Authors: Portia MacIntosh
‘Right, you know where I am if you need me,’ Shell assures me. ‘I’ll be popping in and out anyway.’
‘Thank you,’ I call after her.
OK, I can do this. We were kids when Belle and I used to make these, how hard can it be?
I open up my recipe of choice on my iPad – one of the simplest I could find – and begin measuring things out. I have no sooner started when Mike pops his head through the door.
‘Hello gorgeous,’ he says.
‘Have you come to help me?’ I ask, skipping the pleasantries. ‘I can’t even work the scales.’
‘Oh, no, that’s women’s work,’ he replies, and I hope he’s joking.
‘Well, if you’re not here to help you can fuck off,’ I laugh. ‘This isn’t going to be pretty.’
‘I just wanted to talk to you,’ Mike says, approaching me slowly. As he gets close to me he stands behind me and wraps his arms around my waist. ‘About the other night.’
‘I really can’t talk about that right now,’ I begin to tell him, just as Shell pops in to grab something. I smile at her but remain frozen in Mike’s grasp until she’s gone.
‘Look, get off me.’ I wiggle free, knocking a box of eggs to the floor. Every last one of them falls out of the box and smashes on the floor. ‘Shit.’
‘I’ll go,’ he assures me, ‘I just need to know where I stand.’
‘You stand with your girlfriend, you moron. I can’t believe you let me think you were single.’
‘You didn’t ask.’
‘Oh, come on, you made out like you were. And anyway, it’s your business. You want to be a cheater, be a cheater. I’m not getting involved.’
‘Another visitor,’ I hear Shell call from the other room, shortly before we’re joined by Leo. Brilliant, another member of my angry male fan club, just what I need.
‘I found these chocolate flowers on the step,’ he tells me. I must have missed those when I was picking up my dropped shopping.
‘Fancy that,’ Mike replies. ‘I came across a cake the other night.’
Leo doesn’t look impressed at this joke at all. I shoot Mike an angry glance.
‘If you’re not here to help, you can get out,’ I snap at them both.
‘Fine. To be continued,’ Mike chuckles. As he passes Leo on his way to the door he gives him a pat on the back. ‘See you, bud.’
I exhale deeply and wipe my forehead with the back of my floury hand.
‘Not going well?’ Leo asks me when we’re finally alone.
‘It was never going to, was it? I don’t know what made me think I could do this.’
I get down on my knees and start scooping the gooey egg mess into the box they came in. As hard as I try, it just slips through my fingers – story of my life.
Leo gets down on the floor with me.
‘You can’t make an omelette without breaking a few eggs,’ he tells me encouragingly.
‘At this rate I
will
’ be making her an omelette, at least I’m capable of that.’
Leo laughs, flashing me his gorgeous smile, and however guilty I felt before, I feel a billion times that now.
‘Mike not helping you then?’ he asks, and I finally feels like I should explain, I just don’t know how.
‘No. Nothing really happened with him, you know. I mean, we kissed, but it wasn’t ever going to be more than that.’
‘It looked like it was from where I was sitting.’
‘Honestly,’ I reply, and hopefully he can tell that I’m being sincere. ‘I couldn’t have done it.’
Leo nods his head thoughtfully.
‘I feel like you should be angrier at me than you are,’ I tell him. ‘Not that I want you to be, just…’
‘I’m here to help you. The fact that you’re doing this is admirable.’
I feel my heart jump into my mouth. The fact he’s helping me is what’s admirable, he should hate my guts.
‘Grab me some salt,’ he insists. I do, handing it to him before joining him back on the floor. I watch as he sprinkles salt over the broken eggs.
‘We wait for it to dry, then it will be much easier to clean up.’
I stare at him in amazement.
‘You’re like a little old lady trapped in the body of a smoking hot man,’ I laugh. ‘Where did you learn to do that?’
‘From my mum. One of the many benefits of still living with your mum in your late twenties,’ he insists. ‘She teaches me all the vital survival skills, she doesn’t want me getting hurt.’
And don’t I know it.
‘Well, if you do want to help, that would be incredible. Thank you so much.’
‘It’s nothing,’ he tells me.
We do most of the cleaning up and preparations in silence, occasionally looking at each other and exchanging smiles. It means a lot to me that, after everything, he’s still willing to help me.
‘Belle will appreciate this, you know,’ Leo tells me once we’re well on our way, mixing the batter.
‘I wouldn’t be so sure about that, she’s pretty angry. She’ll probably accuse me of doing this on purpose to ruin her wedding, and then trying to fix things to make myself look good.’
‘Why would you do that though?’ he asks. It might not make sense, but it’s nothing new to me.
‘She thinks I’m jealous. Everyone does actually. Little sister having her dream wedding, tying the knot with the man of her dreams and then there’s me, accumulating dust on the shelf. Something like that.’
‘Are you jealous?’ he asks.
‘No.’ I laugh. ‘Sounds like my idea of hell.’
‘Why?’
I shoot Leo a look.
‘I didn’t realise I was going to be interrogated.’
‘Humour me,’ he insists with an irresistible smile.
‘Look, I’m annoyed that I have been summoned here to spend time with a family who hate me, and I’m even a little pissed off that my parents have decided Belle should have my half of the wedding fund – not because I want the money, but because they’ve just written me off.’
‘But marriage sounds like your idea of hell,’ Leo reminds me. ‘So what does it matter?’
‘I don’t care about the fact that it’s gone, I care about why.’
‘But why does it matter if you’re not getting married?’
‘Look, you’re never going to get it. Your mum worships you, you couldn’t possibly understand.’
‘Do you know what I think,’ Leo starts, raising his voice as I switch on the noisy electric mixer. ‘I think you’re lonely.’
‘You think
I’m
lonely?’ I repeat, equally as loudly. ‘Do I seem short of attention to you?’
‘Well, what have you got in LA? You don’t have a boyfriend–’
‘Oh my God, I don’t have a boyfriend, the be all and end all,’ I interrupt him, my voice still raised even though I’ve turned the mixer off.
‘Well you don’t sound like you have many friends either.’
‘So, what, you’re going to move to LA with me? Be my BF, my BFF and a total pain in my ASS?’
As Leo beings preparing the frosting, I angrily dollop blobs of batter into bun cases. I imagine I’ll be marked down for presentation because with each one I grow angrier and angrier, slopping batter all over. If he’s not careful, I might say something I’ll regret.
‘OK, why not,’ Leo starts enthusiastically. ‘I’ll move to LA, we’ll see what happens.’
‘What about your job?’ I ask.
‘You have fires in LA, right?’ he says with a smile. I really love that smile of his. When he isn’t giving any emotion away his dark eyes and chiselled features make him look quite moody and intense, but when he smiles his face just comes to life. He lights up. Would it be the worst thing in the world to see that smile every day? No, but it’s not realistic and we both know it. He knows how I feel about relationships and commitments, and suddenly he’s suggesting moving thousands of miles to be with me.
‘And it’s that simple,’ I laugh, but it’s not an amused laugh, it’s an angry laugh, the one that seems to serve as a warning shot when I feel like I’m being cornered. There’s only one thing to do when you’re being cornered and that’s attack.
‘It is,’ he tells me. ‘We’re meant for each other, Mia. You can keep doing your job, I’ll find work as a firefighter.’
‘What, so you can just die in a fire and leave me heartbroken?’ I snap.
And there it is. The thing that I say before instantly regretting it. I almost can’t believe I said it, so I instantly turn my back to him and bend down to put the cakes in the oven. I jump up as I hear a loud noise, only to see the bowl Leo was using on the floor and Leo standing over it. He’s holding his hand like he’s hurt it, he must have hit something in a temper.
‘Why are you so afraid of people loving you?’ he yells before storming out.
I place a hand over my mouth, the mouth that just said such a cruel thing. Leo has been nothing but incredible to me since the day we met – he’s stuck up for me, he was disturbingly calm when he found me with Mike… but he’s finally snapped. Well, of course he has, because I stupidly brought up the way he lost his dad as a reason for us not to be together. His dad died in a fire saving a child’s life, that’s a huge sacrifice and I feel like such a fucking bitch for bringing it up.
As I clean up the mess Leo has made, I notice Shell standing over me.
‘These are not thick walls,’ she informs me, without her usual warmth.
‘Oh God, I’m sorry, did people hear?’
‘I heard,’ she tells me. ‘I heard everything – what happened, the things you said to Leo. He loves you, what’s so wrong with that?’
‘Well maybe I don’t love him back, or does that not matter?’ I ask defensively.
‘If you believe that, you’re an even bigger fool that I thought.’
‘You don’t know the first thing about me,’ I tell her.
‘And you don’t know the first thing about love, Mia. It’s hard, but we still do it.’
I place the bowl in the sink and grab another to make some frosting that hasn’t spent any time on the floor.
‘Maybe some of us weren’t designed to love,’ I say quietly.
Shell exhales deeply.
‘I don’t want your sister’s day ruining any more than it already has been. Finish the cakes – quietly – and then get out. You’re not who I thought you were. You can store them here over night, but after you collect them I never want to see you again. And don’t worry about setting a scene from your next movie here, I’ve had enough of your scripted rubbish.’
For a moment, I am speechless. Shell has gone from worshipping me to wishing I was dead and it took less than an hour. She was warm and bubbly and now she’s angry and shouting… and it’s all my fault.
***
It took me a long time but eventually I made enough cupcakes and I decorated them all with pink frosting and orange flowers. I’d never get a job at Le Papillon but I’ve done a pretty good job, even if I did lose my sous chef halfway through.
Shell’s is empty now, apart from Shell herself who had no interest in saying goodbye to me.
It’s getting cold out, and as I walk home along the beach I realise there isn’t another soul around.
I freeze on the spot as I feel my breathing stop. I can’t breathe, why can’t I breathe? As I drop to my knees I bang my hand on the sand, willing myself to take a breath. It works and I gasp as I manage to suck in and push out air, but it doesn’t feel natural, it’s like I am having to consciously think about each breath. In… out… in… out. A panic attack – it’s been so long since I had one, but that’s what this is. And it’s not just a panic attack. As I feel my heart pounding in my chest I feel my throat close, my eyes burn and then the tears come flooding out. Crying is something else I haven’t done since I was younger, I forgot how consuming it was. I sob as I watch my tears dampen the sand on the ground in front of me. I concentrate on my breathing, in… out… in… out…
I think it’s finally hit me that everyone hates me. Everyone. And everyone can’t be wrong, can they? They’re all right about me, I’m a selfish monster and I am broken. I don’t know what’s wrong with me, or where it all went wrong, but I’ve really done it this time.
As I kneel here, wailing away, I realise that not only is no one around to notice, but no one would actually care if I disappeared.
As my breathing eventually calms, I stand up, compose myself, wipe my eyes and carry on walking back towards the house. I don’t ever want to feel like this again.
If there’s one thing I can take back to LA with me, it’s a better understanding of the act of crying. Until today I had probably written more crying scenes than I had shed tears of my own, but I had forgotten just how ugly it could be. In my movies it’s always the slight quivering of the voice, a few beautiful tears rolling down the cheek that leave a pretty little glistening trail behind them – it’s all shit. Crying isn’t beautiful, it’s horrible. As I sobbed, I couldn’t have spoken if I wanted to, even breathing was difficult. When you’re truly upset, it isn’t a few pretty little tear drops from each eye, it’s just constantly flowing, making your eyes burn until you feel like you can’t keep them open for a minute longer, and it’s not even just tears you have to deal with, I didn’t know it was possible to produce so much snot, I felt like it was choking me. Even now, after drying my eyes and washing my face’ back at the house, my head feels absolutely full. Full of thoughts and full of snot. The skin on my nose feels tight, my ears feel blocked and my eyes feel like they are being sucked into my skull. Crying looks and feels ugly, and ‘letting it all out’ certainly hasn’t made me feel any less ugly inside.
Just when I think I am about to make it to my bedroom without seeing a soul, I hear someone call my name.
‘Mia.’
It’s my granddad. I recognise his voice, but I don’t turn to face him.
‘You OK, Kid?’
‘I’m fine, just tired,’ I tell him as I feel that tight lump returning to my throat. I’m pretty sure he knows exactly what has gone on and it breaks my heart, because he’s the only person to ever stick up for me, and even he’s going to struggle to do that now.
‘Are you crying?’ he asks, sounding almost shocked to see me displaying such an emotion.
I shush him, grabbing his arm and pulling him into my bedroom, probably a little rougher than I should considering his age, but I don’t want anyone else to see that I’m bothered.
‘You should let them see you cry,’ he tells me once the door is closed.
‘Crying shows weakness,’ I reply.
‘No, it shows honesty,’ he corrects me. ‘Words come so easily. It’s only a matter of seconds between them being thought and uttered. Parrots can apologise – it doesn’t make it sincere, it’s a habit that they’ve learned, they’re just repeating the same thing. You need to realise that saying these words after each mistake means less and less each time. You don’t say you’re sorry, Kid, you show people.’