Page 2 of Big Sexy Love
‘Ha ha! Good one!’ the girl says, handing me a paper flyer printed with the words ‘SecretComedy!!!’
‘Secret Comedy, three exclamation points?’ I ask, intrigued. ‘Why is the comedy a secret? Who is it asecretfrom?’
‘It’s just a marketing trick,’ the girl explains. ‘Secret stuff is all the rage nowadays, right? Secret bars and secret speakeasies, secret gardens, secret cinema, secret pot brownie in your bottom desk drawer at work for when your boss is talking about Excel macros and you wonder how long it will be until your head pops off with boredom, you know?Haha.’
‘Oh!’
‘Anyway, it’s a free improv comedy show we’re putting on. And there’s usually an open mic session afterwards, if you’re upforit?’
I feel a little frisson of interest somewhere deep in my stomach. But it’s Thursday night and that’s alwaysThe Big Bang Theorynight with Alex and Donna who are obsessed withThe Big Bang Theory. We have dinner and then we watch it together as a family. They’re expecting me to be there. And even if I wanted to go to this secret show, I really need a shower because, let’s face it, eau de seafood is not a good bouquet on anyone. Plus, I can hardly go to a comedy club on my own. That would just be strange. What if more strangers tried to talk to me? Or the comedy folk peer-pressured me to getting on the open mic? And somehow I decided that that was the time to spew out all of my worried thoughts about poor Birdie into the ether. And someone in the audience shouted ‘What do you think this is? The damn therapist’s office?’ And everybody laughedatme, instead ofwithme. And I became the joke of Manchester and probably the entire secret comedy world atlarge?
‘Ah, it’s all a bit last minute for me, to be honest,’ I say eventually, backing away from smiley woman. ‘But thanks for theinvite!’
The girl shrugs and wanders off to some other Manchester commuter, chirpily convincing them to come to her gig, expecting them to abandon their prior plans on a weeknight, like that’s such a simple thing to do. I watch, and for a moment wonder, enviously, what it would be like to be her. Brave enough to stand in front of people and be funny. Confident enough to approach strangers and boldly ask them to come see it! Someone completelyunafraid.
With a wistful sigh, I turn on my favourite distracting 90s pop playlist, reach my tram stop and wait patiently for the tram to arrive and take me back toreallife.
OceanofPDF.com
ChapterTwo
Olive’s phoneReminders:
Book dental check-up (Filling needed? Skankytooth?)
Order that rose gold Kate Spade coffee mug forBirdie
Download ‘Still Minds’meditationapp
Listen to Day 1 of ‘Still Minds’meditationapp
If my homelife were a sitcom it would be calledThe Alex and Donna Show. Which is a shit title for a sitcom, I know, but you get my point. I would be the pale, oddball sister living in the basement, popping up occasionally to make some dry remark but mainly serving as the audience for Alex and Donna to act out infrontof.
If it wereFriends, I’d beGunther.
I’ve been living in this house since I was born. It used to belong to my parents. And then, two weeks after I started university in Manchester, we found out Mum had been having a sordid affair (is there any other kind?) with a French man who had been visiting the city on business. Out of nowhere she decided to leave dad, my brother Alex and me for a new life in Marseille with her rando French fancy. Her whole family carelessly left behind because of a stupid affair! She only stayed with Luc for a year, but she met someone else in France and still livesthere.
Dad was so broken about it all that he spent most of the next six months eating tinned pies in the living room with the curtains closed. And then, just as I was doing my first-year exams, he transferred the mortgage to Alex and upped and moved back to his home town of Scotland where he now goes from girlfriend to girlfriend to girlfriend, desperately unhappy and bitter about how thingsturnedout.
So then it was just meandAlex.
I don’t really speak to my parents anymore. Everything kind of fragmented after Mum bailed. Not that I’m still messed up about it. (Except that, of course, I totally am.) Once, when she was drunk, Birdie said that all of my current foibles can be traced back to the unexpected break-up of my family, that I was ‘emotionally traumatised’. It’s a bit of a Psychology 101 suggestion in my opinion, but… I did used to be a lot braver when I was younger. I was the girl who, at the park, ranupthe slide rather than slide down it.Badass.
I like it here at the house in Saddleworth, despite the shit that went down here. It’s home: a nice roomy semi-detached, on a quiet street, with a pretty gravelled garden, countryside not too far away. Inside it feels cosy and full of memories that were happy and safe, of times before our family’s sudden split. I know the place so well that I can find my way to the bathroom in the dark without even using my hands to feel alongthewall.
As I enter the floral papered hallway, I smell the delicious tomatoey scent of Donna’s lasagne wafting through the house. I yell a quick hello into to the kitchen and dive upstairs so I can shower off theday’swork.
Afterwards, in my room, I get changed into my comfy navy jersey dress and dry and comb my ginormous wilful russet curls up into a ponytail, securing them tightly with a retroscrunchy.
Down in the kitchen, I do my duty and offer to help Donna with the cooking. She shrugs, blowing her wispy blonde fringe out of her face as she stretches and rolls her home-made focaccia dough out onto the floured kitchenisland.
‘All the hard stuff is done,’ she answers with a worthy smile. ‘A truly authenticlasagnatakes a very particular set of culinary skills.’ She says ‘lasagna’ in a terrible, over-the-top Italian accent, and she’s not even messing about. ‘You could set the table, I suppose? If that’s not too much trouble for you,Olive?’
She’s an odd one, is Donna. I don’t think she likes me very much. I mean, everything that comes out of her mouth istechnicallynice and perfectly polite. But there’s this underlying antagonism which makes me constantly feel like I’ve done something to upset her. She always acts so formal with me and she says my name a lot, which creeps me out.I know she’d much rather have this house for her and Alex without me cramping their style and taking up the big room that, for the record, I’ve been sleeping insince Iwasborn.
‘No probs,’ I say, grabbing the cutlery out of the drawer and laying three places at the kitchen table. ‘How was your dayatwork?’
Donna sighs wearily, opening the oven door to check on her authentic lasagna. She’s an Information Strategy Manager at a supermarket head office in Chester and pretty high up in the pecking order, by all (her own) accounts. ‘Busy and exhausting as usual,’ she answers, closing the oven. ‘My brain is fried!’ She gives me an envious glance. ‘Gosh, it must be sorelaxingto not have to think too much at your job,Olive!’
