I was met at the airport by my father. He
filled me in on all the village gossip he pretends not to listen to. Mom
greeted me at the door with open arms covered in oven gloves. She quickly ran
back to the kitchen to check on the feast she had prepared for my return. She
repeated all of Dad’s news until I’m finally allowed to bail out and hit my old
bed.
My room hadn’t changed a bit. I lay there
looking up at the Boyzone poster wondering where it all went wrong. And why on
earth Mom hadn’t taken it down yet! I kept my phone off, enjoying the silence
and quickly drifted off to sleep.
The next morning I woke to the sound of
family and friends gathering downstairs in preparation for the wedding.
Samantha and David, like most couples from my village, have been together since
school. So I’m prepared for a day of couples and pitiful glances.
“Ah here she is now, the lone ranger!” my
Uncle Jack proclaims, before I descended the last step of stairs.
I rolled my eyes in secret and plastered on
my best Joker smile.
“Hello all!!” I beam entering the spacious
living room.
“Oh it’s Mrs London, how’s the Queen?” my
Aunt sniggered.
I smile cringingly in response to the same
joke heard on every visit.
“As always, she sends her regards Aunt
Maeve!”
“Oh now Josephine, don’t I have the perfect
man for you today!” she sings.
My body fights the burning shoulder slump and lets her carry
on. In the past, it always took them a couple of days at least before “the set
up” but clearly, I was getting on a bit and they weren’t wasting any more time.
She described my dream man, who she stated
was a total catch after only two divorces and three kids by different mothers.
Mum dished up breakfast and I was quickly invisible again. It wasn’t that my
family didn’t like me exactly, but each of their offspring was either beautiful
or talented at something.
I excelled at nothing according to them. I
didn’t have a car, a house or a boyfriend! And little did they know now I didn’t
have a job either!
“Right all, it’s time to get the glam rags
on!” my mother announced.
They all scurried off grabbing coats and
handbags discussing times and churches as I helped Mum clear up in the kitchen.
“Listen love, what’s going on?” Mum asked
knowingly, abandoning her hungry dishwasher.
I could be false with a lot of people but
she always saw right through me.
“I’m fine Mum, work has just been, am,
difficult lately but it’s nothing I can’t handle.”
She continued with the dishes and assured
me everything will work out fine. I wished it were all that simple.
My dress was a little less formal this time
allowing me to breath. Utilising the tips from the other night I decided to
curl my hair but stick with more natural make-up. I wouldn’t want my
Grandmother having a stroke at the sight of lady humps and rouge!
Sitting in the church between my parents I
looked around at all the happy couples whose weddings I also attended and
thought maybe some people are just meant to be alone. Maybe I should just give
in and buy a snarly cat.
I lost count of how many sympathetic head
tilts I received that day. By 5pm I desperately needed a drink to wash away the
sense of being alone and unclean in people’s eyes. The reception took a while
to get into party mode, and thanks to Aunt Maeve’s stalker programme, I had
spent most of the evening in the bathroom hiding from Brian - the born again
Christian. I was accompanied in the stall with a small bottle of Prosecco. Finishing
the bottle, I scuttled out to the lobby and decided to turn on my phone.
>>Message<<
From Caz.
“You know we love you, please let me know how you are. And what
happened?? Oh and don’t be mad!”
What the hell was she going on about? Whatever it was I wasn’t dealing
with it now. I decided to text Jaden, the coat check guy. We got along really
well, despite the circumstances, and a date with him might be better than settling
for a cat.
Just as I sent the text message I spotted Brian handing a Jesus
leaflet to the bemused receptionist. I crawled off the sofa and scampered back
into the big hall. Rihanna was screeching about how she had found love in a
hopeless place - which was being lip synced by my mother on dance floor. I
spotted my sister’s table and sat down.
It was full of her smug female friends whose ring fingers shimmered
with cushion cut diamonds while the men propped up the bar behind.
“Oh, hi Jo, where’s your date?” Leanne sniggered, as she pretended
to look all around me. She even looked under the table. My sister shot her a
warning glance but she was too pissed to notice.
“Now you know we’re only joking, I’m sure you’re having a great time
over there in London! I mean, I was never really single for very long but I’m
sure it’s eh, very exciting” she mumbled into her glass. Then she spotted
someone much more interesting to talk to.
“Oh Aoife, come sit over here with us, how are the twins?”
All the girls carried on discussing wedding cakes and baby showers
while I downed another glass of table wine. I decided not to let these bitches
get me down and could hear Will in my head
“These cows need to get laid sideways!”
The thought of which made me giggle to myself which caught the
attention of Niamh - queen bee of my sister’s cult. She was seated next to me
all along but was in deep conversation with one of her followers until now.
She looked me up and down before shooting me a sickly-sweet smile.
“Here alone Jo?” she asked aloud, causing everyone at the table to
look in my direction.
I didn’t have an answer for her. I was mortified by now. I was tired
of all this. I just wanted to go home.
“No she’s not.”
The answer came from above me.
The women’s smiles were quickly replaced with open jaws and I
glanced around to see why.
There he was.
Standing behind me dressed in tailored black, brown eyes smouldering
and hair perfectly obedient. He never looked so gorgeous – EVER! And I was
never, ever so happy to see him.
“Blaze! What? How? Why?”
I couldn’t find any other words. My verbal diahorrea in his presence
was back.
“Dance with me?”
He squinted his eyes a little as if pleading. I couldn’t take my
eyes off him. No woman could. He gently picked up my hand sending a chill
through me and led me out onto the dance floor among all my family.
What the hell is he doing here??? Have I hit my head and blacked out
on the bathroom floor???
The familiar notes of Michael Buble – Crazy Love, began to swim over
our heads and I could feel everyone’s eyes boring into us.
He stared down into my eyes before pulling me close to him. My arm
wrapped around his broad back and my head rested on his intoxicating chest. We
started to sway. I wanted to ask him so many questions but nothing was worth
breaking this moment. I didn’t want to even open my eyes in case I DID wake up
on the bathroom floor. Mid-way through the song he pulled away from me a little
and whispered in my ear.
“I’m so sorry about the other night, please forgive me?”
I looked up at him and smiled, just managing to shake my head
because actual words would have been incomprehensible right now. He stopped swaying and placed a finger under
my chin, tilting my head up towards him. Time seemed to slow down and even
Michael was now backing vocals to my heartbeat.
His lips touched mine for just a second before looking at me as if
asking permission to continue, my eyes must have screamed “JESUS YES!” Because
he simply smiled and launched in for a full attack, kissing me with passion,
more passion than one should execute in front of an entire family, but I didn’t
give a shit! Even Jackie Collins would have been so proud!
I had to grasp for breath when he pulled away but my Uncle brought
us straight back to Irish reality
“Well done kid!” he nudged Blaze, while dancing past us with a
stunned Aunt Maeve.
Blaze smiled widely down at me.
“Do you want to go somewhere and talk?”
“No!”
The response caught him off guard. Here we go again with my inability to
explain myself in his company.
“What I mean is, I want to go somewhere and do more of this!” I
responded seriously.
He laughed, took my hand and led me out to the lobby. But not before
I had a chance to glance back at Leanne who was just staring at me while all
the others huddled together pointing at us.
It turned out that Diane forced her way into his house the night of
the Ball, and demanded he take her along. She didn’t stay for the meal but just
wanted to have her photo taken with Blaze in the hope her 70 year old millionaire
boyfriend would feel threatened enough to propose. Sure enough, once he saw
their smiling faces in the society pages, it worked. She is now on a yacht
somewhere in the Caribbean, I believe.
I still didn’t understand why he went along with it and why he
didn’t warn me.
But he thought I would already be inside the great hall, which he
would have entered without Diane. There he would have explained everything to
me but he never got the chance. He searched for me everywhere, all night, and
realised he was missing a digit from my phone number. Remembering he still had
Caz’s number, from when she worked with him, he decided to call her and explain
everything. All the while I was holed up in the coat check room with Jaden and
Jack Daniels.
“But you still haven’t told me why you went along with it? This
woman was a total bitch to you!”
He took my hand and looked away.
“I owed it to her. I know she cheated on me Jo but she isn’t
completely to blame. I pushed her into it. What you said the other night was
bang on. Part of me wanted to impress my parents and I thought by marring a
socialite and disowning my feelings, everything else would fall into place. But
it didn’t work. My Father told me that none of that mattered more than my own
happiness.”
He looked back at me and squeezed my hand.
“Diane always knew I was in love with someone else. And, she knew
she could never compete with you.”
“Shut the front door! She was jealous of me? You were in love with ME?”
“Yeah” he smiled
“You are the only one who makes me feel like myself. You humble me
and make me laugh. I need you Jo, I love you.”
So, it may have been a long journey but I finally got to see the
tattoo in full! And Christ was I happy I shaved my legs.
The End
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