Lily pressed the button to call her back. Meg answered on the first ring.
‘Lily, guess where I am?’
‘Um? I don’t know?’
‘No, you have to guess.’ Oh, for God’s sake. Why did people do these stupid guessing games? It was rare that you could make any kind of a sensible guess. They were just a boring waste of time.
‘On a ferry, at an airport or… I don’t know, feeding goats in the hills.’
‘I mean, what? Why would I tell you about my journey, and why would I be feeding goats?’
‘I don’t know,’ Lily said. She did not need this right now.
‘Take a sensible guess,’ Meg instructed her. Really? They were still doing this?
Lily sighed. ‘Okay. Um. You’re in Pythagoras’s restaurant because you’ve decided to do a Shirley Valentine.’
‘Oh my God, you’repsychic.’
‘I’m what?’ Noway.
‘We’re at Pythagoras’s mother’s house and I’m meeting all the family for lunch and then I’m staying on for a few days and I’m going to do my classes over Zoom and then he’s flying to Edinburgh with me and moving in with me. His cousin’s going to look after the restaurant here. We’re going to spend a year in Edinburgh together and then a year here and then we’re going to work out where we want to live. I’m going to put you on video.’
‘No, Meg, I’m…’ In bed. Looking like shit.
And, oh, okay, there were literally dozens of people in the picture and Lily was going to upset Meg if she didn’t switch to video.
She jumped out of bed and into the armchair – that Matt had been sitting in only a few hours ago – and tried to hold the phone at an angle so that she wasn’ttoovisible.
‘That’s so exciting, Meg. And Pythagoras. I’m so pleased for you both.’
While Meg chatted and explained to the backdrop of Pythagoras’slargefamily, and Lily exclaimed and congratulated, she couldn’t help remembering that a few days ago she’d been thinking that of the four of them she was definitely negotiating their thirties the best.
But now, Tess was no longer a bridezilla but just a – very happy – bride, married to a lovely man who was very right for her. And Aaliyah was going to be much happier now that she had her new plans for her cleaner and working more. And Meg was going to be all loved up with Pythagoras.
While right now, Lily just felt really miserable.
She should really not have had the conversation with Matt. She’d been very happy with her life before this week.
It was a good thing that she wouldn’t be seeing him again.
Three hours later, she sat back in her chair in the restaurant where she’d had lunch with Felix and Alfredo and said, ‘So I’m really pleased with the progress we’ve made.’
‘We definitely had way too many photos,’ Alfredo said.
‘I still think we should keep all the ones of the feather boa karaoke night,’ Felix said. A little grumpily, actually.
‘I think Lily’s right, though. Hoarding isn’t great.’ Alfredo picked up the phone. ‘Maybe we should delete some of these now.’
‘I’m not ready for that.’ Felix looked alarmingly tearful now. ‘That was agoodnight.’
Lily took the phone out of Alfredo’s hand. ‘I’m sure we can come to a compromise. And we don’t have to delete them all now. Why don’t we just start with a few? The blurry ones to start off with. There were definitely a few blurry ones.’
‘Yep, I’m up for binning the blur,’ Alfredo said.
‘I like the blur. It was a blurry evening. We were very drunk. It’s like the photos are telling the story how it actually happened.’ Felix had his mouth set in a very firm line.
For God’ssake. Lily normallylovedher photo curating work. But today, very over-tired and very over-sad, she wasn’t totally in the mood for it. She could do with just crawling into a dark hole somewhere and spending another few hours sobbing her heart out over Matt.
