Page 127 of The Wedding Forecast

September

39

A BOOK LAUNCH is a bit like a wedding. All my friends and family are here. I’m in a dress I might never wear again, I’m sweating, and I have to stand in front of a crowd and talk about something I love.

I have no idea if any readers will come. My first book actually sold very well. Well being a relative term, of course. It sold well enough that people were excited for what was coming next. Are the people who enjoyed The Hike, a dark, messy, funny, fucked-up book about murder but really about breaking up, also going to enjoy The Scam, a dark, messy, funny, fucked-up book about deception but really about falling in love? Because it might sound like there is a similar thread in them but they’re actually about completely opposite things: this new one is about love, and the first one was anti-love.

I was making notes last night in preparation for talking at the launch, and I was trying to articulate why I wrote this book, now, after the last one, and where this sense of hope has come from. People say authors write the same book over and over, that they have the same preoccupations and ideas they’re trying to figure out, and I think that’s true but it’s also not true. I’m not the same Anna I was when I wrote my first book. She was in a relationship that was falling apart around her, even though she might not have realised it at the time. She was lost, not just in her relationship but also in her job. She was writing to find an escape. The Anna who wrote this second book, well she felt hopeful. She was building a new life.

The room is filling up, and I feel sweaty and nauseous. I thought I felt that way at my first launch because it was my first book, but it turns out this is just my standard book-launch feeling. I regret everything. I want to cancel. But it’s too late, because the night has started and people are arriving. Mum, Dad, Hayley, Luke and Jean are here. Bobbi is selling books, and she keeps shooing me away when I try and help her set things up.

My editor, Samantha, and my publicist, Claire, are both smiling at me from across the room. Patrick walks in with a big bunch of flowers. We’ve been dating for three months now.

He walks over to me, grinning.

‘Hey,’ he says, handing me the flowers. ‘Congratulations.’ The flowers are a bright, sunshiny mix of yellow lilies and gerberas. He kisses me quickly, and I squeeze his hand. I slept with him after our third date, and sex with him is a little like our first date. He tries very hard, he talks a bit too much, he asks lots of questions, and he makes me feel special.

‘These are so gorgeous, thank you,’ I say, clutching them to my chest. ‘And thank you for coming.’

‘Are you kidding me? It’s your big night. I wouldn’t miss it for the world.’

‘Thanks,’ I say.

I’m wearing the dress of Hayley’s I wore in New York last year, the long body-hugging dress. I got my hair professionally blow-waved. Patrick has brought his good camera after all.

‘There’s so many people here already,’ he says. The room is filling up. It looks like around seventy people so far. Maybe more. I can’t think about actual numbers or I’ll get more nervous. I see a bunch of regulars from the bookshop.

‘I need to circulate and say hi,’ I say.

He holds out his hand. ‘Give me back the flowers, I’ll hold them.’

‘No. I love them.’

‘They’ll be in your way. I should have given them to you at the end.’

‘They’re perfect, and I’m glad you gave them to me now,’ I say, but I do hand them back.

I give Hayley a please-look-after-Patrick-and-save-him-from-the-mums look and she nods.

I take a deep breath.

I need to be on, I need to be sparkling Anna, funny Anna, author Anna—vivacious but also calm and in control without a care in the world. The crowd feels too big now, and I move around, chatting to people and thanking them for coming. Claire gives me the we’re-starting-soon nod and I walk over to chat with Penny, the author who is launching my book. She writes very popular domestic women’s fiction that sells internationally, and having her both endorse and launch my book is a big deal.

‘How are you feeling?’ she asks.

‘A little nervous.’

‘Do you need a drink?’

‘No, that will make me babble.’

The proceedings begin. Penny and I are being introduced, and I’m looking around the room and smiling, relaxing a little bit now that we’re underway. I look at my parents, who are wearing matching T-shirts they had printed especially for tonight with my book cover on the front, and the words scam artist on the back, which is both utterly adorable and quite embarrassing. I see Patrick standing with Hayley and Luke, and he gives me a double thumbs up. I smile. I see Joel, oh god, why did I invite him? I put him on and off the invite list so many times until I just gave up and left him on. Bianca is beside him, holding Birdie. I look away before either of them can make eye contact with me.

Penny has finished her introductory spiel and now we’re doing a Q&A.

‘Let’s start at the beginning. What was the inspiration behind this novel?’ she asks.

‘Well. Look, if you saw the Word document this book grew out of, you would not be using the word “inspiration” I promise. It had a very chaotic start.’