Authors: Portia MacIntosh
I don’t think I have ever known my granddad to be wrong. He always tells me that between them, he and his dad knew absolutely everything. I would ask him difficult, sometimes impossible to answer questions, and if he didn’t know the answer he would simply tell me: ‘my dad knew that one.’ Jokes aside, he has never steered me wrong before, and it means so much that he is still looking out for me.
‘How do I do that?’ I ask as the tears start flowing again.
‘I heard you’ve been baking, that’s a good start. After what happened to the cake…’
OK, he definitely knows. I cover my face with my hands.
‘Come on, Kid, we’ve all made a mess in the kitchen at some point in our lives,’ he laughs. I look at him and my eyes widen, because I can’t imagine my gran ever being down for anything like that.
‘Just show them this side of you. Don’t put up a front, just tell everyone how you really feel – even that lad,’ he adds.
‘Leo?’
My granddad nods.
‘I don’t think he’ll ever speak to me again. I said some pretty unforgivable things.’
‘You’d be surprised what people will forgive when they’re in love – just like when people say and do stupid things because they’re in love. Think about it, Kid. I’ll give you a bit of privacy.’
As my granddad heads for the door, I go after him and throw my arms around him. As he hugs me back – and I mean really hugs me back, not like the occasional empty hug most of the other family members throw around – the idea of going back to LA is one that makes me feel sick. The thought that one day my wonderful granddad won’t be around any more makes me want to never let go of him again.
‘Steady on, Kid,’ he laughs. ‘I can hardly breathe.’
As always, he’s given me great advice, but being honest about my feelings is not something I am keen on doing – I am scared of being honest with myself, let alone the others.
***
After washing my face again and blowing my nose for the billionth time, I finally feel emotionally balanced enough to re-apply my makeup. I know I told my granddad I’d be honest, but the idea of crying my eyes out and begging everyone for forgiveness is not one that I am crazy about. My sister, my mum, my auntie, my gran… these people hardly know me now, there’s no way they’d be able to recognise whether I was being genuine or not, and I doubt they’d even care. Maybe given time they will listen to my apology, but not in time for the wedding.
I am snapped from my thoughts by my phone ringing. It’s work.
‘Dalia, hello! Boy, am I glad to hear from you,’ I answer, breathing a sigh of relief as I await a familiar voice that will remind me of my new life and how I will soon be back to it.
‘Hey, you might change your mind when you hear why I’m calling,’ she starts, and I feel my face fall. ‘Mia, you haven’t sent any work, we are seriously behind with the project, Savannah and Molly are on the verge of a fucking breakdown, the boss is majorly pissed. We need you back here.’
‘Well, I’ll be back in a few days, so don’t worry.’
‘Mia, the boss wants you back
now
, or else.’
‘He realises it’s quite far?’ I ask sarcastically.
‘He does. He wants you to catch a flight ASAP and be in the office tomorrow.’
‘The wedding is tomorrow,’ I tell her, but she already knew that. ‘Level with me, Dalia. How serious is he?’
‘Super serious,’ she tells me. ‘He says you have to show him you’re willing to commit to this one hundred percent. He’s worried you’re becoming a bit of a liability.’
Bloody hell, you turn up late now and then, sleep with the occasional co-worker, take owed vacation days to go home for your sister’s wedding and suddenly you’re a liability. When I took the job I knew that it was going to be demanding, and at the time it wasn’t a problem – but it’s this damn wedding, it’s ruining my life.
‘OK, I’ll sort it. I’ll find a flight and I’ll be back tomorrow. You can promise the boss,’ I assure her. Well, what else can I do? My job is on the line and it’s all I’ve got left. I’ve burned whatever bridges I had left with the family – and those flimsy old, petrol soaked rope bridges disintegrated to nothing pretty quickly – Leo hates me, and he was right, my job is the most important thing in my life. I can’t afford to lose it, it’s not just what I do, it’s who I am.
Let’s be honest, no one even wants me at this wedding now. I’ve trashed my sister’s wedding plans, broken Leo’s heart, thrown a spanner into my auntie and cousin’s world… I know I would half-joke that everyone hated me before, but now I think they truly do. There’s nothing to stay here for – so the sooner I leave, the better.
I woke up with a start – and in a cold sweat, as the sweet dream I’d been having turned into a screaming nightmare. I was dreaming about the wedding and it was weird, because
the
cake was there, only it was after I sat on it, so it was totally destroyed but no one acted any differently. Then, suddenly, I was with Leo. We were holding hands and smiling, walking down the street as the sun shone and the birds sang, it was beautiful. Then we happened upon a burning building and I screamed after him as he ran inside – I don’t even think there was anyone in there, I think he was trying to get away from me. That’s when I woke up and realised it was three a.m., and that I was still here.
I’m not only warm, I’m really thirsty. I hid in my room for most of last night, I just couldn’t face anyone. The good news is that I managed to book myself a flight for the morning but I’m yet to break the news to anyone. Still, they’ll probably be relieved when I do tell them.
I grab one of my beach dresses and slip it on over my underwear so that I can go downstairs and grab a drink while everyone else is sleeping. The moon is bright tonight, illuminating the house just enough so that I don’t have to turn the lights on, which is fortunate, because I’m terrified of waking anyone. I tiptoe through the kitchen and open the fridge, which lights the room a little better, just as I hear a voice behind me.
‘Hello,’ my sister says from the kitchen table.
I jump out of my skin.
‘What is it with people sitting in this room in the dark?’ I can’t help but ask.
‘I know, if only people would turn lights on…’ she replies.
I know what she’s getting at, I’m surprised she’s even speaking to me though.
‘Sometimes it’s better to be in the dark,’ I sigh, closing the fridge door behind me and then heading for the hallway.
‘Wait,’ my sister calls after me.
I flick the light on and look at her, just to make sure I didn’t just imagine her encouraging me to stay in the same room.
‘Sit down,’ she insists.
I cautiously do as she asks, not entirely convinced she isn’t hiding a weapon under the table.
‘I hear you baked,’ she says softly, looking at her hands as she speaks to me.
‘I did.’
‘Can I see?’
‘I left them in the fridge at Shell’s. I have a photo though.’
I have my phone with me – I never like to be too far from it, especially in hostile territory – so I show my sister a photo, careful not to get too close in case this is some kind of trap.
‘You made those?’ she asks, her eyes widening as she looks at them. My cupcakes are by no means amazing, but even I was impressed by how well they turned out. I didn’t know I had it in me.
I nod my head.
‘They match the colour scheme and the flowers,’ she tells me.
‘Yeah, well I thought that would be the best way to go,’ I explain. ‘I just wanted to fix the mistake. It really was a mistake, Belle.’
She exhales deeply.
‘I know. It’s just… it was a big mistake.’
My sister lets out a little laugh but I’m still too terrified to join in.
‘Planning a wedding is stressful,’ she tells me. ‘It’s not like it is in your movies.’
‘Nothing in real life is how it is in my movies,’ I tell her. The same thing I keep telling everyone when they meet me and expect a slushy romantic. They expect love to be my life, for me to have been planning my own wedding since I was a child – they probably suspect I have a scrapbook that I carry around with me with clippings and collages. What no one expects, and what they actually get, is someone as together as Britney Spears circa 2007 with the love life of Lindsay Lohan.
‘I’m sorry,’ I tell her again. ‘I’m really really sorry. I’m going to be honest, when I first arrived I thought you were being a crazy wedding bitch – the superstitions, demanding attention, falling to pieces over the slightest thing–’
‘OK, I get it,’ Belle interrupts.
‘Sorry. Again. But, yeah, I take full responsibility for recent events. I am fucking up from all angles, but I’m doing my best to put things right.’
I should tell Belle that I’m going back to the States, she will probably feel relieved that I’m not going to be here to mess up her big day.
‘Mia, I haven’t really said so yet, but thank you,’ she starts before I get the chance to tell her anything. ‘I am grateful for everything you’ve done. Babysitting, helping me sort the flower crisis, making endless coffees because no one else can use the machine.’ She laughs, and as she does she smiles warmly. ‘You have caused a few problems,’ she continues. ‘You forgot to plan my hen party, but you gave me an amazing one! And you ruined my cake, but you put it right.’
With every word Belle says, this incredible feeling washes over me. To be putting things right and to be forgiven feels amazing.
‘Anyway, Dan probably shouldn’t have left the cake just sitting there, on the worktop, uncovered, on a warm night, in the pitch black. He can be so dumb sometimes,’ she chuckles.
I laugh, but only a little. Dan can be a little on the dim side, but he can’t be blamed for this.
‘Dan is a lovely guy, and he loves you so much,’ I tell her, but of course she already knew that.
‘I know,’ she smiles, ‘and I love him too. That’s the thing, when you love someone you can look past the little things like them being a bit dumb.’
I smile and nod my head.
‘Or like them wanting to be with you so much but going about it all wrong because they don’t know how you’ll react if they tell you.’
I nod, even though that one seemed a lot more specific, then I realise she’s talking about Leo and me.
‘Wait, what?’
‘Leo loves you
so
much,’ she tells me. ‘I think he has since the second he laid eyes on you. And…’ she pauses, ‘… I think you love him too.’
With everything such a mess and with nothing left to lose, I pause to consider my feelings for Leo. I knew there was something between us the moment we met, but I thought that was just sexual chemistry because I heard the word ‘fireman’. When I heard that Nancy was into him, I was jealous. When I’ve needed him, he’s been there for me. When Belle put an end to our sexcapades it forced me to do something I hadn’t in a long time, to build a proper relationship with someone, and when I was so drunk that my defences were completely down, I fell asleep in his arms. Normally people get drunk and have meaningless sex; when I get drunk I let my meaningful feelings get the better of me. That’s why I feel so bad about everything I’ve done, because I love the people I am hurting and that includes Leo.
‘Oh fuck,’ I say, hiding my face with my hands. ‘Why did this have to happen to me?’
My sister laughs.
‘I think you’re the last person to realise you’re in love,’ she tells me, highly amused. ‘And stop freaking out and treating it like it’s something awful that has happened to you – just feel lucky that it did.’
I don’t feel lucky though, I feel a billion times worse. Leo and I live very different lives, very far apart. I have written one movie about a long distance relationship, and as we penned our usual happy ending, this one felt particularly bullshit to me because everyone knows that no relationship can survive distance, especially when there’s no goal to work towards.
‘So this is love,’ I laugh. ‘I thought if I ever experienced it, it might feel better than this. I needed it to happen with someone who lives in the same country as me, then I might have gone through with it.’
‘You don’t get to choose who you love,’ my sister reminds me. ‘Like you, you’re my sister and I’m stuck with you. You’re every bit as dramatic as the movies you write, you might not have had sex on my cake but I’m pretty sure you had sex
with
the cake – my
wedding cake
… but I love you.’
‘I love you too,’ I tell her, grabbing her from her chair and hugging her tightly.
‘And I love you both,’ I hear my mum say. I release my sister to turn around and look at my mum who is standing in the doorway in her dressing gown, her hair up as perfectly as it appears during the day.
‘Wait.’ I grab my phone. ‘Can you say that again, I need to film it.’
My mum laughs, but I’d be lying if I said I was kidding.
‘You’re good girls,’ she tells us. ‘Both of you.’
She takes a bottle of water from the fridge before heading back upstairs.
From my usually frosty mother, that means the world.
‘The next time she’s driving me crazy, will you remind me that happened, please,’ I laugh to my sister.
‘I will,’ she giggles. ‘Mia, I’m so glad you’re here. It wouldn’t be right without you.’
As my sister holds my hands and swings them gently, I remember the promise I made my boss, and how I had already decided I would skip the wedding to go home. Well, when I said that, I thought no one wanted me around.
‘Why did you pick on me when we were teens?’ I ask my sister. I’ve always wondered.
‘I suppose I was jealous,’ she admits.
‘You were jealous of me?’ I ask. ‘You’re remembering that the wrong way round. I was jealous of you.’
‘Nope. You were smart and funny – I’ve never been either of those things. School was so hard for me and you sailed through.’
‘I didn’t sail through, I was bullied for being different. And things like PE were a living hell for me – and you were awesome at that. You were friends with the cool kids,’ I remind her.
‘Yeah, but you had proper friends who liked you for you, not just because you were cool,’ she replies.
‘So we were jealous of each other,’ I laugh. ‘I wish we’d had this conversation sooner, we could’ve been friends.’