One of the Girls(10)
‘Honestly? I’m excited about the evening party, but the formalities of the service, the saying I do in front of all those people, fills me with dread.’
‘But you’ve performed in front of huge audiences. I’d have thought you’d be completely at home before a crowd.’
‘Yes – performed. But on my wedding day, well, that’s actually me.’
‘I get that,’ Ana said. She’d always preferred standing at the back of a room, never desiring the spotlight. Not that she was a wallflower. Absolutely not. She’d been brought up to believe that to be taken seriously, she had to work harder, be stronger, be smarter. Be more.
‘I can’t wait for you to see the venue. It’s set right on the edge of the river and has this gorgeous deck – if we get good weather.’
Ana knew it would be beautiful, and the weather would be fine, and the simple flowers and strings of lights Lexi had described would be perfect – because everything that Lexi touched turned out right.
Which made Ana wonder: Is it me who’s wrong?
Ana loved weddings. The joy of the occasion. Everyone so pleased to be there. A feeling of cutting loose. The dancing. The food. The soft glamour and romance of it all. She’d never married – never planned to. There’d been a handful of men over the past few years, but no one who she’d adored, who’d made her think: Yes, I want to share my life with you.
She had Luca. She had her sister. She had her work.
She was lucky.
‘I’m so happy you’ll be there,’ Lexi said, smiling openly.
‘I can’t wait.’ Ana had RSVP’d the day the invite arrived in its thick cream envelope lined with tissue paper. Even as she’d ticked the box – ‘I’d love to attend’ – noted her dietary requirements, and chosen her favourite song for the evening playlist, she already knew that she wouldn’t turn up: there would be an emergency.
7
Eleanor
Eleanor poured the glossy olives into a little wooden bowl she’d found at the back of the cupboard. Everything in this villa was pared back, tasteful. She sensed that Fen’s aunt was one of those women who oozed style. She wondered if there was a photo of her. Eleanor always liked looking at people in photos: they couldn’t look back, so you had plenty of time to make up your mind about whether you liked them or not, whether you could trust them.
She opened a tub of tzatziki. Inhaled. She dipped a spoon in, then sucked the creamy, garlic-infused yoghurt straight off. She could eat it by the bowlful – slathered on fresh bread, dunked with chips, dolloped on salad: tzatziki worked in a thousand different ways. She dipped the spoon in a second time and when she glanced up, Lexi had arrived at the kitchen counter. She waited for the recrimination, but Lexi only smiled.
She sucked the spoon clean, rinsed it, and then continued fetching the rest of the ingredients. She took half a dozen plump tomatoes from the fridge. (Did Robyn have no clue? Tomatoes should never go in the fridge. Hell, she’d best check what she’d done with the avocados.) She rinsed their bright red skins, then found a sharp vegetable knife and began slicing them into thick rounds. None of the hens had the energy for climbing back into a taxi and heading to a taverna, so Eleanor had quietly begun putting together mezes, shaking roasted almonds into a little dish, arranging stuffed vine leaves on a plate, tearing and toasting pittas ready to dip in creamy hummus.
‘Can I give you a hand?’ Lexi asked warmly, setting down a glass of something fizzy on the counter. Her soon to be sister-in-law.
She looked at Lexi’s wrists. They were so slender. Could you have elegant wrists? That was how she’d describe them. No jewellery, except for the huge diamond on her ring finger that her brother had chosen.
She remembered him announcing, I’ve met someone. He’d been sitting in Eleanor’s flat, feet on the table, tie loose around his neck. It was a rare visit and she’d kept glancing at him, wondering why he’d come. There was a lightness in his eyes, a giddiness that made him look less serious.
Her brother, in love.
She’d typed Lexi’s name into Google. She didn’t even need to hit search to know that anyone named Lexi Lowe would be bound for stardom. She wondered what Lexi Lowe would do when it came to swapping that rhythmic, alliterative name for their family surname: Tollock.
Eleanor Tollock’s hiding a bollock.
It was no surprise then when hundreds of images of Lexi Lowe filled her screen. There were shots of her performing with bands and old clips from MTV of her dancing in a tiger-striped leotard. She’d clicked on a video and had been mesmerised by the way she moved, body like liquid, as if muscles and tendons and bones flowed. Even in a group of top dancers, Lexi stood out. There was something captivating about the proportions of her body, her expression – lost completely in the throes of the music. She’d watched, thinking: no wonder Ed is in love. The whole damn audience is.
When she met Lexi for the first time – dinner at her parents’ house, their mother using the best china, her father bringing out bottle after bottle of Chateauneuf-du-Pape and trying not to stare – Eleanor had been surprised to find she liked Lexi.
Ed’s girlfriends had always been beautiful, but Lexi seemed different. She was able to tease Ed, make him laugh, question his opinions – and he listened. Maybe with her … she let herself hope.