‘In less than twenty-four hours,’ I reply with a heavy sigh.
‘What are you going to do? Go alone?’ she says.
‘Tell her she can’t go alone,’ I hear Molly’s voice in the background.
‘One of them must be some good?’ Faye continues. ‘Who is the best of the bad bunch?’
‘I suppose I could ask Joseph if he wanted to come?’ I suggest. ‘He was only pretending to be a bad boy but, I don’t know, I’m sure he could still cause some havoc with me, maybe…’
‘Yeah, give him a call,’ Faye suggests. ‘If he was keen…’
‘He was keen on the free holiday,’ I reply. ‘He wasn’t keen on having fun – I’ll bet he would behave impeccably the whole time – and I don’t think he was keen on me either. I didn’t get the impression he was interested in me, just the holiday.’
‘See what you can do,’ Faye says, her voice turning into more of a whisper. ‘Gotta go, bye.’
She hangs up.
Is Joseph really the best I can do? A good boy pretending to be bad? Perhaps I would be better off going alone.
‘Good morning,’ Ethan says, snapping me from my thoughts.
‘Morning,’ I reply – well, what’s so good about it?
‘Reckon your dad has gone?’ he replies.
‘Yeah, I guess he’s gone to work,’ I say. ‘That gives us a chance to sneak out.’
‘So, you’re going to Australia?’ he says.
‘Yeah,’ I reply, my tone guarded.
‘I heard Steve say so last night,’ he reminds me, reading my thoughts.
‘Ah,’ I say, rolling onto my side to face him. ‘Yeah, my sister is getting married there. I actually found out, that night we met. She’s tying the knot in Australia – because the moon was fully booked.’
Ethan laughs softly.
‘So, who is Joseph?’ he asks.
‘Huh?’ I reply, knowing exactly what he means. Shit, he must have heard me on the phone just now.
‘Joseph,’ he says again. ‘It sounded like you were taking him with you – are you seeing someone?’
The truth sounds horrendous but the idea of Ethan thinking I was going to cheat on someone with him seems far worse.
‘Okay, don’t judge me,’ I begin, taking a deep breath.
‘Would I ever?’ he replies.
‘So, my sister, Seph, is getting married in Sydney – Chester, her fiancé’s parents retired there,’ I explain. ‘But what you need to know, for all of this to make any sense, is that Seph and I had completely different upbringings. My dad’s side of the family has money, and when he and my mum split he remarried and had Seph, so she’s grown up in that lifestyle, whereas I was raised by my mum, who didn’t have much money. That lot are just so, so out of touch with reality – it’s embarrassing – but the worst thing of all is that they think that about me, that I’m out of touch with their reality. They think I’m some tacky commoner – the poor relative who they have to include – and seeing as though they’re my only family in the UK now, I think they’re posho morons who I have to dutifully turn up to events for.’
‘Well, that’s family, right?’ Ethan replies. ‘Turning up, doing things, trying to get along.’
‘Yeah, and I’m hap… and I’m willing to do it.’ I was almost going to say happy to do it, but willing is more accurate. ‘Except, they called me over for a pre-wedding lunch, and I thought it was for everyone to talk about wedding stuff, but it turns out it was exclusively some sort of class intervention, just for me, where everyone had a go at me for how I dressed, acted, and to warn me about not bringing a date they wouldn’t approve of.’
‘So…’
‘So, I became obsessed with finding a date to take, who they wouldn’t approve of, to say: fuck you,’ I reply. ‘Obviously, I’m not a monster, I don’t want to ruin Seph’s wedding, and I do want to be there, but I need to show them that I am me, and I matter, and they have to love me as I am.’
