
I gave her a smile back. It was only polite. “Nice to meet you. Congratulations.”
She grinned. “Thank you. Come and meet the others.”
Loz got between Alex and me and guided me over to where everyone had congregated around the fire with glasses of various libations.
“Everyone, quiet. Quiet for the bride,” Loz called.
There were amused titters that suggested she was taking the piss a little.
“Right, thank you. Everyone this is Lottie, Alex’s new friend from school.”
There were varied choruses of “Hi, Lottie,” from those gathered.
Loz nodded approvingly. “Now, this is Ilya, my husband-to-be.”
Ilya, the guy who looked like older Alex, came over with a nod. “Thanks for coming.”
I nodded. “Thanks for having me.”
“This is Ed, Alex’s dad. His mum, Sylvia. Wonderful woman. You know Marina. And, this,” here she steered me over to the corner to a stern looking older woman, “is Babushka.”
Babushka looked me over and I couldn’t tell if she approved or not. Suddenly, my usual librarian-with-a-dash-of-grunge look felt rather inadequate.
“This is Elliott?” she asked, with a slight accent, and I nodded.
“Yup, I’m Elliott.”
Babushka gave me another once over, then stood up. I’m woman enough to admit I swayed backwards in lieu of taking an actual step backwards. But I needn’t have worried. Babushka suddenly grinned widely and pulled me in for a huge hug.
“Welcome to our home.”
So, obviously, not all Alex’s family were causes of tension. That or they played a really good game.
“Why don’t you show her to your room?” Ilya asked Alex. “Maybe give her the tour?”
Ale
x nodded, oddly quiet and somewhat withdrawn. “Sure.”
Alex held his hand out for mine and I took it. As he led me back out of the room, I bumped his shoulder gently with mine.
“You okay?” I asked him.
He sighed as he pushed out the front door and looked up at the stars. “You know how you go home every holidays?”
I nodded. “Yeah…”
“Yeah, it’s more like I leave home.” He ran a hand over his chin. “To come here.”
“I’m sorry.”
He gave me a sad but grateful smile. “It is. I just…it’s hard coming back. Especially now Ilya’s in Adelaide with Loz and Marina’s usually at uni or off somewhere for Mum and Dad. I mean, I’ve got Babushka, but she doesn’t want to hang out with her teenage grandson all the time. Woman’s got shit to do.” He squeezed my hand. “Anyway, enough sulking. Let me show you how the Landrys do an event.”
He brightened as we got closer to the space set out for the wedding and showed me around. There was the wedding arch and all the chairs set up in one refurbished barn. Then another bedecked in tulle and set up with tables and chairs for dinner. There was room for dancing and a bar. More fairy lights twinkled everywhere the eye looked, bathing us in a warm glow.
As we stood on the dancefloor, Alex spun me around and pulled me to him as though he were going to start dancing.
“I didn’t know you danced,” I laughed, my arm around his neck.
He swayed us gently. “I don’t usually. But Mum and Dad taught us when we were little. I’ve forgotten how to do a proper Waltz, but I remember the basics.”
I smiled as we side-stepped around for a bit. I was feeling warm and fuzzy inside, seeing this slightly different side to my friend. It was nice we were close. It was nice to have his hand in mine. It was nice to feel the warmth of his body radiating onto mine.
Finally, he let me go and said, “Come on. Next stop.”
“There are stops?”
He nodded as he dragged me out of the barn. “It’s the grand Landry tour. Well, not the full tour. That would take hours on foot. I’ll take you down to the cellar door and show you around on Sunday.”
Alex showed me his favourite tree and the dam where he and his siblings caught yabbies when they were younger. He showed me his fort and the stream with the tire swing where he broke his arm when he was ten. Finally, we dropped down into a pile of hay and watched the stars, our hands still joined.
“This place is awesome,” I breathed.
“It’s not so bad when there’s someone to share it with.” I could hear the smile in his voice.
I shook my head and looked at him. “No. I mean it’s awesome. It’s perfect. And there’s only minimal people. Don’t tell me you have a library, too.”
“We do have a library, actually.”
“It’s like paradise.”
He laughed. “When the cellar door’s closed, yeah. I always feel slightly…on display when it’s open. Even though they normally don’t come up this far.”
He turned his head to look at me.
“Bugger. And here I thought I’d found my happy place.”
He squeezed my hand. “It’s happy when you’re here.”
I squeezed his back, feeling that little burst of happy in my chest.
“Alex! Lottie!” we heard someone call. “Dinner’s ready!”
Alex sat up and ran his hands through his hair to dislodge the straw he was obviously expecting was in it. “Come on. I’ll show you my room on the way in.”
“Your room?” I asked sceptically, wondering why Ilya and Alex both mentioned me seeing Alex’s room.
He nodded as he helped me up. “You’ll be staying in there. I’m on the futon in Dad’s study.”
I wrinkled my nose. Alex pulled some straw out of my hair. “That doesn’t seem fair.”
“All the guest rooms are full up. Besides, it’s comfy enough.”
We headed inside to dinner, via his room. Tamara had already put my bag and dress in there for me.
It looked nothing like his room at school, where there were trophies and posters and all manner of just…stuff that gets accumulated by living. It was stark and bland, like it had fallen out of a homemaker catalogue. I didn’t wonder so much why he felt more at home at school.
Dinner with his family was a noisy affair full of overlapped conversations – predominantly about wine that I could barely follow, let alone add to. Loz’s parents and maid of honour were there as well, adding to the fray. His parents did seem a bit…aloof, but I could also feel more love at that table than Alex had led me to expect.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Saturday disappeared in last-minute preparations.
Loz, her family and maid of honour were staying down in the B&B near the cellar door so we didn’t see much of them, but the Landrys were in full ‘totally not panicking’ mode almost as soon as the enormous, boozy breakfast was over.
Ilya couldn’t find his cufflinks, but they turned up in Sylvia’s jewellery box.
Alex’s buttonhole was temporarily lost but found in the back of the wine fridge.
Ed’s tie had a stain on it, so he had to find another one.
Sylvia’s shoe strap broke, which meant she had to wear a different pair of – to me identical – nude heels.
Tamara, Babushka and I sat out on the terrace dressed up in our finery – them sipping Mimosas and me with orange juice and lemonade – in an effort to keep out of the way.
Finally, all the kinks had been sorted and we traipsed down to the ceremony barn.
Where there had been empty fields the night before, were row upon row of cars.
Since Alex was in the bridal party, I was put into Tamara’s capable care. Which was promptly taken over by Babushka.
“There’s Edward’s mother,” she said to me, indicating a woman at the other end of the aisle we sat. I could tell exactly what she thought about Alex’s paternal grandmother in those three words.
“She’s retired to a nice little place down the road,” Tamara explained. “Ed and his brothers have been running the place since their dad died.”
“Tractor accident,” Babushka said knowingly.
I looked at Tamara behind Babushka’s head and knew my eyes were like saucers. Tamara grinned and shook her head. I had a feeling, the more I got to know her, the more I was going to like Babushka.
The ceremony was beautiful…says every guest at any wedding. It wasn’t wrong, but I only had one to compare it to, and everything from my uncle’s wedding kind of faded after I’d been let loose on the lolly bar.
Now and then, Alex would find me and give me a smile. He did look very dapper up there with his tux and his hair for once not sticking up but lying flatter. The resemblance to his brother was even more stark with them both dressed up like that.
After the ceremony, the guests wandered into the other barn while the bridal party and family had photos. I was a bit lost during that bit, since I didn’t feel like I really belonged to either group and I was loathe to move too far away from people I actually knew. I think Loz saw this. I saw no other reason for her to pull me into the last few pictures.
Tamara and Babushka took me into the bigger barn to find our table while the bridal party made their entrances. I thought Alex looked quite young next to his sister all done up. It was adorable.
Alex had to sit at the bridal table but, after dinner was eaten and the cake was cut and the first dance was danced, he came to find me. His cheeks were flushed and I wondered if his brother had been slipping him some celebratory drinks. Babushka had certainly tried that on me. I’d had a half glass of champagne and my brain felt like it was fizzing merrily.
“Sorry,” he said as he held his hands out for mine. “I thought I could get to you between entrée and main, but Ilya kept me busy.”
I smiled as he hugged me. “All good.”
“Not too much social interaction?”
I
shook my head as he pulled back to look at me. “No. Babushka’s been telling me stories and Tam’s been correcting them behind her back.”
Alex laughed. “Sounds about right. Good stories I hope?”
“Mainly about your dad’s side…?” I ended it in question as though I needed clarification.
Alex snorted. “Oh, yeah. Babushka hates them. No idea why. I think she just likes to be old and eccentric.”
“Don’t we all,” I said wistfully.
“My two favourite people are getting on well, then?”
I nodded, feeling that little burst of happy. “Yes.”
“Good. Dance?”
Usually, dancing in public would have been a firm no, hard pass, ask the next girl. But I was feeling very unusual so I nodded.
Alex pulled me onto the dance floor and we boogied on down until we were both in desperate need of a drink from too much exercise in a cramped space and too much laughing for absolutely no reason.
“Coke? Lemonade? Water?” he asked me as I fell into my seat.
I only had the energy to nod at that point.
He laughed, “I’ll be back in a tick.”
Then Marina dropped into the chair next to me with a drink of her own.
“You didn’t have to bring a date?” I asked her.
She grinned around her straw. “No. I did. He’s probably off banging one of the bridal party.”
I didn’t quite know what to say to that, but she waved her hand at me.
“Max and I have an…understanding,” she chuckled. “He comes with me to all the boring family events, keeps Mum off my back, and he can have at any guest unwitting enough to fall for his salacious charm.”
I nodded. “Sounds like fun.”
Marina laughed. “He is. But not until you’re older.”
I shook my head with a smile. “No. I didn’t… I’m good, thanks.”
She looked at me the way people look at you after they’ve had a couple of drinks and they think they’re about to drop something profound on you.
“Because you like my brother.”
I snorted. “What?”
the Roommate Mistake Page 15
