Marian Keyes - Lucy Sullivan Is Getting Married (24 page)

"No, you are not!" declared Karen. They're for tomorrow ni--Oh go ahead. I'll have one while you're at it."

On and on into the night we worked, peeling, scraping, slicing, grating, stuffing, whipping, piping, baking.

We did so much work that Karen was almost grateful, but only for about two seconds.

"Thanks, both of you," she said, bending down to take something out of the oven.

"Sorry?" I asked, so tired that I thought I was hearing things.

"I said `thanks,'" she said. "You're both very goo...Oh Christ! Move, move," she yelled, kicking me out of the way, throwing down a tray of what must have been the Viennese cookies, sending them skittering into the bowl of ratatouille. "I'm burned to a crisp!" she gasped. "These bloody oven gloves are useless."

I finally got to bed at about two o'clock, my hands raw and cut, stinking of garlic and Drambuie. My prize nail, that I'd nurtured since it was tiny, was snagged and broken.

39 It was a good thing I got a seat on the tube the next morning, because I was so tired that I would have lain down on the floor otherwise. Charlotte and I spent our journey wearily discussing how much of a stupid bitch we thought Karen was.

"I mean, who does she think she is?" asked Charlotte, yawning.

"Exactly!" I yawned back, slumped in my seat. I no lucy sullivan is getting married / 299

ticed that my shoes were filthy and scuffed and that made me feel de- pressed. I sat up straight so that I wouldn't see them, but then I had to look at the horrible man in a suit, sitting opposite me, who had his eyes trained on Charlotte's breasts, his eyes glazing with lust every time she yawned and her chest expanded. I wanted to hit him, to batter him around the head and neck with his Daily Mail.

I thought I had better close my eyes for the rest of the journey, it was safer.

"And it won't last with Karen and Daniel," declared Charlotte, uncer- tainly. "He'll get sick of her."

"Ummm," I agreed, opening my eyes for a moment. I clamped them shut again, but not before I had seen an ad on the wall asking for donations for animals that had been mistreated, and a heart-rending picture of a skinny, miserable-looking dog.

It was almost a relief to get to work, where I had to endure taunts from Meredia and Megan who insisted that I'd been out drinking the night before.

"I haven't," I protested feebly.

"Course you have," snorted Megan. "Just look at you."

The moment I put my key in the door on Friday evening, Karen was in the hall. She had taken Friday afternoon off work so that she could get her hair done and clean the apartment. She immediately set about organizing me.

"Wash yourself and get dressed now, Lucy. I need to run through the arrangements with you."

In fairness to her, the place looked beautiful.

There were fresh flowers everywhere. She had laid a crisp white table- cloth on the nasty Formica kitchen table and placed an exquisite candelabra, with eight red candles, in the middle of it. 300 / marian keyes

"I didn't know we had that candelabra," I said, thinking how nice it would look in my bedroom.

"We don't," she said shortly. "I borrowed it."

While I was in the bathroom she hammered on the door and shouted, "I've put clean towels on the rail, don't even think of using them."

It was eight o'clock. The three of us were ready.

The table was laid, the candles were lit, the lights turned down low, the white wine was in the fridge, the red wine was opened and ready in the kitchen, and pots and pans and containers of food stood on the stove, poised.

Karen switched on the stereo and strange noises came from it.

"What's that?" demanded Charlotte in shock.

"Jazz." Karen sounded slightly embarrassed.

"Jazz?" snorted Charlotte derisively. "But we hate jazz. Don't we, Lucy?"

"Yes." I was happy to confirm.

"What do we call people who like jazz, Lucy?" asked Charlotte.

"Goateed, beatnik art students?" I suggested.

"That's it," she said in glee. "Guys who wear black French polos and ski pants."

"Maybe, but we like jazz now," said Karen firmly.

"You mean, Daniel does," muttered Charlotte.

Karen looked exquisite--or ridiculous, depending on your point of view. She wore a pale green, off-the-shoulder, Grecian type of dress. Her hair was up, but lots of it was falling down in little curls and tendrils. She shone; she looked so much more glamorous and soign�e than Charlotte or I. I was wearing my gold dress, the one I had worn the night I had met Gus, because it was the only lucy sullivan is getting married / 301

dressy-up dress I had, but it looked tatty and bedraggled compared to Karen's splendor.

Charlotte, to be frank, looked a bit of a mess, even worse than me. She wore the only formal dress that she had, the one she had worn when she was her sister's bridesmaid, a huge red taffeta meringue. I think she must have put on some weight since the wedding, because her chest fairly ex- ploded from the strapless bodice. Karen looked very doubtful when Charlotte rustled out from her bedroom, said, "Da, daaah!" and did a little pirouette. She probably wished she had allowed Charlotte to wear her cowgirl outfit after all.

Karen had given frantic instructions. "Now when they arrive, I'll keep them talking in the front room, Lucy, you turn on the oven at a very low heat to warm the potatoes and Charlotte, you stir the..."

She paused suddenly, a horrified look on her face.

"The bread, the bread, the bread," shrieked Karen. "I forgot to buy the bread. Everything's ruined! Totally ruined. They'll all have to go home."

"Karen, calm down. It's on the table," said Charlotte.

"Oh. Oh. Oh, thank God. Is it really?" She sounded close to tears. Char- lotte and I exchanged long-suffering looks.

Karen was quiet for a moment, then she looked at the clock.

"Where the fuck are they?" she demanded, lighting a cigarette. Her hand shook.

"Give them a chance," I said soothingly. "It's just eight."

"I said eight o'clock on the dot," said Karen aggressively.

"But no one takes that seriously," I murmured. "It's considered bad manners to arrive on time." 302 / marian keyes

It was on the tip of my tongue to remind her that it was only a dinner party and that the guest of honor was just Daniel, but I stopped myself in time. Waves of aggression came from her.

We sat in tense silence.

"No one's coming," said Karen tearfully, gulping back a glass of wine. "We may as well throw it all out. Come on, let's go to the kitchen and fling it all in the garbage."

She banged her glass down on the table and stood up.

"Well, come on," she ordered.

"No!" said Charlotte. "Why should we throw it out? After all the trouble we've gone to? We can eat it ourselves and we'll freeze what we don't eat."

"Oh, I see," said Karen, nastily. "We can eat it ourselves, can we? What makes you so certain that no one's coming? What do you know that I don't?"

"Nothing," declared Charlotte in exasperation. "But you said..."

The doorbell rang. It was Daniel. Relief was written all over Karen's beautifully made-up face. My God, I thought with a little jump, she really is bonkers about him.

Daniel was wearing a dark suit and a dazzling white shirt, which set off the faint tan he still had from his vacation in Jamaica in February. He looked tall and dark and handsome, he smiled a lot, his hair flopped over his forehead and he had brought two bottles of chilled champagne--the ideal guest. I couldn't help smiling. Perfectly dressed, beautifully behaved, and just ever so slightly clich�d.

He said all the things that nice polite people say when they come to dinner at your house, like, "Mmmm, something smells delicious," and, "You look wonderful, Karen. And you, Charlotte."

Only when he got to me did his impeccable manners lucy sullivan is getting married / 303

slip a little. "What are you laughing at, Sullivan?" he demanded. "My suit? My hair? What is it?"

"Nothing," I protested. "Nothing at all. Why should I laugh at you?"

"Why change the habit of a lifetime?" he muttered. Then he moved away from me and said more of those polite guest things like "Can I do anything to help?" knowing that the answer would be an avalanche of "Nos" and "Not at alls" and slightly hysterical "Everything's under controls!"

"Have a drink, Daniel," said Karen graciously, as she swept him into the living room. Charlotte and I attempted to follow them but Karen stuck her head back out at us. "Get stirring," she hissed, blocking our entrance, as I ran into the back of Charlotte.

The doorbell rang again. Simon this time. As always he was dressed to kill, wearing a dinner suit and a red satin cummerbund that looked really stupid. He had brought a bottle of champagne also.

Oh dear, I thought. Gus is going to be the odd man out--more than usual, that was. Gus wouldn't bring champagne. Gus probably wouldn't bring anything.

Not that it would embarrass me, but I was worried that it might embar- rass him.

I wondered if I could run out to the liquor store to buy some champagne and slip it to Gus when he arrived, but I was on potato-heating duty so I was confined to barracks.

Simon said, as Daniel had moments earlier, "Mmmm, something smells delicious."

Gus wouldn't. Gus would say, "Where's the spuds, I'm starving."

"How's it all going?" asked Karen, appearing at the kitchen door. She had obviously left Daniel and Simon to do some awkward male bonding in the front room. 304 / marian keyes

"Fine," I said.

"Watch that sauce, Lucy," she said anxiously. "If there are lumps in it, I'll kill you."

I said nothing. I felt like throwing the saucepan across the kitchen at her.

"And where's your crazy Irishman?"

"On his way."

"He'd better hurry up."

"Don't worry."

"What time did you tell him?"

"Eight o'clock."

"It's a quarter past now."

"Karen--he'll be here."

"He'd better."

Karen swished back to the front room, with a bottle of something under her arm.

I kept stirring the sauce, a tiny little flutter of anxiety coming to life in my stomach.

He would be here.

But I hadn't spoken to him since Tuesday and I hadn't seen him since Sunday. That suddenly seemed like an awfully long time. Time for him to have forgotten me?

A little while later Karen was back.

"Lucy," she yelled. "It's half past eight!"

"So?"

"So where the hell is Gus?"

"I don't know, Karen."

"Well," she sputtered. "Don't you think you had better find out?"

"Why don't you call him?" suggested Charlotte. "Just to make sure that he hasn't forgotten. He might have gotten the day wrong."

"He might have got the year wrong," said Karen, nastily. lucy sullivan is getting married / 305

"I'm sure he's on his way," I said, "but I'll give him a call just in case."

I sounded a lot more confident than I felt. I wasn't at all sure that he was on his way. Anything could have happened to Gus. He could have forgot- ten, he could have got delayed, he could have fallen under a bus. But I wasn't going to let anyone know how worried I was.

I was embarrassed. I felt ashamed. Both their boyfriends had arrived on time. With bottles of champagne. My boyfriend was already half an hour late and he wouldn't even have a bottle of tap water with him when he did eventually turn up.

If he turns up, said a little voice in my head.

Panic rushed through me. What if he didn't arrive? What if he didn't come and didn't call and I never heard from him again? What would I do?

I tried to calm myself down. Of course he would come. He was probably outside right now. He really liked me and he obviously cared about me, of course he wouldn't abandon me.

I didn't want to call him, I had never called him. He had given me his phone number when I had asked for it, but I had gotten the feeling that he wasn't that eager for me to call him. He said that he hated phones, that they were a necessary evil. And there had never been any need for me to call him because he always called me, and now that I thought of it, they always seemed to be brief calls from a pay phone somewhere noisy. Or else he stopped by my apartment or picked me up from work.

We certainly didn't spend hours and hours on the phone whispering and giggling to each other, the way Charlotte and Simon did.

I found his number in my purse and dialed it. His phone rang and rang forever and no one answered. 306 / marian keyes

"No answer," I said in relief. "He must be on his way."

Just then someone picked up the phone at the other end.

A man's voice said "Hello."

"Er, hello, can I speak to Gus?"

"Who?"

"Gus. Gus Lavan."

"Oh, him. No, he's not here."

I put my hand over the mouthpiece. "He's on his way." I smiled at Karen.

"When did he leave?" she asked.

"How long ago did he leave?" I parroted.

"Let's see, ooh, about two weeks ago, I suppose."

"Wha...at?"

My horror must have shown on my face because Karen burst out, "I don't believe it! I bet the little bastard just left five minutes ago. Well, tough for him because we're going to start without him..."

Her voice trailed away as she marched down the hall, no doubt to gal- vanize Charlotte into finalizing the appetizers.

"Two weeks?" I asked quietly. Horrified and all as I was, I knew that this was something best kept to myself. It would be far, far too humiliating to broadcast it to my roommates and their boyfriends.

"About two weeks," said the voice, considering. "Ten days, something like that."

"Oh, well, er, thanks."

"Who's calling anyway? Is it Mandy?"

"No," I said, feeling as if I was going to burst into tears. "It's not Mandy."

Who the fuck was Mandy?

"Can I give him a message if I happen to see him again?"

"No. Thank you. Goodbye." lucy sullivan is getting married / 307

I hung up. Something was wrong. I knew it. This was not normal beha- vior. Why hadn't Gus mentioned that he was leaving his apartment? Why hadn't he given me his new phone number? And where on earth was he now?