A Ballad of Confetti, Cake and Catastrophes

by Helen Juliet

Nicholas really didn’t need an existential crisis on top of the week ahead, but it appeared the universe was not feeling particularly sympathetic towards him in this instance. Looking at the curve where Ash’s leg met the first hint of her bum was not doing anything for him. However, those pictures of Fynn he’d taken yesterday…Well, he’d looked at those for quite a while before he’d finally got to sleep last night.

  So what though? The guy was attractive. That didn’t mean anything. Nicholas was probably just grateful towards him for coming to the rescue. He refused to give it any more thought, deciding instead to think with his stomach and not his head.

  “Thanks ladies,” he told Kinny and Ash. “Is it nearly ready? Can I do anything to help – maybe make some more bagels?”

  His mum raised her hand. “All under control,” she said solemnly. She was leaning against the counter, engrossed in texting someone, no doubt to do with the wedding. And yes, she did indeed have a stack of more bagels on a plate by her hip, waiting to go into the toaster.

  Nicholas’s stomach gurgled though in anticipation, and he was too restless to sit and wait. So he got up and began laying the table around the sheets of newspaper.

  “Oh, not for me thanks,” Danielle said as he went to put a placemat in front of her. She picked up her drink bottle, once again full of something green, and sloshed it at him. “I’m on liquids only until Saturday. Got that dress to get into, after all!”

  Clara looked up at that, worry clear on her face. “Oh,” she said, pushing her glasses up and staring at Danielle’s drink. “Maybe I should—”

  “There you go,” Ash said loudly, sliding a plate full to the brim of Kinny’s Finest Breakfast in front of her. “Bride gets first dibs. Do you want butter to go with your bagel-thingies?”

  Clara glanced anxiously at Danielle’s green drink again as she chugged it down. She was doing a good job of not grimacing, Nicholas had to give her that.

  “I’ll be having butter,” he said loudly, heading to the fridge. “So I’ll just set it on the table.”

  “There’s cream cheese as well,” said Kimmy, plonking the jug of garlic-yogurt on the table. “Make sure you get a good dollop of that with your peppers and eggs,” she informed everyone proudly.

  Nicholas jabbed at his steaming plate, inhaling eagerly. There were indeed peppers mixed in with the red sauce, and he quickly leant over to get some yogurt to mix in with it.

  “Thanks sis,” Peter said to Ash, as she brought a plate over for him. That didn’t stop him though from leaning over and stealing a bit of sausage off of Clara’s plate with a wink.

  “Oi!” she cried. She picked up her knife and fork to wave him off. “Don’t make me go bridezilla on you!”

  Danielle narrowed her eyes as Clara tucked into her food, but thankfully remained silent. At least, on the subject of Clara’s diet. “Oh Ekin,” she gasped. Kinny looked over at her, startled, fork halfway to her mouth to take her first bite. “I don’t think those sausages are Halal,” Danielle continued, all of a fluster. “So you probably shouldn’t have any.”

  A scowl flashed across Kinny’s features. Nicholas wasn’t sure he’d ever seen her with a scowl in his entire life, but she quickly went back to her usual happy self. “Oh no,” she said with a dismissive wave of her hand. “I don’t do Halal. I think it’s cruel. This stuff’s organic and they let the pigs wander around a farm or something.” She picked up the discarded packet from the counter and gave it a quick scan, before holding it up for Danielle to see. “I’m fine with that.”

  If Danielle was irritated not to have stopped not one but two people eating, she didn’t show it. Instead she started rattling off the plan for the day as everyone found a seat. There were just enough chairs that they could all squeeze around the island table together, and aside from Danielle, the chit-chat faded rapidly to a minimum as people dug in.

  “I think we should set up stations in the den,” she said thoughtfully. “I have jobs for everyone, so I’m sure we’ll be done in no time! I hope you’re all feeling creative?”

  Nicholas’s mum and dad made encouraging noises, as of course did Kinny, but Nicholas felt it best to concentrate on his toast. He wasn’t particularly talented when it came to crafty things, but he’d be good and attempt whatever was asked of him. Hopefully Danielle knew him well enough not to task him with anything too complicated.

  As he thought about other things going on during the rest of the week ahead, his mind naturally drifted to Fynn and their meeting tomorrow. As he’d been falling asleep last night, he’d thought of a couple of songs to suggest, so pulled his phone out to do that as he ate.

  ‘Hey! It’s Nicholas Herald, from yesterday,’ he tapped out, so Fynn didn’t think he was a randomer. ‘Thanks again for doing this, I really appreciate it! Okay, so, I thought of a few songs. If you don’t like them or can’t already play them though, don’t worry. First off is Taylor Swift, because you sort of have to have Taylor Swift, don’t you? Clara LOVES that ‘You Belong With Me’ one, but ‘Style’ is good too. Then there’s John Legend ‘All of You’, that’s really nice. Oh, and she loves this song called ‘War of Hearts’ by Ruelle – no idea if that’s how you spell it? Not sure you would have heard of that one. Okay! I think that’s it for now, I’ll message again if I think of anymore!! Honestly though, I liked everything you played yesterday, so all of those can go on the list too :) Speak soon, Nicholas.’

  Everyone had more or less finished eating by the time he’d tapped all that out, so he hopped to his feet and diligently started to clear up, running a sink full of suds. His job was always the washing up, as he didn’t particularly like cooking. Everything he tried to make generally ended up burnt, soggy or in the cat bowl. But washing up, he could do.

  There were enough showers in the house they didn’t need to work out much of a schedule, but Danielle attempted one anyway. “Let’s meet in the den in half an hour, alright!” she called to the retreating party.

  Nicholas chuckled to himself, and thought he caught his dad rolling his eyes as they left the room together. He was distracted though as his phone pinged, and he couldn’t help the small thrill of anticipation that it might be Fynn.

  It was, but when Nicholas opened the message, it simply said ‘OK’. He frowned, and stared at the screen for another full minute, thinking he would probably follow up with more. But he didn’t.

  Well, it wasn’t anything bad, he figured as he traipsed back upstairs to his room. He couldn’t help but be a tad disappointed at its sparseness though.

  The house wasn’t small, but it was full to the brim with extra guests staying over. Danielle had taken over the den – the second, more casual living room that Nicholas’s parents had made when they’d built the ground floor extension a decade ago. He thought she was content being surrounded with all the paraphernalia for the wedding, like a magpie in its nest with all its shiny trinkets. She hadn’t even bothered setting up the sofa bed, not wanting to disrupt all the piles of decorations and stacks of paper and baskets of confetti and ribbons.

  If she wanted to kip on the couch, that was her prerogative. Peter was obviously in with Clara, and Ash and Kinny were being good sports and sharing the double bed in the loft conversion that had been Lauren’s room before she’d gone off travelling a few years ago. Nicholas was lucky not to have someone occupying a blow-up mattress on his floor, but he still had to wait a fair while for his turn in one of the showers.

  Being a good host, he held off until last, and suffered through lukewarm water with no more than a silent protest. It was refreshing he told himself, especially having sweated through his hangover the day before.

  He was, therefore, the last to arrive in the den, but nobody seemed to mind. It seemed they were going to be stuck there for the whole day, after all. He was immediately directed towards an enormous box of pastel pink confetti petals.

  “Nice and easy,” Danielle announced, handing him a small metal trowel, like you’d find in a pick ‘n’ mix bar. “One s
coopful into a mesh bag, then tie the drawstring shut.”

  That was actually a job he felt confident in tackling, so he settled himself down next to Clara to get to work. “Wotcha got there, Geri?” he asked, giving her a light poke with the trowel.

  “I’m making the board with the lists of all the tables on it,” she said proudly. She already had glitter in her hair and across her face, but he had to admit the board was looking good.

  “Geri?” Ash asked from across the room.

  Nicholas couldn’t work out what her project was exactly, but it apparently involved reams of fishing wire, and some very sharp scissors.

  “It’s just a nickname,” Clara said with a shrug.

  Nicholas wasn’t letting her get away with that.

  “Holy crap,” he said excitedly. “Have you not heard the Spice Girls stories?”

  Kinny groaned, but her grin gave her away. She was surrounded by feathers, silver butterflies and bags of plastic diamonds, but she paused in her centrepiece creation to pretend to scowl at him. “Oh no, not this.”

  Clara was laughing, though, as Ash looked between them, intrigued. “We might have had a slight Spice Girls obsession.”

  “Slight?” spluttered Nicholas’s mum.

  His dad shook his head from where he was sat next to her, diligently folding orders of service. “I got talked into taking you to see them five times,” he grumbled, but Nicholas knew he wasn’t really serious. “Three times when they were still together and you girls were barely tall enough to see, and then twice again when they bloody reformed.”

  “It was so worth it though,” Clara gushed. “And we used to have slumber parties where we’d dress up as them, and learn the dances, and perform the songs.”

  “I remember that part,” Nicholas said, pretended to shudder. Clara flicked his nose.

  “You were just mad we wouldn’t let you join in,” she said.

  Kinny waved a feather at him. “No, but there was that time Lyndsey couldn’t make it though, and we needed a Sporty—”

  “Oh god yes, we put you in a wig!” Clara cackled. She turned to Ash, who didn’t seem to know what to make of it all. “I was always Geri you see, being sort of ginger.”

  “You are definitely ginger!” Nicholas protested, feeling the need to fight back on behalf of his younger self, and the old humiliation of that wig. Clara swatted at him. “And Kinny was Mel B.”

  “Not much choice,” she said with a wink at Clara. “Being the only non-white girl.” Clara blew her an affectionate kiss in return. “Then who were those other girls who were Baby and Posh? Was it—”

  “I was Baby,” Danielle interrupted. She had a tight smile on her lips that didn’t reach her eyes. She was once more behind her laptop, this time perched on the edge of the couch with it balanced on her knees. “Don’t you remember?”

  Kinny nodded. “Oh – yeah,” she said. “But, that was just here, when you visited. We played it almost every day at school for months. We’d coordinate our lunch breaks in advance so we could—”

  “Clara’s had so many nicknames over the years,” Danielle tittered, slapping her hand to her chest, leaning towards Ash in a conspiratorial manner before looking back at Clara. “Haven’t you?”

  “Yeah, but I actually liked Geri,” she said with a laugh.

  Danielle waved her hand. “Oh, well, we all got called ‘Hark-the-Herald-Angel-Sing’, even my brothers and I did at our school. Kids always think that’s clever. You had more than that though, didn’t you?”

  Clara shrugged, going back to her glitter. “I guess.”

  “Peter calls her ‘baby girl’ on the phone,” Ash piped up. She made kissy noises, then squeaked and ducked when her brother threw a ball of tissue paper at her head.

  “So what if I do?” he asked. He made a point of giving Clara a big, sloppy kiss on the cheek, which made Ash pretend to gag and throw the paper right back at him. “And anyway, I like the Spice Girls too, so I’m pretty chuffed to be marrying my own Geri.”

  Clara smiled and gave him an affectionate hug at that.

  “No,” Danielle carried on with determination. “I’m talking about ‘Hairy Clary’, you remember that don’t you?” She laughed to herself. “Kinny, you were there weren’t you, in that science lesson with the plasma globe? Clara volunteered to put her hands on it, and her hair turned into a proper ginger afro, it was hilarious!”

  Kinny smiled politely. “Oh, I don’t really remember that, sorry.”

  “It was pretty funny,” Clara said to Peter. It sounded like an apology.

  Ash raised an eyebrow. “I didn’t think you guys went to school together?” She clicked her wire-cutters several times in quick succession as she pointed between Danielle and Clara, like a crab snapping its claw.

  “Oh we didn’t,” said Danielle, unperturbed. “I just heard about it afterwards. And then was ‘Clara Bow’—”

  “After the actress,” Nicholas said quickly. “You know what, before I start with all these petals, I think I might get tea. Who wants tea?”

  Predictably, that got everyone’s attention. He ended up taking out his phone to write up the order, but when his mum went to get up, he insisted he could manage by himself. He wanted to get a moment’s peace and quiet.

  He frowned to himself as he waited out in the kitchen for the kettle to boil. Even Danielle should have known better than to bring up ‘Clara Bow’. It had been one of the crueller taunts his sister had had to endure at school. Her legs weren’t even really that bowed, but kids were arseholes.

  He wished he hadn’t brought anything up about nicknames. It was bad enough that Danielle had taken it upon herself to invite her mother’s unfunny friends to the wedding. He would be amazed if Michelle could keep her thoughts about Clara’s weight to herself for a whole day – if it was just the evening, it might have been possible to avoid the two of them coming face to face. But Michelle was almost certainly going to want to amuse herself by calling Clara ‘Princess Plumpling’ or something equally witty.

  But now Danielle was going out of her way to be extra…he didn’t even know what the word was. Was she trying to show Clara up? It was no secret, as far as Nicholas was concerned at least, that Danielle had always been a bit incredulous that her ‘chubby, geeky’ cousin had met a nice guy, whereas she couldn’t seem to keep a man for more than a couple of months. Nicholas was convinced that no one else saw that as a failing on her part, but her behaviour at the moment was coming across a lot like jealousy.

  Luckily, by the time he returned with a tray heaving with tea things, there was a lively conversation going on about the latest season of 24. It was his dad’s favourite show, and he had a lot to say about it.

  “I think it’s good they’re shaking things up a bit,” he was arguing.

  “But it’s just not the same anymore,” Peter lamented as he wrapped up a bottle of whiskey for one of his groomsmen.

  Nicholas took his time handing out the mugs of tea and coffee, then made sure everyone had a plate of biscuits within reach of where they were sat. He made himself comfy with a cushion under his bum, and finally got to work on bagging up the confetti. He couldn’t rush too much with it, otherwise he’d damage the petals. It was a job that required care, but not all that much skill.

  He let the conversation wash around him, smiling as Clara and Peter got all dreamy as they talked about their two-week honeymoon in Disney World in Florida.

  “In our day,” Nicholas’s dad lectured them with a wagging finger. “We thought Tenerife was bloody exotic for a honeymoon.”

  Then Nicholas’s mum regaled them all with some stories from her wedding with his dad involving lost trousers and a drunk uncle or two. Kinny giggled, then explained how one of her sisters had had almost seven hundred people to her wedding.

  “It’s not a Turkish wedding if you haven’t invited your cousin’s wife’s goat!” she laughed.

  Nicholas tried to imagine how much of a headache that must have been to organise, and r
epressed a shudder. Clara and Peter had less than a hundred people coming to their day, including the evening, and Nicholas was thankful for it. He dreaded to think how many more bags of confetti he’d be filling otherwise.

  “Ohh, hello kitty-cat,” Danielle crooned from her perch on the couch. She put down her laptop, and clicked her fingers. “Have you come to help?”

  Nicholas sucked in a lungful of air, and automatically seized Clara by the elbow. Sure enough, Archibald the cat had come swanning into the den, tail swishing back and forth. Neither sibling took their eyes off of him as he wound his way around people to where their mum was sat. Kinny was telling Ash and Peter more about her sister’s wedding, and they didn’t seem to notice that Nicholas and Clara were on the verge of a heart attack. Nicholas looked around the room, sizing up how much trouble one cat could potentially cause.

  But holding their breath and silently screaming seemed to have appeased whatever gods might have been listening. Archibald crossed the room, having thoroughly ignored poor Danielle’s attempts to make friends, and was rewarded by Nicholas’s mum picking him up to place him in her lap.

  He began purring loudly, and Nicholas and Clara slowly deflated.

  It took a while for Nicholas to calm his heart down after the near miss, but Archibald looked to be behaving himself, and he and Clara slowly got back to their jobs.

  He was finding the confetti bagging quite soothing. It didn’t really require much thought, and allowed him to drift off, let his mind wander and relax. This was going to be a long week if he didn’t take the time to chill out when he could. But the scoop-pour-tie rhythm he had going was therapeutic, and he allowed the conversation to blur around him. He thought maybe they were talking about rugby, and he was happy to tune that out.

  As was usual in the past twenty-four hours, his mind eventually dawdled its way back to Fynn. He wondered what he was doing today – who he lived with, and what he might be getting up to. Was he playing his guitar again, out on the tourist-filled city streets?

  He got his phone out again, half hoping he might have texted something more, but his phone screen was blank. He didn’t mind though, as he’d thought of something else to message him about anyway. Maybe this one would get a longer reply?