“Yes, she’ll be here,” I grit out in response, although I don’t feel confident, not at all.
When I texted Mina the details, she’d replied instantly but with only three words.
I’d forced myself to wait an hour before I messaged again saying thank you and offering to organise and pay for a taxi to the venue but she hadn’t responded to that. That was last night at 10:47pm – yes, I’d checked the delivery confirmation a few times – and now it’s Saturday at 7:52pm and while I did say the party would officially start at eight o’clock, I was hoping she would show up a little earlier after I mentioned I’d be there early. A decision I am regretting because I’ve been here since quarter past seven getting my backside grilled by my mother the whole time. I could have scripted the conversation word for word in advance as well.
“Have you heard from Markus?” she demanded before I’d even taken my coat off.
“No, Mum,” I replied. “Happy birthday, by the way.”
“Oh, that’s a shame. I didn’t think he’d be the kind to not stay friends after breaking up. He always seemed so amicable, so agreeable. Are you sure you didn’t offend or insult him when he ended things?”
“For the hundredth time,Iended things with him and no, I was very careful not to offend or upset him. He actually agreed we should split up, and that we didn’t really want to be friends.”
“Why ever not?” she asked before ushering me down the corridor and into the cloakroom. “Do you think we have enough hangers?”
I’d looked around the room and saw nothing but empty clothing racks and clothes hangers hanging off them. I’d also noticed the door had a lock and thus identified it as a possible refuge should Mina not show up and I needed a place to hide away.
“Yes, definitely. And Markus and I don’t need to be friends because I have plenty of friends already,” my mother gave me a look that I decided to ignore and I carried on, “and it will just be awkward when one of us starts seeing someone else.”
“A handsome multilingual Teutonic man like him? And a veterinarian surgeon? It’s not like you’re ever going to do any better than that.”
“Thanks, Mum,” I said dryly while hanging up my coat that suddenly felt heavy in my hands.
“Maybe Cameron and Bruno know a nice gentleman who would like to go on a date with you,” she mused, mostly to herself, like my opinion on the matter was surplus to requirements.
“I actually have a date, for tonight,” I told her.
She’d narrowed her eyes on me then. “Now, Charles, you don’t seriously expect me to believe this woman is your real date. I know she’s just your beard or whatever the word is for a stunt girlfriend.”
“Stunt girlfriend? Beard? What the—”
“Charles,” she warned. My mother is very modern thinking in all manner of ways but not when it comes to a certain number of four-letter words leaving the lips of her sons.
“Sorry.” I’d sucked in a long and necessary breath then. “Listen, Mum, I know you don’t like to be reminded of it, but I am bisexual and I do like women.”
“But do you really? It’s been years since you dated a woman.”
“It’s great that you’ve been keeping track.”
“I really thought I was going to have two wonderful gay sons.”
“I’m still queer,” I insisted.
“Just not as queer as Cameron.”
“Oh for f—“
“Charles!”
“You know you don’t have to compare me to him all the time, Mum. You can just let me be my own person and do things on my own timeline and have my own successes judged on their own merits.”
“Oh, yes, speaking of which, any sign of that promotion at work?”
And that’s the moment when I told my mother I needed to find the gents and I proceeded to hide in there – checking my phone every thirty seconds to see if Mina had announced she was here – until about two minutes ago when I snuck out and made my way to the bar. But before I’d even placed my order, and despite there being several early arriving guests, my mother is already back at my side.
“She’ll be here,” I repeat and I watch my mother purse her lips as if she has to stop a barrage of words tumbling out.
