“You, Emmie?”
I look up. All eyes are on me. Ana stares over from beside me, her question hanging in midair.
“Me?”
“Yes. Are you married?” asks Isabelle hopefully.
“Nope,” I say. “No, I am not.”
“Boyfriend?” asks Ana, her eyes hooded and head to one side, as if she is enjoying this, and it’s weird, because she knows the answer. We had this discussion on the way to the bar, in the back of a taxi. It was the only thing we did talk about that night. Well, that and the joys of a trouser press.
“No,” I say. “Still single, from the last time you asked me. But happy with that.”
“You’re one of the lucky ones,” says one of the women, and everyone laughs, and thankfully, the conversation moves on. Nails are shown off, drinks are drunk, and desserts turn into tiny cheeses and fruit.
“Oh!” I hear Marie say from behind me as I reach for my champagne. It’s my fourth, I think. Maybe fifth. “I’m going to show you girls the montage.”
“Montage?” asks her mother. “Of bridesmaid dresses?”
“No, no, of Lucas and me. Photos that are going to be on a, er… er…” Marie hesitates.
“Projector screen,” Isabelle says, and Marie nods.
“Yes. Oh, I was crying when my brother showed me. I know it’s early, that there are still months to go, but I want to be organized. I show you sneak peek.”
And I know, filled champagne glass in my hand, stomach nauseated, that I can’t stay here for this. I have to leave. So as everyone chats, and as Marie ducks off for her laptop, her mother switching on the television above the fireplace, I slink off to the bathroom, two doors down. I breathe in deep breaths, hunched over the glistening countertop basin, panic heaving in my chest, my head swirling with what feels like multiple golf balls rolling. I can’t sit through that montage. I can’t sit beside Ana any longer, either. I’ll make up an emergency. Leave. I need to leave.
With my phone in hand—a Rosie tip when faking an emergency phone call, for it to appear more authentic—I go back into the room and find Marie and tell her I’ve had a wonderful time but I have to go. “My friend Rosie has just called me crying, and I need to go back to the cottage and talk to her.” It sounds fake to me, my words too matter-of-fact, too wooden, but Marie, barefooted and clumsy with champagne-consumption, doesn’t press for me to stay, or pry. She does insist on calling me a taxi, though.
“No. It’s okay. Lucas gave me a number, so I can do it.”
“No, no, I insist.”
Her friend tugs on her arm, a laptop open in her lap, and before she can say another word, I hug her and walk away, at the exact moment a photograph of Lucas and Marie appears on the TV screen, his nose nuzzled into her neck, Marie’s face glowing with happiness. There is a chorus of coos and happy cheering as I descend the stairs and leave.
* * *
I am lost. I am completely and utterly lost. I left Marie’s parents’ house so quickly, taking a left and walking purposefully, my mind racing, my body sighing with relief at being out of there, of feeling so lonely, so tiny, so insignificant, with nothing to offer a room full of people with vibrant, wholesome stories of love and family. No heartwarming anecdotes about my mother, no partner in crime to speak of who would pull my knickers up for me, or still find me completely lovable and attractive mid-winter-vomiting-bug. No stories about my dad. Nothing. Lonely. Small. That’s exactly how I felt, and so I kept walking, as if to walk it off, the way you do a stiff muscle in the morning, hoping that shortly I would come to the town or even village of this leafy, hill-bordered area in which Marie’s family lives. But after twenty minutes of aimless walking in one direction, I find myself completely and utterly lost in the wilderness, trudging on and on, and seeing only one house, set back, gated, quiet, to every seven thousand bloody trees. And now it is raining. The thick smoke of the clouds have given way, and my sandals squeak with water every time I walk.
“Rain is forecasted for later,” Lucas had said earlier, fishing his black, fitted rain mac from the cupboard. “You might want a jacket.”
“Oh, it’s fine,” I told him. “It’s not like I’ll be going on a country hike or anything. I’ll be at Marie’s. Inside.”
And I should have brought a coat; shouldn’t have been fooled by the late August sunshine. I don’t know where I am, and now I have absolutely no idea where Marie’s house is either. I have no internet signal on my phone to google anything, and if I call Marie, she is going to think I am a colossal dickhead for leaving her house with nowhere to go, no car to get into, and walking miles uphill, instead of just waiting safely in her home for a taxi. She will know something is wrong.
Lucas. Could I call Lucas? I stand beneath a tree, which slows the rain pitter-pattering down on my head to slow, steady, fat droplets, and hover my thumb over Lucas’s name. I can’t. I can’t call him and interrupt the open house he’s having to attend today—a ten-million-euro condo in Brittany he worked on—to tell him I walked out of his fiancée’s party because I felt insignificant in a room full of together, on-track adults, and wanted to head for wetter, greener, and what is looking increasingly like Missing Persons pastures. Plus, he’s hours away. I stand, the rain coming thick and fast, and say, absolutely pointlessly, “Fuuuck!” into the air and stamp a squeaky foot.
I wait. I listen for the sounds of a car, so I can hail it down, ask the name of the area, of the road, for a taxi number. Anything. But, nothing. Nothing but the sounds of pouring rain and the tweeting of birds. I want to cry. I could crumple into tears now, not stop. But I don’t. If I do, I know I’ll lose the quiet, sensible voice that is keeping me from panicking, here, in the middle of nowhere, miles from home.
I unlock my phone and stare at the names of my recently dialed list.
Lucas. Rosie. Louise Home. Eliot.
I look above me at the angry gray sky, and around me, to nothing but green, wild countryside I’m sure I would marvel at if I were seeing it from the safety of a car window.
I take a breath and push a wet thumb on his name.
“Hello.”
“Eliot. It’s me. I’m lost. I’m lost and it’s pouring with rain and I have no—”
“Lost?”
“I—I was at Marie’s mum and dad’s… and I left and started walking, and everywhere I go, there are just trees and fields and burnt-out barns and so many bloody cows, and I just keep walking and walking, but—”
“Okay, okay, hold up. You went to Marie’s parents’?”
“Yes. For a party. Marie’s birthday.”
“Okay, and did you turn left or right when you came out of there?”
“Left. Definitely left.”
“Okay, and when did you leave?”
“I don’t know, about twenty minutes ago? Half an hour? I know I’m an idiot, Eliot, but I thought I’d find a little village or town or a bus stop or something and… oh my god. Lightning. Fucking lightning. Like… Scooby-Doo fork lightning. Shit.”
I am sure I hear Eliot laugh, but the rain is so loud and the line so tinny that I say nothing besides, “Can you come and get me?”