‘What?’
‘Lakota.’
‘Did you say Jamal has guestlisted you? What the hell? Why,whydid you not mention this before? Are you seriously shitting me? Guestlisted for Jamal’s homecoming set, tonight? New Year’s Eve. Like the most sought-after sold-out New Year’s event this evening. One of the big last nights in Lakota before they shut it?’
‘Yeah.’ I snap my mouth shut like a baby bird, another marshmallow down.
‘I’m going to take that bloody mug away from you if you’re not careful. No, you can stop doing that with your mouth, I am not going to kiss you. Tonight, baby, wearegoing dancing.’
I love Luisa, and it’s great to see her so enthusiastic, but to be honest, the last thing I feel like doing tonight is dancing. Hiding under a quilt and feeling the heaviness of my Norton Shakespeare on my legs, that could work. Staying there for a year, maybe. I could get behind that.
Rory.
Things are going well. Although my mother is determined that I find a way of getting her in to the club. I tried to argue that Lakota may not be the best place for her, its finest hour has passed, and that clubbing isn’t the same now as it was in her day. She clipped me around the ear, muttered something about how that wasn’t illegal then either and reminded me that it was not my job to make decisions for others, has this week not taught me this? And if I don’t find a way to get her in she will make such a scene outside that the bouncers carry her in, naked on a palanquin, just to get her to shut up.
I believe her.
Everything else seems lined up for tonight, although I have a strict timetable. I need to run into town and pick up some props. I’m hoping there will still be some places selling these things, it could be a case of finding them at knock down prices or finding them all sold. I have the music primed, I’ve chosen three songs – just snippets of each – and hope she understands what I’m trying to say with them. Then I have the biggest job of all to do, but Jamal reckons I just need to have faith in my feelings, my natural abilities and to let it flow. Easy for him to say. He’s promised if I mail it over he’ll scan and tweak it, if he really feels it needs it. I can’t really ask for more than that, although obviously I had to. Cos I had to ask for mum to be guestlisted as well. Jamal’s laugh is still echoing in my ear. Main thing is, plan seems a go-go.
Belle.
My phone rings and I see it’s my dad. I shoot a look across at Luisa. I have been ignoring calls from Rory but I can’t ignore this one.
‘You don’t have to answer that, you know,’ she says.
‘Apart from I do,’ I say. ‘What if something has happened again?’ I take the call, bracing myself to hear whatever it is I have done wrong this time.
‘Belle!’ His voice booms down the phone and in a jovial tone I am not used to. ‘My first-born daughter.’ My eyes widen and I look across at Luisa in shock and mouth, ‘He’s being nice.’
‘Mum and I wanted to ring to wish you a Happy New Year.’ I hear Mum’s voice in the background echoing his sentiment. What craziness is this? ‘And to tell you how proud we are.’
‘Dad, are you okay?’
‘Yes, yes. Mum has been looking after me since that … you know … incident and I know I thanked you before but the doctors told me how differently things could have been if you hadn’t rung for an ambulance. But listen, your sister just called…’ I hold my breath; he’s buttering me up for something. Something to do with Rose? ‘…and told me your news. We wanted to say congratulations, amazing news.’
‘Eh?’ As I say it I remember that Jamal was doing an announcement on his Insta today about us working together. I had forgotten completely even though he had told me of his plan yesterday when he invited me to Lakota. But my swirling self-pity had pushed it to the back of my mind. My brain only wanting to concentrate on how I had been rejected rather than the things I had made a success of. Was that what has caused this? It would make sense.
‘I’ve always said that your love of Shakespeare would take you places…’ I don’t have time to counter this revisionist bullshit as he continues. ‘And now it has. I don’t know why you didn’t tell us that you were going to be working with Jamal. That’s huge. My little girl working alongside one of the UK’s biggest stars.’
‘We’re so proud of you, Belle,’ Mum pipes up into the phone as Dad adds, ‘We couldn’t be prouder.’ I can’t help the daft grin that crosses my face. I had given up any hope of those words being said a long time ago and now, in this crazy new world I am living in, my parents have rung me to tell me they are proud of me. I know I am beaming as I thank them and wish them a Happy New Year. They stay on the phone for a bit longer, pressing me for details and reiterating that they had always known how clever I was and I choose not to call them out or suggest they had never made it particularly clear. I merely revel in their praise and hug their words close to me, just in case they never say it again.
Finishing the call, I relate this strange turn of events to Luisa, who high-fives me, puts on some Lizzo and gives me free rein in her wardrobe. There are some gorgeous things in there. We aren’t identical body shapes, I’m taller for a start, but every now and then we can get away with it. And the combination of Lizzo and the offer of the most divine, if very,veryshort, green velvet dress combined with my parents’ call is cheering me up no end.
The fact that she then makes me drink two of her Lollapalooza cocktails also helps. As has her relentless verbal soundtrack which focuses on how I cannot let one man stop me having fun. How it is okay to mope for a day or two but then I have a duty to womankind – I think she’s overegging it a bit there – not to mention myself, to pick myself up and move on with my life. By the time we get around to ‘Like a Girl’ for the second time we’re both on our knees screeching into a hairbrush and straighteners respectively and then jumping up and bouncing around the side of the bed, dancing like we are eighteen. There is hair swirling, twerking and full-on shoulder shimmying.
She is right, Rory was a chance at happiness but he wasn’tthechance of happiness, that is all on me. I have to make life choices that make me happy and fulfilled and not rely on other people to do so. Luisa reminded me yesterday that my life’s dream has come true this year, in these last few weeks, and that I need to embrace all I have achieved.
I have been able to make the break to being a self-employed educational consultant on Shakespeare. And I am doing it with someone with one of the highest profiles in the country, a partnership I’ve achieved by my own merit. My parents have made the effort to reach out to me and tell me they are proud.
She adds that if I can’t get dressed up and celebrate that this New Year’s Eve then I need to take a serious look at my priorities.
I know she’s right.
And to be fair to her she had sat with me into the wee hours yesterday, and the night before, as I sobbed about how rejected I felt, what a fool I was, when was I going to learn and so on and so forth. The soliloquy of every broken heart the world has ever seen. It is time to pull myself together and get my moves on!
Oh.
My.
