Page 47 of The Wedding Forecast
There’s a beat of silence.
‘Do you read a lot?’ I ask. I need to gauge how seriously to take his feedback.
‘I do,’ he says.
‘Really?’ I turn onto my side, and the bed squeaks. ‘Fiction?’
‘Yes. I am insulted that you sound surprised,’ he says.
‘Luke never mentioned it, that’s all.’
‘Does Luke give you a list of everyone he knows who reads?’
‘No. But he works with a woman who reads a lot, and his mum reads a bit, and the fact I know that does kind of make me think he does tell me about every reader in his life. Plus, you know, Hayley’s mother runs a bookshop. We’re very invested in books. As a group.’
‘Well, I read. Luke maybe doesn’t know because he and I aren’t really in each other’s daily lives anymore.’
‘Oh.’
‘I mean, we’re friends, for life, obviously. He just doesn’t see me day to day.’
‘Who sees you day to day?’
‘Oh. Well. I don’t know. I’ve made a pretty good group of friends in New York over the last year. And a guy I worked with in LA, we still talk a lot.’
‘What about girlfriends?’
‘What about them?’
‘Who has been your most serious relationship?’
Luke has mentioned that Mac doesn’t do relationships. Or that he doesn’t do well at relationships. Or doesn’t have time for relationships. I can’t remember which way it was now.
‘Her name was Fern. We went out for about eighteen months.’
‘Fern. I like that name. Why did you break up?’
‘She moved away. We tried long distance and it didn’t work.’
‘And you didn’t want to move to her city?’
‘No, I didn’t.’
‘And she left yours.’
‘She was English, an actress, and she moved back to London. We’d been living in LA, and she hated it.’
‘I’m sorry.’ I am picturing her, Fern, a beautiful English actress, with an impossibly posh accent, a hatred of hot weather, stylish but sensible shoes, expensive wool jackets.
‘It’s okay. It wasn’t the best relationship anyway.’
‘Would you get back together, if she changed her mind?’
‘She’s married now. And no.’
‘Oh. Is that why you were saying that it was hard to be here, at the wedding?’
‘No.’
