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For a few seconds no one says or does anything. No one moves, no one speaks, no one so much as breathes. Even if this doesn’t look bad, it certainly looks weird.
‘Well,’ my auntie snaps. ‘Explain yourselves.’
‘A spider,’ my uncle blurts out. ‘There was a spider in Mia’s bed, and she’s scared of them so I said I’d get rid of it for her.’
‘Uncle of the Year,’ I can’t help but say sarcastically.
‘So there was a spider on Mia’s bed and you killed it?’ my auntie repeats back to him, and it sounds even less believable the second time.
‘Well, no. It got away.’ My uncle shakes his fist at the pesky fictional spider.
‘Right. Well I want to go for a walk before dinner, so come on,’ my auntie says firmly. ‘And Steve….’
‘Yes dear?’ my uncle says attentively, quickly jumping to his feet.
‘Don’t forget your shoes,’ Auntie June says with a nod towards floor.
My uncle nods sheepishly before grabbing his shoes and scuffling out of the room.
‘I’m watching you, Mia,’ my auntie warns me.
I give her my friendliest smile as she leaves the room and closes the door behind her. Do I think my uncle actually fancies me? Of course not, but he does seem to get some sort of weird kick out of flirting with me. I think it’s weird for him, because we weren’t close before my image transformation, so it’s like he sees me as this entirely different person now – one he can be mates with, instead of playing uncle to.
Finally alone, I pounce onto my bed in a way not too dissimilar to the way my uncle did, only my intentions are far purer. The plan is to have a quick nap, have a shower and then dress in something pretty for dinner, ready to make a good impression in front of the group.
Lying face down and horizontally across my bed, I struggle to find the energy to move. I need to though, if only to remove my dress and my face-full of makeup before I fall asleep on these white sheets. Just five more minutes and then I’ll sort myself out.
Chapter 6 (#ulink_b2956bee-d794-5a7a-92a1-d622dc480bd6)
After hours of sitting still, first on a plane and then on a train, my entire body feels tense. I arch my back and stretch my arms and legs out as far I can but with no relief. I’ll probably feel better when I get this dress off, and if I have a bath after my nap that will probably help to ease my stiff muscles too – that’s if I have time.
Still face down on my bed, I grab my phone. I check the time to make sure I can fit in everything I have planned before the family dinner at seven o’clock, but something isn’t right. I rub my weary eyes and look again – that can’t be right. My phone seems to think it is quarter past seven already.
I jump to my feet with the intention of finding another clock, but I am halted by the state of my bed. Foundation, bronzer, black eye makeup and red lipstick stains are smeared all over the top of my previously beautiful white quilt cover.
I glance around the room for a clock, convinced something has screwed up my iPhone clock when it tried to change itself to UK time, but I can’t find one. I step out onto the balcony and look for the sun, deluded in thinking I’ll be able to figure out the time from its position in the sky. I humour the idea for about five seconds before accepting that I’m no Girl Scout. It is then that I spot a man walking his dog along the beach.
‘Excuse me,’ I call out at the top of my lungs.
‘Yes?’ the puzzled-looking man calls back.
‘Do you have the time, please?’
The man, still confused, does as he is told and looks at his watch.
‘It’s twenty past seven,’ he shouts.
‘Is that in the p.m.?’ I ask.
The man laughs at me and replies, ‘Yes, that’s in the p.m.’
I shout a quick thank you before running back into my bedroom and plucking up the courage to look in the mirror. My beautiful curls are all messy and flat, my dress appears to have twisted three hundred and sixty degrees around my body, and my makeup is so crazy and smudged all over my face it looks like I’ve been getting off with an evil clown.
I spend thirty seconds that I don’t have trying to figure out what will make Belle the angriest: I could smarten myself up and be even later for dinner (that I was supposed to be down for twenty minutes ago) or I can hurry downstairs now, looking like this. There’s only one thing for it – I grab my face wipes from my bag and begin taking off some of my makeup – but not all of it, because I won’t have time to apply any more and there’s no way I’m going down without it.
As I hurry down the stairs I try and fluff up my hair a little before yanking my dress back into place, just seconds before I burst into the dining room. As I enter the room everyone stops eating and stares at me in total silence.
‘Hello,’ I say cheerily.
‘We thought you weren’t coming so we started without you,’ my mother informs me.
‘Sorry, I must have fallen asleep,’ I explain, although anyone with half a brain can probably figure that out just by looking at me.
‘We were going to just shove you on the kids’ table,’ my sister says, like it’s some kind of punishment. The truth is I would much rather sit with the kids than the adults. ‘Anyway,’ she continues, ‘someone injured my fiancée’s back and he’s in bed indefinitely, so you can sit here next to me.’
While my sister didn’t straight up announce to the room that it was me who broke her prince, judging by the unimpressed faces surrounding me I can hazard a guess that she has already filled them in.
I take a seat at the table and begin eating the spaghetti bolognese that is laid out for me. Normally I wouldn’t eat something like this, but now doesn’t seem like the right kind of time for a conversation about carbohydrates. I’ll eat enough to be polite and make sure I work it off tomorrow.
‘So you’re the movie maker,’ Dan’s mum says, and judging by the tone of her voice she is either seriously unimpressed with my line of work or she believes I intentionally tried to harm her son.
‘I am. I write romantic comedies,’ I admit, just in case anyone in the room doesn’t know or believe that I am capable of such a thing.
‘Anything we might have heard of?’ a woman who I have not yet been introduced to asks.
‘The Unhappy Couple, Battle of the Bridesmaids, Nate From Next Door…’ I start reeling off a list of the most well-known films I have worked on. ‘I have a film in the cinema at the moment called For Better, For Worse.’
‘Well, isn’t that impressive,’ Dan’s mum says, not even sounding the slightest bit sincere.
I glance over at my parents to see what they’re making of this conversation but they hardly look up from their meal. It’s not that I feel like I need their approval, it would just be nice to feel like they were proud of me.
‘You’ll have to write a movie based on my wedding,’ Belle says excitedly. ‘Just make sure you make my character much thinner and prettier than me.’
This is one of those things that my sister says – but doesn’t really mean – so that everyone in the room will shower her with compliments. As expected, everyone tells her how pretty she is and how slim she’s looking.
‘You used to be quite fat, didn’t you, Mia,’ Belle’s best friend (and my former bully) Nancy announces to the whole room. ‘If Belle wanted to feel more confident about her shape I’m sure you could offer invaluable advice… unless you do it the Hollywood way and stick your fingers down your throat.’
Everyone laughs at Nancy’s charming little joke about eating disorders, because we all know eating disorders are hilarious.
‘Well, my sister does look great,’ Belle starts, ‘and I just seem to be gaining weight all the time.’
My sister sounds glum and embarrassed that the over-dinner conversation is all about her weight.
‘Don’t be so hard on yourself,’ I say to try and make her feel better. ‘I work in a place where people wrongly think that skinny and success go hand in hand, so it’s easy to do what everyone else is doing. If I worked in a bakery like you, I’d probably gain weight.’
‘So you think I just eat cakes all day?’ my sister asks me angrily.
‘No, I didn’t mean that,’ I insist – because I didn’t. ‘All I meant was that if I had your job, and I was surrounded by sweet stuff all day, I would probably eat more than I do in my office where all they lay out is fruit.’
‘You think I eat too much and that’s why I’m fat,’ my sister concludes, pushing her plate away.
Once again, everyone’s eyes are on me. I can tell as they all watch me shovel a forkful of spaghetti into my mouth that they all agree with Belle.
‘Don’t be foolish, Belle,’ my grandma chimes. ‘You don’t want to be as thin as Mia, it’s not healthy to be like she is.’
‘You’re perfect just the way you are,’ my mum insists. It’s funny, because when I was chubby not once did she tell me I was perfect as I was. Even now that I am aiming for perfection, she still thinks there’s something wrong with me. ‘You’re so happy with your life that silly things like a few pounds here or there don’t have any bearing on your happiness.’
‘It must be hard for you, Mia, to see your little sister getting married while you’re still single,’ Nancy says in a faux sympathetic voice.
‘And writing all those romantic stories, but having no love in your life,’ my auntie says, continuing Nancy’s sentiment.
I shrug my shoulders.
‘No, because Mia isn’t romantic,’ my sister says, and I’m not sure if it is in my defence or if she’s joining in with the Mia-bashing. ‘She thinks love is silly.’
‘Surely she can’t think that,’ a girl about the same age as my sister chimes in. ‘She wrote Nate From Next Door – which I love – and you can’t write like that if you don’t believe it.’
Everyone looks at me for an explanation as to how I can have little interest in love but write about it so convincingly.
‘Does George Lucas believe that Ewoks are real?’ I ask the room. ‘Does Bram Stoker believe in vampires? Does even one person who works for Disney in any capacity believe that an old bloke can float his house to South America using nothing but a shit-load of balloons?’
I hear a few sniggers from the kids’ table at my use of the S word, but the grown-ups are all staring at me like I’m some kind of monster.
‘Well, that’s depressing,’ Nancy laughs.
‘My favourite love story is a lie,’ Belle’s friend says solemnly.
‘Oh, for God’s sake,’ I can’t help but snap. ‘It’s fiction and fiction is made up. That’s just the way it is.’
Everyone continues to eat in silence and I feel bad for ruining the atmosphere, but it wasn’t my fault. Belle is getting married and she’s happy, and that’s great. Why can’t people just be happy for her and stop obsessing over what her happiness means for me, her older sister who is still on the shelf. Don’t they think I am happy with my life? I am ecstatic when I am back in LA, it’s just being around this lot that makes me miserable.
Chapter 7 (#ulink_277373bf-9198-5b19-bc1b-eff62eb8ff38)
‘Good morning,’ I sing brightly as I enter the kitchen.
Like the rest of the house, the kitchen is all decked out in white. The chrome appliances are the closest thing this room has to offer in terms of colour, it’s so white and clean it’s giving off the creepy vibes of a hospital operating theatre. I watch as my sister chops up a plate of sausages before dousing it in ketchup and handing it to Josh – on second thoughts, it’s more like a morgue than an operating theatre.
In contrast to all the horizontal lines created by the drawers, frameless cabinets and work surfaces, the vertical blinds cast shadows all around the room. Long, thick, dark shadows, creating prison cell type bars everywhere. These bars may be an optical illusion caused by nothing other than an obstruction of light, but they feel real. I feel like I’m in a prison.
‘Morning, Mia,’ my sister says as she fries bacon. ‘We were just talking about how you can’t get married, even if you want to.’
Forget what I just said. It’s not like an operating theatre, it’s not like a morgue and it’s not like a prison – I’m right in the heart of the psych ward.
I glance around at the other people in the kitchen. Josh, my only ally in the room, left as soon as he got his breakfast, so that just leaves me with my sister, my gran, my mum and my auntie. Despite the warm weather outside it is positively frosty in here.
‘I’m sorry, what?’ I ask, because that made no sense to me at all.
‘I’ve been reading up on wedding superstitions, you know, just so I have all bases covered,’ my sister explains.
‘That makes perfect sense,’ I say sarcastically.
‘Mia,’ my gran interrupts, ‘superstition is such a large part of getting married.’
‘And being married, am I right, Auntie June?’ I say as I give her a nudge and wiggle my eyebrows. I thought she might be able to see the funny side of what happened yesterday by now, but the angry frown on her face confirms otherwise. ‘So, what does that have to do with me?’ I ask my sister.
‘Three times a bridesmaid, never a bride,’ my mum warns me – the same mum who bullied me into being my sister’s bridesmaid even though she knew I had already been a bridesmaid twice when I was younger.
I stare at her blankly.
‘Basically,’ my sister begins, ‘the whole idea of being a bridesmaid is so you can distract the evil spirits that try to ruin the wedding.’
‘Like vodka?’ I laugh, causing my gran to click her tongue at me. ‘Like a stunt double then?’ I ask, semi-seriously.
‘Yes,’ my sister says excitedly, clearly delighted that I get it. ‘So the bridesmaid deals with the evil spirits that will be trying to stop the wedding from going ahead, but in doing so the bridesmaid catches a lot of bad luck – like being single and alone forever.’
‘Mia is doing a good job of that so far,’ my mum snorts.
‘Oh, see before I just thought it was a silly tradition but now… I think you ladies are completely nuts.’
‘Mia,’ my sister squeaks, ‘don’t speak to Mum, Gran and auntie June like that.’
‘And you.’ I point at my sister. ‘You’re the queen of crazy if you believe that. If you really did believe it, there’s no way you would have asked me.’
My sister looks embarrassed.
‘Wow, really?’ I ask in disbelief. ‘You believe this rubbish and you’re still willing to let me take the risk?’
‘Well, you’re never going to get married, are you?’ my sister reasons.
I look over at my mum for some kind of support.
‘And we did spend your share of the wedding fund on your sister,’ my mum half jokes.
‘Unbelievable,’ I say as I shake my head. Thank God I really don’t have plans to get married because my family are trying to make sure I’m fucked from the word go.
Belle wanders over to me sheepishly, spatula in hand.
‘You’re not mad are you, sis?’ she asks.
‘Of course I’m not,’ I say, giving her a playful shove so she knows I mean it. ‘You’re right, I don’t ever want to get married, I’m just messing with you.’
‘Phew.’ My sister breathes a sigh of relief and gets back to her bacon.
Am I stupid for being upset over everyone constantly reaffirming that I’m never going to get married? I know why I don’t want to get married, but they don’t understand the way I feel. I can only imagine they think that no one would even want to marry me in the first place.
I know this is only my first proper day here – but already I can’t wait for this stupid wedding to be over, so I can get on the fastest flight back to lovely LA, relaxing in the knowledge that I’ve clocked enough family hours to last me at least a couple of years.
‘Bacon sandwich?’ my sister asks me.
