“It is quite extraordinary,” laughs Marie to me now, leaning over Lucas, her hand resting on his thigh.
I nod. “He has only one move.”
“Sorry?”
“He only has one move!” I shout above the ever-increasing-in-volume music, and she laughs and takes a sip of her cocktail. Ana, opposite, explodes into laughter, and I catch Eliot’s eye, who smiles at me and sips at his beer, Ana’s arm around him, her free hand on her chest. Lucille is beside her, Marie’s maid of honor who hasn’t looked up once from a smiley conversation she’s been having with a handsome man who wouldn’t look out of place in an aftershave ad. He sidled up to her at the bar within about ten minutes of us getting here, and joined us pretty much straightaway, transfixed with Lucille. But it’s no surprise, really. Lucille is beautiful. Like a 1950s movie star or something. The pair of them look like a moving GIF from a black-and-white film. He even floated over as if there were a stage cue.
“Don’t fancy joining him?” Eliot leans toward me as Ana’s long fingers pummel her phone’s screen, beside him.
“Who, Tom?” I shout.
Eliot smiles, nods.
I shake my head. “I think it’s law to avoid people that dance like that.”
“Ah, I dunno, you might learn a thing or two.” Eliot grins and starts mimicking Tom popping his shoulders. I laugh. Eliot always did make me laugh. I missed that, once upon a time. Ana, brow furrowed, looks at him now, as if he is far from the apparent comedic genius she thought he was only a moment ago. She looks at me. I smile—an “isn’t your boyfriend funny?” smile. Her face doesn’t move. She looks back down at her phone.
“Won’t learn that on any podcast,” says Eliot over the music, and puts his lips to his beer again, acting as though he hasn’t noticed Ana’s face, her coldness toward me, but I see his eyes, just slightly, shift to the side to her as he drinks. I fix a smile on my face to mask the awkwardness I’m feeling, too, pretending to not even care, or notice that beside me, Lucas’s face is buried in Marie’s neck—they’re talking, laughing about something, and as I drink, I notice Ana is staring at me. I smile again. This time so does she; all teeth.
“Your dress,” she says.
Instinctively I look down at it, then back at her. “Yes?”
She says something, smile fixed, and her words are lost over the music.
“Sorry? I can’t hear you.”
Ana laughs, large, round eyes rolling, then motions with a hand for me to lean in closer. Eliot watches us. “I said,” she says, “you should have pressed it.”
“Pressed it?”
“Yes. Pressed it. Ironed it. It is very creased.”
I am thankful for the dark lighting, because my neck, my ears, my whole face beams red-hot at those words. Creased? What sort of person leans forward in a loud bar and tells someone—and tells them twice—that their dress should have been ironed because it’s creased?
“Oh,” I say as breezily as I can muster. “It’s been in a suitcase.”
She nods, a smile still on her face, but it’s changed from friendly and engaging, to almost mocking. She turns and says something to Lucille now, and I am left with Eliot’s eyes burning into me. I pretend I don’t notice, and instead avert my gaze to Tom on the dance floor. My cheeks are burning, my throat is dry. And now I feel a centimeter tall. Out of place was something I thought I just felt. I didn’t think it was something I looked. I lean across to Lucas. “I’m going to get another drink.”
“I’ll get it,” says Lucas, scrambling to stand. Eliot looks up.
“No, no, Luke,” I mouth, expression overanimated as you do when being drowned out by music.
“No, let me.”
“It’s fine; I want to,” I say loudly, and I scoot out from the booth before he can say anything else. I don’t have the money, not really, but I have my credit card on me if worse comes to worst, so I hold my almost-empty glass up to the table and mouth “drink?”
Lucas and Marie shake their heads, smiling, raising their full glasses, and Eliot smiles and says, “I’m good, thanks,” while Lucille and Mr. Aftershave don’t look up, enrapt in each other. Ana ignores me. Good. I was worried for a moment she might present me with a catalog of ironing boards.
I cross the floor to the blue-lit bar. I don’t really want another drink. I want something to do. Because as I sat there at the table, I felt myself lift from my body and view myself from a distance. Squashed there, beside my best friend—the man I am secretly in love with—and his beautiful and kind wife-to-be. Opposite Eliot, someone who was once one of my closest friends, and his stony-faced girlfriend, who won’t stop touching him, looking at him as if she can hardly believe he is hers. Lucille, who was falling in effortless love with a man she’d met an hour ago. Tom, all flaccid arms and cocky grins, yes, but happy, content, confident. And then there was me. Me. The girl in the old creased dress. The girl who loves someone she shouldn’t. A third wheel. A fifth wheel.
At the bar I order lemonade. I cannot afford the cocktail Lucas has shoved in front of me twice now, and I don’t want my head to get any lighter.
“Surely that’s exactly what you want,” Rosie would say if she was here, and I wish so much I was back at the hotel now, out the back, in the courtyard, chatting to her as she talks about her blog and why men should never wear espadrilles, while Fox smokes and Rosie pokes fun at his long words. I don’t want to be here. I don’t want to watch Marie, with her arm around Lucas’s neck, kissing the side of his face. He whispers to her, eyes drooping with too much whiskey, biting the side of his lip, smiling as he talks. The sight of it makes my stomach ache. I push my glass toward the bartender and ask for vodka to be added to my lemonade, but an arm is slung over my shoulder.
“Heeeeeeeey, Emsie.”
“Hi, Tom,” I say, shrugging out from under his heavy arm. He stands back, leans clumsily on the bar and grins at me.
“How’re we doing?”
I nod. “Fine.”
“Getting yourself a drink there?”
I nod again. “I am. Had enough of dancing?”
He laughs, throwing back his head, all white teeth and oval, flared nostrils. He’s Rosie’s type. Square-jawed and beardy, loud, “cheeky.” The type to come on cocky and strong in a club, but weeps on you the second you get him home and the time comes for entering you. “Maybe just for a minute. Can I get you a wee tipple?” He tries a mock Scottish accent.
“I already have something,” I say, holding up the tall glass just placed in front of me, and he laughs, nudging me with his shoulder. “I see that, Emsie. I just meant something else. Shots?”
I shake my head. “No, no thank you.”
“Suit yourself.” He leans against the bar, and I turn around, drink in hand, and freeze when I see Lucas and Marie kissing. Softly. Gently. Slow. Eyes closed. Tiny flashes of tongues touching. He hates PDA. Lucas has always said he hated it, and yet here he is, kissing, lips, tongues, arm pulling her tightly into him, no shame, no embarrassment whatsoever. Eliot turns, and I don’t look away in time, and he sees me watching. He tries a smile, closemouthed, almost regretful, and goes back to his drink. God, it’s like he knows and feels sorry for me. I wonder if he does know. And if he does, does that mean Lucas might know? No. No, surely not.