OMG Baby! (7 page)

L
ucy Elizabeth Bond
is married to Reuben Fernando Candelas Garrido in a bank. Actually, a former bank, gone to the wall and now stripped of its glass barriers and serving mini empanadas and caipirinhas from its polished wooden counters. Lucy looks beautiful in her Vera Wang. She and Reuben hold hands and promise to be honest and interesting in bed from this day forth, and the acoustics send their vows vaulting to the rafters.

Later, the noise of the place is deafening. Max and I shout at each other to be heard above the excited chatter of eighty-odd guests, some in sex-worker gear. Max is looking dapper in his navy pinstripe. He leads the way through the booming crowd backstage to change. I cling to him at the last minute.

‘Good luck, baby.’ He winks and I drag myself away from his hairy jaw.

And then the moment of truth, stone-cold sober, following Lucy’s tiny bottom and newly permed froth of hair out of the back office with my boobs offered up like moulded blancmanges. The boom-tsk drumbeat of the White Stripes’ ‘My Doorbell’ starts up. Lucy turns to me and scowls.

‘Remember, Viv, left arm up at the end.’

‘Got it.’ I nod and we strut into the limelight. Oh fuck.

Lucy explodes into the cleared space and prances impressively around with one arm held showgirl high. Then it’s my turn. As I squint into the crowd, I see two girls point and laugh. I take up my position next to Lucy and we begin our routine. I’m concentrating hard, counting my steps. At one point, I head-roll left instead of right. The girls are in hysterics, bloody witches – hands pressed to their throats.

I hold Lucy from behind and we gyrate, sliding up and down the pole to whoops and whistles. This bloody song goes on for ever. I feel a hot pull in my stomach. I’m about to puke. Then we go into our final swing round the pole and slide to the floor like fallen ice-skaters. Everyone claps, Reuben rushes forward, and he and Lucy passionately kiss before he drags her to her feet and she raises her arm triumphantly, bosoms heaving. I struggle like a seal pup against the straightjacket of the corset, trying to get up, managing at last to roll onto all fours. Max steps forward finally and offers me his hand. I feel the eyes of those two girls watching me like I’m a freak show. I spin round and pull a ‘what’s your problem?’ face but with a hint of ‘please like me’ and Max throws his jacket over my shoulders and leads me to the bar.

‘I don’t believe you just did that, even though I saw it with my own eyes,’ he says, blinking in awe.

‘I have never been so embarrassed in all my life.’ I shade my eyes with my hands and lean over the bar, trying to get my breath back. ‘Never. Ever.’

‘Buck’s Fizz’ll be OK, won’t it?’ he asks, eyes darting to my belly.

I down it in one and it sends me spinning.

‘Did it look as bad as it felt?’

He drops his head as the ghost of a smile crosses his face. ‘Bad? No, you were gorgeous.’

‘Did you see any nipple?’

‘Ah, you’re a really good sport, Viv!’

‘A good sport? A good bloody—’ Just then my phone rings in his pocket.

He shows me the display: ‘Rainey.’ My heart leaps.

‘Hello?’ I make my way to the door and out onto the street.

‘Vivienne?’

‘Hi, yes!’ I’m keen as mustard.

‘It’s Rainey. Can we meet?’

‘Oh, er, it’s actually a bit tricky . . . What time where you thinking?’

‘Nowish? But listen, if it’s difficult, let’s not.’

I imagine leaving the embarrassment of the wedding, kissing goodbye to all my best-woman duties. The thought pops like a bubble.

‘Sorry, Rainey, I’d better not. I’m at a wedding.’

‘Oh.’ She sounds disappointed.

I put a finger in my free ear to hear her better. ‘I mean, any other time I would love to, but it’s my best friend Lucy’s wedding.’

‘Lucy.’

‘You met last time you were here.’

‘Ah, yes, the thin-haired banker. Am I right?’

‘Um . . . yeah.’ I glance back at the bar. ‘I’m her best woman.’

I hear a rush of breath like a sigh or a laugh. ‘She won’t mind if you pop out for half an hour.’

‘What? No, she’d kill me. Can I meet you tomorrow?’

There’s a long silence. Then she says something I don’t catch as a bus rumbles past.

‘Sorry, Rainey – I missed that,’ I say, but she’s gone.

I turn back to the bar, stung with uncertainty. Will not meeting Rainey be grounds for her to disappear again?

Through the window I see Reuben holding a microphone. After his speech I’d planned to say a few words before he starts on the karaoke. I can’t think about Rainey now. I take a deep breath and dive back in. The guests are gathered round the stage, cheering and heckling the story of how Reuben and Lucy met. I make my way back to Max. He hands me another Buck’s Fizz.

‘Mostly orange juice,’ he whispers.

I take the drink and lean on Max to listen to Reuben. The speech seems to be entirely based around a giant clay phallus, which he’s brandishing at the end of each line.

‘I knew she wanted this,’ he says, waving the thing in the air, ‘but I gave her something bigger!’

I glance behind me to where tables are being set for the wedding meal. The enormous grey crackers look all right in the end: the bright pink ribbon brings out the pink roses of the flower arrangements. Christie’s writing is very neat, and the hearts over every ‘i’ actually add something: it is a wedding, after all. I allow myself a celebratory moment. The tables look great, and Lucy is pleased, even though the ice-sculpture penis isn’t erect, but really, what did she expect? It’s a luge; they flow downwards.

Reuben is talking and gesticulating. I look across at my two tormentors, one of them in a leather sheath dress, the other a bit nondescript apart from a wilting beehive. Then I spot Lucy to the left of the cleared space, absorbing the shrapnel of Reuben’s speech.

‘And so let me tell you exactly why I really have this big penis in my hand . . .’ More roars and cheers. ‘This is a potent fertility symbol! This thing, boy, do we need it! Lucy don’t want me to tell you, but for us, the plan is to make a lot of babies and take over the world!’

I look over at my old friend with her perm and her tutu, twisting her hands in her lap. I know she must be hating this. What is he doing, exposing her?

‘So far, not so good,’ Reuben continues, see-sawing his hand, ‘but I tell her we must practise more!’

Lucy shakes her head and smiles sadly.

‘Of course!
Amor
, come. Come and take this big fertile cock in your hands.’

She smiles at him, but I think I can see her eyes glisten with tears. ‘Not funny, Reubs!’ she heckles.

‘Yes, come on,
amor
!’ coaxes Reuben, and she slowly walks over to him. I can see she’s trying to keep her smile in place. Poor Lucy!

She now has to stand there and hold a huge clay penis fertility symbol while he laughs at her. All the pressure she’s been putting on herself to get pregnant and now Reuben’s idea of funny is humiliating her in front of eighty-odd people.

I turn to Max. ‘What is Reuben doing?’

He’s been laughing along, but seeing my expression, he adjusts his face from smile to concern. ‘Bit close to the bone,’ he nods.

‘She’s nearly in tears. I haven’t seen her cry since . . .’ When did Lucy
ever
cry, actually?

‘Nah, she’s all right,’ he says.

‘I’m going in.’

‘No, you don’t. Do not get involved.’ Max pulls me closer with a forearm across my chest. ‘I know what you’re like.’

‘What we have to do is both hold this fertile cock . . .’ shouts Reuben.

‘Is that the karaoke machine, do you think?’

‘No, Vivienne! Viv!’ Max calls as I push to the front.

I’ll save Lucy. I grab the karaoke mic and hit a few buttons. Reuben and Lucy turn round in surprise as the music starts up and I do the sexy strutting walk I learned from the pole dance towards them. I do a twirl as I take the microphone from Reuben and hand it to Lucy.

And that’s how she and I came to sing a karaoke duet of ‘Islands in the Stream’ on her wedding day, almost. Reuben snatched my mic and he and Lucy sang the duet, which is what he must have been building up to with the phallic-symbol routine, so I get the feeling from his glowering looks that I might have ruined the moment.

So it’s quite awkward all in all. But then, Lucy had looked upset, although admittedly she seems fine now, dirty-dancing the salsa. As the music dies down, I hover by the stage self-consciously, occasionally doing little side-to-side dance steps, and then Lucy gives me a nod with a wide-eyed look that says, ‘It’s you!’ I’ve prepared a few words, and even have a couple of prompt cards in my bag. I search the room for Max. He raises his pint and nods unhelpfully. I lift the microphone and my breathlessness is amplified.

‘I’d like to say a few words.’ My voice echoes sing-songy with emotion. ‘As best woman, it is customary . . .’ I notice Leather Sheath and Beehive moving closer to the front. ‘Er . . . you know, Lucy and I have been friends since freshers’ week at uni, when she walked into my halls-of-residence room and
told
me we were going to be. She’s like that . . . bloody bossy!’ My voice clatters through the room like cutlery falling onto tiles.

I scan the expectant faces nervously. I was going to tell a few hilarious stories about the time we went travelling through Europe and had to escape to Milan after she inadvertently got betrothed to a gypsy leader’s son in Greece, and the Christmas party at the deli where we worked as holiday staff and she went into the back room with the relief manager, who liked doing unspeakable things with mini Edams. I think I was going to mention how she went and got my stuff for me from my ex’s flat in her VW Beetle named Keith. I look at Lucy and open my mouth to tell those stories, but there’s something vulnerable about her that leaves me speechless and unsure. I wonder how bad it would be if I just ran off stage now. Lucy mimes impatience by tapping her foot and looking at her wrist.

‘Bossy and posh!’ I continue. ‘Through thick and thin, that’s what she always said. I was the thick.’ Lucy nods and I take her hand. ‘I have so many stories to tell.’ A few people shout. ‘But if you want to hear them, see me afterwards, because all I really want to say here and now is that you, Lucy Bond, are the mate everyone wants to have: loyal and funny, clever and kind and honest, sometimes brutally honest, actually . . . but only when needed! Ha, ha! Yes, so . . . my darling Posh Lucy, we’ve had fourteen years together as best, best friends, through good times and bad, through many a scrape and out the other side. I hereby pass you over to Reuben for safe keeping, and if he fucks up, come get me and we’ll kill him together.’

There’s a silence followed by uncertain applause.

Lucy leans forward and grabs the microphone. She’s probably going to say a few words about our friendship in reply.

‘Vivienne Summers, everybody! The only person who quite likes the taste of earwax!’

I glance around, shocked. Why I thought she was vulnerable I’ll never know, she’s laughing her head off now. I snatch the microphone from her.

‘I tried some earwax as a dare, one time. I never said I liked it, so…’ She takes the microphone back and I step from the stage as gracefully as possible, hearing her announce, ‘Everybody! Lunch is served, but you only get it after you are photographed taking a shot from the amazing penis vodka luge!’

Jesus, what kind of bonkers wedding is this? Time to escape to the toilet and get out of this straightjacket corset. I spot Max chatting to Leather Sheath, bloody traitor. I grab him and drag him along. We fall into the ladies’ toilet. The floor is tiled with smooth stone, and the sinks are green glass bowls lit from below so they seem to float mysteriously next to the bottles of upmarket soap and hand cream.

Max looks in the mirror, talking to himself.

‘Kelly, you handsome devil, tell me this – why do you always end up in the ladies’ toilet at weddings?’

I start to unclip myself. ‘Who knows? There are plenty of other places to have sex.’

‘That’s your plan?’ he says, turning and leaning on the sink shelf.

‘My plan is to get out of this tutu, get some food and not do pole-dancing, public speaking or karaoke ever again.’

‘But that doesn’t match up with my plan.’

‘Yet again I’m a laughing stock.’

‘No.’ He smiles.

‘People were actually pointing and laughing.’

‘In a good way.’

I shoot him a look as I struggle with the tutu. ‘Can you help at all?’

He grabs the top of the corset and tugs it down hard and I’m suddenly topless just as the door opens.

‘Quickly!’ I scuttle into a cubicle, but he hesitates. ‘Hurry up, get in!’

We’re pressed together and I manage to close the door close. Then we wait in silence, his mouth near my ear. Heeled shoes tap into the cubicle next door. I breathe the sweet, beery smell on his breath and feel the edge of his tooth on my earlobe as he bites.

‘Hmm, earwax,’ he murmurs.

‘Shut up,’ I whisper.

I put a finger to his lips. He makes his eyes wide. The rim of dark lashes look like eyeliner. His warm sigh over my neck gives me goosebumps. I move my head away.

‘Why don’t you let me fuck you in here?’ he says softly. There is a rustle of clothing from next door.

I hold his hairy face in my two hands. ‘Stop. It,’ I whisper. ‘I’m the best woman.’