Pretending, page 27
“How are you?” she asks, arm around my shoulder, fizzy wine on her breath. “April, it’s been forever.”
“I know. I’m OK. Oh my God, Chrissy, you’re getting married.”
She covers her face with her veil. “I know. It’s so fucking weird. Me, April. ME? Did you ever think you would see the day?”
“Of course.”
“Even after Sven?”
“Definitely after Sven. He was the rock bottom you needed to hit in order to find the portal to evolution.”
It’s all hugs and squeezing and prosecco getting knocked over. “Oh, I love you. I’ve missed you! I’m so glad you came. How are you—Oh my God, ROCHELLE! How ARE you? How are the kids? I’m so happy you’re here.” I’m shunted aside. Chrissy now has Rochelle-with-the-white-noise-machine in a squid-like vise and I’m left holding my glass, which is somehow empty again already.
I sit staring at nothing for a moment, before taking a breath and swiveling to my other side to a woman whose name I’ve already forgotten. “So,” I ask, smiling. “Have they started talking yet? Ball? They can say ball? Oh, yes, that’s so cute.”
* * *
By eight thirty everyone is a little bit too drunk to fully appreciate the nouvelle cuisine of halloumi skewers on a tiny mound of gigantes plaki.
“Halloumi!” a sozzled lawyer yelps. “I just love halloumi.”
“Me too. Isn’t it the best? I love how it squeaks.”
The table’s united in our shared love of the cheese. We stuff it into our faces with our fingers, talking with our mouths full. Someone’s turned up the music so we shout to be heard. Nobody eats their beans. A waiter brings out a tray of prosecco bottles and we all applaud him. We’re all best friends by the time the sundaes are arranged in front of us; the clumps all united in how good cheese can be and do you want to try a bit of my ice cream. We swap seats and share stories about just how amazing Chrissy is. “So amazing, isn’t she?” “Oh yeah, really amazing. Just the amazingest.” The ice cream melts to soup in its glass bowls, until we’re snapped out of our tiddly haze by three assertive claps.
“Right ladies.” One of the lawyers-clump—I think her name is Janet—is standing by the projector screen on which is now a giant freeze-frame of Mark’s head. “Now that we’ve eaten, it’s time for the games. Mr. and Mrs!” Everyone starts cheering and whooping. “Chrissy, get your cute butt over here.”
Chrissy saunters over in a flurry of netting and collapses into a chair, giggling. Her face is red with alcohol and happiness and I have a flashback to the Sven year and feel deep joy that she’s got here. Well, seems to have got here. Every time we meet up she does complain a bit about Mark and his lack of verbal affection, but still, he must feel vaguely affectionate if he’s agreed to marry her.
“We asked the lovely Mark here some questions about our girl, Chrissy, and she has to guess what she thinks he’s going to say. If she gets it wrong, well then...” Janet holds up a bottle of Sambuca with the top already off. “SHOT!”
Chrissy laughs behind her hand while we stamp our feet. “I’m scared now.”
“Come on, let’s play.” Janet clicks the laptop attached to the screen and unfreezes Mark who waves at us all.
“Hello girlies. I hope you’re all nice and drunk.”
Raaahhh, waaa-heeyy! We are so excited with that. Mark’s set the camera at a weird angle so his chin looks massive. He’s not the most attractive of men, I find myself thinking. Not compared to Chrissy, who’s an auburn-haired goddess. Whereas Mark looks like he hasn’t had hair since Papa Roach were a thing, and his eyes look permanently sad.
The first question floats up on screen in giant novelty balloon font.
“What were you both wearing on your first date?”
Janet repeats it out loud and we crane to look at Chrissy who’s laughing hysterically from all the attention.
“Well?” Janet demands.
Chrissy sips from her prosecco glass. “I’ll be surprised if he gets this right,” she says. “Umm, he was wearing jeans and a Rick and Morty T-shirt, because I distinctly remember being put off by that.” We find that way too funny what with all the alcohol. “And I was wearing my denim dress, with yellow shoes. My summer date outfit.”
“Do you think he’ll remember that?”
She shakes her head. “No chance. He’ll remember his own T-shirt though. He still loves that fucking T-shirt.”
“Well, let’s see what he says.”
Mark’s unpaused again. “She won’t think I’ll remember,” he asserts. “I mean, of course we both remember my fail-safe Rick and Morty T-shirt.” Raaaaaaah wheeeyyy woooooooh, we all yell. “But Chris was wearing this really nice blue dress. And some yellow shoes; I remember really liking those yellow shoes.”
We howl. We point. We find ourselves chanting “CHUG CHUG CHUG” as Chrissy screeches, “I can’t believe he remembered!” before downing her shot compliantly.
I watch her as she looks at the screen. It’s frozen again—Mark’s mouth slack and odd in the paused moment. “Oh, Marky,” she whispers at the screen, and my eyes are not as dry as they were ten minutes ago when I hear her say that.
They both remembered their first kiss at the number eight bus stop when Mark lunged first. Mark’s most disgusting habit is clipping his toenails into the loo and then not flushing it. Chrissy’s is picking her feet in bed. Mark does not know Chrissy’s bra size. “Umm, E?” he stabs. We all hee-haw-hee-haw because Chrissy has never been more than a B her whole life. “I fucking WISH mate,” she yells, getting up and slapping the projector screen. “CHUG CHUG CHUG.” But he does know exactly how she likes her tea: white with two sugars. And how she will order her eggs when she goes to brunch: poached and on sourdough. And that her favorite movie is unashamedly Titanic. And that her favorite sexual position is on top. And they both correctly guess that her most annoying habit is using caps lock in messages. They both tell the proposal story in exactly the same way, including the bit where they had to smuggle the ring back through customs as Mark didn’t realize you had to declare it. As question bleeds into question, my throat tightens, my eyes prickle, emotion inflates my stomach. Mark’s chin doesn’t look so chubby now, his eyes not so sad. I picture him scheduling the filming of this into his diary, secretly liaising with Janet to pick a time when Chrissy was out of their flat. Chrissy’s equally bewitched. She reaches out at least twice to stroke the projection of her fiancé. She’s doing hardly any shots as they keep syncing answers.
I cannot take any more of this.
I impatiently wait for Chrissy to get one wrong and use the “CHUG CHUG CHUG” excitement to make my exit, my stomach swirling, hands shaking. The restaurant corridor whirls as my drunkenness catches up with me, and I stumble, half holding the wall, into the toilets and lock myself in a cubicle.
Here I try to digest the pure shameful envy it’s sparked in me. The longing in my gut that won’t leave, no matter how much I try to push it away. I sit with my knickers gathered around my ankles, peeing with my body bent forward so my head rests on my knees.
It’s not that I’m not delighted for Chrissy—I am.
It’s not that I want to marry Mark—I don’t.
It’s not because she has a diamond ring on her finger, or a white dress to wear in two weeks’ time, or the honeymoon of a lifetime around the corner.
It’s the knowingness that hurts.
Because no one romantically has ever known me the way Mark knows Chrissy and Chrissy knows Mark. I want to be known, all of me known. All of me loved. All of me accepted. I want to have someone in my life who completely and utterly knows me, and has earned the knowing of me by their unwavering willingness to stick around while I slowly reveal it all. It only grows with time and commitment and dedication, and that only comes with someone deciding you are worth the investment to become knowable. Someone who believes the bits they will learn about you will make them love you only more, not less. I don’t have that. I’ve never had that. I don’t think I ever will...
Megan’s quick to answer the phone. I didn’t even realize I was calling her until she picks up. “Hello? April?”
“He...he doesn’t know me,” I slur out. “He doesn’t know anything about me.”
“What are you talking about? Are you OK? Where are you? Are you still at the hen do?”
“Joshua!” I shout, my voice bouncing off the metal encasement of my cubicle. “He doesn’t know me at all.”
“Who the hell is Joshua? Hang on, is he that guy who was in our flat the other day?”
I nod.
“April?”
“He doesn’t know me, Megan.” My voice keeps catching. “He thinks I’m Gretel. He only likes me because he thinks I’m Gretel.” Snot pours from my nose, tasting bitter as it seeps between my lips though I’m not quite crying. “I thought being her would make me feel good about myself, but it’s just made me feel worse because he only likes me because he, he...thinks I’m her.”
“I’m so lost right now, honey. I don’t really understand what you’re saying but I’m sorry you’re hurting.”
“No one knows me,” I wail, my voice a squeaky wail.
“I know you.”
“You don’t count.”
“Well, thanks April.”
“I’m not April, I’m GRETEL, that’s the whole thing.”
“Hon, I’m worried about you. Are you alone? Are you safe? You sound really drunk. I’m here in the flat if you want to come home. I love you. I love you. It’s going to be OK. Hen parties are triggering nightmares and it’s totally OK to just come home. Say you’re sick or something. I love you.”
Megan’s kind words may as well be made with Teflon. “I have to go, Megan.”
“April!”
“Sorry, I’m fine. Just fine. I’m safe. Sorry. I love you.”
“April, wait—”
I ring off.
Stare at my phone.
I don’t want to feel like this—lost and pathetic—the very cliché of being left on a shelf I don’t want to be left on. A tiny part of me wonders if this is a good idea but the other part of my brain has already dialed his number. I sit up as it rings, underwear still adorning my feet. I sniff and wipe my face.
“Gretel?”
“Guess whose drunnnnnnnnnnk?” I’m full of fun and joy and I’m having such a brilliant time in this wonderful life of mine.
I feel Joshua’s smile break over the line. “Well hello you,” he says. “Hang on, I’m just in the pub with Neil. I’ll duck outside.”
I find I’m smiling too. I wipe myself as I listen to him telling Twatface Neil that it’s me. Cradling my phone under my neck, I pull up my underwear, flush and then take myself out of the cubicle. I’m just done washing my hands when he’s back.
“I’m here. Hello. I wasn’t expecting to hear from you.”
“I missed you,” I say. So cute, so goddamned cute.
“Someone’s been drinking.”
“There’s that too.”
“Anyone shoved a penis straw up their vagina yet, or whatever it is that happens at hen dos?”
“Joshua, that has never, ever, happened at a hen do. Well, actually, it probably has.”
He laughs because I’m witty and fun and cool and brilliant to spend time with. “And there I was, thinking I was missing out.”
I look at myself in the mirror. Makeup smeared off, hair sweaty from the heat, dress sticking to my clammy body. Face blotchy. My whole look reduced to the words “train wreck.” I blink twice and picture how he thinks Gretel looks right now: grinning, red lipstick perfectly applied, sipping on an ethical straw, hair over one tanned shoulder, mischief in her eyes. Hell, her eyes might even be sparkling, though that doesn’t even exist in real life. At no point in the history of hen dos has one ever prompted Gretel to consider her own life choices and romantic prospects. I blink again and see Gretel form in the mirrored glass. She waves hello. She winks at me, and I find myself winking back.
“I’m not calling for any reason other than to say filthy things,” I watch Gretel say seductively down the phone.
More laughter. “Can I send you on more hen dos if this is what happens?”
“Why aren’t you here right now? There’s so much I want to do to you.”
I hear him gulp. “Yes? Like what?”
“Anything you want, I’ll do.” It’s best to keep it vague, let them fill in the blanks with whichever porn they watch and feel shame about afterward.
“OK, and now I have an inappropriate erection in the middle of Soho.”
“No such thing as an inappropriate erection in Soho.”
“How can you be crazy hot and crazy funny at exactly the same time, Gretel? That’s not very fair on a man.”
I smile again and my reflection smiles back. That red lipstick really does suit her. I’ve never had the confidence to wear red lipstick before. “What are you thinking about?” Gretel asks.
“Things that aren’t helping this erection go away. Honestly, I’ve had to turn to face the wall.”
“I wish I was there. I could do things with that situation.”
“Please get on a train back to London now. I’ve said ‘please’ and everything.”
“Sorry, no can do. But wait till I next see you—”
I hang up, mid-sentence, cutting him and his erection off. I laugh at how easy it is for them to believe your pretense. I sort out my real reflection. I wipe off the ruined bits of my face, sort out my smudged makeup, and tip my hair upside down under the hand dryer to reinvigorate it.
A better April stares back at me now. Not as good as Gretel, but much improved. One that’s able to get through the rest of the evening. My phone buzzes.
Joshua: I’m going to be thinking about you all night xxxx
I do feel better.
Though, I worry part of me will be thinking about him all night too.
We end up in a club after all.
We shed the breastfeeders and the ones who could only get babysitters until midnight, and head to some awful place on the beach where all the other hen dos have congregated in some kind of rally. They’re all much younger than us. Some of them clearly on their first, exciting, one—decorated with glitter and penises and wilting sashes and the bits of fancy dress that have made it to the end of the night. We’re too drunk to mind though—dancing in a little circle, around the pile of our handbags, leaning in to shout “I don’t know any of these songs!”
Now I’m on the beach, smoking a Marlborough menthol even though I’ve never smoked a cigarette in my life. Chrissy’s sitting next to me, also smoking. Our heels are off, toes buried into the cold pebbles.
“I can’t believe I’m getting married,” she tells the quiet slosh of the sea, before nuzzling her head into my shoulder.
“I can’t believe you’re getting married either.” I pat the top of her head with my non-fag hand.
“I literally thought that was it. After Sven. When I left him, I left him knowing he was probably my only chance.”
“And now look at you.”
She throws her arms into the air and her cigarette lights a path through the darkness. “FUCK YOU SVEN, I’M NOT A SPINSTER AFTER ALL!” she yells into the black sea. Whoops and cheers from other inebriated people echo back at us and we both fall into one another, laughing.
“Sven was such a dick,” I say.
“Such a dick.”
“Remember when he forgot your birthday?”
“And somehow blamed it on me for ‘stressing him out’?”
We shake our heads and I take an inexperienced drag on my cigarette, sucking on its minty filter, trying to remember how it even came to being in my hand. I cough.
Chrissy cracks up then starts coughing too. “God, we’re a sorry state of affairs,” she says, grinding hers out.
“But we look so cool!”
She takes mine and stubs it out too, and there’s a moment’s calm, where the delicate crash of waves against shingle mixes with the thud of the bass spilling from the club.
“I can’t believe I’m having a wedding,” she murmurs. “I have a dress and everything. It’s so surreal.”
“Are you excited?”
“Yes, I think so. I mean, it’s also really stressful. Like just a giant project to manage, and you know about Mum and her MS and all the worry about how she’ll cope with the day, but it will be lovely I hope.”
“It will be lovely! What are you looking forward to the most?”
I used to ask myself this same question about my own hypothetical wedding. During those moments when I used to plan it in my head, like I’ve been groomed to do since being born a girl. Of course, the most obvious answer is that thing from 27 Dresses—the look on his face at the end of the aisle when he first sees you. That’s the low bar heterosexual women set themselves as a romantic accomplishment: find a man who looks pleased to be marrying you on your actual fucking wedding day. Dream big, April...
“His speech actually,” Chrissy says after consideration, interrupting my thoughts. “I’m really looking forward to his speech.” She picks up a pebble and squeezes it in her palm. “The thing is, I know Mark loves me. I mean, he must do, right? We’re getting married! But he’s never been very verbally affectionate. I told you we’ve argued about it a lot. How he never really gushes over me. Never really says ‘I love you’ or ‘you look gorgeous.’ Stuff like that. He says words don’t mean anything and I get that so it’s fine. It’s totally fine. I mean, I’d rather he did say nice things, but that’s not him, and he treats me like he loves me and that’s what’s important but, well, the speech is going to be special. Cos he’ll get a chance to say it all. And it will be nice to hear it, just once, you know? I feel like he’s saving it all up for then, and it makes me feel all warm and gushy. Does that sound stupid?”
