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Jack’s over on the other side of the room, talking to a couple I don’t recognize —oneof the couples I don’t recognize — and when he sees me looking at him, he turns his back very deliberately, his entire body giving off strongdo not even think about itvibes.
I spend the rest of the evening sitting with Mum and Dad in a quiet corner, almost completely ignored by everyone else; which is really not how I’d imagined my engagement party going down.
On the other hand, maybe if I’d known I washavingan engagement party in the first place, I’d have been a bit better prepared for it.
There are no toasts to the newly engaged couple. No one tries to make an impromptu speech (Well, not other than Dad, anyway, but it’s the state of the fishing industry he wants to talk about, not my upcoming wedding…), and there are definitely no strippers. (Again, not unless you count Dad, who obviously believes a true Scotsman should wear nothing under his kilt.)
It’s a disaster, in other words. And without Jack to help me through it, I end the night feeling like even more of an outsider than I did to start with. There was a time, not so long ago, when he used to find my awkwardness endearing; even that time I invited the window cleaner to dinner because I thought he was a friend of Jack’s, we laughed about it eventually. And the window-cleaner turned out to be pretty good company, to be fair.
I have a feeling we’re not going to be laughing aboutthis, though. Even if I can convince him that what happened with Rose reallywasan accident, it’s painfully obvious that I’ve become an embarrassment.
It’s the first time I’ve ever felt like this with Jack, and I already know I want it to be the last.
“Sorry about tonight,” I tell Mum and Dad as I hug them goodbye. “I know it wasn’t what you were expecting. It wasn’t what I was expecting either, to be honest.”
“Och, it was fine,” says Dad, in exactly the same tone he uses when he tells Mum how much he enjoys her mint chicken. “Jack’s parents are… lovely. I wish ye hadnae asked if we could go to this wedding show thingummygig with them tomorrow, though, Ruby. I wanted to go fishing.”
“Wedding show? What wedding show?” I interject, vaguely remembering Rose mentioning something similar when she was having a go at me after the whisky incident.
“It was just for something to say, Archie,” Mum replies, ignoring me. “To fill in the awkward silence when oor Emerald disappeared for so long.”
“Did people notice I wasn’t there, then?” I ask hopefully.
DidJacknotice, more to the point?
“Och, aye,” says Mum. “It was the talk o’ the place. But dinnae worry: I said it was probably the diarrhea again.”
“Again?” I yelp, horrified. “Mum, what are you talking about?”
“Well, ye’ve always had a dodgy belly, haven’t ye?” she says defensively. “Remember that time the nursery had to call me to come and get ye. An ‘explosion’, they called it. It was—”
“Mum, I wasthree!” I wail. “Please tell me you didn’t tell everyone I was on the toilet all that time?”
“I had to tell themsomething,” she says. “Jack kept asking where ye were. He was in a right state, so he was.”
“I wouldnae saythat,” Dad interjects, but I’m no longer listening.
Jack wanted to know where I was. Hedidmiss me, after all.
Either that or he just wanted to tell me the wedding was off.
“Keep an eye on that Kathryn,” says Mum in a whisper as I help her into her coat. “She’s worth the watching, that one. No’ quite what she seems to be, unless I’m very much mistaken.”
“What do you mean?” I ask urgently, but Mum’s too busy counting out the exact change she’ll need for the taxi they’ve had to call after Dad sampled a little too much of Jack’s latest blend of whisky. She doesn’t answer, so I make a mental note to ask her about it tomorrow.
Could Kathryn be the person behind the messages?
But why would she do that to her own son? What would she have to gain from it? Other than getting rid of the daughter-in-law she so clearly doesn’t want, obviously. There is that.
Jack’s nowhere to be seen as I close the door behind them, and neither are the rest of the Buchanans, so, still feeling guilty about how Frankie’s been quite literally left to clean up my mess all night — and, okay, for most of my life, really — I head to the kitchen to help her with the last of the cleaning. By the time we’re done, and I’ve waved her off, I go up to bed, ready to grovel… only to find Jack already fast asleep, his back turned to my side of the bed.
My apology’s going to have to wait.
And as I crawl into bed beside him, I can’t help but feel that it’s probably not going to do much good, anyway.
* * *
Things to Do Before the Wedding: Absolutely final list, I swear to God:
