The Time of Our Lives. Portia MacIntosh
try to push it out of my head, because another thing I didn’t anticipate today was that I would have to take over for one of the bridesmaids – and I’m not only having to take her place walking down the aisle, but it turns out I’m taking over her duties too. While the marquee is being prepared for the wedding breakfast, everyone is gathered in the hotel gardens, enjoying drinks from the outdoor bar, sitting in the sunshine, posing for photos. Except me; I’ve been given the job of going around with the guestbook, with the impossible task of making everyone sign it. People seem to hate signing guestbook for some reason, I think maybe they panic because they don’t know what to write in them, but I need them to write something so that I can get this over and done with as soon as possible, so I can go back to being a regular guest.
‘Can you write for me, dear?’ a little old lady asks. ‘If I dictate?’
She’s a sweet old dear, with a pink rinse to rival my own hair do. I feel a bit sorry for her, sitting here on her own while everyone else busies themselves socialising, but she seems happy enough taking in view, relaxing in the sunshine.
‘Of course I will,’ I reply, writing down the lovely – but long – message she dictates. At least it will take up some of the space left by the guests I haven’t been able to pin down.
‘That’s so kind of you,’ she says. ‘So, how do you know Katherine?’
‘I don’t really know her that well,’ I admit. ‘I’m just filling in. One of her bridesmaids went into labour.’
The old woman laughs wildly.
‘I did warn her not to have three pregnant bridesmaids,’ she insists. ‘I’m Joan, Katherine’s grandma.’
‘Nice to meet you,’ I say. ‘I’m a friend of Matt’s.’
‘Oh, Matt is such a lovely young man,’ she says. ‘And speaking of lovely young men …’
Tom leans forward to kiss Kat’s grandma on the cheek.
‘Now then,’ he says. ‘Are you causing trouble? You haven’t written anything naughty in that book, have you?’
Ergh, I’d forgotten about Tom’s charming way with the ladies.
Joan cackles.
‘Let’s see,’ he insists. ‘I need to sign it anyway.’
I know he does, because I’d been doing an excellent job of avoiding him up until now.
I hand Tom the book, unable to resist holding eye contact with him for a few seconds. I can’t help but stare at him. When you think about your past, you always remember things fondly, don’t you? You remember things being better than they were. I think, over the years, I’d managed to convince myself that Tom wasn’t all that. I’d question what I ever saw in him and tick myself off if I dared to think any different. But seeing him here today, ten years older, but somehow even better looking than when he was 21, makes me remember just how attracted to him I was.
Tom is a big guy. He’s tall, broad, and strong to go with it. He has neat, short dark hair, and a neat, short beard to match. He looks like the very definition of the strong silent type, and yet somehow there’s this comforting warmth to him that makes you just want to curl up on his big chest like a little kitten and go to sleep, because you just know that no harm can come to you on his watch. Well, physically at least. If we’re talking emotional hurt, that’s a whole different story.
‘Did you write this?’ Tom asks her with a faux gasp.
‘This young lady wrote it for me,’ she insists, sounding a little concerned. ‘Why, what does it say?’
‘Don’t worry, I’m just teasing,’ he insists with a smile, squeezing her shoulder. He turns back to me. ‘Can I borrow you for a minute, Luc?’
This is the first thing Tom has said to me in ten years, and it sends a shiver through my body, as though it were a ghost standing before me, saying my name.
‘Sure,’ I say as confidently as I can, trying not to sound too rattled, before walking over to one of the spare wicker tables with him. He pulls out my chair and nods for me to take a seat before sitting down next to me, placing the open guestbook on the table in front of us.
‘Did you write this?’ he asks pointing at the page, turning the book for me to get a better look.
‘I did,’ I reply cautiously. I didn’t think I’d ever see him again, but I know how this goes. Should we not be politely but awkwardly making small talk, before resolving to politely but pointedly avoiding each other for the rest of the day?
Tom reaches into his pocket, pulls out his wallet and removes a receipt. He hands it to me.
‘Why are you showing me that you bought three bags of Haribo?’ I ask him, confused.
‘I didn’t buy three bags of Haribo,’ he tells me. ‘You did.’
Confusion consumes my face as I think for a moment. Oh my God, he’s right, I absolutely did. On the drive down here. Well, it’s not that I thought I could eat three bags, but they were on offer in the service station so it seemed dumb not to buy three for the price of two – do you know how ridiculously expensive Haribo is in service stations?! Anyway, how on earth does Tom have this?
All becomes clear when Tom takes the receipt from me, turns it over, and hands it back. That’s when I see my angry note scribbled on the back.
‘No one is impressed by your driving or your car,’ he reads out loud.
Shit, it was Tom’s car that I left that note on.
‘Hmm?’ I say innocently, trying to disguise my guilt.
‘You wrote this,’ Tom laughs. ‘Look, the way you write an “i”, with the little flicks, dotting them with a little circle. It’s so distinctive.’
I open my mouth to speak, but no words come out. I don’t know what to say.
‘Hey, I’m not mad,’ he laughs reassuringly. ‘I’m just surprised. I didn’t think you were the note-leaving kind.’
‘I’m not,’ I insist, laughing awkwardly.
Tom smiles widely at me and those gorgeous brown eyes of his look straight through my thick skin, just like they used to. He’s always had this way of looking at me knowingly, making me feel like he’s reading my mind. No matter what my mouth would be saying, I always knew he was peering into my head, seeing exactly what I was thinking and feeling, even if I didn’t want him to. This doesn’t seem to have worn off with time and, today especially, it feels like a huge invasion of my privacy. It annoys me that he still has that effect on me, and even more so that I still find his eyes so mesmerisingly gorgeous.
‘Really, I’m not,’ I say again, changing my tune. ‘But if you’re going to drive like an arsehole, on a narrow country road, late at night …’
‘OK, calm down, I get it. Wow, when did you become such an adult?’
‘When didn’t you?’ I snap back.
‘I am genuinely sorry,’ he says softly, like a ticked off child who has just been caught with his hand in the biscuit tin just before dinner. It might be cute, if I weren’t so annoyed. ‘It’s an occupational hazard.’
‘Why, are you a Formula One driver?’ I ask.
‘No, an automotive journalist,’ he says with a laugh.
‘Right,’ I reply. Well, that doesn’t excuse it, does it? ‘Listen, I need to go finish getting people to sign this, so …’
‘OK, sure,’ he replies. ‘Can we have a catch up when you’re done then?’
Ergh. Do we really have to? I don’t want to hear all about his amazing job, and his pregnant little missus, and his fast, flash car, and how is life is just better than mine in every possible way.