The Other Side of the Story by Marian Keyes Read Free Book Online Page A

love her. Despite her bald patch she'd be in the pages of Hello !. She'd get on Parkinson . Even on David Letterman or Oprah . She'd be loaded and finally able to afford a Burt Reynolds-style hairweave and everyone would love her even more. She'd do charity work and get an award. She'd have a limo. And a huge big house. And a stalker. Every bloody thing!
    I picked up the paper and read the review again, looking for something — anything — negative. There had to be something . But no matter how I read it, I really couldn't see that this review was anything but a rave.
    I threw the paper from me with a sharp rustle. Why is life such a bastard? Why do some people get every fucking thing? Lily Wright has a gorgeous man — mine, a lovely little girl - half mine, and now a glorious career. It wasn't fair.
    My mobile rang and I grabbed it. Cody. 'Have you seen it?' he asked.
    'I have. You?'
    'Yes.' Pause. 'Fair play to her.'
    Cody walks a very narrow line between Lily and me. He refused to take sides when the great falling out occurred and he won't bitch with me about her, even though under normal circumstances he could bitch for Ireland. (If only it was an Olympic sport.) One time he even had the cheek to suggest that Lily stealing Anton from me might have caused her as much pain as it did me. I mean! In theory I can understand his position — Lily had done nothing to him — but sometimes, like today, it gives me a right pain in the arse.
    It was Saturday morning, five days since Dad had gone - five days - and he still hadn't returned. I'd been certain he would have by now. It was what had kept me going, thinking that the situation was very, very temporary; that he'd had a rush of blood to the head, coupled with the stress of the tiramisu situation, but that he'd come to his senses in no time.
    I'd been waiting, waiting, waiting. Waiting to hear his key in the lock, waiting for him to rush into the hall, yelping about what a dreadful mistake he'd made, waiting for this hell to be over.
    On Thursday I rang four times to ask him to come home and each time he said the same thing - that he was sorry but he wouldn't be returning. Then I thought that I'd rung him enough and perhaps a few days' silence from me and Mam might jolt him to his senses.
    A week. I'd give it a week. He'd be back by then. He'd have to be because the alternative was unthinkable.
    I didn't go to work on Thursday and Friday. I couldn't - I was too worried about Mam. But I worked from Mam's, spending Thursday making calls, sending faxes and emails, as I chased up Davinia's arrangements. I even managed to zip off a couple of emails to Seattle where I vented big time and agreed with Susan that yes, Dad's jacket could have been worse, it could have had fringes.
    On Friday morning Andrea came to Mam's with the files and we worked our way through the lists. Davinia Westport's wedding arrangements consisted of list after list after list; lists of the guests' arrival times; lists of the drivers who'd be collecting them; lists of where everyone was staying and lists of their specific requirements.
    (I love lists and sometimes at the start of a job, I'll put things on the list that I've already done, just so I can draw a nice 'done' line through them.)
    Then there were the timetables. Hour by hour breakdowns of when the marquee was being erected, when the acres of satin would arrive, when the floor would be laid and the lighting and heating should be set up. We were making good progress until Davinia rang on Friday afternoon to say that her friends Blue and Sienna had broken up and could no longer be seated at the same table as each other. All other work had to be shelved for the next two hours as we constructed a new seating plan — this one tiny sundering had set off shock waves which rippled through the entire wedding party, because they all seemed to have slept with each other. Every proposed move impacted negatively: Sienna couldn't sit at Table 4 because Blue's