Love Lies

along to make room for me. I try to shake the nagging feeling I’ve been left out, that I’m missing out.

‘Oh Fern, lovely to see you, do you want a chip?’ asks Aunt Liz, proffering the previously greedily guarded bowl of temptation.

‘She’s not allowed,’ says Mum, whipping away the bowl with unusual dexterity. ‘I was talking to her personal trainer

‘Unlikely,’ says my aunt, dropping her gaze to my now flat stomach. ‘There’s not a picking on her. If she eats a chip, we’ll probably see it.’

‘I think she’s too thin,’ calls my dad from the next booth; I hadn’t realized he was listening.

‘Well, I’m having chips,’ says Lisa, ‘I’m starving. As lovely as canapes undoubtedly are, they don’t do much of a job at lining your stomach or quelling alcohol-infused munchies.’

‘That’s the problem with posh food, it’s always tiny portions,’ adds my uncle. ‘I’m knocking, no sixes, no fives and no threes,’ he adds, returning to the game of dominoes.

‘Lovely party though, dear,’ says Mum, no doubt noticing my silence and assuming I’m offended by their analysis of my party food.

‘Wicked,’ yells Rick. My cousins all nod their agreement.

‘So much champagne and cocktails, it must have cost a fortune,’ says my sis.

‘Great band,’ says Charlie. ‘It’s been years since we danced like that, hey Lisa?’

‘You are so off the scale lucky,’ says Rick.

‘You are living the dream, no doubt about it,’ adds my sister.

‘Who could have imagined such a thing?’ asks Lisa.

‘Ben is sleeping with Scott.’ That’s me.

‘What?’

It’s gratifying that everyone else seems as shocked as

‘I’ve just found them together, now, after you all left,’ I explain.

‘Ben wouldn’t do that,’ says Lisa. Notably, she does not put up a similar defence for Scott.

‘I caught them in the act,’ I say. Then I start to cry. Well, cry suggests an element of restraint – I sob actually, and howl.

‘I’ll get you a drink,’ says Charlie.

I gratefully gulp down the whiskey. I enjoy the warmth swirling around my stomach; it offers me some sort of comfort. Not enough comfort. Not as much comfort as beating Scott and Ben with a spiky pair of Jimmy Choos until they beg for mercy – but some comfort.

‘How long do you think it’s been going on?’ asks Charlie.

‘Do you think it was the first time?’ asks Lisa.

‘Do you think Scott is gay or experimenting?’ asks Rick.

‘Is this a fling or the real thing?’ asks my sister.

‘I don’t know,’ I wail. These are exactly the questions that have spurted around my mind on the journey over here but I haven’t got any of the answers. Another whiskey appears from nowhere. I register murmurs assuring me that ‘It’s good for the shock.’ I down it. It has a calming effect or at least a numbing effect and that’s as good as, right now. I still can’t process what I saw half an hour ago. I can’t begin to tackle the enormity of the situation.

‘I’m supposed to be getting married in the morning!’

‘What am I going to do?’ The whiskey loosens my tongue and I start to blather, giving voice to thoughts I hadn’t allowed to blossom fully. All my secret, difficult thoughts, that I’ve been working so hard to keep entombed.

‘Sometimes when I’m with Scott, I think that we are made for one another. At least, I did in the beginning. I really did. It was so exciting, overwhelming. I thought it was it, you know, everything you ever read about or dreamed about.’

Everyone is gathered around me now; all my loved ones, they nod and murmur their understanding. Only Adam has stayed in his seat and is silent. While every other face is twisted with concern or blazing with a ghoulish astonishment, Adam doesn’t change his expression from neutral. I keep peeking at him but I have no idea what he is thinking. Most likely he’s using every iota of self-control to resist yelling, ‘I told you so!’ In my effort to be honest, I’m probably really hurting him. Hurting him again. Which is shaming. Now I have a hint of how Adam must have felt when I left him. I try to explain my actions to him, under the guise of telling the whole crowd. I stare at the sticky condiments on the table and mutter, ‘I wouldn’t have left like that, unless I believed Scott was everything, do you see? That’s why I cut all strings. I’m sorry I was so – insensitive.’

The word is inadequate. No doubt Adam thinks so too but he still doesn’t move or respond. Everyone else bursts into another round of sympathetic grunts and someone orders more whiskey, I think it’s my third. I dip a chip into a small pot of ketchup. It splits and the fluffy white innards are exposed. I gobble it down in one bite. It tastes fantastic. I carry on talking.

‘But that feeling that we’re made for each other, that somehow we were destined for one another, I haven’t been getting it too much recently,’ I confess. How long have I known this? Why haven’t I said something earlier? At least to myself? ‘Truthfully, I don’t think I’ve had that feeling since we came to LA,’ I admit. ‘And we are never alone. It’s hard to stay connected when you have to shout above thousands of people just to ask him to pass the salt. And I don’t think I care enough about his records and his ambitions. And I don’t think he cares about anything else.’ And I do care about Adam’s band. I also care about where Adam is sleeping and who he’s sleeping with. Sensibly, even in my distraught state I’m aware I can’t confess this. I am however prompted to ask, ‘Where’s Jess?’

When I first came in I assumed that Jess was in the loo but she can’t possibly still be in there.

‘She’s downstairs, in the Purple Lounge,’ says Adam. It’s great that he’s finally entered into the conversation, although he still doesn’t budge from his seat.

‘Alone?’

‘No, this guy asked her to join his friends. He seemed really cool.’

‘You don’t mind?’

‘Mind? Why should I?’

‘Because. Well –’ I don’t know how to finish the sentence. Adam understands perfectly, without my having to do so.

‘I thought I told you Jess and I are just friends,’ he says with a shrug.

Oh thank God! Thank God! No, no, he hadn’t told me. Not as such. Not clearly. I wasn’t sure. Suddenly (and no doubt improperly) I’m filled with a dreamy sense of delight and relief. It swooshes around my body, causing my knees to shake.

Charlie claps his hands together and looks delighted. ‘Jess hoped you might think that there was something going on between her and Adam. Didn’t she, Lisa?’ Charlie has never been known for his subtlety and he’s had far too much booze today to compute whether his revelation is going to embarrass anyone. He lunges on. ‘Jess has this crazy idea that you and Adam shouldn’t have split up and she thought that if she could make you jealous you’d come to your senses. She bet Adam a tenner you’d beg him to come back to you; she was that certain.’ Charlie is suddenly struck by another thought. ‘Not that her view seems so crazy now. I mean, I was all in favour of you running off with a multi-millionaire, we all were.’ If that’s the case, my friends and family now look extremely unsure. They are clearly mortified at being made accountable for their opinions in front of Adam. ‘But since he’s playing for the other team, it doesn’t look like such a smart move, does it?’ finishes Charlie. The silence is deafening. Adam rescues us all from the awful embarrassment.

‘Jess has been a really good friend to me when, you

Rick asks, ‘Should I go and get Jess? She’ll be pleased to know that you were taken in by her little ploy. Even though it didn’t pan out exactly as she hoped. Part A worked at least. You did think she had the hots for Adam, even though you never begged him to come back to you.’

Why wouldn’t she have the hots for him? I ask myself this as I sit staring at Adam. Why wouldn’t Jess or any other woman, come to that, have the hots for Adam? My fingers are itching to scuttle through his long, scruffy hair. His heavy eyebrows are knit in concentration and his dark brown eyes ooze concern. His cheekbones are sharper than I remembered, his shoulders are broader.

‘No, don’t interrupt her fun,’ I mutter. She’ll hear about my nightmare soon enough.