Page 3 of One Day and Forever
‘If I promise I’ll give you all my worldly goods, including my signed Lenny Kravitz poster and a kidney, will you let me out of this? Let me stay in bed for the next two weeks. Please don’t make me go to your wedding,’ Kara pleaded, but her words were muffled because her head was under one of the pillows on her sister’s double bed.
Luckily, her older sibling, Drea’s very nice fiancé, Seb, had flown ahead to Hawaii on New Year’s Day with his two brothers, to have a mini-stag celebration before they tied the knot, otherwise Kara would have been on the couch for the last two and a half nights. The last two and a half awful, terrible nights, since Kara had quit her job, left her home, and called off her half of what was supposed to be the sisters’ beach-front double wedding of their dreams in Honolulu. In their picture of that day, the two sisters would stand side-by-side, both glowing as they promised their futures to the men they’d chosen to spend their lives with. That vision had been shattered in the early hours of the first day of the year, when Kara had made the decision to renege on the forever stuff. Although, in the moment, she hadn’t quite thought through the reality that she would still have toattend her sister’s nuptials, rubbing salt in the wounds of her newly shattered heart. Today, she and Josh should be flying off to their own ‘happily ever after’. Instead, she was under a duvet and would give her Vera Wang white silk gown, her Jimmy Choo bridal shoes, and her diamanté hairband to anyone who would let her stay there.
Kara lifted her head up and squinted open one eye to check that her sister was paying attention. Over at the entrance to her custom walk-in-wardrobe, Drea was carefully slipping a beautiful cream satin dress into a garment protector as she shook her head. ‘No. Unlike someone else in this room, I won’t call my wedding off, and I can’t marry Seb without you there. Even if… you know… You’re not doing it too.’ She padded across the room in her white furry slippers and sat down on the edge of the bed, taking Kara’s hand. ‘I promise, you’ll thank me later. Babe, I love you. I’m gutted about everything that’s happened to you this week and you know I’m here for you…’
The pause made Kara eye her sister suspiciously. She had no doubt that Drea meant those words, but saying them out loud and making touchy-feely demonstrations of affection were definitely not in Drea’s playbook, unless they were a warm-up for some frank outpouring of harsh realities. Kara braced herself for the incoming storm.
‘But in the meantime,’ Drea whipped up the aforementioned storm, ‘I don’t want to be a total cow, but you need to get your big woman pants on and try not to do anything that’ll screw up my wedding even more. So I’m asking you, please, go along with this even though I know it must hurt. And when we come home, I’ll dedicate my whole life to making you feel better about what happened. Oh, and Josh is an arse who was never right for you anyway. The man who caused you to quit your job is also an arse. And it’s not fair that your whole life has gone so spectacularly titsup, but I’m proud of you. In case I haven’t mentioned that in the last hour.’
Kara didn’t have the strength to argue, and besides, Drea did make several valid points, the most pertinent of which was that right now Drea’s wedding took precedence over Kara’s non-wedding. Especially as Drea had been the one to organise every single detail and turn their dream marital aspirations into a reality. The combination of teenage Drea’s Saturday job on the reception of a travel agency and a fondness forBaywatchhad inspired their mutual, lifelong desire to have a joint beach wedding somewhere exotic. They’d got lucky with the timing, with Drea getting engaged to Seb two years ago, then Kara and Josh following suit not long after. Now Drea ran her own, very successful travel concierge service and she’d immediately kicked into gear, researching, planning, booking, and the result was to be a spectacular joint wedding at sunset on a breathtaking beach in Hawaii.
It had all been perfect. A dream that was coming true, right up until… Kara tried to block the thought. The fact was that three days ago, she was gainfully employed at the Clydeside TV studio, home ofThe Clydeside, Scotland’s longest-running, twice weekly soap, managing their costume department, doing a job she adored. Now she was not. And a few minutes past midnight on the first of January, while the rest of the world was celebrating the dawn of the New Year, she’d decided that she could no longer marry Josh Jackson. She’d called off their dream wedding. Called off their future. Moved out of the flat they’d shared, breaking her own heart in the process. The only things that had been keeping her together ever since were the conviction that she’d done the right thing and the contents of Drea’s very flash, state-of-the-art wine fridge.
‘Now get up and start packing. The taxi will be here to take us to the airport at four o’clock, and it’ll take that long to get ridof the bags under your eyes, so let’s get cracking.’ And there was the sister she knew and adored – all soppy stuff gone, and back to her pragmatic, but brutally honest self.
Kara groaned and rolled over, aware that resistance was futile. Pushing herself up on her elbows, she squinted both eyes open this time. Drea’s bedroom was like something out of an Instagram blogger’s dreams. The plush white carpet that your toes sank into when you walked – or at least, they would if you were allowed to step on it without spotlessly clean indoor slippers. The cream panelled walls. The arched entrance to the dressing area and the walk-in wardrobe. True, she’d done most of it herself using YouTube videos of IKEA hacks, but still, that took planning, dedication and action, as well as a focus on organisation and aesthetics that Kara just didn’t possess. Everything she’d grabbed from home before she left was currently residing in a black bin bag and a battered suitcase that she’d bought for a trip to Ibiza when she graduated from college eight years ago.
‘Oh shit, shit, shit. You have got to be joking me.’
Kara sat up properly, immediately latching on to the panic in Drea’s voice. ‘What’s up?’
Drea dragged her gaze from her phone, then marched over to the window and threw her snow-white chenille curtains wide open. Kara had no idea what was happening that would incite the horror on Drea’s face. A riot in the streets? A tornado? Aliens landing?
Drea peered up at the sky. ‘I just got an alert from the airline – apparently there’s reports of adverse weather headed our way. It’s saying to make our way to the airport at the normal time, but that there may be delays.’
Kara’s mind fleetingly drifted back to a long-buried memory. Six years ago. A storm. A delay at the airport. It hadn’t turned out to be a terrible thing back then. Maybe it wouldn’t be so badnow. It would at least give her a bit longer to come to terms with the crap show of her life before she was stuck in a metal tube with hundreds of other people.
Drea wasn’t handling the news in the same accepting fashion. ‘Buggering bugger. Why can’t the world just let me fly to the other side of the globe to marry the man I’m madly in love with?’
Fully awake now, Kara picked up her phone from the bedside table. It had been on silent for two days now and the screen was just a long list of missed calls and texts that had come in over the last forty-eight hours – most of them from Josh, a few from her mother, a couple from her best mate, Ollie. Probably time to think about rejoining the outside world.
She flicked on to her emails for the first time since she’d left the studio on the 31stof December, expecting there to be nothing much more than notifications of January sales from every company she’d bought something from over the last decade. ‘Oh bugger. Buggering bugger,’ she repeated Drea’s words, but for an entirely different reason.
‘What?’ Drea asked. She’d now resumed packing and was organising her skincare routine into a white beauty box with built-in light that cost more than Kara spent on moisturiser in a year.
‘An email came in yesterday from work and I didn’t see it until now. I mean, former work.’ She checked the name of the sender at the bottom of the communication.
John Stoker
Head of Legal Services
‘It’s from the legal department at the studio.’
She began reading it aloud.
‘Dear Miss McIntyre,
‘We have been informed that you resigned your position at the Clydeside Studio, effective 31.12.24. As per company policy, we would request that you attend an exit interview so that we may clarify the circumstances surrounding your decision to resign. We would be grateful if you would meet with myself and Abigail Dunlop, Director of Human Resources, on 3 January at 10.30 a.m. at The Clydeside Studio. Please respond to this email in order to confirm attendance. During this meeting…’
Drea cut her off, defiant. ‘Tell them to shove it. You’re no longer employed by them, and even if you were, you’re on holiday. This time off has been booked for a year.’
‘Yes, but… Sod it – I want to hear what they have to say.’ In a flurry of flying fingers, Kara shot off a succinct reply.
I will be there.
Regards,
Kara McIntyre.
