Playing Along (33 page)

“Let’s not,” he’d said, looking nervous.

“I’m so sorry, Lance. I thought I could do this. You’re so good to me, but I’m just not ready to settle.” Lance had attempted to put up a fight but eventually surrendered, packing up his Clinique shaving lotion, his brown Top-Siders and his book of love sonnets. He bade her a sad goodbye, not fully comprehending that ‘settle’ hadn’t just meant settle down; it had meant that Lexi had decided she wasn’t yet ready to ‘settle’ for anything less than spirals.

A month later she heard from Carl that Lance was dating Aurelie, the French engineer he had been designing the bridge with. She hadn’t seen red, or even blue. He deserved to be happy and she deserved to stop hearing from her mother how she had sabotaged her own fairy tale ending.

Russell and Mildred are now exchanging eco friendly wedding bands made from recycled silver. It’s a miracle that either of them has found time in their hectic schedules to fit in the wedding at all. Business has been booming for Let The Green Times Roll in the last few months. Having a high profile band like Thesis as their first clients, as well as all of Mildred’s contacts behind them, has rocketed LTGTR off to a remarkable start. Lexi made certain when they arrived home to shift all of her attention to working with new clients and hiring new employees, handing over the Thesis account solely to Russell.

Had she imagined that George was going to show up at her hotel in London and sweep her off her feet? Had she fantasized that he would reveal that Fanny’s pregnancy was a false alarm and that he couldn’t live without her? Yes—she had imagined all of that. When it hadn’t happened (because she wasn’t Bridget Jones and never would be) she had tried to move on.

Occasionally she’ll hear Russell on the phone to Gabe. One time he hung up and said, “Gabriel sends his regards,” but for the most part she has remained successfully disconnected. What she can’t ignore is that Fanny’s baby must certainly be due any day. The news only got worse after she left London. Meg soon reported back to her that according to
The Star
, the baby might not even be George’s—it might be Duncan’s instead. Yuck! So she wasn’t far off about the threesomes and the orgies. The whole band were probably having sex with Fanny at once.

Meg leans over to her now and passes her a crumpled Kleenex. “Don’t get carried away, remember that marriage is totally overrated,” she says, scowling at Tim. In the grandest of best friend style, she has adapted her views accordingly, and has long since stopped hassling Lexi to conform.

“I remember,” says Lexi, accepting the crumpled tissue and holding it very tightly in her hand.

GEORGE
10
^th
August, 2010
Hospital of St John and St Elizabeth, London

George is waiting in the hallway outside the delivery room. Fanny and Duncan had wanted him to join them in the room but he had declined. Apparently Sebastian’s spirit is also in the birthing pool, holding her left hand, while Duncan holds her right.

“That guy’s bloody useless,” Duncan had quipped when he had appeared in a towel to update George. “He would be a lot more helpful if he wasn’t fucking dead. I’m getting all the abuse, while she just smiles at him like an idiot.”

George still can’t believe this is happening.

His phone had rung at 2:30 that morning.

“Georgie my boy—bring it on! She’s fucking mooing like a cow! We’re on our way to the hospital. Get over there now, mate!” He could in fact hear some horrific farmyard noises in the background. If Fanny sounded in labour anything like she did when she was snoring, then they were all in for a long, loud night.

George had rolled out of bed and slipped on jeans and a shirt. They had been touring the States for the last seven weeks—and this was their first time home in a while to play some festivals, before heading back out on tour in September.

The weeks following the Brits were like a dank fog. His life, which had momentarily been bathed by Lexi in a shimmering rainbow light, had disintegrated rapidly into a series of relentless dark storms. George had walked away from The Metropolitan that night convinced, not for the first time, that he should really give up on his dream of being loved by anyone intimately. He had spent the next few days locked in his flat writing some of the most depressing songs he had ever penned. Gabe finally persuaded him to come out with the boys. Two weeks later Simon handed him a ticket to Vegas where he was forced to return to the scene of the crime, as well as being forced to bear witness to Simon and Stacey’s ludicrous nuptials at The Real Elvis Wedding Chapel. Simon had Stacey’s name tattooed on the inside of his arm and George’s lyrics became even darker.

Starting the North American tour had helped.

The weirdest turn of events though had been Duncan’s transformation. Since finding out about Fanny’s pregnancy, he had become uncharacteristically sentimental. While George was gutted at the prospect of being the father of Fanny’s baby, Duncan was jubilant. He pursued her hotly, indulging her belief in Sebastian’s existence, as well as indulging her rampant sexual appetite, which by all accounts had gone into pregnancy overdrive. She soon loosened her grip on George, but the fact remained that he might still be the father of the baby. The three of them had eventually agreed amicably that there would be a paternity test after the baby was born. Fanny had apologized to George for trying to mislead him. “I don’t like being ignored, Georgie.” George knew he was the only one to blame and until today, had remained emotionally incarcerated.

The hospital smells like plastic. He nibbles on his cuticle. His mother, who has very recently learned how to text, sent him a message ten minutes ago, “Well?”

Last week she had phoned to say, “George, your father and I are not finding this situation very pleasant. This morning in the co-op Sharon Hillway was gossiping about us behind the shortbread display. We are trying to be supportive, but please let me know if I am going to be a grandmother, before I have to hear it in the post office from some old biddy who has been reading about you in the newspapers.” George is strangely touched by his mother’s concern. He wonders if she’s been knitting booties. He texts her back now, “No news yet.”

The noise from inside is beginning to reach a fever pitch. It sounds as if Fanny and Duncan are both chanting ancient Buddhist prayers, and every so often she screams, “Whooopeeeeeeeee!” George stands up in pressing need of some fresh air. He takes the lift down to reception. He hasn’t stepped in a lift since February without thinking about Lexi. In fact he thinks about her all the time with a weighty regret. These days the image that revisits him the most is the very first time he saw her—running. He still wants to know what made her cry that day and he wonders if she’s ever cried over him? He’s asked Gabe not to talk to him about her. He’s made a choice to let her go. Let her get on with the life she is meant to lead. Without him complicating matters. Without him spoiling it for her.

As he approaches the entrance to the hospital, he sees a swarm of photographers like a cloud of bees waiting to sting. George should have guessed. Fanny’s ‘people’ probably called the press the second she went into labour. At least George and Duncan had dissuaded her from the live Internet feed from the coast of Devon. It occurs to George that this is a sign of things to come. If the baby really is his, then this will be too.

Every time he takes his kid out for an ice cream, they’ll probably be hounded by these piranhas.
His kid out for an ice cream. His kid
. George turns away from the entrance and heads back towards the lifts.
This isn’t what was meant to happen
he thinks to himself.
I’m not ready to be a dad, especially not with Fanny as the mother
. A disarming panic begins festering inside him. He thinks of the grandchildren he was planning to have with Lexi—the sweet little tearaways with tousled hair and their granny’s sparkling green/grey eyes. Their faces fade into nothing, replaced in his mind by a zany toddler with Fanny’s pouty lips and a creepy man’s face.

The lift doors open. George really does feel cornered now. He couldn’t leave even if he wanted to. As he approaches the birthing wing, he hears something different. It’s no longer the Fanny and Duncan show, instead he can hear a baby’s extremely ear-piercing cry. He nods to the nurses at the desk who point him down the hallway. Duncan, still wearing only a towel, is standing outside the door of the room cradling a small writhing bundle. George feels choked up, but he doesn’t know if it’s emotion or bile or both.

“How is he?” says George, moving towards them tentatively.

“Bloody brilliant, mate,” Duncan tenderly kisses the forehead of the little squirming human. “But the best bit is, I think I’ve talked Fanny into retiring Sebastian. That tosser’s royally past it, and his prediction was completely wrong. We’ve got ourselves a baby girl!”

George smiles and looks down at the crying baby. Her face is wrinkled and red, and her mouth is wide open.

“How’s Fanny?” asks George.

“Incredible,” says Duncan, who is most definitely in love. George recognizes the symptoms now. “She’s having words with the dead dude, while they stitch her up. He’s getting off easy, I reckon,” says Duncan, as the baby’s cries reach an even higher pitch.

“She’s certainly got some lungs on her,” George says, trying to grab hold of her tiny hand.

“She bloody does, doesn’t she? She already takes after her mother,” says Duncan proudly.

“Sounds that way,” says George, desperately hoping that the one parent she doesn’t take after is him.

LEXI
August 22
^nd
, 2010
Pacific Palisades, Los Angeles

Thirty-three. Lexi can’t decide if she is pleased to put thirty-two behind her or not. As a teenager she would take the opportunity of a birthday to reflect back on the year before and check off all the cool stuff that had happened—honor roll, yearbook editor, debate captain, beach volleyball finals, valedictorian. Thirty-two has been more like a trip to Disneyland at the height of summer. It began with high anticipation but before long she was waiting and waiting in hot, sweaty lines. There were rides. Some of them, like Space Mountain, were stomach-churning and whiplash-inducing and others were magical journeys, like flying over London with Peter Pan. She has definitely encountered her fair share of characters and eaten more cotton candy than she cares to remember. She has listened to certain songs as many times as hearing ‘It’s a Small World’ and she has wished occasionally that she could remain in one single moment until the end of time. But ultimately the year is over, and the day has ended, and the only thing left to do now is go to sleep in the car, remember the best bits, erase the worst and look forward to the next time. It’s only that Lexi suspects that nothing will ever match up to that Peter Pan ride again.

Tonight she has requested a quiet dinner with her parents to celebrate her birthday. Work has been wonderfully challenging but also exhausting these last few months, between setting up the new office space, inducting two team members, keeping Russell on task and liaising with clients, she finds she is always busy and takes her laptop to bed with her. Not such a bad thing considering her laptop is endearingly loyal and gives her plenty of warning when battery power is low.

She pulls up outside her parents’ house and turns off the ignition of her car. The house is dark except for a light in the kitchen window beckoning her inside. It scares Lexi to think of her parents dying—to imagine being the only one left without a sibling to share the sorrow. It occurs to her that one day this big house will be hers to move into. Will she live there by herself? Maybe she’ll become an eccentric old lady with ratty grey dreadlocks and bowls full of goldfish.

Goldfish.

Liverpool and San Diego.

George.

When is he going to stop interrupting her thoughts?

Lexi gets out of the car and walks the path to the door. The night is balmy and the air smells like ocean and honeysuckle. She opens the front door to a sudden explosion of sound—“SURPRISE!!!!!”

***

Lexi is still stunned half an hour into the party. At least this surprise is far better than the last one. Lance in his black briefs is by no means a treasured memory. There must be more than forty people crowded into her parents’ living room, drinking red wine and eating baked brie. Andrew comes over and hugs her tightly. They have been talking recently about him moving in with Carl and Lexi has been contemplating not getting a new roommate, but living alone instead.

“I’m going to miss you, roomie,” he says, squeezing her again.

“You’re not leaving the country,” she says, attempting to deflect the surge of emotion she feels when she thinks about how much Andrew and she have been through.

“No, but I’ve become accustomed to our squabbles and your foibles.”

“Mmmm, squabbles and foibles… sounds like a cartoon strip.”

“Or a yummy new recipe ‘Honey—I’m making squabbles and foibles tonight!’ ”

“Or the names of your future children, ‘Squabbles! Foibles! Time for dinner!” They both crack up. Andrew, being Lexi’s first true love, will forever hold a sacred place in her heart, unlike her second true love, whom she is trying to hide in a dusty attic.

Lexi’s mother comes over with a tray of potstickers.

“Are you two ever going to get back together?” she asks innocently.

“NO!” they both say in unison.

“Ha! You thought I was serious, didn’t you?”

Lexi transfers her hug to her mother, almost capsizing the tray. “I love you, Mom.”

“I love you too, honey, and I’m extremely proud of you.”

“You are?” says Lexi, heartened by her mother’s capacity to expand her view of Lexi’s happiness.

“Of course I am. You’re wonderful!” There it is. That confidence boost from her mom. No longer her sole navigation device, but she still drinks it up. “Look at all the great work you’ve done over the last few months. Even your father has started to use rechargeable batteries in his remote. Who would have thought?”

Meg rushes over, “Am I missing a group hug? Russell and Mildred were just telling me about their adoption process. I never realized getting a new cat was so complicated.”