The doorbell sounds, and Lucille, maid of honor, jumps up to get it at the same time as Marie’s mother does.
“No, no, sit,” Lucille says, waggling her dry nails.
“I think you should open gifts,” says a woman who introduced herself, in a London accent, as Marie’s roommate from uni. Isabelle. She passes a light blue Tiffany bag to Marie. “This is from me and Ben.” Marie’s hands press into her chest and she cocks her head to one side. “You spoil me,” she says, and pulls out a box. It’s a beautiful bracelet, with Marie’s birthstone hanging from the chain. We all lean in to get a closer look, and it’s passed around, held high, admired like a new baby.
“Latecomer!” Lucille giggles from the doorway, and beside her is Ana. Eliot’s Ana, a cream pencil dress hugging her tall, willowy frame, a wide, shimmering smile on her face. The smile she seems to use for everyone else, bar me. I’m surprised to see her here, really. I didn’t think Ana and Marie were friends, but then again, Marie is marrying her boyfriend’s brother. They’ll be a hop, skip, and jump from in-laws soon.
Ana launches into a gushy, fast French frenzy, standing back and taking in Marie and the beautiful chiffon floral dress she’s wearing, and Marie does the same to her. They kiss each other twice, once on each cheek, and Ana takes a seat beside me, on a gray, arch-backed armchair.
“Hello.” She nods to me, and I lean forward, almost too hastily, to grab a champagne flute for her. As if to impress her. The way someone does in secondary school, to the cool girl in sixth form who looks at everyone as if they are shit on her shoe. She shakes her head at me, nostrils practically flaring.
“I do not drink.”
“Oh,” I say. “Right. Well, that’s good. More brain cells.” I don’t know why I say that, but it may be because I have murdered several of mine in just under two hours.
Marie opens all her gifts and acts as if I have given her the Hope diamond when she opens mine. She passes around the bath bombs, and the girls smell them, talking in fast French I don’t understand. Ana doesn’t take one when they make their way to her. She just studies the back and front of the avocado recipe book and says to Marie, in English of course, “But you hate cooking.” My heart sinks.
Marie ignores her and says, “But I like avocados.” Then she leans and kisses me on the cheek. “Baths and avocados. You know me better than Lucas does.” I see Ana smirk. I look at her and force a huge, glittering smile. You will not ruin my afternoon, super bitch, and I will not let this urge to run from this room and from this house, into the French countryside, win. I knock back another mouthful of champagne.
The nail technicians leave, and the natural sunlight of the room dims as thick, smoky rain clouds drift in front of the huge bay window. Ana talks constantly, and I pick up random words to hazard a guess that she’s talking about a new home she “can’t wait” to move into. “Bravo, Paul McCartney,” Lucas would be saying now. “Nice work.”
Eliot’s name is mentioned several times, too, and it’s strange, but I can hardly imagine it’s the same person. The Eliot who is with this cold, smirking woman. The Eliot who held my hand outside Marv’s. Who saw me up to my room, who drew the curtains as I collapsed into bed.
Desserts are handed out—tiny little mousses and parfaits—and there is a conversation sweeping the room, commandeered by Ana, who seems to be quickly, huskily, questioning people one by one. I can’t quite grasp what with my Paul McCartney French. She talks a lot. Probably because she does nothing but listen in her job. I can’t imagine feeling comfortable enough to air a grievance about a below-par appetizer with Ana, let alone air the things that frighten me the most.
“And you?” she suddenly says, turning to Isabelle, Marie’s uni roommate. “Are you married?”
“Yes. I’m married,” she says with a smile. “Ben. We met when we were eighteen. We have a son. He’s two.”
“Ohhh, I remember so well,” says Marie, giggling, tiny parfait spoon at her lips. “He was best friends with this guy who was in our shared house, and she used to wait every day, hoping he would come over.”
Isabelle laughs, tucking mousy hair behind her ear, and nods. “It’s true,” she says as Marie chatters in French, translating to a friend at her side.
“And I would say to her, ask him,” Marie carries on, to us. “The guy we live with. Ask who his friend is, but she wouldn’t.”
“So I just waited, and then when he did appear—”
“She would rush to my room and steal all of my makeup,” laughs Marie, reaching across and grabbing Isabelle’s hand. “It took her such a long time to even speak to him.”
“I just used to swish about, hoping he’d say hi.”
“Full face of makeup on a Sunday morning,” giggles Marie, and Isabelle laughs. “Yep. Now, poor soul gets this face,” she says, gesticulating with a hand at her pretty, pale face, “with no makeup, baby puke in my hair—”
“And he still is hopelessly in love,” adds Marie.
The girls aww and coo, even Ana, which is almost like seeing your teacher in the supermarket. It looks completely weird and wrong.
“This is like Eliot and me,” says Ana, and I can’t help but freeze at the mention of him again. “It took us such a long time,” she says, “to finally admit how we felt. He started staying later and later after sessions, and I would hate him leaving.”
“Ana is a psychotherapist,” says Marie to Isabelle, who says, “Oh wow, and Eliot was a client?”
“He came to me with a broken heart.” Ana smiles, as if she has rehearsed this before, and if this were a film I was watching, even I, a romantic, would definitely pretend to be sick at that line. “And I fixed it,” Ana says. “Romantic, no?”
No, I want to say. No, it isn’t actually, Ana, because he is lovely, and you are not.
“We of course waited until his therapy ended until we began anything. And then there were a lot of texts, and a lot of coffees as friends.” She rolls her eyes and titters a laugh. “But it was obvious. He was besotted.”
“Really? Why?” I want to ask, but instead I knock back my champagne and realize that perhaps I should stop, as that “why” was mere centimeters from spilling from my mouth.
“Oh, how lovely,” says Marie’s mum. “I’ve not spent much time with Eliot, but he seems just as lovely as our Lucas.”
Marie smiles over at her mum, dreamy-eyed, and Ana nods.
“Oh yes. My Eliot is,” she says, looking out the side of her eyes at me. “So loyal. And romantic.”
“Same as Luke.” Marie beams, and the girls melt into smiles and giggles.
I knock back the rest of my champagne. I top it up.
* * *
The girls chatter among themselves. About boyfriends and girlfriends and husbands doing the most wonderful things—the real things, like pulling up their knickers when they were so drunk on drugs post–wisdom teeth removal, like baths run, like journeys to the middle of nowhere to pick them up, post–pub crawl. Of proposals. Of romantic dates and funny anecdotes, and I sit nodding, cheeks aching with the amount of grins and smiles I am dishing out. Even Lucille is joining in, telling everyone how she and Mr. Aftershave Ad from the bar are on their third date and she feels “different” with him. And I am trying hard to ignore it. This empty pit in my stomach. Loneliness. That’s what it is. I recognize it, with a sinking heart, like an old symptom you thought was cured.