Page 63 of The Layover
It’s the rose-tinted glasses I’ve been wearing shattering to pieces.
I’ve never heard my sister talk like this. I’ve never heard her be socruelabout people. She sounds like a bully. She sounds ugly.
‘You know what?’ I say, fingers clenching around Gemma’s phone. ‘She and Marcus might be a great match for each other after all.’
Chapter Thirty
Francesca
There’s a sudden flurry of foot traffic – some flights are actually leaving, boarding gates being called, and people are fitting in a quick wee before they go. I step closer to Gemma, wrapping my arms around her and bringing her out of the way. She’s shaking, her skin cold and clammy, and once again, years of being the mum friend on nights out has instinct kicking in.
‘We’ll be back in a few,’ I tell Leon, and bundle Gemma to the loos, taking her suitcase with us. The toilets are huge – wide open and aggressively lit. They’re noisy, too – exasperated parents talking loudly to their children and trying very hard to be patient, a couple of old women nattering with voices like foghorns, hand-dryers blaring like hurricanes and toilets flushing like Niagara Falls. It’s a struggle to process it all with the amount I’ve had to drink.
Gemma’s drink-stained outfit from earlier is in a pile on the end of the sinks, which are a long, flat, angled bank of porcelain; her clothes have been sat collecting water as people wash their hands.
For once, Gemma is deathly silent. She wraps her arms around herself, shoulders bowed forward, staring with tearful eyes at nothing at all. Her teeth are chattering.
I can’t even imagine … Seeing those messages, her so-called friends, herbest friend, talking about her like that … It’s so cruel.It’s downright nasty. What else must they have been saying behind her back?
Are these people really herfriends? I can’t imagine any of mine acting like this. We’ve been a tight-knit band since the first year of uni, the kind of friends who always show up for each other but call each other out when someone’s out of line, too. That’s exactly why I’ve been too nervous to tell them about what’s been going on with me and Marcus! But even then, they’d call me out to my face, not evict me from a WhatsApp to bitch about me. None of us would talk to each other, orabout each other, like Gemma’s friends did in that group chat.
And for all Gemma made it clear to us that she resents Kayleigh, I’d put money on her bottling it all up rather than badmouthing her to everybody.
Kayleigh obviously hasn’t shown her the same courtesy. And Gemma told us she’d only found out about the promotion this afternoon, so Kayleigh clearly arranged a celebratory drink with her other friends and made it sound like Gemma was in the know and just didn’t want to come! Maybe she even told them not to say anything to Gemma to ‘not upset her any more’.
It’s so – it’s so manipulative, somean, so …
Is this really the woman Marcus is choosing? She can’t be who he wants to spend his life with.
A headache begins to throb at the front of my skull right between my eyes; I grit my teeth against it and focus on the matter at hand. When I bend down to open Gemma’s suitcase, the room pitches sideways, but I manage not to fall over. I find a pair of tapered, soft cotton trousers, and pause over a white T-shirt folded neatly on the top of the bag.
Justtouching it, I feel like it must cost more than my dress for this wedding, and I splurged in Selfridges on that. It doesn’t feel very ‘basic’ to me.
I root past it and pull out the next item – a pale blue button-down shirt.
I hand the clothes to Gemma. The garment bag for her atrocious dress is hanging over a toilet door, so I prompt her in that direction.
‘Do you need help unzipping the dress?’ I ask, but Gemma shakes her head and walks off. I turn my attention to her clothes in the sink, wringing them out as best I can and then holding them under a hand-dryer. She can’t very well put sodden clothes back in her suitcase.
When Gemma emerges several minutes later, the garment bag draped over her arm, she looks like a stranger.
Well, I suppose, sheisstill a stranger – I’ve only known her for a few hours. But it feels like I’ve lived a hundred lifetimes in the span of those heartfelt and heart-wrenching conversations and with the drinking games and gossiping and lingerie shopping.
What I mean is, she doesn’t look like herself. Her hair is still wavy (it must be natural, I decide, no Airwrap necessary) and a little bit frizzy, and she’s still wearing her glasses, and she obviously has one of those capsule wardrobes where everything goes with everything else because she still looks effortlessly chic in that casual outfit. But there’s no gleam in her eyes, no casual confidence in her bearing, no sense of absolutely rightness and belonging radiating out of her.
Gemma splashes some cold water on her face, then runs her fingers through her hair and uses her shirt to clean the smudges off her glasses.
‘Thanks,’ she mumbles, as I pack her suitcase back up. She stands looking awkward and stiff. ‘Sorry, I …’
‘It’s alright.’
I get back up, bringing the suitcase with me. The room spins again, and I think it might be time to take a break from drinking,maybe have a bit of food to settle my stomach. I didn’t used to be a very big drinker, but I forced myself to keep up with Marcus and the gang from work on nights out. Normally I’d remember to have a couple of soft drinks between rounds of shots, though – even if I went to buy them alone, so the others wouldn’t realise I’d skipped the alcohol.
It seems so silly now.
And also like a genius move I’ve regretfully neglected tonight. I got a bit too trigger-happy, pouring out drinks for myself, enjoying myself too much to pay attention.
Just before I turn to leave, Gemma sucks in a sharp breath.
