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

new girl, August, was there. She couldn't sit at Table 5 because her ex, Charlie, was there. Table 6, Blue's ex, Lia, whom he'd dumped for Sienna. Table 7… etc. And if we tried moving the obstacles - August to a new table, for example - she'd end up face-to-face with someone she'd shafted or slept with. It was like trying to solve a Rubik's cube.
    What made things worse was that I didn't have Andrea's full attention. She kept eyeing the bars of chocolate thrown casually along the window sill, in the bread bin, and on top of the fridge. 'It's like,' she exclaimed, 'being let loose in a sweet shop.'
    Because chocolate had been so freely available to me all my life, I could pretty much take it or leave it, but it had come in very handy since Tuesday: more alarming even than Mam losing the will to live, she'd lost the will to cook. And as I had no clue how to, it was just as easy when mealtimes rolled around to have biscuits and chocolate.
    I loaded Andrea up with a selection of stuff in the hope that she might concentrate on the job in hand.
    'Focus,' I entreated. 'Do it for Davinia if you won't do it for me.'
    You see, Davinia Westport was a bit of a rarity. Even though she was posh, rich and good-looking, she was nice. (Apart from, like I said, insisting on getting married in a tent in the coldest month of the year.) More often than not the client is the worst thing about my job - worse than hotel ballrooms burning down two days before the event or the guests at a fund-raiser being fed salmonella chicken and having to be ferried off, puking their guts up, during the raffle. But Davinia was different. She didn't ring me at home in the middle of the night shrieking that her polo neck was the wrong shade of black or that she'd got a cold sore, and that I'd better fix it.
    Andrea and I finished up at about eight o'clock on Friday night. No sooner was she gone, gratefully clutching an armful of confectionery, than Mam presented me with a list and dispatched me to the supermarket for the weekly shop. Shedidn't come with me because whenever I suggested she get dressed, she hugged her (increasingly grubby) peach dressing-gown tighter around her and whimpered, 'Don't make me.' But as I unpacked the groceries when I got back, Mam complained that I'd got all the wrong things. 'What did you get this butter for?' she asked, puzzled the way she'd been puzzled when I hadn't locked up the house the first night. 'This isn't the bread we get. And we don't get proper cornflakes, we get the own-brand stuff. Throwing money away…' she muttered.
    Before I went to bed, the locking up had to commence; checking the windows, shooting bolts and putting chains on all the doors as I secured the house to Mam's high standards. I was exhausted by the time I trudged up to bed — and I couldn't help feeling a little sorry for myself. It was Friday night, I should have been out on the razz instead of babysitting my mam. How I wished that Dad would come home.
    I was too upset to sleep so I took refuge in a fantasy. Conjuring up imaginary story-lines where runaway boyfriends return and enemies are vanquished is my party trick. I've gained quite a reputation, especially among Cody's gang and sometimes people I've just been introduced to ask me to do it for them.
    How it works is, they give me a thumbnail sketch of the disaster: for example, their boyfriend had been spotted in Brown Thomas getting a Burberry bag giftwrapped. Naturally the aggrieved party thought it was for her and did what any sensible woman would do — went directly out and bought matching sandals. But the next time they meet, the fella breaks it off… without cushioning the blow with the bag. Obviously he's met someone else!
    I take a bit more information, like length of relationship, cost of the bag etc., give it a little think and come back with something like, 'OK, picture the scene. It's three months from now and you bump into him and as luck would have it, you're looking great…' Pause