This party is genuinely costing a king’s ransom in both food and entertainment. As alltwenty-five children are coming, it means myself and a few other parents will be ferrying the lot to ours back from the cinema where already I will have forked out shedloads of cash on tickets and nachos and heck knows what bad food groups to keep them happy.
Nate and Rachel will be there, but hopefully some other kind parental soul will stay to help? Some parents belt off at high speed, delirious to have got shot of their little darlings. Others stay because cinema trips with lots of kids are recipes for disaster. Back at our house, they will have cake and party bags, and be picked up. An entirely plausible plan when it was six boys: one verging on insanity when it’stwenty-five.
I’m annoyed with Nate but I say nothing because it occurs to me that this is precisely what my mother would do. I always swore I’d never be like my mother but lately, I have a horrible feeling I’m turning into her.
My mother is the most dreadful martyr – every action has to be accompanied by a diatribe about how she’s the only one who can cook dinner/shop/organise the washing. When we were younger and I was there to help with all of this, Ma found other things to be a martyr about. I didn’t have a birthday party after my seventh because Ma said it gave her a headache baking a cake. From then on, I made cakes for April and Dom because I liked baking. Am I turning into her? A martyr, the way Dom described it.
A martyr with an added extra: an addiction to shopping.
Friday morning, I’m early to the school for drop off and find myself beside Angie, who gets out of her sleek sports car and runs over to me.
‘Anything I can bring to dinner tomorrow night?’ she asks.
Dinner? I have thatfalling-through-a-hole moment when I feel the ground vanish beneath me.
What happened todrinks?
After Joey’s party, I will be able to manage a drink and a bowl of crisps afterwards but will be found lying on the couch immediately once all guests have gone. Dinner was going to be cereal.
‘Er...’
‘He told you it was just drinks, didn’t he?’ she says, perfectly volumisedblow-dried head at an angle. ‘Men!’
‘Yeah, men!’ I join in, wondering if I am grimacing instead of smiling. Hard to tell. ‘Dinner is fine,’ I lie.
I don’t know why I am doing this but I will not let this woman think I can’t handletwenty-five kids all afternoon and a few people round to dinner afterwards. She could probably do it. Mind you, she’d probably have it catered.
‘We can have takeaway,’ she adds, cheerfully.
‘No,’ I say immediately, my mustn’t-let-the-side-down genes coming to the rescue. Damn, I am my mother. This is a deeply depressing thought. ‘I love cooking.’
Angie looks at me oddly but I am not going to break my false smile. If she’s coming, if Nate has dropped me in it again, I shall be the perfect wife. If it kills me.
Half an hour and one fabricated dental emergency excuse for the office later, I’m in the nearest shopping centre in the most expensive shop, determinedly ignoring sales assistants watching me rifling through casualT-shirts that run into treble figures and fingering buttery leather biker jackets that cost more than my yearly car insurance.
Sometimes I can ignore the urge, can abstain. The trick is not to go near the posh shops or onto Net à Porter, which raises a lust that sends the neurons in my brain berserk.
The site is effortlessly clever and once you pretend you can afford something on it, it delightedly shows you other beautiful things you might also like.
I like them all. Want them all. With this jacket, that silk blouse, those heels, thatmouse-sized handbag – with a handy shopper for holding actual stuff – I will have achieved perfection.
My breathing is definitely faster now as I gather a great armful of clothes and march into a changing room, storming past the assistants who are wondering if a woman with aseven-year-old Coach tote bag and rather tired office flats can afford this or should they call security?
I slide the lock across, in my happy place now.
This stuff is brand new, picked by clever, fashionable people. It’s expensive and that means it’s good. Every item an investment.
My favourite words.
An investment piece.The words to justify it all.
Today, I will find the one missing piece. I always knew it was out there in the wild. A work/home jacket I can wear forever and people will say ‘Marin’s so cool, effortlessly so.’ A coat for the school gates that screams ‘her life is sorted!’ The jeans. The ones that make my legs look thinner, longer, that flatten my belly with its overhang oftwo-baby flesh.
I will look like Angie. I will be able to tell Nate I am not a dogsbody and to stop with theone-armed hugs. I will reclaim my life –
‘Do you need any help?’ says an assistant outside.
‘Uh...’ I mutter, looking round at my haul.
