How’s it going with the in-laws-to-be?
I went to text her back, then decided to call instead. I had the urge to hear a friendly voice. Lou never sugar-coated stuff and Ihadto tell somebody about Aidan.
Lou picked up on the second ring. ‘Blimey, you’re up already!’ she said. ‘I thought you’d be languishing in bed with Nick, sharing rustic bread and mozzarella cheese and getting crumbs all over the sheets.’
‘Ha! This place is too beautiful to be lying around in a hotel room,’ I said.
‘How’s Nick’s family? Tell me all. Are they as charming as he is? Do they love you already?’
My stomach dropped.
‘They’re … not quite how I’d imagined,’ I said, struggling to put it into words. ‘They’re very wealthy, which is fine, obviously.’
‘But …?’
‘But Nick calls his mum “Mummy”.’
‘He doesn’t!’
‘And his ex-wife is here. Daisy’s mum.’
Lou made a screeching sound. ‘What the hell?’
‘She’s still very close with Rosamund – Nick’s mum – apparently.’
‘But this was about you bonding with them. How are you supposed to do that with her hanging around? Talk about awkward.’
The waiter brought my coffee which smelled divine. I picked up the cup and blew on the surface, taking a tiny sip.
‘His dad reckons I look like Meghan Markle,’ I said.
‘Oh for God’s sake.’
‘Am I setting the tone for you?’
‘Very much so,’ said Lou.
I could imagine her rolling her eyes.
‘And that’s not the worst of it,’ I added.
‘There’s more?’
I hesitated. While Lou had supported me every step of the way, I could sense that she’d found the whole thing with Aidan a bit much. Ever cautious, she couldn’t understand how we’d got so close so quickly, and why I was so cut up about it afterwards. I could tell she’d got fed up with me being utterly miserable every time we went out and eventually she’d told me – gently – that I needed to snap myself out of it and ‘get back on the horse’. It had been her who’d encouraged me to hit up Tinder and say yes to a date with Nick, even though I really wasn’t ready and was secretly holding on to the hope that there’d been some terrible mistake and Aidan was going to come swooping back into my life any moment and tell me that he couldn’t live without me. This I didn’t share with anyone.
‘Come on then, what else has happened?’ asked Lou. ‘Nothing interesting ever happens to me anymore and therefore I am living my life vicariously through you.’
‘A quiet life sounds very appealing right about now,’ I said.
‘How come?’
‘Aidan is here. Staying at the same hotel.’
A beat. Lots of beats.
‘Lou? Are you still there?’ I asked, thinking that maybe we’d been cut off.
‘Sorry, yes. I was speechless for a second there. What the fuck?’