by Cathy Cole
“Polly deserves this,” she told the mirror. “She’s been working really hard, and she hasn’t seen her dad for months.” Her tousle-haired, blue-eyed reflection gazed sullenly back at her. So what? it seemed to say. It’s still not fair.
Polly came into the bathroom, making Lila jump. Don’t rain on Polly’s parade, she ordered herself. She deserves more than that from you.
“So,” she made herself say. “Are you excited about going to the States?”
Polly filled her lips with her favourite bright-red lipstick. “Nervous, mainly,” she admitted, popping the lid back on.
Lila was surprised. “What about?”
“Flying. Introducing Ollie to Dad.” Polly grimaced a little. “That is going to be seriously weird. What if they don’t get on?”
“I know what you mean,” Lila found herself saying. “Josh is meeting Tim and Alex for the first time today. I’m a little freaked out about it.”
“They were all getting on fine when I left them,” Polly said casually, putting her lipstick back in her bag.
Tim and Alex were here?
Lila hurtled back into the bar. Her brothers both had their arms tightly locked around Josh’s neck. It looked like they were strangling him.
“Dating our little sister, huh?” said Tim into Josh’s ear.
“We hope you’re playing nice,” said Alex.
“Get off him, you idiots,” said Lila diving between them and pulling them off her boyfriend with some difficulty.
“It’s OK, Lila,” said Josh. “I don’t need rescuing.”
Alex dropped into a chair and slung his arm around Josh’s shoulders. “No offence, mate,” he said affably, “but you’re stronger than you look. Sorry we’re late. Big uni party last night. It was tough getting out of bed. How are the party plans?”
“Party,” said Tim happily. He’d put his arm around Eve, who didn’t look very pleased about it.
Lila loved Tim and Alex, but they could be impossible. “Get your hands off Eve, Tim, or you’re likely to lose that arm,” she said out loud. “Have you arranged things for Mum and Dad for Friday during the day?”
“Lila has everything else under control,” Josh put in.
“Somehow I find that hard to believe,” said Alex.
“Hey!” Lila objected, punching her older brother lightly on the arm. “I have actually, ask the others.”
Eve, Polly and Rhi nodded. See? Lila wanted to say.
“OK, so we’re going to rock up just before lunch and take the olds for fish and chips along the coast,” Tim said. “We thought it would be better to keep them out of Heartside Bay for the afternoon. If they saw all their cousins and friends streaming through town, they might ask questions. When do you want us back again?”
Lila consulted her list. “The party starts at—”
“Seven,” said Josh.
“We’re allowing for thirty-eight guests but might only have thirty-five,” Lila continued. “We’re having nibbles. Tartlets, blinis, mushroom bruschetta, sausages, p—”
“Prawns, some chicken things,” said Josh promptly.
“Does your boyfriend finish all your sentences?” Alex asked, laughing.
“Course he does,” said Tim, coming back from the bar with an armful of crisps. “He and our baby sister are like an old married couple already.”
Lila’s friends giggled as Tim and Alex made kissy-kissy noises. Josh laughed, taking it in good humour, but Lila felt annoyed. She was only fifteen. How was she part of a boring old married couple already?
FIVE
“It’s so nice having everyone for dinner like this,” said Lila’s mother. She sighed. “Such a shame that you boys have to go back to university on Friday afternoon. It would have been nice to celebrate together in the evening.”
“Never mind, Mum,” said Alex. He helped himself to more macaroni cheese. “At least Tim and I are taking you and Dad out for lunch on Friday before we have to head back.”
Liar, Lila thought. Her brothers both looked so innocent, so sorry that they had to get back to uni. That they couldn’t change their plans, even for their own parents’ twenty-fifth wedding anniversary. Tim was usually a pretty hopeless liar, but he was doing well tonight. It couldn’t last. She really hoped no one cracked. They’d put too much work into keeping the party a secret for it to be ruined now.
“Leave some of that for our guest,” said Lila’s dad a little sharply as Alex started to scrape around the edges of the macaroni dish.
“Josh is all right,” said Alex, shamelessly taking the last crusty bits of pasta for himself. “Aren’t you, Joshy boy?”
“He’s too fat anyway,” said Tim. He pinched at Josh’s long, slender arm jokingly. “Needs to lose a good five stone, I’d say. Water and dry bread for you, boy.”
“That’s all you’ll be getting when you marry our sister, Josh,” Alex said. “Lila’s never spent much time in the kitchen.”
“Apart from when she’s stealing biscuits,” said Tim.
“And hearts,” Josh said. He kissed Lila’s hand, smiling at her.
Tim rolled his eyes and stuck his fingers down his throat. Lila’s mum and dad smiled knowingly at each other. Lila resisted the urge to snatch her hand away. This was all too embarrassing.
“Ah, Joshy,” said Alex, shaking his head. “Set the date, why don’t you? Tim can be your bridesmaid.”
Josh looked thoughtful. “I can’t see you in peach satin, Tim. Mauve, maybe.”
Alex and Tim both roared at that one.
Josh looked like he was loving every minute. It was strange seeing him in the thick of her family like this. Her boyfriend was the least sociable person at Heartside High, and generally went out of his way to avoid a conversation. He was different here.
“Lil,” said Tim absently, drawing pictures on his plate in what was left of his ketchup. “Is Auntie K—”
Lila kicked him hard. Tim’s eyes widened as he realized what he’d almost said. Is Auntie Kay coming to the party?
“Is antique what?” asked their mother.
Josh managed to turn a snort of very obvious laughter into a cough. Lila wanted to kick him too.
“Yes, Tim,” Alex said, smiling wickedly at his younger brother. “What were you going to say about antiques?”
“Um,” said Tim, looking nervous. “They are … old. Very old.”
“Nearly as old as me,” Lila’s dad remarked. He wiped his mouth with his napkin.
“What were you thinking?” Lila hissed at her younger brother as her father pushed back his chair and helped Josh clear the plates.
“I was thinking about macaroni, mainly,” Tim confessed with a grimace. “Sorry, Lil. Won’t happen again.”
“It’d better not,” Alex whispered, kicking his little brother under the table.
“What are you three whispering about?” Their mother was back, setting a bowl of trifle on the table.
“Nothing,” said Lila quickly. She needed to divert this conversation. “That trifle looks fantastic, Mum. Can I have some?”
“Oh no you don’t,” said Alex, lifting the bowl out of Lila’s reach. “Not if you want to fit into your wedding dress, little sister.”
Lila gave him a glare and stole back the bowl of trifle, scooping an enormous portion on to her plate and sticking out her tongue at Alex. More wedding jokes. It was unnerving, the way her brothers kept harping on about her and Josh getting married. Was that going to be the sum total of her future? Being someone’s wife?
I want to be more than that, she thought. I don’t want to be one of those girls that gets married, has kids and then wakes up in twenty years’ time wondering what happened.
If only it was as easy to know what she did want.
“That one’s getting a little stale, Alex,” she muttered. “Shut up will you?”
Alex called Josh back to the table. “Seeing how you’re going to marry our sister,” he began, grinning, “you’d better tell us your prospects, Josh. Will you keep her in the style to which she is accustomed? She has expensive habits.”
“They can’t be any more expensive than mine,” said Josh, grinning back. “Have you seen the price of sketchpads lately?”
“Does your family live in Heartside Bay?” Alex asked through a mouthful of trifle. “Are they artists too, is that where you get this weird urge to draw stuff?”
“Manners, Alexander,” said Lila’s dad a little pointedly. “Josh doesn’t want to see that trifle disappearing down your throat.”
“I live with my grandfather in the Old Town,” said Josh.
“Why, where are your mum and dad?” Tim asked.
Lila wanted a hole to open in the floor and swallow her up. Josh never talked about his parents. He’d never even told her about them. Couldn’t her brother see how uncomfortable Josh was looking?
“Thanks for dinner, Mum,” she said, standing up abruptly, keen to get out of the room and away from all the questions. “Josh, let’s go upstairs.”
“Don’t do anything we wouldn’t do!” Alex shouted after them as she dragged Josh up the stairs and shut the bedroom door to the sound of raucous laughter.
“Sorry about that.” Lila could feel her face turning scarlet. “Alex and Tim are. Alex and Tim, basically.”
Josh sat at her desk with his hands behind his head. “Don’t worry about it. Are you OK?”
“Of course I’m OK, why wouldn’t I be OK?” Lila demanded.
He shrugged. “I don’t know. You tell me.”
She hated that he could read her so well. You two are like an old married couple already…
She sat on the bed. Then she stood up again and paced around the room, picking things up and putting them down again. She was feeling really weird.
“Talk to me, Lila,” said Josh.
“I don’t want to talk,” she muttered. She rubbed her temples with her fingers. “Sorry Josh, I’m suddenly … not feeling very sociable. I’m nervous about the party, I think. About it all going wrong. Maybe I’m just tired. I should get some sleep.”
He stood up at once and kissed her on the cheek. “It’ll be OK. Get some rest and try not to worry. I’ll head home then and we can hang out tomorrow.”
Why did he have to be so understanding? It made Lila feel guilty in some strange way for these – doubts she was having.
Was that what they were? Doubts about her and Josh?
“That would be nice,” she said.
She tried to relax as he took her in his arms and kissed her goodbye. She couldn’t.
SIX
Lila had almost bitten her fingernails to the quick as she answered the doorbell for the fifth time in as many minutes. If anyone had told her how hard organizing a secret party would be, she’d never have started. Even though it was completely different from the types of parties she used to throw in London, the idea of mixing her parents and parties still made her feel a bit sick. She just hoped they would like it.
“Hello Lila, dear.” Auntie Kay kissed her. She smelled of coffee and perfume. “Goodness, isn’t the house looking nice? When are the victims coming home?”
“Fifteen minutes,” said Lila anxiously. “Go through to the living room, Auntie Kay. Everyone’s in there. But don’t draw the curtains, OK? I don’t want Mum and Dad to see you all when Tim and Alex bring them back.”
“You have my word,” said Auntie Kay, tapping her heavily powdered nose. “Do you know,” she added suddenly, “your uncle threw a surprise party for my fortieth birthday? I was furious.”
Lila felt a little sick. “You were?”
“I was wearing my oldest gardening dungarees while all the guests were dressed up to the nines. I felt like such a fool.” Auntie Kay sighed and shook her head. “Men so often don’t think about these things.”
Lila tried to remember what her mother had been wearing when Tim and Alex had whisked her parents away. Luckily her mother wasn’t too bothered by clothes, not like Auntie Kay and her beautiful dresses and shoes. She grimaced as she thought about poor Uncle Toby and how much trouble he must have been in.
Along with the nerves about the party, Lila was wrestling with a sense of guilt. She’d told so many lies that week, she could hardly look herself in the eye in the bathroom mirror any more. The sad look on her mother’s face as she’d scooped up her bag and keys shortly before lunch had been almost more than Lila could stand.
“Are you sure you can’t join us, love? It won’t be the same with just Tim and Alex.”
“Cheers, Mum,” said Alex.
“That makes us feel really wanted,” Tim added.
Lila’s mother had flapped her hands at the pair of them. “I don’t mean … oh, you two are impossible.”
Lila crossed her fingers behind her back. “Sorry Mum, I promised to help Polly with her market stall today,” she lied.
Her father helped her mum put on her jacket. “Come on, Jane,” he’d said. “I can smell those fish and chips already.”
You’ll feel better when the party starts, Lila told herself.
The doorbell went again.
“Sorry I’m late,” said Polly, coming through the door. “Is there loads still to do?”
“Rhi is in the kitchen organizing the canapés,” Lila said. “The guests have drunk loads already. What if we run out of wine before Mum and Dad get back?”
Polly patted her on the shoulder. “Eve knows what she’s doing,” she reassured Lila. “Nice dress, by the way.”
Lila grinned and smoothed down the short pink floral dress with its old Victorian buttons. “I got it from this great little market stall I know,” she joked. “Turned Around With Love. Have you heard of it?”
Polly laughed. “It looks gorgeous on you. Where’s Josh?”
“Schmoozing with the olds in the living room.”
Lila’s aunts and uncles couldn’t get enough of Josh, judging from the laughter coming from the living room. Lila wasn’t sure how she felt about that.
Polly vanished into the kitchen to help Rhi load up the trays with canapés. Lila hovered by the front door, peering through the glass panels for the first sign of her parents’ return. The moment she glimpsed her father’s jacket through the hedge at the front of the house, Lila shot into the living room and waved her arms.
“They’re here!” she hissed. “Everyone quiet!”
The room fell as quiet as a mouse. Through the living-room door, Lila glimpsed Polly and Rhi frozen to the spot in the kitchen, holding their trays of canapés. The keys opened in the door. Lila heard her mother say, “Who put this banner up in the hall? Where did all these balloons come from?”
The room erupted as Lila’s parents came through the living-room door.
“SURPRISE!” everyone shouted, lifting their glasses up in the air.
“Goodness,” said Lila’s father, sitting down very suddenly on the sofa as his brother, two nephews, half a dozen cousins and several close friends from the police station swarmed around him for handshakes and kisses. “Not much of a copper am I? I didn’t suspect a thing!”
“This is all your daughter’s fault!” Auntie Kay shouted, in the thick of the laughing throng surrounding Lila’s mother. “We should congratulate her on a job well done!”
Lila blushed as the room turned to face her and applaud.
Her mother had tears in her eyes as she gathered Lila into a hug. “Goodness, you sly old thing,” she said. “Working on Polly’s market stall indeed!”
Josh went around the room filling everyone’s glasses with champagne as Polly and Rhi came in bearing silver trays. Lila’s mother kept bursting into tears with every new face she spotted in the room.
“David! Goodness me, this can’t
be Lucy, can it? You were two last time we saw you. Sophie! Pippa?”
“A toast,” shouted Alex over the hubbub. “To our parents, Greg and Jane. The best parents in the world. Twenty-five years together and they best they could produce was us three.” He shook his head in sorrow. “They did their best, I suppose.”
The room roared at that. Alex raised his glass.
“May your waistlines never expand, your hairlines never recede and your bank balance never let you down. Happy anniversary!”
“Happy anniversary!” the room echoed.
Lila’s mother was crying again. Lila pushed through the throng, holding the memory book close to her chest. Polly had wrapped it so beautifully in purple tissue paper, it seemed a shame to unwrap it. But her mother unwrapped it on the spot, and fresh tears began to fall almost immediately.
“Oh!” she gasped, leafing through the book with its photographs, notes and postcards, each page decorated with Josh’s caricatures. “Lila darling … this is incredible. Where did you get all of this? How did you make such a lovely thing? Greg, you have to see this!”
“You’ve done very well, love,” said Lila’s father, gathering her into his arms for a kiss. “I’m proud of you.”
That makes a change, thought Lila. We moved to Heartside Bay six months ago for precisely the opposite reason.
“Congratulations, Chief Murray,” said Josh, shaking her father’s hand.
“Call me Greg, Josh, for heaven’s sake,” her father replied with a smile. “First-name terms is the least I can do for the boy who’s made my daughter so happy.”
Lila glanced around the living room, at all the smiling faces and the lively chatter. It was all so familiar, so safe. So predictable. So nice. Including Josh. Lila found it hard to remember what London had been like.
Her fingers went to the small tattoo on her wrist, tracing the flowing blue lines. The tattooist had disguised her old boyfriend’s initials as best he could when he remade the tattoo, but Lila could still make them out in the swirling pattern. Her belly stirred as she remembered the fun she and Santiago’d had. He’d been wild and impetuous, spontaneous and fun, and her parents had hated him. She’d enjoyed that her parents had hated him. He had been the exact opposite of Josh in every way.
