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Four Years Before I Do
‘Why don’t you invite Josh?’ Audrey found herself saying next time she, Paul, and Clara were planning one of their infamous Tooting dinner parties.
‘Really?’ Paul said in surprise. ‘I didn’t think you’d ever said two words to Josh.’
‘I haven’t, but he seems like a nice guy. It would be good to mix up the guest list.’
Paul shrugged and exchanged a look with Clara.
‘What’s that look?’
‘Nothing,’ Paul said. ‘Josh thinks you don’t like him, that’s all.’
‘Why would he think that?’ Audrey said, indignantly.
‘Because you didn’t remember his name when you ran into him in Oxford Street,’ said Paul.
‘Did he tell you that?’ Audrey felt her cheeks grow warm.
Paul looked down at the piece of paper where they’d scribbled a list of names to invite to Saturday’s Sausage Fandango dinner. It was a tradition Clara had initiated, bucking against the trend of elaborate three-course meals. At the Sausage Fandangos, guests were asked to bring their own chair, their own bowl, and at least two bottles of red wine. Clara cooked her now-infamous Sausage Fandango Stew, which consisted of sausages, tinned tomatoes, mixed beans and enough spice mix to make it taste of something. They would set up a trestle table along the kitchen and out into the corridor, then pack in twenty dinner guests. Anyone who ever came left wondering why everyone didn’t do dinner parties this way.
Paul shook his head but added Josh’s name to the list.
‘Fine, we’ll invite Josh, but we’ll have to invite his girlfriend too.’
‘Okay,’ Audrey said with a purposeful shrug of indifference.
‘Kelly,’ Paul continued. ‘She’s a Canadian underwear model. Ridiculously tall. I don’t know if she’ll be down with the Sausage Fandango vibe.’
‘Well, we don’t need to invite them, it was just an idea,’ said Audrey, but Paul had already added them to the list.
‘If we’re inviting Josh, I’ll get him to ask his sister too. She’s just moved to London. I think someone said she was hot.’
‘That’s settled, we’ll invite them all,’ said Clara, giving Audrey a knowing look, though Audrey wasn’t sure what it was Clara thought she knew.
When the dinner party came around the following Saturday, Audrey made more of an effort than usual. She styled her hair, put on red lipstick and even a dress. Every time the doorbell rang, she rushed to answer it. The fourth time she answered the door, she found Josh standing alone on the doorstep. His hair had been brushed neatly to one side, and he wore a soft cotton, maroon T-shirt with the bad jeans she’d noted before. He smiled down at her with a coy friendliness, perhaps remembering the terse tone of their last conversation in the street.
‘Hey, um – James, right?’ she teased, biting her lip as she looked up at him.
‘Hi, Amy,’ he said, deadpan, leaning in to kiss her cheek. The smell of his aftershave, all cedar and soap, then the light touch of his lips ignited her with an unexpected thrill.
‘Are you on your own?’ she asked casually, glancing out to the dark street.
‘Kelly’s meeting me here,’ he said, following her into the hall and handing her two bottles of red wine. The embossed labels made her suspect they were half decent, not the six-pound plonk everyone else brought.
They stood watching each other in the narrow hallway for a moment. How had she failed to notice how good-looking Josh was, with his thick brown hair and sparkling, intelligent eyes? Had he changed something about his hair or was it just that he smelled so good tonight? Something was definitely throwing her off because he certainly wasn’t the type of guy she was usually attracted to. Audrey tapped the wine bottle in her hand.
‘I guess your girlfriend isn’t the sort to urinate in the wine bottles then,’ she said, but the perplexed look on Josh’s face told her he didn’t remember the conversation they’d had last time he was here.
‘I hope not,’ he said, his forehead knitting into a confused frown.
‘Oh no, of course not, I only said that because... well, the Hallowe’en party, do you remember the guy I was... ?’ Why had she mentioned anyone peeing in wine bottles? ‘I didn’t think your girlfriend was actually likely to pee in a wine bottle.’ Audrey glanced at the pinewood floor, willing it to swallow her up. When she looked up, she noticed a woman had appeared on the doorstep holding a camping chair and two helium balloons with ‘Happy Birthday’ written on the front.
‘I can pee in a wine bottle,’ the stranger said cheerfully. ‘I had to at a festival once, I’ve got a surprisingly precise stream.’
The woman was pretty, with long red hair, a freckled face, and a warm, open smile, not at all what Audrey had imagined Josh’s girlfriend would look like.
‘This is Miranda, my sister,’ said Josh, an amused look on his face. ‘And I definitely didn’t need to know that about the precision of your stream,’ he added, grimacing.
