The One Who Got Away (8 page)

‘A king penguin, maybe!' said Molly, twisting her body so he could see her dress.

‘Shall we go?'

That last came from Janet. Skylarking in the foyer made her uncomfortable, although it was difficult to tell from her expression, since Janet had more Botox in her forehead than even J.J. Kim.

‘Yes,' I said. ‘Let's go.'

I extended my hand down the stairs. Dad reached up and away we went, with my kitten heels clicking across the marble floor. From the corner of my eye, I could see some of the other guests staring. Dad was used to that. He's a big man, and children, in particular, love to gawp at him.

The staring in the foyer wasn't at him, though. I don't want to sound like I'm bragging, because I'm not, but J.J. Kim had done a good job.

I looked pretty. With pearls in my ears, and with the sparkly tiara, and the big rock twinkling on my finger, and all the veils, I might even have been described as beautiful.

Our group approached the brass-bound glass doors. Bellhops bounced forward. J.J. Kim's plan had been for me to glide out of the foyer and straight into the waiting limousine, but that didn't happen because the driver had stepped away for a smoke.

‘Hey, hey!' cried J.J., arms flapping.

The driver took a final puff of his cigarette and flicked it into a flowerbed. ‘No hurry,' he said, ‘we're early.'

‘Early, early!' cried J.J. ‘We're not early! We are right on schedule.'

‘Settle down,' said the driver.

J.J. was flapping his arms like a lunatic. I laughed. What's a wedding without a mighty scrap between the pink-suited wedding planner and the laid-back limo driver?

I made my way into the car. Molly was supposed to lift my skirts in but she was too busy flirting with a bellhop. It was fine. Everything was fine because I was marrying David.

The church we had chosen for the ceremony meant nothing to my family, or indeed to David's. J.J. chose it because it was pretty and would look ‘a-MAZING' in the photographs. It stood atop a hill with views of the ocean. I could see guests on the manicured lawns.

‘We can't be late,' said J.J., fretting.

We weren't late. We were bang on time. J.J. flicked his arm like a conductor, and the bridal waltz began to play. I put my hand into the crook of my father's elbow and stepped into the church.

‘You okay?' asked Dad, patting my hand.

‘Never better,' I said.

I could see David through my veil. He was standing at the end of the aisle, near the preacher, with his hands lightly clasped in front of him.

‘Well, hello,' I whispered, as I reached his side.

‘Well, hello to you,' he whispered back.

‘Who would have thought it – I finally got you all to myself,' I said, smiling.

David laughed, and why wouldn't he? Did this wedding mean that he was going to change his spots?

I mean, please.

* * *

The reception was at Parsons. I'd been so nervous about the thrones, but to J.J.'s credit, they looked lovely, and kind of medieval, standing there in the Parsons' forest, surrounded by wonky toadstool tables.

I saw Dad looking around. By the time we were done with photographs, it was close to six pm, and the sky had turned pink. A team of waiters was sending out floating lanterns across the lake, and a brass band had started to play.

‘I paid for all this?' said Dad. ‘Pretty good value!'

‘You did so well,' I agreed. Then, when he wandered off to refill his glass, I yanked Val aside and whispered in her ear. ‘Tell him to go easy on the booze,' I said.

‘Sure,' she said.

He didn't go easy, and Val didn't either. The booze was free, and one glass in Dad's hand would go down in a single gulp. Gulp! Gulp! I watched, amused and fascinated. By speech time, he'd be plastered.

‘Make sure he gets some food down,' I whispered to Molly but honestly, the food wasn't going to touch the sides. First course was a scallop floating in bubbles at the end of a soup spoon.

‘What's this?' asked Dad, sniffing at it.

Val screwed up her nose. She wasn't sure, either. ‘Seafood?'

‘I don't see much food,' said Dad, who just loves that kind of joke.

‘Be quiet and eat it,' said Val, so Dad slurped the scallop down, while commandeering a waiter to bring him a bread basket, from which he snatched two, then three bread rolls, all the while drinking beer, and then wine and more wine.

Just as I'd predicted, he was soon bent out of shape with Garrett matching him, glass for glass, except that Garrett didn't have to give a speech.

‘Alright, ladies and gentlemen!' the MC cried. ‘Let's hear from the father of the bride!'

The crowd – Big Fish included – roared their appreciation.

Dad got to his feet. He was as red as a tomato, his bow tie was wonky, the front tails of his shirt were out, and one silky button, right in front of his shirt, had burst over his belly.

‘Alright, alright,' he said, shifting from one enormous foot to the other. ‘Is this thing on?'

He tapped, and the microphone screamed. The MC rushed forward, adjusted things – shirt button included – patted Dad's broad back, and stepped back, grinning.

‘Well, now,' said Dad, wiping his brow with the back of his hand. ‘First of all, thank you everyone for coming. As most of you will know, I've got two daughters. I've got Loren here, who is the bride' – at this point, the crowd whistled and cheered – ‘and I've got Molly, who is younger. And they're both pretty good-looking, right?'

The crowd whistled.

My face flushed. In truth, I felt a bit miffed. Molly had lived with Dad for a long time, longer than me. She definitely calls him Dad, but I am his only biological child. I found myself thinking,
Hang on, you are my father, and this is my day
, but there was no time to get sore, or to stay sore. Dad was on a roll.

‘That's right, they're both pretty good-looking,' he said. ‘Loren's the eldest, and she's definitely been the ambitious one, going off to college and getting a job in New York City, and to be frank with you, I wasn't expecting to be marrying her off in her hometown, but what do you know? Here we are.'

Somebody shouted: ‘Hear, hear!'

Dad stuck a finger into his collar and gave it a pull, trying to let in air.

‘What's more, we're here to see her marry a fellow born and bred in Bienveneda,' he continued, prompting more cheering.

‘Not from the Low Side, mind you!' said Dad, grinning over the microphone. ‘Although that's where my lot is from. In case you can't tell by the number of sleeve tattoos we've got. No, no, no, I'm kidding. But no, Loren's decided to go with somebody from the High Side. And people say never the twain shall meet!'

The crowd was really laughing now, and Dad, loving an audience, ramped things up.

‘So yes, here she is, marrying David Wynne-Estes,' he said.

The crowd cheered and clapped some more. Dad took a moment to mop more sweat from his brow with one of the linen table napkins.

‘Well, I have to tell you, I was a bit wary when Loren told me who she'd chosen,' he continued, ‘and that's because my side has always thought people on this side were a bit up themselves!'

The crowd roared again, although not David's parents, who looked at each other with eyebrows slightly raised.

‘And this guy here, this David Wynne-Estes, we're told that he's done particularly well for himself setting up his own business, getting hens to lay golden eggs or whatever it is he does.'

The Big Fish, especially some of the younger ones who had flown in from New York, loved that. One of them hollered: ‘Hell, yeah!'

‘And I'll be honest,' Dad said, ‘since the two of them got engaged, I've had a few people say to me, well, your Loren, she's done pretty well for herself, hasn't she?'

The crowd went to clap, but Dad held up his hand, shook his head and said: ‘No. No, no, no, I've had a few people say that to me, but let me tell you, I've got no idea what they're talking about. Because from where I'm standing, looking at my daughter there, it's David that's the lucky one.'

The crowd went: ‘Awww …'

Dad nodded. ‘That's right,' he said, gazing directly at me. I was trying not to cry, because it would be Panda Eyes if I cried.

‘And I hope you know I mean that, Loren,' Dad continued, ‘because I love you. Maybe I wasn't the best father that ever lived, but you are the best daughter a man could wish for, and I wouldn't change a bit of you.'

I put my hands together and blew a kiss in Dad's direction. Then I glanced at David to see his reaction. He was leaning way back in his throne, so much so that the two front legs were off the ground.

Dad pointed a pistol finger at him. ‘And now to my new son-in-law. It's a pleasure to welcome you to the family, David … and make sure you take care of my girl.'

The crowd was clapping and cheering and looking to David for a response but David wasn't getting up. He wasn't settling the chair on which he was balanced. He wasn't reaching into his top pocket to take out a speech of his own. No, he was reaching down towards the ground, to where he'd left his half-drunk bottle of beer.

He picked up the bottle and tilted the neck in Dad's direction.

‘Well, you don't have to worry about that,' he said. ‘Loren's in good hands now that she's with me.'

* * *

About a month after the wedding, I was on my knees in the en suite, vomiting. ‘I feel awful.'

‘That's the second time this week you've said that.' David was tucked away in the walk-in wardrobe, dressing for work.

‘I cannot be pregnant,' I said.

‘Sure you can,' said David, coming out of the wardrobe. He was grinning and fastening a cufflink. ‘We've been doing it often enough.'

‘Please stop,' I said, mainly because David was right. We were only just back from our honeymoon, which had been a cruise down to Cabo, followed by a few weeks in a private villa owned by one of his clients, which was more like an estate, with an army of housekeepers and a militia patrolling the border.

‘What does this guy do?' I'd asked David. ‘Run a drug cartel?'

We had nearly run out of condoms on day three – surely a good sign on a honeymoon – and when we arrived in the villa I'd been loath to add them to the list of things I wanted the housekeeper to get from the market (mangos, bananas, Trojan Pleasure For Her). Plus, we'd had a lot of tequila, and so we probably weren't as diligent with the remaining condoms as we should have been.

* * *

‘You're pregnant,' my doctor confirmed, snapping off her silicone gloves. ‘No question. You are.'

‘No way,' I said, struggling back into a sitting position, and then of course came the double whammy. It wasn't one baby; it was twins.

‘This wasn't part of the plan,' I moaned to Molly, because the plan had been for me to come home from the honeymoon and find a new job in Bienveneda (I couldn't stay on at the
Times
; the commute was too great).

But David was ecstatic.

‘Twins,' he said, staring at the two bleeping lights on the screen in the office of Bienveneda Ultrasound. ‘I cannot believe that. That is just fantastic.'

Oh yes, fantastic, except if you have to carry them.

I'm not going to pretend that I loved being pregnant. Some women do, but I am not one of them. Likewise, I'm not going to pretend that David's pride in having conceived twins translated into him being amazing during my pregnancy because he wasn't amazing.

Some days, he was horrible.

Let me see if I can explain. Three months into the pregnancy, I was as big as a woman at full-term with a singleton, and I had pain in my lower back. I don't know if that was because of the way the babies were pressing on my spine, but I moaned: ‘Can you please rub my back?'

David was propped in his usual corner of the L-shaped couch with his iPad at the ready.

‘Sure,' he said, reaching forward with one hand to rub his knuckles over my spine.

‘No, I mean, I need you to massage my back for me. I'm in agony.'

‘I don't know what you want me to do,' David said grumpily. ‘I'm not a massage therapist. If you're in pain, you should go to see somebody.'

‘I don't want to go to see somebody,' I said, dismayed. ‘I want a massage from my loving husband.'

David turned his attention back to his iPad. ‘I don't feel comfortable,' he said. ‘What if I hurt you? And how am I supposed to concentrate on what I have to do here, if I'm giving you massages every night?'

Does that sound cruel to you? And yet I could see his point. Mine was a twin pregnancy; David wasn't a specialist in pregnancy massage. He was a specialist at making money, and God knows we were going to need it. We had been inspecting new houses, and researching new and bigger cars. We were going to have two children at Grammar before we knew it, plus, down the track, there would be college fees.

Maybe it was me who was being selfish. It wasn't like we couldn't afford a massage therapist.

I decided not to push it and changed tack, instead.

‘How did the girls in the office react when you told them about having twins?' I asked.

‘They're thrilled for us,' said David, ‘and Fat Pete was in today – you're nearly bigger than him now, you know – and he was saying, “Double trouble. Ha-ha! This is going to make you want to work even harder.” Like I don't work hard enough for that fat bastard.'

Part of the pleasure of twins is the reaction of other people. Everywhere I went – the pharmacist, the tiny baby boutique on Main, the stroller specialist at Macy's – they were all saying the same thing:

‘Twins! No way!'

‘Twins! How lucky!'

‘Twins! What a blessing!'