Authors: Marie Coulson
My mother’s mouth pressed into a hard line, and she shifted uncomfortably in her seat. Nadine leaned over and whispered something in Gareth’s ear. Gran caught her, and I couldn’t help but feel a sense of glee as her poison took aim at Miss Perfect. “And you, Miss Boobs-Bigger-Than-Her-Brain, just because you found a husband stupid enough to put up with your shit, doesn’t mean that Charlene should settle for anything less than what she deserves. Gareth certainly deserves
you
. I do wonder sometimes if his brains are buried somewhere in those unsightly, and quite frankly, unnaturally large arms of his. He’s as thick as two large tree trunks and is about as much use as a chocolate teapot. You’re for decoration and ornamental purposes, and don’t ever imagine you’re anything more. You’d be terribly disappointed in the big scheme of things. Dress it up however you want dear, but you look like Barbie and Ken on steroids.”
Adam tried to muffle his laughter as Gran winked at him. Turning her attention to me, she pulled out a handkerchief and handed it to me. “Now, clean yourself up, hold your head high, and move on. You’ve had a lucky escape. Imagine actually marrying that slimy waste of oxygen. I never did like that toad of a man. He was all mouth and not enough cock and balls. Girl needs a man who will fight for her and fuck her into the ground.”
“Mother!” My mother’s jaw almost hit the table as she gawped at my gran who simply shrugged.
“What? You all think that just because I’m old, I don’t know a thing or two about sex? Good Lord. You’d think your generation invented the stuff. I hate to break it to you, but while you were learning to walk, young lady,
I
was crawling around on all fours. Your father had a cock like a battering ram and more energy than a Duracell bunny.”
Adam blushed a deep shade of red while Gareth and Nadine gawped in horror at the eighty two year old woman currently giving me visions that I would, no doubt, end up describing to a therapist later. I held my hands over my face and shook my head in disbelief.
“Charlene, you’ll be just fine. And, if all else fails, you can always marry the doctor.” She patted Adam’s arm and gave him another quick wink. Running my hands over my red, blotchy, and tear-stained face, I groaned. “Well, this has been wonderful as usual. It’s always nice to see you all. Thank God we only do it once a year. Thank you, once again, for the support during this awful time. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have an oven begging me to stick my head inside it. Goodbye and Merry Christmas.”
Grabbing my coat and the small bag of gifts I had been presented with, I made my way to the door and fisted my hand on my hip. “Adam? Are you coming, or should I drive myself back?”
Quickly getting to his feet, he gave my family an awkward smile. “This was nice. Thanks for dinner, Mrs Winters. I guess I’ll see you around.” He looked a mixture of embarrassed, awkward, and sympathetic. But mostly, he looked relieved. I was simply angry. Angry for believing they could be anything but awful to me. Angry for allowing myself to be verbally pulverised. But most of all, I was angry with Brad. That arsehole had screwed me over in every way possible, and now I had to pick up the pieces of my broken heart, life, and dreams.
Adam rummaged around in his pocket for his keys as we walked down the driveway to the car. Opening the passenger door, I was about to slide in when my mother came totting down the path in her kitten-heeled slippers.
“Charlene! Charlene!”
Rolling my eyes, I turned around and leaned against the open car door. “What is it, Mother? Come to remind me what a tremendous fuck up I am? How I’ve ruined your mother of the bride experience? Please, tell me, I’m dying to know.”
Biting her lip, she stood in front of me and shifted awkwardly. I groaned loudly and went to climb into the car, but she caught my shoulder and stopped me. Turning me to face her, she wrapped her arms around me tightly. I froze. My mother never, ever, hugged me. It just didn’t happen. But for some bizarre reason, which to this day I still cannot fathom, she hugged me. I cast my eyes over at Adam who was resting his arms on the car roof and grinning at me. My eyes narrowed at him as I patted my mother gently on the back. Releasing me, she brushed herself down and straightened up. “Well, safe journey back. Call when you’re home and well. Adam, lovely to see you, as always.” He gave her a gentle nod, and we both watched, staring in amazement as she clip-clopped her way back to the house and closed the door. I turned and stared at Adam who gave me a bewildered look and ducked inside the car.
Sitting inside, I was still in shock. “What the hell was that?”
Adam chuckled as he turned the key, and the engine of his car roared to life. “Maybe she genuinely cares. Maybe she feels bad for you.”
We both paused for a moment, pondering what had just taken place. I shook my head. “I don’t know. What I do know is that I will never look at my gran the same ever again.”
He laughed. “Me neither. Jeez, she’s something else, but at least she had your back. And she’s right you know. You should never settle for anything less than you deserve. And you deserve the world.”
I gave him a weak smile before leaning my elbow on the door rest and gazing out of the window. Pulling out of the driveway, I took a deep breath as my stomach churned and flipped inside me. They knew. I was fairly certain that Nadine would take great delight in informing my close relatives about the cancelled wedding, and though I hated her, I was actually glad for her big, boasting mouth for a change. With her spreading it around, it meant I didn’t have to. Reliving the horrible ordeal over and over again to every guest was not something I was looking forward to. Thank God for Ness and Dana. I was pretty confident that if I asked them, they’d handle all the gut-wrenching phone calls for me.
The silence inside the car was eerie. It wasn’t awkward, just … quiet. I got the feeling that Adam was unsure of how to act or what to say. I mean, I’d been through break ups during our friendship, but nothing quite like this. Leaning forward I turned on the radio. Big mistake. As Harry Nilsson sweetly and loudly channelled my pain into words through his immortal lyrics from the song “Without You,” my heart sank deep into my twisting stomach. Tears pooled in my eyes, and I couldn’t help but feel completely and utterly exhausted. My journey would be a long one, and the hardest part was yet to come. I was headed back to an empty apartment, empty bed, and my inevitable heartache.
Lying on the couch, I clutched my almost empty bag of pretzels in one hand while my family sized tub of Ben and Jerry’s cookie dough ice cream gently melted as it sat in the crook of my arm. The spoon had long since been discarded and I was now more in
favour of the chocolate-covered digestives, which were sprawled across the coffee table, yet within my arms reach. They were ideal. Biscuit, chocolate, and big enough to scoop an entire mouthful of ice cream. Heaven. All it needed was a squirt of the whipped cream that lay pitifully beside the sofa, and I had the perfect diabetic coma.
Gripping the remote, I mindlessly flicked through the channels. It seemed that every television network had clearly heard of my plight and was torturing me by showing every sweet, romantic, happily ever after movie known to man. It could also have been my cynical and bitter misery of course. Turning it off and hurtling the remote across the room and out of my grasp, I stared up at the ceiling and sighed deeply. I was growing accustomed to the dull ache in my chest and even the sting of my cheeks from all the tears I had cried and yet, I was still unable to peel myself from the couch and leave the apartment. There was a distinct possibility that they would be removing my lifeless, three hundred tonne body from this apartment via a crane and the destruction of my living room wall. I was just pondering how much a coffin that size might cost when the intercom buzzed loudly from across the room.
I groaned and ignored it, choosing instead to turn over and reach for the whipped cream. I gave it a good shake and held it over my open mouth before squirting a large helping right in.
“Charlene Winters, open the damn door. It’s fucking freezing, snowing, and I’m wearing suede boots! In the name of fashion, I demand that you let me in!”
Vanessa’s desperate voice was wailing through my double glazed window. Even three floors up, I could hear the high-pitched shriek of a woman in a near-ruined pair of Pied A Terre boots! Grunting, I hauled myself from the sofa and pressed the door release button on the intercom. Opening the door a crack, I sauntered back over and flopped myself down onto my couch.
Pushing the door open, Ness gasped as her eyes took in the mess that covered my lounge floor, coffee table, and well, me.
“Charlene, this is ridiculous. You realise that you’re a step away from me calling in the men in white jackets, right? I mean, look at this place.” Picking up my Ben and Jerry’s, she cringed at what was now a cookie dough flavoured soup shake with a few biscuit crumbs floating on top. “Urgh. When was the last time you actually saw daylight?”
In my depressed and deeply dark mood, I had decided to leave every curtain in my apartment closed. The sun was for happy people, and I was no longer a member of that society. Reaching for the whipped cream, I aimed it over my mouth and shrugged. “What day is it?”
“January seventh.”
Squirting a large helping into my mouth, I gulped the delicious, sweet, and calorific cream down. “Then I’d say about two weeks.”
“Two weeks! That’s it. Enough is enough.”
Pulling out her mobile, Ness hit the keypad and began
dialling. “It’s worse than we thought. I know I promised, but this is ridiculous. There’s grieving, and then there’s wallowing in your own cookie induced coma. She’s a tub of ice cream away from an appearance on that hoarders TV show. Just call Adam, and get your arse over here!”
I rolled my eyes and pulled a cushion from behind me to bury my face in. I could hear Ness pottering around, and as I peeked from beneath the cushion, sure enough, she was cleaning. Well, holding everything at arm’s length, but clearing it into a black sack nonetheless. “You don’t have to do that, Ness.”
Prying the can of whipped cream from my fingers forcefully, she grinned in triumph. “Ha! Well, clearly you can’t take care of yourself! Honestly, Charlene. You were dumped, not told you have an incurable disease. It’s time to get up, pull yourself together, and get your arse in a bathtub.”
I groaned loudly, but was interrupted by a towel being pulled from the dryer and flung at my head. “Now, Charlie. Don’t make me drag you into that bathroom myself!”
I would have argued with her, had it not been for my desperate lack of energy or enthusiasm, and also the fact that even I could no longer stand the sticky patches in my hair. That’s what you get for laying around and randomly dropping food into your mouth I suppose.
Leaving Ness to her mission of making my home once again hospitable, I sank myself into a hot, steamy bath and tried to soak away the tense and achy tightness that had set in throughout my entire body. Reaching for the shampoo, a lump formed in my throat as I spotted Brads ultra-sensitive body scrub on the shelf. After Adam had dropped me home on Christmas day, I’d packed all of Brad’s things into black sacks and dumped them in the entrance of the apartment building. I called, but he wouldn’t answer, so I simply left him a message informing him that he could pick up his things whenever he wanted. After I hung up I realised that leaving them downstairs would give him a clean get away so I frantically dragged the bags back upstairs and waited for three days for him to collect it all. I wanted to see him, yell at him, and kick him in the nuts! But the bastard deprived me of the chance. He must have been watching the place because the one time I left the apartment in days, I returned to find everything gone and a note on my coffee table. I’d only been gone ten minutes, and the dirty little rat had snuck in and squirrelled everything away before I even got back! I felt utterly cheated and robbed.
Picking up the bottle of expensive soap, I hurled it at the wall. Okay, so I was still a little bitter and maybe even slightly vengeful but surely, he deserved it? The buzz of the intercom signalled that it was my cue to get out of the tub. I had been in there almost half an hour and was beginning to look like a prune. Drying myself off, I listened as my friends discussed my home, my personal life, and me.
“I told you to give her time, Ness! How does this help anyone? You swan in, throw your weight around and make her even more upset than she was. Urgh, I despise you sometimes.”
Once again, Dana had jumped to my defence, but there really wasn’t a need. Ness was right. I had been wallowing in my cesspit of despair for over two weeks. Maybe it was time to get up and face the world again. I did miss my job, and I even missed my plastic-stitched boss.
Emerging from the bathroom with my robe firmly around me, I waltzed into the lounge with my head high.
“Okay, stop. Just stop. Dana, be my friend and not my mother today, please?”
“I was just—“Dana began, but Ness quickly cut her off.
“You were just assuming you know best as always.”
Rolling my eyes, I stood between them as they continued to bicker. The intercom buzzed again, and I actually breathed a sigh of relief. Pressing the button, I let Adam in. I knew it would be Adam. He was the only one who always pressed the buzzer three times in short bursts. He’d always been the same. When we were kids, he’d knock three times, and whenever I called him, he’d let it ring three times before answering. His mother called it obsessive compulsive. I called it a quirk.
Pushing through the door, he gave me a quick smile. “Are you okay? I’ve been worried. You won’t return calls; you won’t answer my texts. If it weren’t for the fact that I come past this place every day and see your milk taken inside, I’d be worried you were dead.” I was about to respond when Ness yelled loudly at Dana to keep her large nose out of other people’s business. Something that for one, was rich coming from Miss Busy Body herself and two, Dana’s nose was perfectly average. Turning his attention to our screeching friends, Adam pushed his way between them and gave them a dressing down. Which isn’t as dirty as it sounds.
“Hey! Hey! Enough. I don’t know what this is about, but when you call me at seven in the evening and say Charlie needs us, all kinds of stuff goes through my head. So, does someone want to explain what the hell is happening?”
Throwing myself onto the couch, I answered before either of them could. “Apparently, I require an intervention!”
“You do!” Dana and Ness yelled back at me. It was the first time they’d agreed since they’d arrived.
“Charlene, we get it. It hurts. You got dumped, but it happens. You’re not the first, and you won’t be the last. But you cannot sit around and eat yourself to death. What exactly would it achieve?”
I snorted a laugh. “I could try and claim the world record for death by dumping.”
“See, you can’t even be serious. You’re so boring and sad all the time. I feel like I need a Prozac just to be in the room with you!”
Ness wasn’t the most comforting of people, but she was usually right. Not that we ever told her that.
Holding my hands in the air, I groaned loudly. “Okay, fine. Tell me, oh great all-knowing ones, what exactly am I supposed to do?”
Adam blushed and pointed at my robe, which had loosened, and I was now sporting some side boob. “You could start with tightening your belt.” Diverting his eyes, he shifted uncomfortably.
Taking my hand, Dana smiled. “You need to get out of here and start functioning like a human being again. You’re turning into a bitter old woman.”
Ness nodded enthusiastically, agreeing with Dana for a second time. Wonders never cease evidently! “You’re a bleach blonde bob away from being your mother! And we know exactly how to remedy it.”
With an uncomfortable knot in my stomach, I gave them all a confused look.
“Well, you know that wonderful honeymoon you had booked?” Ness had an expression of triumph, and I knew that wherever this was going; it was probably going to be troublesome.
“The one I should be on next week? Yes, believe it or not, I do remember that,” I snapped back at her. But she simply brushed off my tone and continued.
“Well, I couldn’t get a refund. But, what I did get was an exchange. Two tickets to Australia were exchanged for four tickets to Paris! We’re still going to Disneyland, baby!”
I almost choked. “What?”
Adam, first checking I was adequately covered up, put his arm around me and grinned.
“You need some fun back in your life, and where else can you go for that than the place where fun is born? You remember when we were kids and we went there? It was the best time of our lives, and this time, we have these two as well. It’ll be amazing, Charlie.”
I gave Dana a pleading look, but she rebuffed me. “Not a chance, Charlene. I really want to go, and besides, we never got to do the hen party, and you were all for that idea before. Do you really want to be here when the twelfth rolls around? Holed up in your apartment and crying along to the radio—“
“And the afghan across the street,” I interrupted.
They gave me a puzzled look.
“Long story. Really?”
Ness stamped her foot and fisted her hands on her hips. “Okay, fine, it’s not ideal, but you had no problems with a trip to the magical kingdom when I planned your big send off.”
“That was before I was dumped and had my heart broken into a thousand pieces! If Disney taught me anything, it was that fairy tales, princes, and happily ever after were a way of life! I was cheated and lied to by them
and
Brad! There’s no frog ready to be a prince, just toads who like a good licking. No wonderful fairy to make my dreams come true, just old women with cafes who make addictive cream cakes and treats for the depressed. And I imagine Pinocchio makes a great living as the biggest, lying, oral sexpert in the world! I’ll pass.”
Dana cringed. “Well, I’ll never read that story in the same way again …”
Vanessa scowled at me. “This wallowing has gone on long enough. I bit my tongue when you holed yourself up in this pit and decided to eat your weight in chocolate, and I even kept my mouth shut when you declined an invite to my amazing New Year’s Eve party so that you could spend it with your cat! But this, Charlene, is the last straw. Now, get your arse in that bedroom and pack a case or else I’ll drag you to Paris in that robe and force you to buy your entire vacation wardrobe! Got it?”
Wide-eyed and feeling like a scolded child, I nodded and shuffled down the hall to my room. Opening the wardrobe, I rolled my eyes at the section I had affectionately called
the
honeymooner’s outfits
. It was mostly kaftans, swimsuits, and lingerie, but now it all looked repulsive. Closing it quickly, I opened the
fat girl
wardrobe and began flinging frumpy and unflattering outfits into my case. I had no idea what I actually packed as I had been so upset at having to actually wear them, that I simply couldn’t bear to look. I threw on some jeans and a sweater before heading out the door.
Dragging the case behind me, I trudged back in to the living room. Jacob had, as usual, snuggled down next to Adam and was giving him pleading looks for some affection. Adam wasn’t really a cat person, but he and Jacob had an understanding. They’d reached this after I had gone out of town for a few days on business. Adam had promised to take care of Jacob for me and make sure the little guy was fed every day. I was relieved to find someone so willing considering Jacob’s temperament and downright disrespectful attitude toward anyone but me. I’d only been gone two days when Adam let himself in to the apartment and as he had done
before, h
e laid food out and called for my bad tempered kitty. He knew Jacob must have been eating as the dish was always empty, but he hadn’t yet seen him. Anyway, he was just about to leave when a blood-curdling scream echoed through the apartment. Naturally, Adam searched the entire place but found absolutely nothing. It wasn’t until he sat down on the sofa to calm his nerves that he discovered where the noise had come from.