Unless... is there... should I...murder him?
No, probably not.
And then there’sFU, of course. I love all the charity work we do and helping around the community. I know I’m a total do-gooder and Joely always takes the piss, but it’s not like she’s around to mock me at the moment.
Except the FU is probably dead in the water right now too.
But maybe there’s more I can do. Because Franny’s right about that too. Campaigning and fighting and researching on behalf of the club was the first time in years, maybe ever, that I felt in control and powerful. I felt like an adult, being taken seriously. And I loved getting angry with that damned paper-pusher, Mr Canid – or however you pronounce his stupid name. That’s what I need to be doing more of. And maybe I can combine what Franny said about taking charge with my own people-pleasing instincts. I can get angry and make things happenforother people who need my help.
So where to start?
Mr Canid says we can’t afford to stay in the youth club, and there’s no money in the pot to stop it happening. So let’s start there.
Wedding Number Eleven:Lyndsey and James, Rise Home, Hull
Theme:Autumnal. Table arrangements full of flickering candles on beds of crunchy leaves that kept catching fire.
Menu:Smoked salmon starter, followed by chicken and a meringue dessert. Veggie option: stuffed red pepper with goat’s cheese.
Gift:Cash in a card @ £40.
Gossip:The bride was very clearly eight months pregnant, but no one was talking about it. She was literally pretending to drink her champagne and glancing nervously over at her furious-looking dad all day. Also, all the bridesmaids had acrylic toe nails, shudder.
My bank balance:-£1999.99 (Overdraft limit is £2k, must not exceed. Credit cards still don’t count.)
19
Well. I guess this is, at least, relaxing.
Sort of.
Kind of.
It’s not relaxing.
We’re on a ‘juice crawl’, which, yes, is as bad as it sounds. It’s part of our uni friend Millie’s hen do and she’s opted for what her head bridesmaid keeps referring to as a ‘wellness day’. There are no strippers, no willy straws, and no inflatables at all.
It’s a bit depressing, actually.
We’re going from juice bar to juice bar – like a really disappointing bar crawl – and we’re ending the day later on at a spa, where all fifteen of the hens are having a very much non-optional ‘detox cellulite-buster seawood float wrap bath.’ It takes two whole hours, and then it’s followed by a super healthy cucumber-based dinner.
I don’t like cucumbers. Or being touched by strangers. Or seawood, probably, whatever that is. Is it, like, wood they found in the sea? I don’t get it.
The whole thing is ripped straight out of Goop – fuck you, Gwyneth Paltrow – and I knew when I saw the itinerary that I’d be bloody starving by this point in the day. I have some strawberry Pop-Tarts in my bag and I had planned on fisting handfuls into my mouth during breaks in the tedium, but after three extra healthy, extra mandatory juices in quick succession – all featuring six different types of spinach and kale – I’m not sure my stomach can take anything else. It’s making some really disturbing noises, like a clogged swimming pool being drained. Actually, similar noises can be heard echoing around the room and everyone is beginning to turn the same colour as the smoothies. There better be a decent toilet in the next place we go to, that’s all I’m saying.
OK, so yes. The big elephant in the room: Lauren and Joely are both here. Oh, wait, not that they’re elephants! Don’t tell Lauren I called her an elephant. Joely would be fine about it, but Lauren would kill me.
We’re still not speaking and it is, as you can imagine, pretty awkward. We arrived at the same time earlier, all three of us twenty minutes late, and I could see they’d been thinking the same as me: get there late so you can slip into the crowd unnoticed. Lauren stopped short when she saw me and some unreadable expression flared up on her face. For a second – half a second – I thought maybe she’d smile and we could hug it out. Hug out the awkward. But she turned away instead and began stomping away in the direction of the crowd. It was just as Joely came in, so instead of making a dignified exit, Lauren almost barrelled into the only other person in the room that she desperately didn’t want to see. They glared at each other, clearly still just as furious as they’d been during their last encounter at Ravi’s wedding. And then all three of us splintered off in different directions to hide from each other and away from the bad feelings. It was a depressing start to a depressing day, capping off a truly depressing few weeks.
We haven’t exchanged so much as a glance since then, and everyone else here has been too caught up in their own stuff (by ‘stuff’, I mean bowel movements, tbh) to notice that we three former best friends don’t appear to be talking. It’s awful and I have been mostly quietly playing Candy Crush on my phone and making small talk with this girl next to me called Flora, who keeps asking me if she should make her boyfriend spray-tan his balls.
‘Like, the rest of him is really tanned,’ she says now. ‘And it’s quite weird that his balls are so white. The only trouble is that they’re quite shrivelled, so we’d have to really stretch them out flat to get an even colour. Oh, and then we’d have to hold them in place while they dried off, and I’m not sure that would be very comfortable, or good for our relationship. What do you think?’
I look thoughtful. ‘What colour is his anus?’ I say, reaching for a question that is equally as over-sharey, to prove I’m fine with this topic and that I care about this man’s shade.
She nods enthusiastically. I’ve asked the right thing.
‘Yeah, see, that’s the other problem. He waxes and bleaches his anus, so that is actually super white and hairless.’ She looks worried. ‘Would that look weird, do you think? If he was that white at the back end but then really tanned at the front?’
