Love Lies

66. Fern

I’m actually sick. I make the woman I just caught puking into my umbrella stand look restrained – I haven’t even got the self-control to find a receptacle for my vomit. It splashes on the marble floor. And when I run, my designer-clad foot slips on my own up-chuck.

‘Fern! Wait!’ It’s Ben’s voice I hear call after me down the corridor and I hear Scott say, ‘I’ll get Mark.’

Bastard.

Bastards.

Both of them!

I hate them!

I run through the house and out of the front door. The gravel of the drive scrunches beneath my feet. It’s a sound I’ve always associated with wealth and luxury but I will for ever more associate it with betrayal and pain. I look around me. Drivers are helping drunken guests into their cars; the party is well and truly over. I don’t know what to do. I’m surrounded by dozens of faces but I don’t know anyone well enough to ask if I can go home with them or even ask if they’ll give me a lift, and besides, where can I go? I just found my fiancé in my bed with my best boy mate, on the eve of our wedding. The thought causes my insides to turn to liquid again. I need to sit down or I’ll fall down. I start to stagger towards the lawn when I hear Barry, the driver who has ferried me on

‘You all right, Miss?’ His respectful question is part and parcel of service in the USA. Even checkout servers are polite here but even though I know that, I’m overwhelmed by the generosity of his enquiry and the quiet sympathy that seems to lie behind it.

‘Not really,’ I mutter.

‘Little too much celebrating perhaps?’ he asks kindly, as he offers an arm to steady my progress while I lower myself on to a step. My legs are shaking. My whole body is shaking. My whole world is. I crave something sweet but then maybe not, I think I’m going to be sick again.

‘No, not celebrating,’ I assure him.

Barry must catch something in my voice that explains more than I’m capable of understanding.

‘I’ve just driven some of your English friends to the Standard. I understand they are getting some chips. That’s what you guys call French fries, right? I’d suggest, Miss, that chips are just what you need.’

I don’t chat to Barry as he efficiently speeds off to Sunset Boulevard. I’m incapable of making small talk – usually my default setting. How could Scott have done that to me? How could Ben? I don’t know who I’m most angry or shocked with. I don’t know if I’m more furious or hurt. Let’s face it – I don’t know anything at all. A whole bundle of hideously painful thoughts are assaulting my mind and heart. I honestly thought Scott was going to try to make it work between us. I thought he wanted to be faithful. Is he gay? Am I just a beard? And Ben? How could he do this to me? Helplessly I run through

Aaghhh. They were in my bedroom. With candles. There’s no mistake; I haven’t misinterpreted anything. Ben got a wax today. His best Paul Smith boxers were discarded on the floor – his lucky pants. Oh God, this is all too vile to think about.

Barry drops me off outside the Standard and says he’ll wait for me until I instruct him otherwise. At this time of night I expect the restaurant to be quiet. Usually by now most of the action has moved downstairs to the Purple Lounge, the hotel’s chic but mellow cocktail bar; it has space for dancing and space for hanging around being hip. The restaurant is more of a coffee shop by design, the service is quick and efficient and the cuisine is renowned as comfort food. It’s the perfect hide-out. I imagine wandering into the restaurant and scanning the booths for Jess and Adam. I need a friendly face more than I’ve ever needed one in my life. The place will be deserted and I’ll spot Adam instantly, even though his back will be to me. I’ll fall into the booth and plonk myself down opposite him; without ceremony I’ll say, ‘Ben is sleeping with Scott.’

As I push open the door I am hit not by intense and meaningful silence but by exuberance and cheer. Far from the semi-deserted scene I imagined, I’m faced with a party, which in terms of energy and liveliness could rival the one at Scott’s place earlier on today. The difference being

‘No one said there was a party going on,’ I say petulantly as I squeeze into the ladies’ booth. Lisa budges 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 canapés 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.

It’s only just dawning on me but I realize now that Adam is unique in his ability to be so laid back in this hectic and frantic world and he is not at fault. He’s a man with a quiet certainty that everything will be all right. He lives without fear. He isn’t afraid of people not liking him, or of being a failure, or even normal things that everyone is a bit afraid of, like being mugged, lost or unloved. He sees all that as pointless worrying. He’s not even afraid of missing the last train home. That’s why he wasn’t prepared to bow to the deadlines I, or anyone else, imposed. He was not afraid of time passing because he knew he’d have his time. I’m afraid of lots of things and Scott is afraid of everything. Now, being with Adam seems

Oh God, if only I could beg him to take me back as Jess was hoping or, better yet, turn the clock back so that I’d never left him. That’s got to be the whiskey thinking, doesn’t it? Maybe not. Or the shock of finding Scott with Ben. Maybe not. I don’t know. All I know right now is that I want to push past my mum and all the other confused and concerned faces and throw myself on the floor, wrap my arms around Adam’s legs and plead with him to have me back. I think I wanted to do this the moment I saw him by the pool this afternoon, I just couldn’t admit it to myself. What a nightmare. What a total idiot I’ve been. Suddenly, I’m awash with startling, overwhelming memories. We were happy, Adam and I, once upon a time. We were happy in each other’s company and we didn’t need movie premieres or Rodeo Drive or infinity pools. We were happy waiting for a bus, sharing a stick of chewing-gum, finishing the Sudoku, guessing the outcome of a Coronation Street plotline. We were ordinary. Why didn’t I see that ordinary isn’t so bad? It’s actually rather nice when on the other hand you consider that the extraordinary includes your boyfriend having sex with your boy friend.

Dad gently tries to bring me back to the matter in hand. ‘Would you like me to go and tell Scott the wedding is off?’ he offers. He stands up and draws himself to his full height. He’s not enormous but his beer belly is quite impressive; in my eyes he’s never looked so heroic.

‘Someone will have to go and say something,’ says my

‘You think I should call off the wedding?’ I’m actually just confirming I’ve understood their intention, rather than questioning the sense of the plan. It’s an important nuance.

‘Of course!’ Everyone choruses at once. Everyone, except one person, that is. I’m staring at Adam and he’s silent.

‘I know it’s going to be hard giving up all that wealth: the designer clothes, the mansion, the jewellery,’ says Lisa.

‘The helicopter, the private jet,’ adds Charlie.

‘But you have to,’ says my sister, flatly.

‘Money never brought anyone happiness,’ adds my aunt. I don’t actually think she’s right about this but I know what she’s getting at, besides it’s impossible to argue with her when she adds, ‘I mean, Scott isn’t actually happy, is he?’

‘You can’t buy love,’ notes my dad.

‘I know, I know all this,’ I snap. I don’t think I can bear to listen to another one of their platitudes. Of course I know what I have to do. I have to dump Scott and walk away from the wedding of a lifetime. I have to say cheerio to the most glitzy future imaginable – I know that. It’s just a hard thing to do. I wanted my life to be exquisitely special, distinctly not ordinary, but now I realize that the only way it can be that is by being honest with myself. I used to wonder, if I could have anything what would I ask for? A bath full of M&Ms to sit in? A room full of actors to chat to? A wardrobe full of designer clothes to

Abruptly he stands up, grabs his battered leather jacket and walks towards the door. In a flash I push past my mum and everyone else, and follow him out of the restaurant.