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‘And I guess if I’m also the wedding planner, I can choose my own dress, right?’
‘Of course! And, like I said, it will just be a small wedding. We won’t go overboard with guests or anything … Actually, I suppose some of them will overlap?besides Mum and Dad, I mean.’
‘Did you hear that Josh has invited Siobhan?’ I ask with a smile.
‘Oh, I just love Siobhan.’ Siobhan is the Irish friend Josh and I met during our trip to Hawaii. And later that year, she came sailing with me and Josh, and Cat and Jean-Luc off the coast of Croatia.
‘Oh, we should invite Duncan and Gerry!’ says Cat?more mutual friends. When Josh and I met on our sailing trip in the Greek Islands, Duncan was skippering the boat with Gerry by his side. And by the time he skippered our sailing trip in Croatia, they’d got married. They’re living in Queensland now and have a son.
‘Hmm. We’ll definitely ask them, but Jave is only one. Not sure they’ll want to travel all that way with a baby. And you know that Lindsey and Nick are coming to Italy, right?’ I ask. ‘Josh told you?’
‘Of course! And they’re welcome to come to the wedding.’ Cat has only met them a few times over the years but she knows Lins and I are close?and how much I adore ‘Big Brother’ Nick. He can be a pain in the arse sometimes?okay, it’s a lot of the time?but I still love him to bits.
‘And we’ll be asking Jane. And Mich, of course?though her mum’s really unwell now and I don’t know that she wants to leave the country anytime soon.’ She frowns and I know we’re both thinking the worst. Poor Mich.
‘And the dates line up?’ I ask, changing the subject to something cheerier.
‘Yes!’ She’s definitely as relieved about the change of subject as me. ‘It’s half-term the last week of October but I’ve already talked to my Head about taking some family leave a couple of days either side.’
‘She said yes? Really?’
‘She did. She has a soft spot for me,’ Cat says with a shrug. ‘It’s because I always say yes whenever she needs someone to fill in last minute?you know, someone has a sick child and needs to collect them, that sort of thing.’
‘And it is your wedding.’
‘Well, yes, but I asked her ages ago?for your birthday trip. What?’ she asks in response to my shaking head.
‘It’s just … I can’t believe how many people were conspiring behind my back.’ I’m not upset by this, just baffled by the level of subterfuge. Seriously, how did they pull it off? I’m usually more astute about this kind of thing.
Cat smiles. ‘Well, you’re very hard to buy for and it’s your fortieth.’ There’s that reminder again. It doesn’t sting any less this time, either. What the hell is that about?
It’s not that my life is lacking in any way. I mean, it was a few years ago, before I went to Greece and met Josh. He’d been experiencing something similar back then. ‘I want my life to be bigger,’ he’d said, summing up that feeling so succinctly, so elegantly, that the words had thrummed inside me. Then something had clicked.
And after that trip I’d sought?and built?my bigger life.
So it’s not that?none of the usual impetuses for a mid-life meltdown. But something feels ‘off’, as though this milestone birthday is happening to someone else and I am standing outside of myself, watching it approach.
Of course, I know in my heart that forty isn’t old. But it will definitely cement my status as ‘middle-aged’. I half-expect someone to pull me aside and give me a new to-do list, like take out life insurance and get breast scans and start reading those emails from my retirement fund instead of filing them away, unread, and forgetting about them. Those are all things that middle-aged people are expected to do, right? You know, proper adulting?
And am I supposed to get my (mad) curls cut into a sensible style, swap my heels for flats, and take up golf? Although Sarah Jessica Parker didn’t do any of that in her forties?well, at least not the hair and the heels?I have no idea if she took up golf?so maybe that’s the ‘brand’ of middle age I can subscribe to. It will certainly make all the proper adulting more palatable if I can maintain my youthful fabulousness.
All this flies through my head as Cat continues. ‘The poor guy had to come up with something spectacular and we were all sworn to secrecy. Tuscany, Sez!’
It’s only now that I see how excited she is and her enthusiasm is enough to pull me from my introspective funk. I return her smile. ‘Oh, Cat, I just love that part of the world. It’s going to be amazing.’
‘I know!’ We grin at each other maniacally, like sisters do.
‘Anyone else you want to invite?’ I ask. ‘What about your friends from the Europe trip?
‘Well, Lou, of course, but I’m not sure about Dani?we’re more like Facebook friends now. And definitely Jae and Alistair. They should be back in Edinburgh around then, so Italy won’t be such a big ask, and the guys have become really good friends.’
‘They still splitting their time between the US, the UK, and Bali?’
‘Uh-huh. I would hate that,’ she adds after a moment’s pause.
‘Me too.’ This is the understatement of the century. As much as I love travelling?taking trips?I was very close to a lifetime of constant travel a few years ago. Not wanting that lifestyle was one of two reasons I realised the older man I was seeing?James?wasn’t the one for me. The other reason? I was in love with Josh.
‘What about Jean-Luc’s family?’ Cat scrunches her nose, then gets up to close the door. ‘So, the in-laws didn’t take it well?’ I ask.
