‘My wedding is ruined and my marriage is going to fail. And it’s all your fault!’

LA romcom writer Mia Valentina has it all; money, success, a tanned and toned body, golden blonde hair and a string of sexy lovers. She’s almost forgotten her previous self: plain old Mia Harrison. Until a wedding invitation arrives requesting (demanding!) her presence as chief bridesmaid at her younger sister Belle’s upcoming nuptials.

Mia’s hasn’t been back in England long before she’s accidentally injured the groom, unintentionally ‘cursed’ the wedding and been caught in a compromising position with her sister’s soon to be brother-in-law!

With the wedding of the year going dangerously off the rails, Mia has no time to waste – especially with sexy fireman and best man Leo on hand to help… Will she use all of her expert romance knowledge to save the day or will she just walk away? No one ever said a bad girl had to turn good…

Praise for PORTIA MACINTOSH

‘How Not to be Starstruck was impossible to put down, hilarious, fun, flirty and packed with excitement.’ Victoria Loves Books

**

‘A brilliant story full of fun, gorgeous rockstars, big egos and great friendships.’ A Novel Thought

**

‘…if you are looking for a fictional tale of outrageous excess and the rock star life it is well worth a read.’ Books with Bunny

**

‘For a Sex and the City meets Gossip Girl meets "Life of the rich and famous" -vibe: get yourself a copy of both Portia’s novels. Very, very enjoyable read and can’t wait for more!’ M’s Bookshelf

**

‘I can not recommend this book highly enough, it is a must read for any one fancying a light heart and humour read, which can be devoured in one sitting.’ Compelling Reads

**

‘How Not to be Starstruck had me laughing the whole way through. It was fun-filled, sweet, crazy and always entertaining. Portia MacIntosh wrote a fab book.’ 4/5 stars from Sophie*

**

‘I loved this clever satire on the world of celebrity. It’s a witty, wry look at the showbiz lifestyle and I veered from being envious of Nicole’s life, to being glad it was nothing like mine!’ 5 stars from Mrs K J Barrett*

*Amazon reader reviews

Also by Portia MacIntosh

Between a Rockstar and a Hard Place

How Not to be Starstruck

Bad Bridesmaid

Portia MacIntosh

Copyright

HQ

An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd.

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

First published in Great Britain by HQ in 2014

Copyright © Portia MacIntosh 2014

Portia MacIntosh asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

E-book Edition © June 2014 ISBN: 9781472096463

Version date: 2018-07-23

When she was fifteen years old, Portia MacIntosh fell in with a bad crowd… rock stars. After disappearing on tour and living the rock ‘n’ roll lifestyle for a few years, Portia landed a job in the music industry – but only so that she didn’t have to join the real world just yet.

Now in her twenties, Portia is ready to spill the beans on the things she has witnessed over the years. Well, kind of. If her famous friends knew that she was borrowing their lives to inspire her fiction, they would stop inviting her on tour and banish her from the inner circle. Then she really would have to rejoin the real world, and she’s still not ready for that.

Portia only started writing novels to share her secrets, but has since realised that she actually quite likes writing – maybe even more than she likes living on a bus with a bunch of smelly boys.

Check out Portia’s blog at: www.portiamacintosh.tumblr.com

Follow her on Twitter: https://twitter.com/PortiaMacIntosh

…and Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/macintoshportia

Massive thanks to my lovely, lovely editors, Lucy and Victoria, and to the entire HQ Digital UK team for all their hard work.

A huge shout-out to my Pink Ink ladies – Katie, Rebecca and Sam – who are always so supportive. Ditto my beautiful Gosling Girls – Victoria, Megan, Kirsty and Laura.

Thank you to everyone who bought Between a Rockstar and a Hard Place and How Not to be Starstruck, and an extra big thank you to everyone who wrote a review. Bad Bridesmaid is my first book that isn’t about the music biz, so I hope you all enjoy it just as much.

Finally, thank you to my wonderful family – my amazing mum and dad, my hilarious siblings for their constant IT support and proofreading skills, my awesome gran and all the other family members I have annoyed by refusing to tell them the titles of my books – you’d thank me if you knew about the sex scenes.

Finally, thank you to my new source of inspiration. You know who you are.

For my incredible mum.

Contents

Cover

Blurb

Praise

Book List

Title Page

Copyright

Author Bio

Acknowledgement

Dedication

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Chapter 42

Chapter 43

Chapter 44

Chapter 45

Chapter 46

Chapter 47

Extract

Endpages

About the Publisher

Chapter 1

They say there is no such thing as bad sex. They lie.

After a couple of weeks of seriously steamy flirting with Zack Carson I just knew that there would be fireworks when we finally got around to getting it on – but it’s an uncomfortably hot Los Angeles night and, despite Zack’s best efforts, the fireworks just aren’t going off. Not even a sparkler. Not even a birthday cake candle. I’m too warm, I’m bored and my neck is starting to ache thanks to the overly ambitious position of Zack’s choosing.

Did it occur to me that it might not be such a good idea to sleep with my boss’s assistant? Of course it did, but one look into his sexy brown eyes combined with his jet-black crew cut and his chiselled, model-like good looks and I was never going to be able to resist – and that’s before I realised he has a motorbike. Bikers are hot – especially tall, dark and handsome ones who are covered in tattoos like Zack is. Still, I’ve got nothing going on down there. I’m not sure how long we’ve been at it but I’m ready for it to end – even if I don’t get a happy one.

I scoop together my long, honey blonde coloured curls and twist them into a bun on top of my head. This does little to cool me down but I know that as soon as I break out my GCSE drama skills (I just about scraped a C grade) I can pull a Meg Ryan and put an end to this.

‘That was awesome,’ Zack says afterwards, in his strong Californian accent – one that never fails to fascinate me, no matter how many years I’ve been here.

I moved here when I was twenty-five, and in the four years I’ve been living and working here I haven’t lost my Kentish accent, not even a little. Everyone teases me for it; you wouldn’t believe how many Mary Poppins jokes I have to endure on a daily basis. Despite being born and raised in Canterbury, my American friends can’t distinguish between my accent and Dick Van Dyke’s attempt at sounding Cockney, and so the soundtrack to my life here will forever be ‘Chim Chim Cher-ee’.

I watch as Zack makes himself more comfortable on the sofa. As I anxiously nibble my middle fingernail, I wonder how quickly I’m going to be able to get him to leave.

‘Could you fix me a drink?’ he asks, flashing me a big, toothy grin. ‘Whatever you’ve got.’

‘Sure,’ I reply reluctantly. ‘Back in a sec.’

As I walk towards the sink I hear Zack call after me.

‘This is a nice place you got here.’

‘Thanks,’ I reply. I’m not surprised he likes it; it was designed with someone like Zack in mind. The interior of my Beverly Hills apartment is everything you’d expect of a lad pad. It is ultra modern, with clean white walls and huge floor-to-ceiling windows to make the most of the stunning view, perfect for the king of the castle. With its white walls, glass surfaces and the pretty LED lighting that runs around the room, the open plan living area has the vibes of a fancy hotel lobby. I can change the colour theme depending on my mood, but unless I set the glow to pink (as I most often do) you could easily think this was still a bachelor pad.

The place came furnished (because the bachelor it belonged to met a girl, fell in love and decided he wanted to play house – sucks for him, great news for me) but the furnishings suit me just fine. The custom-made white leather sofa is a delight to sit on (it feels like Matthew McConaughey is hugging your bum), the kitchen has all the bells and whistles you could even begin to imagine (plus some I still haven’t figured out) and the bathroom could rival certain spas we have back home.

You can tell the place used to belong to a movie star because when I moved in there was a huge wall-mounted TV – which I have recently upgraded to an even bigger one – and I loved the way he had framed posters from his movies all over the walls, so much so I did the same. I realise how vain that sounds, but it’s not as bad in my case because my face isn’t on the posters. I don’t star in movies, I write them. Romantic comedies to be precise. I’m part of a small writing group called Pink Inc. and we’ve been responsible for all of the big hits in our genre over the past four years. I made a name for myself back in England when I was in my early twenties, writing for a girly TV drama called Love Online. The show was about a group of young women who decided to try and find love by meeting boys on the net. This was around the time social networks were becoming a must among young people and the show turned out to be a huge success. So at least I have that to thank the MySpace generation for – that and the world embracing flattering, high-angle selfies. After that I went on to bigger and better things, before eventually moving here and joining a team of screenwriters.

My success can be a little off-putting for men – not because I am successful, but because of what I am successful for: writing love stories. When people know that you’re responsible for these romantic movies they instantly think that you have unrealistic expectations about love. They expect you to be all lovey-dovey and mushy and on a quest to find a Prince Charming. For me this could not be further from the truth. I’m good at my job because I have a good understanding of the genre, not because I’m a soppy romantic.

I fill a glass with water and hand it to Zack.

‘Is this vodka?’ he asks with a puzzled look on his face.

‘Water,’ I reply bluntly.

‘When I said a drink I meant something alcoholic. I need it after that,’ he says with a wiggle of his eyebrows. I could do with a stiff drink too, but for me it would be to help me forget.

‘Oh, sorry. It’s just I’ve got to be up pretty early in the morning so…’ So take the hint, Zack.

‘Great. I’m tired too, and I love to spoon. Is that the bedroom over there?’

Whoa, stop right there, does he think he is staying over? This isn’t the Sleepover Club.

‘Erm,’ I start, unsure how to do this tactfully. This was only ever going to be a casual thing, and I thought Zack knew that. Sleeping together isn’t ever going to happen – literally sleeping together, that is.

‘You want me to go?’ Zack asks.

‘Well, yeah,’ I reply. ‘I’m just not great at sharing my bed. I’m a wiggler, I fling my arms around – it would be carnage.’

‘It’s three a.m.’ Zack replies with a laugh. ‘I’ll take my chances.’

‘Even so,’ I reply, pausing to think of the right way to say this, ‘I’d still rather you went home.’

‘If I sleep here I can give you a ride to work on my bike in the morning,’ he negotiates, but I don’t think you’re allowed to side-saddle on motorbikes and a helmet would trash my hair.

‘Even so,’ I repeat myself, but before I have the chance to say anything else Zack gets the message. He hops off the sofa and begins aggressively putting his clothes back on. I can tell that he is angry because even a simple task like putting his leg into his jeans isn’t going very well.

‘So this was just sex and now you want me out?’ he asks angrily, but I don’t give him an answer. ‘I thought guys were supposed to do this to girls – use them for sex and then send them packing – not the other way around. Who do you think you are, huh?’

Still, I don’t say anything. Well, what can I say? He’s hit the nail on the head.

I stand by the door as I watch Zack get dressed. With his clothes on and his boots in his hand, Zack approaches me and places a hand on my shoulder.

‘This is silly,’ he says as he massages me. ‘It’s the middle of the night, we’re going to the same place in the morning. You and I could be really good together.’

The fact he’s even considering us having some kind of future together after just one night causes me to pull a face – an involuntary reaction I have to the idea of relationships, and one that I can’t always mask.

‘Let me guess,’ Zack starts, ‘ “Even so”…’

Again, I say nothing. Nail on the head.

‘You’re a fucking bitch, you know that?’ Zack shouts as he storms out, slamming the door behind him.

‘Yep,’ I say quietly to myself before turning off the lights and climbing into my bed, alone, just the way I like it.

Chapter 2

Despite being late for work, I grabbed my usual skinny cinnamon latte from the coffee shop on the corner by my office before hurriedly making my way there.

‘Hold the lift,’ I call out, just in time to squash myself in with all the other people. And by lift, I mean elevator. There goes Dick Van Dyke again.

As we begin our ascent to the floor I work on, I finally get to take my first sip of coffee of the day. God, that feels good. I’d gasp with delight if there weren’t so many people around who might find this odd. It is only as I examine my takeaway cup that I realise there is a phone number written on the side. I cast my mind back to the coffee shop. I was in a rush, but I definitely remember being served by a woman. Before I have a chance to consider what kind of vibes I’m giving off (I suppose I do flirt – for sport – with almost everyone) I remember the young bloke who handed me my coffee, the one with the gorgeous smile. I’ll have to remember to make a note of his number before I throw my cup away.

My appearance seems to be a hit with the male population of LA, but it took a lot of work to get like this. Back in Kent I was Mia Harrison, a chubby brunette with very few men vying for her attention, and nothing much going on in life apart from work. When I moved to the States I decided it would be the perfect time to reinvent myself (what better place to fake it than LA?), so I slimmed down to a US size six (which is absolutely no fun to maintain), dyed my dull brown locks a sexy honey blonde colour, and every morning I meticulously curl my long hair with tongs, squash myself into something sexy and step into a high pair of heels.

Now my name is Mia Valentina. I’m twenty-nine years old. I believe in taking care of myself, believe in a balanced diet and a rigorous exercise routine. OK, so I’m not really a female Patrick Bateman, but before I get dressed each day I do have a particular routine to make sure I can keep up my new look and maintain my new body.

I’m not sure if adopting a fancy sounding pen name and looking the part is helping my career at all, but let’s just say I’m not short of men vying for my attention any more. Men didn’t look twice at Mia Harrison, but Mia Valentina... she’s a hit. I don’t know why I’m referring to myself in the third person because that’s me now. Mia Harrison is nothing but a distant memory. Even when I go home to visit (which, I have to admit, is not very often) no one from my past recognises me and my family all tell me how much I’ve changed – although not necessarily for the better. In fact, the new me isn’t a hit with my family at all. I’m not talking about the way I look, more the way I am. I’m a different girl on the inside too. The old me had panic attacks. I was pushed around at work, messed around by men and ever since the birth of my younger sister even my family have made me feel like the second favourite child – please keep in mind that there are only two of us. Life before my sister Annabelle was born feels like a weird dream that didn’t really happen, because ever since beautiful baby Belle bounced onto the scene the attention has been fully on her. Sure, I achieved everything first, but Belle did it all better. It’s a horrible thing to say, but I almost feel like I was the starter child, the practice run before Belle came along. I was five years old when Belle was born, so I’ve been’ second best for the majority of my life. That’s why I love living out here, alone. No one knows the old me, I can totally be myself without worrying about the consequences – and believe me there are consequences, because these days my true self can be a bit of a bitch.

‘Good morning, Mia,’ my assistant Dalia chimes brightly, despite it being past noon. That’s the great thing about having an assistant, they go out of their way to assist you, even by making you feel like you’re not incredibly late for work when you really are.

‘Hey Dalia, what’s happening?’

‘Well, the meeting started ten minutes ago, I tried to reach you on your cell.’

Oh, shit. I wish I could say that this was a one-off, but with great success comes a great ego. Even though I know that if I just got up a little earlier on a morning I could be on time for work, I still roll out of my bed when I feel like it and spend ages doing my hair when really I should be rushing to the office to make my meetings on time.

‘Good morning,’ I say cheerily as I burst my way through the doors to the meeting, grabbing an apple from the buffet table before taking a seat with the rest of the Pink Inc. team.

‘It’s not morning,’ Molly informs me.

‘OK,’ I say, twirling my chair from side to side as I munch my apple.

‘We were just talking about the script changes,’ Savannah says, kindly bringing me up to date.

Between the three of us, we have the formula for making movies down to a fine art – although unlike me, Molly and Savannah are way into all the romantic junk that I have no time for in real life.

‘Here,’ Molly says, tapping the page of the open script on the table in front of me. ‘We need to make some changes to this line.’

At the moment we’re working on a movie called Three’s A Crowd, which tells the tale of two twenty-something best friends. Both party girls, their friendship comes under strain when one of them goes off on holiday and returns engaged.

‘I wrote that line,’ I say, almost offended. ‘What’s wrong with it?’

‘I’m just struggling to believe that when Katie’s best friend tells her she is engaged, she asks her if it’s because she is pregnant. No one would do that.’

I have a little chuckle with myself because that’s exactly what I said to my sister when she told me she was engaged.

‘OK, so what were you thinking instead?’ I ask.

‘Perhaps it should be a sweet and sincere moment,’ Savannah suggests.

We could try that. After all, we write romantic comedies, it needs as much romance as it does jokes.

‘Sure, but what?’ Molly asks.

We all sit in silence for a moment – well, almost silence. The unattractive sound of me crunching my apple can be heard all around the room.

‘OK, let’s try this,’ I start with my mouth full. ‘So, Emma tells Katie that she is engaged and Katie is shocked – she drops her cosmopolitan and spills it all over Emma’s dress, just like we wrote originally. This time, instead of asking her if she’s pregnant, the pair rush off to the toilets together to try and get the stain out of Emma’s dress. For a moment no one says anything, they just both work together in silence, Emma holding the bottom of her dress taut as Katie carefully dabs at the stain with a wet paper towel. Now, the stain isn’t as bad as it looks, and together they get it out. Then Emma leans on Katie while she dries it under the hand dryer.’

‘I don’t think any girl watching the movie is going to care so much about fashion that she’ll want to watch them just removing a stain in silence,’ Molly interrupts me.

‘Let me finish then,’ I say sharply. Another thing that changed when I became the new Mia was my tolerance for girls and their bitchiness. I don’t really have any female friends here in the States, unless you count Dalia, but she’s paid to be friendly to me and she doesn’t try that hard. I have a sneaking suspicion she secretly hates me. Yesterday when I sent her out for condoms she looked at me like she wished I was dead. After an anti-climatic night with Zack (who I’m going to have to try hard to avoid today) I’m starting to wish she hadn’t bothered. Well, that I hadn’t bothered with Zack, not that we hadn’t bothered with protection.

Other than Dalia, the only other girls I have to deal with for lengthy amounts of time on a daily basis are Molly and Savannah. Savannah is a lovely, bubbly girl. We don’t have much in common but we get along OK. When all else fails we can always have a girly chat together, about things like hair and shoes, because Savannah is a girly girl too. She has long, naturally curly brown hair and bright green eyes like me, which we bonded over the day we met because supposedly green eyes are quite rare. Whether it’s true or not, it gave us something to talk about and thanks to that we’ve always got on well since.

Sadly, I never hit it off with Molly. We just don’t seem to have anything in common apart from our girl parts. Molly is very tall and very thin. She’s quite gothic looking, with her sharp black inverted bob and her heavy black makeup, but while she isn’t particularly girly, she is still a romantic just like Savannah – and that is the one thing I don’t have in common with either of them. The thing is, being a romcom writer, there’s no way I can openly admit to my aversion to love. If people knew that I thought the stuff I wrote was slushy propaganda, cleverly designed to trick women into thinking they need a husband and a happy ever after – I’d be finished. The film industry may not benefit from you having a happy love life directly, but through the use of product placement they can helpfully suggest the kind of shoes you need to wear to do so, or the bag you need to carry, or the car you need to drive. Molly and Savannah believe that all you need is love, and making these movies is their way of showing you just how beautiful love is and how true love conquers all. Sadly, I don’t believe a word I say. I know that every word I write comes from a dark and cynical place inside me, and the more I write, the less I’m inclined to believe in Love as a thing. It’s not a thing, it’s a marketing tool. It’s how you convince people to splash out on weddings and buy chocolate and flowers on Valentine’s Day. Thankfully the people who watch the movies written by the Pink Inc. team don’t feel the same as me, which keeps me in my flashy lad pad and my designer shoes.

Right, back to work. So Katie has just helped Emma clean the cocktail stain off her dress.

‘So, they’ve cleaned the dress together in perfect silence, both just thinking about what has happened and how life as they know it is going to change. Katie is worried, not only because her best friend is about to have someone else equally as important in her life, but also because to an extent she’s going to be left behind. Emma is going to be playing house, Katie is still going to be a single girl – only now she’s doing it alone. She’s scared. Anyway, Emma sees this. She takes her hand and she says: “Katie, you mean more to me than anyone in the world. I have known you all my life and just because I am getting married, it doesn’t mean I won’t want you around any more – I need you around. Look at the way you just helped me clean my dress – granted you were the one who spilled a drink down it – but even though you were upset you helped me, no questions asked. I lean on you, and not just when I need to dry my dress under a hand dryer. Yes, I have fallen in love, but it will never compare to the love I have for you, my best friend. It may not work out between me and this guy, but you and I will be friends forever. No one can change that.’

‘Wow,’ Savannah gushes. ‘That’s so beautiful.’

‘Yeah,’ Molly agrees. ‘Really beautiful.’

For a moment my writing partners sit and think about what I have just said. What I want to do is roll my eyes, this friends forever crap makes me throw up in my mouth every time I even think about it. Instead I force a smile and jot down my idea before I forget it – well it’s clearly an effective one. Is it hypocritical of me to write these loving and romantic tales if I don’t believe them? Of course not, I write fiction. Fiction can be whatever you want it to be. If you haven’t worked it out by now, I’m just really good at faking it.

Chapter 3

‘Business or pleasure?’ an LAX employee asks me as I awkwardly rummage around in my handbag to make sure I have everything I need to fly. I’m not sure if it’s his job to ask me or if he’s just making small talk, either way I answer.

‘Neither,’ I reply, although this answer obviously isn’t a satisfactory one if I want to be allowed on an aeroplane. ‘My sister is getting married,’ I explain. ‘I’m going home for the wedding.’

The man laughs and gives me a knowing smile, a smile that says: ‘Family gatherings are hell. I feel your pain, sister.’

It’s not long until my flight now. While I wait, I suppose I should give you a little back-story (as we call it in the movie making business) so you can understand exactly why the business of my sister’s wedding will not be a pleasure. Belle and I have never really been that close. I think we were when we were kids, but as we grew up we grew apart. While I was a chubby, nerdy outcast at school, Belle was always a skinny, sporty member of the in crowd. Her friends were all exactly like her – you know how hard they try and make the different Bratz dolls look different, but at the end of the day they’re all exactly the same – massive heads, tiny bodies and huge eyes, but with different coloured hair? Well that’s what Belle and her mates were like. Despite being Belle’s sister – and me being older than her and her friends – they didn’t mind teasing me when they were all over at our house. I suppose it comes with the territory of being the uncool, podgy sister, but that doesn’t mean it hurt any less. They don’t pick on me any more, although I’m not sure if that comes with the territory of having loads of money and being able to get them tickets to movie premieres.

When Belle called me up to tell me she was getting married, yes, I really did ask her if she was doing it because she was pregnant – and, yes, if I had been holding a cocktail I would have spilled it everywhere. I have only met Dan, the guy she is marrying, twice. He seemed OK, but at twenty-four years of age I think Belle is way too young to be tying the knot. Dan is twenty-four as well, and you’ve got to wonder about what’s going on inside the head of a young lad who is so keen to put his fun single days behind him so soon in life.

The only thing that surprised me more than the fact that Belle was getting married was when she asked me if I would be her chief bridesmaid. My sister knows all too well what the new Mia is like and that includes the way I feel about weddings. I haven’t been a bridesmaid since I was a little kid (I suppose people stopped asking me when I got too chubby to look nice in photos) so I don’t really remember what it entails. Whatever it is, I know I am not the girl for the job. I asked her if I could think about it, and quicker than you could say “I do” my mum called me up and informed me that I would be calling Belle back and accepting her kind offer. The thing that bugged me was the reason why Belle asked me. I mean, we’re not close, so I can only imagine she is doing it for appearances; to have her successful sister by her side.

Even though it sounded like my idea of hell, I finally agreed to do it, safe in the knowledge I could pop home for a couple of days, do the wedding thing and then jump back on a plane and pretend it never happened. Well, it was a nice idea while it lasted but shortly after I agreed, plans for the big day started being made – well, I say big day, it’s actually more like ten big days. I haven’t been fully briefed on the details yet, all I know is that the happy couple have rented a huge house on the beach in Cornwall so that most of the wedding party can stay there and celebrate with them. What I also know is that my boss hates me right now because we’re really busy and I have had to book over a week off instead of four days. I’m not the employee of the month at the best of times, so I’m going to have to do some major butt-kissing when I get back.

While I am happy about not having to visit my hometown this time, I am not exactly jumping through hoops about the fact that I’ve got a twelve hour flight to London followed by a five hour train journey to the far side of Cornwall. I’m going to be knackered when I get there. Belle has planned my journey to the second, so at least I know when I arrive she and Dan will be waiting for me at the train station, ready to give me a lift to the party house so I can spend way too much time with the family I moved over five thousand miles to get away from. Oh joy.

***

‘Is this your first time flying?’

‘No,’ I reply. ‘Why would you ask that?’

The young man sitting next to me nods towards my hands. I hadn’t even realised I was doing it, but I’m slowly but surely tearing up a sick bag into tiny pieces.

‘Oh. My sister is getting married,’ I say by way of an explanation.

‘So you thought you’d, what, make extra confetti?’ he teases.

I playfully throw a handful of shredded paper at the total stranger. Thankfully he takes my gesture as intended – as a joke – and doesn’t have me manhandled off the plane by an air marshal.

‘I’m heading home for my little sister’s wedding. She’s twenty-four. I’m twenty-nine and I’m single.’ I stare at the stranger expectantly until he works out what is so wrong with that. It doesn’t take him very long.

‘Rather you than me, sweetie,’ the stranger says as he sweeps his long fringe from over of his eyes. ‘You should have paid someone to be your date, get everyone off your back.’

‘Oh, they would never believe I was a reformed character with a sudden respect for monogamy. It was only a couple of days ago I called my sis and told her she could come and stay with me if she wanted to call it all off. Anyway, it’s too late now – unless you’re not busy,’ I jokily suggest with a wink.

‘Honey, they’d be far more likely to believe you’re a romantic than they would me being a straight guy.’

I can’t help but laugh. It did occur to me that my new friend was rather camp, but this is LA after all and you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover.

‘Anyway,’ he continues, ‘I’m going to London to try and meet a prince! I want to marry into royalty.’

‘I’m not so up on current events back home,’ I explain, ‘but I’m fairly sure most of the royals are taken and/or straight.’

‘Well aren’t you a Debbie Downer,’ he teases. ‘I’m Ethan, by the way. I suppose we should do names.’

‘Yes, we seem to have skipped that bit. A mere formality considering we’re already plane pals. I’m Mia.’

‘Yey! Plane pals!’ Ethan squeaks. ‘We can share our lunch and go to the bathroom together.’

‘I’m all for distributing the calories but it might look like we’re trying to join a different kind of club if we go to the loos together,’ I laugh.

‘Speaking of the not so exclusive Mile High Club – which I have been a proud member of since 2009…’ we slap each other a high-five, ‘… that cute flight attendant is checking you out.’

‘No! He’s gay, right?’ says the girl who was just preaching about not judging a book by its cover.

‘He’s straight. I’m the authority on the matter and he is hot for you.’

I smile back at the tall, muscular flight attendant. His gorgeous smile and his dirty blonde hair would usually make for my type, but he’s almost too pretty. Too polished and perfect. Of course, I can’t tell Ethan that this gorgeous creature’s teeth are too white. That his face is too symmetrical. That his clothes are too neat. He looks like he’d want to snuggle afterwards and that’s the last thing people do in aeroplane bathrooms.

‘Not my type,’ I insist to Ethan.

‘Your type isn’t gorgeous and crazy for you?’

‘Nah,’ I reply with a laugh. ‘You might be into that weird stuff, but I’m not.’

‘You like a bad boy?’ Ethan asks.

‘I do. I like them manly and dangerous looking. Rough and ready, heartbreakingly handsome, could have any girl they wanted – that’s my type.’

‘So you like the chase,’ Ethan concludes. ‘You reel them in and then you throw them back.’

‘Well, you know, if we’re sticking with the fish metaphor, you kill them when you catch them. What would I want with a dead fish? I just chuck them back, leave them for someone else to suffocate.’

‘Mia, honey, you are a case study waiting to happen.’

‘Why thank you,’ I reply proudly.

As the in-flight movie starts playing, Ethan and I – or the plane pals as we’re now known – both reach for our headphones. It’s some weird animated movie and all the characters are things you would find in the bathroom. I watch Ethan recoil in horror as he watches a talking toilet brush chatting with a “sexy” loofah with long eyelashes and lipstick.

‘What the hell?’ he asks me, before standing up in his seat and addressing the entire plane. ‘Can we get something with Ryan Gosling on please?’ he yells to no one in particular. Most of the female passengers find this utterly charming (they’re clearly Gosling fans) and applaud Ethan’s bold move.

‘Sir, if you’d like to sit down,’ the sexy cabin crew guy insists firmly.

‘Yeah, sit down,’ I whisper to Ethan as I pull him back down by his arm. ‘It’s not worth getting wrestled off a plane for Ryan Gosling – unless Ryan is the one doing the wrestling.’

‘Aw, would you miss me, plane pal?’ he teases me.

‘I would actually, because for the first time in days you have managed to stop me stressing about having to go to this wedding.’

And now I’ve just reminded myself again…

***

As we touched down on English soil everyone applauded the pilot for doing what he does every day of his working life. He’s landed the plane, we’re all alive, it’s a miracle, applause, applause. In a new twist, Ethan started throwing the sick bag confetti in the air – something that landed us absolutely filthy looks from the crew as we left the plane. I did still get a wink from the cabin crew cutie though.

I know it’s just a weird coincidence, but the more I tried to keep my mind off the wedding, the more things would crop up to remind me exactly what would be waiting for me when I got off the plane. The funniest of all was when the second in-flight movie turned out to be one of mine – and a wedding flick, no less. As Ethan gushed over the male lead, I decided it best not to tell him I had a hand in writing it, because I imagine it would take the shine off it a little.

After going through the usual airport motions without a hitch – which is surprising, considering Ethan told a hot policeman he had twenty grams of cocaine hidden in his rectum – I followed my sister’s ridiculously detailed itinerary down to the letter and made it safely onto my Cornwall bound train.

With four hours down and just one to go, I know it won’t be long now until I arrive. My sister and her hubby-to-be will be waiting for me on the platform and then there really will be no turning back. I’ll be in captivity and my sister will be my keeper – my sister who has told me that all wedding-based celebrations will not be optional.

To take my mind off where I am heading, I grab one of the trashy celebrity magazines I picked up at the train station. Unless their fame makes it across the pond, I don’t know very much about what is going on in UK celeb culture, so reading about people from the likes of The Only Way Is Essex, Geordie Shore and Made In Chelsea do little to hold my attention. Reality TV inspired fashion is certainly a big hit here, though. I’ve only been home a few hours but I could play fashion bingo with the number of people I have seen replicating the styles these famous-for-being-famous people are sporting. I’ll just tick each one off in this magazine as I spot it in real life. Huge false eyelashes, tick. Man-tans, tick. His and hers onesies, tick.

Looking at the current fashion here fills me with dread. I wonder what kind of bridesmaid dress my sister has lined up for me. They had the dress fittings ages ago, so I had to send Belle my measurements and hope she put them to good use. Even before my Hollywood makeover, my sister and I never had much in common when it came to fashion. Growing up one of the cool kids, Belle embraced any silly trend going. These days my previously skinny sister is now a little on the chubby side and her dress sense has settled down to a comfortable style, think: function over fashion, comfort over style, etc. When I was the chubby one my mum would make me feel like shit for even looking at a chocolate bar, but now that my sister is the one who has piled on the pounds my mum has put it down to her being a contented woman. Oh, and I’m dangerously thin and I don’t eat enough. Even when the shoe is on the other foot, Annabelle is still perfect and I am still a huge let down.

It isn’t fair to blame my mum for everything. Sadly, my dad is of a similar opinion, and I’m fairly certain my Auntie June hates my guts – she thinks I’m a bad influence on my cousins, who in turn love me for being a bad influence. My gran doesn’t really “get” me, but my granddad absolutely worships me. I’m so glad he’s going to be there because he is always on my side, even when I know I’m in the wrong. That just leaves my Uncle Steve, and while he does like me, he likes me a little too much. We’re not blood relatives or anything (Auntie June and my mum are sisters) but his weird crush on me is still entirely creepy. Still, it’s nice to have another fan. When my mum is complaining about my outfits, my gran is trying to feed me and my auntie is trying to stop me talking to my cousins, I’m sure that inevitable slap on the arse from my uncle will be almost welcomed.

Hopefully I’ll be able to avoid having to spend too much time with anyone in particular because so many other people will be there too – people who are not related to me and therefore might actually like me. I haven’t met any of Dan’s relatives, but I know there’s going to be quite a few members of his family there. The rest of the guests are just friends of Belle and Dan, some that I don’t know and some that I wish I didn’t know.

After hours of travelling I can’t help but let out a big yawn. Put it down to a combination of jetlag and tiredness, but I rub my sleepy eyes with my hands, smudging my heavy black eye makeup everywhere.

‘Dammit,’ I can’t help but say to myself.

Grabbing my toilet bag, I head for the train toilets to smarten myself up. It won’t be long before I arrive so I’d better go and apply my war paint.

Chapter 4

Ah, the great British Summer. Despite it being August, the sky is a thick blanket of cloud that is doing nothing to keep me warm. In fact, I am positively freezing. The weather back in Beverly Hills was supposed to be lovely these next few weeks, so a vacation from work to just chill out and enjoy the nice weather would have been welcomed. Instead I am here, in jolly old England, feeling the wrath of the hit-and-miss summer.

As I stand alone on the platform – under strict instruction from my sister, who couldn’t stress enough that I should wait on the platform, lest I wander off and die – I give my outfit the once over. I check that my black and white bandage dress is straight and give it a quick brush-down with my hands. Safe in the knowledge that my hair and makeup look as best they can after a twelve hour flight, a five hour train, and countless hours waiting in between, I stand and wait for my sister.

Right on schedule, Belle and Dan appear out of nowhere and bound towards me like a couple of puppies would if I were holding a tennis ball made of meat.

‘Hello,’ I greet them with all the enthusiasm I can muster. It’s clearly not enough though, because my sister and Dan simultaneously grab me and hug me.

‘Wow, OK,’ I can’t help but blurt out. I’m not used to much affection these days – least of all group hugs.

‘Don’t let Gran see how thin you look,’ my sister warns me when she finally lets me go. ‘She’ll flip.’

I could ask my sister – who is absolutely serious, by the way – how she proposes I hide my thinness from my gran, but I’m worried she might actually have a few suggestions. Whether it involves eating several Cornish pasties on the drive to the house or stuffing a pillow up my dress, I’m not crazy about actively doing anything to hide the body I work hard for.

‘You’re looking good too,’ I tell her. ‘You too, Dan.’

‘Thanks,’ he says, still as excited as a child at Christmas. ‘We’re so glad you could come, we were worried you might not show.’

‘You really think I wouldn’t show up to my own sister’s wedding?’ I gasp.

‘Yes… I mean no… I mean, you’re so busy with work all the time and–’

‘Relax, Dan. I’m messing with you,’ I assure him, but if I could have thought of a reason that wouldn’t see me disowned by my entire family, believe me, I would have used it.

‘Right.’ Dan laughs nervously. ‘Shall we get in the car…’

Dan, being the gent that he is, goes to pick up my suitcase by the handle.

‘You might want to drag it,’ I warn him. ‘It’s–’

Dan screams out in pain as he picks up my deceivingly heavy suitcase.

‘–really heavy,’ I rather pointlessly finish my sentence.

I stare at poor Dan who is doubled up in pain, his face turning purple, his eyes looking like they are about to pop right out of his head and bounce onto the train tracks… but that’s nothing compared to the angry shade of red my sister is turning.

‘Prince, are you OK?’ she asks, fussing around Dan who seems to feel more pain every time she touches him.

‘It’s my back,’ he tells me. ‘I hurt it playing football when I was at school, ended my career before it started. If I overdo it, I put it out. Why is your suitcase so heavy?’

‘Just clothes and shoes and stuff. I tried to warn you,’ I reason.

‘Mia,’ my sister starts, and I just know that this is going to be all my fault, ‘if you have broken my fiancé just in time for my wedding I will never speak to you again.’

My eyes widen in response to the way my sister is overreacting.

‘First of all, he’s a man, not a toy,’ I rant. ‘Second of all, I didn’t break him. He tried to lift my case before I could warn him it was heavy, it’s not like I took a swing at him with a baseball bat.’

‘I can’t believe you’re already trying to ruin my wedding,’ my sister shouts.

‘What the fuck?’ I screech, but I don’t get to say anything else before usually mild mannered Dan interrupts us with an ever so slightly raised voice of his own.

‘Enough,’ he snaps. ‘Let’s just get in the car and head back to the house, it’s not that bad and the house isn’t far.’

‘Are you sure, prince?’ Belle asks in her most sickliest voice.

‘I’m sure, princess.’

Oh God, I’d forgotten about their pathetic pet names for one another. Excuse me while I throw up.

Belle puts her arm around Dan and they slowly head for the car park.

‘I’ll just carry my own case, shall I?’ I call after them.

‘You should have done that in the first place,’ Belle snaps back.

I drag my case to Dan’s car before lifting it up and putting it on the back seat. It’s not that heavy but I suppose if the poor bastard has a weak back there was no way it was going to end well. Belle and Dan are in the front, so I climb in the back with my case.

‘Seatbelts,’ Belle insists. ‘We don’t want any more accidents.’

As instructed, I strap myself in – like I hadn’t planned on doing it anyway. As soon as Belle has given us all the once-over she gives Dan the nod to set off.

I knew that I would end up having arguments with my little sister over the next week or so, but I hadn’t expected the first one to be within minutes of seeing her. There’s an awkward atmosphere in the car. I can just tell my sister is mentally planning the speech she’s going to give me if Dan’s back is anything less than one hundred percent on their wedding day. I decide to try and quash the awkwardness by making small talk – and if there’s one thing Belle loves talking about, it’s Belle.

‘So have all the guests arrived?’ I ask.

‘Would you believe you aren’t the last person to arrive,’ Belle says brightly, like that’s supposed to make me feel like Sister of the Year. ‘Dan’s friend Leo and his mum aren’t here yet because he’s got work. He’s a fireman.’

‘That’s hot,’ I joke.

‘Mia, no,’ my sister says firmly.

‘Oi, it was a joke,’ I insist. Well, it was. Fire, hot, get it? My sense of humour is wasted on this audience. ‘I’m a writer, I’m supposed to make crap jokes.’

‘Anyway,’ she continues, shrugging off my attempt at humour, ‘our lot are here – Mum, Dad, Gran, Granddad, Auntie June, Uncle Steve, Hannah, Meg and Josh.’

Hannah, Meg and Josh are my cousins. They like me because they think I’m cool – much to their mother’s disgust. I haven’t seen them in a while, but I know that Hannah will be fifteen now, Meg is thirteen and Josh is ten.

‘Are your family here, Dan?’ I ask to keep the conversation going.

Dan opens his mouth to talk but my sister gets in there first.

‘Of course they are,’ she snaps. ‘We’ve got Dan’s mum and dad, his grandparents, his brother, his auntie, cousins and so on. Then we have our friends: Beth, Nancy, Jason, Heather.’

Belle says these names like they’re supposed to mean something to me but I have no idea who her friends are. Apart from Nancy, who has been my sister’s BFF since she started school. I know her well because she spent a lot of time at our house, and because she relentlessly bullied me, despite being five years my junior. Belle wasn’t always horrible to me, but when she was, you could guarantee she was doing it because Nancy was there. I played the role of fat, boring, nerdy older sister well – not that that’s an excuse for bullying.

As wedding parties go, it isn’t massive, but Belle has been planning this wedding/mini holiday for everyone for a long time now. I wasn’t doing the maths, but that sounds like an awful lot of people to be staying in one beach house.

‘Where is everyone going to sleep?’ I ask, curiosity getting the better of me.

‘Oh, well, not everyone is staying at the house – only close family and important wedding people – and anyway, the house is massive,’ Belle insists.

‘Massive enough to sleep so many people?’ I ask.

‘See for yourself,’ Dan says as he pulls into the driveway.

As I take in the stunning contemporary beach house that will not only be my home throughout my stay, but also the venue for my sister’s wedding, my jaw literally drops. Not only is the house right on the beach, but it is massive. It looks like a hotel! This isn’t any old beach house – you just know that one day an architect with endless money had this brilliant vision and the massive, brilliant white, funky-shaped property in front of us was what came of it. I have to admit, I’m impressed.

I am no sooner out of the car before my parents rush out of the front door to greet me.

‘Hi Mum, hi Dad,’ I say with a half-hearted wave. I must have used up the last of my enthusiasm at the train station.

‘You’re so thin!’ my mum exclaims as soon as she gets a proper look at me. ‘Don’t let your gran see.’

Judith Harrison isn’t your typical overbearing mother, in fact she is quite the opposite with me. Both of my parents make a lovely fuss over Belle but when it comes to me, it’s like they can’t quite be bothered. Sure, my mum will comment on how inappropriate my dresses are or how a combination of peroxide and LA sunshine will see me bald by the time I am forty, but they’re not too bothered with how I live my life. It’s not that they’ve given up trying now that they know I am a lost cause, I don’t think they’ve ever had high hopes for me.

‘Mia,’ my dad says. That’s his way of acknowledging my existence. The Harrison women may be noisy and bossy but my dad, Ted – the only Harrison man in our house – is very much the opposite, although that probably has something to do with living in a house with three noisy women for so long.

A middle class couple in their late fifties, my parents are exactly as you would expect them to be: a little bit dull and a lot uptight – and I have no doubt that my sister is heading for a similar fate. In old photos of my parents in their twenties, my mum looks almost exactly like Belle does now – with the exception of the big hair, which I’m assured was the height of fashion back then. So unfortunately for my little sis, she will almost certainly grow up to look like our mum. My mum has her grey hair in, as I like to call it, a Nurse Ratched bob, and her personality is very much like that of the One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest character. I have always found my mum to be on the cold side. She always has to be in control, which makes her actions often seem mechanical, and she can be cruel sometimes – something I think she inherited from her mum. My dad is everything you’d expect of a fifty-nine year old henpecked husband. My mum would look young for her age if she were willing to colour her hair (she won’t because she is dead against it for some reason), but there is no hope for my dad. He is almost entirely bald apart from a few tufts of white hair around the sides and back of his head, and he is embracing his impending old age by wearing trousers that are pulled far too high up. Try and imagine a version of Victor Meldrew that isn’t quite so grumpy and that’s my dad: an indifferent Victor Meldrew.

‘This is a nice place,’ I say to no one in particular.

‘I know, right?’ my sister squeaks excitedly. ‘There’s a swimming pool, cable TV, wi-fi, there’s, like, a billion bedrooms, a games room… it’s going to be so much fun.’

‘Sounds expensive,’ I can’t help but say out loud.

‘Nothing is too good for my little girl,’ my dad says.

‘We’re just lucky you are the way you are, Mia,’ my mum explains. ‘We had saved up a wedding fund for two daughters, but with you, you know, not being the marrying kind, it made sense to use it all for your sister’s wedding, make it really special for her.’

Everyone smiles like that is the sweetest thing in the world, but I’m upset.

‘So you’re using the money you had saved for my wedding to pay for Annabelle’s?’ I ask.

‘Well, you’re not getting married, are you,’ my mum reasons.

‘Yeah, but that’s not the point,’ I insist.

‘Why can’t you just be happy for me?’ my sister asks me.

I massage my temples for a moment. Luckily I don’t have any plans to get married, and even if I did I have plenty of money to pay for it myself, but that really isn’t the issue here.

‘I could do with a nap, could you show me to my room, please?’ I ask.

‘Of course,’ Belle replies. ‘Just let me introduce you to everyone.’

‘I’d rather wait until I’ve had a nap and a bath, if that’s OK.’

‘Don’t be so selfish, Mia,’ my mum snaps.

‘Fine,’ I give in, knowing that it’s easier to just do it than try and fight it.

‘Brilliant.’ Belle claps her hands together. ‘Mum, can you help Dan inside, he’s hurt his back.’

‘How on earth did he do that?’ I hear my mum ask as my sister drags me into the house.

‘Mia did it,’ my sister calls back.

Chapter 5

I thought the outside of the beach house was beautiful, but it’s nothing compared to the interior. It’s cool, it’s modern and Belle is right, it seems like such a fun place to live. I may not get on with my family and the wedding stuff will probably suck, but at least I can watch movies on the big screen and chill out by the pool – that is when I’m not sunbathing on the beach.

Belle leads me into the huge sitting room where two couples are sitting opposite each other on white leather corner sofas which make a square shape in the middle of the room. The four of them are drinking tea and chatting but as I walk into the room they stop abruptly and stare at me. The couple on the left are probably a little older than my parents (or perhaps they just look it), but if possible they look even more uptight. The lady is wearing a navy twinset and skirt and the man is dressed in a matching suit complete with cravat, making them look like they should be on a yacht. The other couple are elderly and, again, I’m going to hazard a guess that being cold and uptight runs in their family too.

‘Everyone, this is my sister, Mia. She’s just got in from America,’ my sister announces to four unimpressed faces. ‘Mia, this is Harriet and Peter, they’re Dan’s parents, and over here we have Dan’s grandparents.’

‘Hello,’ I say brightly, offering my hand for Dan’s mum to shake first, as she is the closest to me.

‘Charmed,’ Harriet says coolly as she reluctantly shakes my hand.

I decide not to bother shaking hands with anyone else, they don’t seem that bothered. It’s awkward for a moment because we’re just standing in front of them and they refuse to continue their conversation while we’re standing there.

‘Anyway,’ a cheerful Belle starts, ‘I’m just going to show Mia to her room so we’ll see you for dinner later.’

I follow Belle from the living room to the kitchen where we find my gran, granddad and my Auntie June. My granddad rushes over to me with as much energy as his eighty-year-old legs will allow and gives me a big kiss and a cuddle.

‘Kid, you’re here,’ he says, and for the first time it feels like someone is actually pleased to see me.

‘Of course,’ I reply. ‘I’m not going to leave you to suffer this lot on your own,’ I joke, but my auntie doesn’t find this funny and tuts loudly.

‘Hello Gran,’ I say as I walk over to where she is sitting. She offers me her cheek, which I dutifully kiss, before prodding me in the ribs.

‘You’re not eating, Mia,’ she says angrily. ‘I’m not letting you get back on that plane until you are a healthy weight.’

I roll my eyes at this but I can’t help but smile too, because I know that this is just my gran’s way of loving me. If Belle looks like a younger version of my mum then my mum looks like a younger version of Margret, my gran. Belle may still be bright, bubbly and sickly sweet – but I don’t doubt for a second that she’ll’ end up like my mum, my auntie and my gran – or the three witches as my granddad, Jack, calls them. My granddad is hilarious, constantly making jokes, winding up my gran and playing little pranks on people. I like to think that I take after my granddad but I can’t deny I have inherited a little coldness from my gran’s side, especially when it comes to love. I have certainly inherited my granddad’s sense of humour though and for that I am very grateful.

‘Hi Auntie June,’ I say cheerily. I don’t waste my time attempting to hug or kiss her.

‘Mia,’ she says, reinforcing my point that the women in this family are ice-cold.

I rack my brain for a topic of conversation that will fill the silence but I am saved from having to do so by my ten-year-old cousin, Josh.

‘Mia, Mia,’ he giddily shrieks as he runs towards me and throws his arms around me. Josh is member number two of my three-person fan club so I feel almost invincible having both him and my granddad in the same room. Although I have to admit, I’m pleased the third member of my fan club, Uncle Steve, hasn’t appeared yet. Sometimes fans can be too admiring…

‘Hey, turd,’ I greet my favourite cousin. ‘What’s up?’

‘Watch your language,’ my Auntie June warns me. ‘He’s only ten.’

‘Mum, I know the word “turd”,’ Josh whines.

‘There, look, you’ve only been here a matter of minutes and you’ve corrupted my only son,’ my auntie complains.

‘Come on, June, he probably already knew that one,’ my granddad says in my defence.

Belle looks put out by the fact that I am causing arguments already.

‘Come on, Mia,’ she insists. ‘Let’s get you to your room.’

‘Please can I show Mia the games room?’ Josh begs. ‘Please.’

‘Go on then,’ Belle agrees. ‘I’ll wait here.’

Josh grabs me by the hand and drags me down a flight of stairs.

‘The pool is through that door,’ he explains before dragging me through a different door. ‘This is the games room.’

The games room is packed full of funky furniture and fun things to do. There’s a bar, a pool table, a huge television, pinball machines and a variety of chairs and beanbags to get comfortable on.

I notice my other cousins, Hannah and Meg, are both playing with their phones. They both say hello to me but seem far too engrossed in what they are doing to get into proper conversation.

‘This is Max,’ Josh says, introducing me to a young boy who is playing on the game console. ‘He’s Dan’s cousin. He’s ten, too.’

‘That’s awesome,’ I say enthusiastically. ‘Hey, Max.’

Max smiles nervously and gives me a wave.

‘Well, I’d better get back up to Belle before she turns into Bridezilla and bites my head off,’ I joke. Josh and Max laugh, and so do the two men who are playing pool behind us.

‘OK, see you later, Mia,’ Josh says as he grabs a controller off the table and gets back to his game with Max.

‘Hello,’ I say to the two men by the pool table. ‘I’m Mia, Belle’s sister.’

‘Hi Mia, I’m Jason,’ the younger man says. ‘I’m Heather’s husband.’

I shrug my shoulders. ‘Oh right, I haven’t met your wife yet.’

They must be Belle and Dan’s dull couple friends, another pair of early twenty-somethings who thought it would be a brilliant idea to marry young.

The other guy at the pool table looks closer to my age. He’s tall and skinny with spiked, dyed black hair and he’s wearing a tatty jumper with a pair of baggy jeans. He looks stylish and handsome in a scruffy Robert Pattinson kind of way.

‘I’m Mike,’ he says, jokily grabbing my hand and kissing it. ‘I’m Dan’s much better-looking older brother. Did you say you were Belle’s younger sister?’

‘Very smooth,’ I laugh. ‘But no, on paper I am five years older than my sister.’

‘But not married?’ Mike asks.

‘No,’ I reply with an unimpressed look on my face.

‘Hey, I don’t care, I’m thirty and I’m not married either. I’m just letting you know what to expect because I’m getting loads of stick for it. We’ll have to stick together.’

Mike flashes me a cheeky smile. He isn’t my usual type but I can certainly imagine us spending a lot of time together while we’re here, especially if we’re both in the same boat.

‘Well, I’d better get back to Belle,’ I tell them. ‘I’ll see you both at dinner.’

Max, Jason and Mike all seem friendly enough so at least I won’t have to rely on my three-person fan club the whole time – I can have actual conversations with people outside my family.

‘I’m back,’ I announce as I enter the kitchen. Everyone is exactly as I left them and once again, only my granddad seems pleased to see me.

‘Right, let’s get you to your room,’ Belle says. ‘I don’t have time for this.’

I grab my case and follow my sister up the staircase.

‘I just met Max, he’s a little cutie,’ I tell my sister. ‘And I met Jason. Oh and I met Mike, Dan’s brother.’

My sister stops dead in front of me, causing me to walk into her back and drop my suitcase. She turns around slowly.

‘Mia, don’t,’ she pleads.

‘Don’t what?’ I laugh.

‘Mia. Don’t. Don’t even think about it.’

‘Fucking hell, what do you think I am?’ I ask, not wanting or expecting an answer.

‘Mia,’ my sister says firmly, ‘don’t you dare.’

‘This looks intense,’ a familiar male voice says from behind me.

‘We’re fine, Uncle Steve, I’m just showing Mia to her bedroom.’

‘Here.’ My uncle stops to pick up my suitcase. ‘Allow me, that’s too heavy for a young lady to carry.’

As he smiles at me my skin crawls.

‘Cheers, Uncle Steve,’ Belle says brightly. ‘That’s Mia’s room over there. See you both at dinner – it will be ready at seven.’

Belle skips off back downstairs, safe in the knowledge she has warned me off Dan’s brother and that my Uncle Steve will take good care of me.

‘Shall we go to the bedroom?’ Steve says with a wiggle of his eyebrows.

I reluctantly nod my head and follow his lead.

My uncle opens the door and allows me to walk in first. I am in a bit of a rubbish mood but it instantly vanishes when I see where I’ll be sleeping. Everything in the room is lily-white, from the sheets on the king-size bed to the curtains that are blowing in the breeze coming in from the balcony. I walk across the room and step out onto the balcony where I take in the view. I have an ocean-facing room with a perfect view of the beach below and the sea which seems to go on for miles before meeting the skyline.

‘Wow,’ I say to myself.

‘It’s beautiful, isn’t it?’ says my uncle, who I hadn’t realised had followed me. I was hoping he would just put my case down and piss off. ‘Almost as beautiful as you – how is it possible you get more beautiful every time I see you?’

Before my makeover, my uncle – like my Auntie June – never really spoke to me. No one really bothered with me, I was far too plain and boring. People were briefly interested in me when I hit the big-time with my writing, but that didn’t last long. Since my image transformation I have had to endure my uncle’s lecherous comments every time we’ve seen each other. For me, the fact that he is my uncle and that I have known him my entire life is enough to stop me entertaining the idea of us having a sexual relationship, but if that’s not enough reason then throw into the mix the fact that he is fifty-two, married and with a beer belly you could safely rest a pint on. His once dark hair is thinning and flecked with grey and years of smoking have caused his face to wrinkle something rotten. Like I said though, he could look like Gerard Butler and taste like chocolate, it wouldn’t change the fact he is my uncle and it’s weird that he hits on me. I may look like a different person to him but to me he is boring old Uncle Steve, the insurance salesman.

‘Well, I’m going to get in bed,’ I say, yawning for effect, but I am actually knackered so it didn’t take much faking.

‘I thought you’d never ask,’ my uncle jokes, kicking his shoes off as he runs back inside before throwing himself onto my bed, messing up the pristine sheets and causing me to throw up in my mouth a little.

I hover around the doorway to the balcony, convinced my only option will be to throw myself off it if I can’t get rid of my pervy uncle. Before I get around to it, my bedroom door is forcibly pushed open to reveal a very angry-looking Auntie June.

‘What the hell is going on in here?’ she bellows at the sight of her husband sprawled out across my bed.

For a few seconds no one says or does anything. No one moves, no one speaks, no one so much as breathes. Even if this doesn’t look bad, it certainly looks weird.

‘Well,’ my auntie snaps. ‘Explain yourselves.’

‘A spider,’ my uncle blurts out. ‘There was a spider in Mia’s bed, and she’s scared of them so I said I’d get rid of it for her.’

‘Uncle of the Year,’ I can’t help but say sarcastically.

‘So there was a spider on Mia’s bed and you killed it?’ my auntie repeats back to him, and it sounds even less believable the second time.

‘Well, no. It got away.’ My uncle shakes his fist at the pesky fictional spider.

‘Right. Well I want to go for a walk before dinner, so come on,’ my auntie says firmly. ‘And Steve….’

‘Yes dear?’ my uncle says attentively, quickly jumping to his feet.

‘Don’t forget your shoes,’ Auntie June says with a nod towards floor.

My uncle nods sheepishly before grabbing his shoes and scuffling out of the room.

‘I’m watching you, Mia,’ my auntie warns me.

I give her my friendliest smile as she leaves the room and closes the door behind her. Do I think my uncle actually fancies me? Of course not, but he does seem to get some sort of weird kick out of flirting with me. I think it’s weird for him, because we weren’t close before my image transformation, so it’s like he sees me as this entirely different person now – one he can be mates with, instead of playing uncle to.

Finally alone, I pounce onto my bed in a way not too dissimilar to the way my uncle did, only my intentions are far purer. The plan is to have a quick nap, have a shower and then dress in something pretty for dinner, ready to make a good impression in front of the group.

Lying face down and horizontally across my bed, I struggle to find the energy to move. I need to though, if only to remove my dress and my face-full of makeup before I fall asleep on these white sheets. Just five more minutes and then I’ll sort myself out.

Chapter 6

After hours of sitting still, first on a plane and then on a train, my entire body feels tense. I arch my back and stretch my arms and legs out as far I can but with no relief. I’ll probably feel better when I get this dress off, and if I have a bath after my nap that will probably help to ease my stiff muscles too – that’s if I have time.

Still face down on my bed, I grab my phone. I check the time to make sure I can fit in everything I have planned before the family dinner at seven o’clock, but something isn’t right. I rub my weary eyes and look again – that can’t be right. My phone seems to think it is quarter past seven already.

I jump to my feet with the intention of finding another clock, but I am halted by the state of my bed. Foundation, bronzer, black eye makeup and red lipstick stains are smeared all over the top of my previously beautiful white quilt cover.

I glance around the room for a clock, convinced something has screwed up my iPhone clock when it tried to change itself to UK time, but I can’t find one. I step out onto the balcony and look for the sun, deluded in thinking I’ll be able to figure out the time from its position in the sky. I humour the idea for about five seconds before accepting that I’m no Girl Scout. It is then that I spot a man walking his dog along the beach.

‘Excuse me,’ I call out at the top of my lungs.

‘Yes?’ the puzzled-looking man calls back.

‘Do you have the time, please?’

The man, still confused, does as he is told and looks at his watch.

‘It’s twenty past seven,’ he shouts.

‘Is that in the p.m.?’ I ask.

The man laughs at me and replies, ‘Yes, that’s in the p.m.’

I shout a quick thank you before running back into my bedroom and plucking up the courage to look in the mirror. My beautiful curls are all messy and flat, my dress appears to have twisted three hundred and sixty degrees around my body, and my makeup is so crazy and smudged all over my face it looks like I’ve been getting off with an evil clown.

I spend thirty seconds that I don’t have trying to figure out what will make Belle the angriest: I could smarten myself up and be even later for dinner (that I was supposed to be down for twenty minutes ago) or I can hurry downstairs now, looking like this. There’s only one thing for it – I grab my face wipes from my bag and begin taking off some of my makeup – but not all of it, because I won’t have time to apply any more and there’s no way I’m going down without it.

As I hurry down the stairs I try and fluff up my hair a little before yanking my dress back into place, just seconds before I burst into the dining room. As I enter the room everyone stops eating and stares at me in total silence.

‘Hello,’ I say cheerily.

‘We thought you weren’t coming so we started without you,’ my mother informs me.

‘Sorry, I must have fallen asleep,’ I explain, although anyone with half a brain can probably figure that out just by looking at me.

‘We were going to just shove you on the kids’ table,’ my sister says, like it’s some kind of punishment. The truth is I would much rather sit with the kids than the adults. ‘Anyway,’ she continues, ‘someone injured my fiancée’s back and he’s in bed indefinitely, so you can sit here next to me.’

While my sister didn’t straight up announce to the room that it was me who broke her prince, judging by the unimpressed faces surrounding me I can hazard a guess that she has already filled them in.

I take a seat at the table and begin eating the spaghetti bolognese that is laid out for me. Normally I wouldn’t eat something like this, but now doesn’t seem like the right kind of time for a conversation about carbohydrates. I’ll eat enough to be polite and make sure I work it off tomorrow.

‘So you’re the movie maker,’ Dan’s mum says, and judging by the tone of her voice she is either seriously unimpressed with my line of work or she believes I intentionally tried to harm her son.

‘I am. I write romantic comedies,’ I admit, just in case anyone in the room doesn’t know or believe that I am capable of such a thing.

‘Anything we might have heard of?’ a woman who I have not yet been introduced to asks.

‘The Unhappy Couple, Battle of the Bridesmaids, Nate From Next Door…’ I start reeling off a list of the most well-known films I have worked on. ‘I have a film in the cinema at the moment called For Better, For Worse.’

‘Well, isn’t that impressive,’ Dan’s mum says, not even sounding the slightest bit sincere.

I glance over at my parents to see what they’re making of this conversation but they hardly look up from their meal. It’s not that I feel like I need their approval, it would just be nice to feel like they were proud of me.

‘You’ll have to write a movie based on my wedding,’ Belle says excitedly. ‘Just make sure you make my character much thinner and prettier than me.’

This is one of those things that my sister says – but doesn’t really mean – so that everyone in the room will shower her with compliments. As expected, everyone tells her how pretty she is and how slim she’s looking.

‘You used to be quite fat, didn’t you, Mia,’ Belle’s best friend (and my former bully) Nancy announces to the whole room. ‘If Belle wanted to feel more confident about her shape I’m sure you could offer invaluable advice… unless you do it the Hollywood way and stick your fingers down your throat.’

Everyone laughs at Nancy’s charming little joke about eating disorders, because we all know eating disorders are hilarious.

‘Well, my sister does look great,’ Belle starts, ‘and I just seem to be gaining weight all the time.’

My sister sounds glum and embarrassed that the over-dinner conversation is all about her weight.

‘Don’t be so hard on yourself,’ I say to try and make her feel better. ‘I work in a place where people wrongly think that skinny and success go hand in hand, so it’s easy to do what everyone else is doing. If I worked in a bakery like you, I’d probably gain weight.’

‘So you think I just eat cakes all day?’ my sister asks me angrily.

‘No, I didn’t mean that,’ I insist – because I didn’t. ‘All I meant was that if I had your job, and I was surrounded by sweet stuff all day, I would probably eat more than I do in my office where all they lay out is fruit.’

‘You think I eat too much and that’s why I’m fat,’ my sister concludes, pushing her plate away.

Once again, everyone’s eyes are on me. I can tell as they all watch me shovel a forkful of spaghetti into my mouth that they all agree with Belle.

‘Don’t be foolish, Belle,’ my grandma chimes. ‘You don’t want to be as thin as Mia, it’s not healthy to be like she is.’

‘You’re perfect just the way you are,’ my mum insists. It’s funny, because when I was chubby not once did she tell me I was perfect as I was. Even now that I am aiming for perfection, she still thinks there’s something wrong with me. ‘You’re so happy with your life that silly things like a few pounds here or there don’t have any bearing on your happiness.’

‘It must be hard for you, Mia, to see your little sister getting married while you’re still single,’ Nancy says in a faux sympathetic voice.

‘And writing all those romantic stories, but having no love in your life,’ my auntie says, continuing Nancy’s sentiment.

I shrug my shoulders.

‘No, because Mia isn’t romantic,’ my sister says, and I’m not sure if it is in my defence or if she’s joining in with the Mia-bashing. ‘She thinks love is silly.’

‘Surely she can’t think that,’ a girl about the same age as my sister chimes in. ‘She wrote Nate From Next Door – which I love – and you can’t write like that if you don’t believe it.’

Everyone looks at me for an explanation as to how I can have little interest in love but write about it so convincingly.

‘Does George Lucas believe that Ewoks are real?’ I ask the room. ‘Does Bram Stoker believe in vampires? Does even one person who works for Disney in any capacity believe that an old bloke can float his house to South America using nothing but a shit-load of balloons?’

I hear a few sniggers from the kids’ table at my use of the S word, but the grown-ups are all staring at me like I’m some kind of monster.

‘Well, that’s depressing,’ Nancy laughs.

‘My favourite love story is a lie,’ Belle’s friend says solemnly.

‘Oh, for God’s sake,’ I can’t help but snap. ‘It’s fiction and fiction is made up. That’s just the way it is.’

Everyone continues to eat in silence and I feel bad for ruining the atmosphere, but it wasn’t my fault. Belle is getting married and she’s happy, and that’s great. Why can’t people just be happy for her and stop obsessing over what her happiness means for me, her older sister who is still on the shelf. Don’t they think I am happy with my life? I am ecstatic when I am back in LA, it’s just being around this lot that makes me miserable.

Chapter 7

‘Good morning,’ I sing brightly as I enter the kitchen.

Like the rest of the house, the kitchen is all decked out in white. The chrome appliances are the closest thing this room has to offer in terms of colour, it’s so white and clean it’s giving off the creepy vibes of a hospital operating theatre. I watch as my sister chops up a plate of sausages before dousing it in ketchup and handing it to Josh – on second thoughts, it’s more like a morgue than an operating theatre.

In contrast to all the horizontal lines created by the drawers, frameless cabinets and work surfaces, the vertical blinds cast shadows all around the room. Long, thick, dark shadows, creating prison cell type bars everywhere. These bars may be an optical illusion caused by nothing other than an obstruction of light, but they feel real. I feel like I’m in a prison.

‘Morning, Mia,’ my sister says as she fries bacon. ‘We were just talking about how you can’t get married, even if you want to.’

Forget what I just said. It’s not like an operating theatre, it’s not like a morgue and it’s not like a prison – I’m right in the heart of the psych ward.

I glance around at the other people in the kitchen. Josh, my only ally in the room, left as soon as he got his breakfast, so that just leaves me with my sister, my gran, my mum and my auntie. Despite the warm weather outside it is positively frosty in here.

‘I’m sorry, what?’ I ask, because that made no sense to me at all.

‘I’ve been reading up on wedding superstitions, you know, just so I have all bases covered,’ my sister explains.

‘That makes perfect sense,’ I say sarcastically.

‘Mia,’ my gran interrupts, ‘superstition is such a large part of getting married.’

‘And being married, am I right, Auntie June?’ I say as I give her a nudge and wiggle my eyebrows. I thought she might be able to see the funny side of what happened yesterday by now, but the angry frown on her face confirms otherwise. ‘So, what does that have to do with me?’ I ask my sister.

‘Three times a bridesmaid, never a bride,’ my mum warns me – the same mum who bullied me into being my sister’s bridesmaid even though she knew I had already been a bridesmaid twice when I was younger.

I stare at her blankly.

‘Basically,’ my sister begins, ‘the whole idea of being a bridesmaid is so you can distract the evil spirits that try to ruin the wedding.’

‘Like vodka?’ I laugh, causing my gran to click her tongue at me. ‘Like a stunt double then?’ I ask, semi-seriously.

‘Yes,’ my sister says excitedly, clearly delighted that I get it. ‘So the bridesmaid deals with the evil spirits that will be trying to stop the wedding from going ahead, but in doing so the bridesmaid catches a lot of bad luck – like being single and alone forever.’

‘Mia is doing a good job of that so far,’ my mum snorts.

‘Oh, see before I just thought it was a silly tradition but now… I think you ladies are completely nuts.’

‘Mia,’ my sister squeaks, ‘don’t speak to Mum, Gran and auntie June like that.’

‘And you.’ I point at my sister. ‘You’re the queen of crazy if you believe that. If you really did believe it, there’s no way you would have asked me.’

My sister looks embarrassed.

‘Wow, really?’ I ask in disbelief. ‘You believe this rubbish and you’re still willing to let me take the risk?’

‘Well, you’re never going to get married, are you?’ my sister reasons.

I look over at my mum for some kind of support.

‘And we did spend your share of the wedding fund on your sister,’ my mum half jokes.

‘Unbelievable,’ I say as I shake my head. Thank God I really don’t have plans to get married because my family are trying to make sure I’m fucked from the word go.

Belle wanders over to me sheepishly, spatula in hand.

‘You’re not mad are you, sis?’ she asks.

‘Of course I’m not,’ I say, giving her a playful shove so she knows I mean it. ‘You’re right, I don’t ever want to get married, I’m just messing with you.’

‘Phew.’ My sister breathes a sigh of relief and gets back to her bacon.

Am I stupid for being upset over everyone constantly reaffirming that I’m never going to get married? I know why I don’t want to get married, but they don’t understand the way I feel. I can only imagine they think that no one would even want to marry me in the first place.

I know this is only my first proper day here – but already I can’t wait for this stupid wedding to be over, so I can get on the fastest flight back to lovely LA, relaxing in the knowledge that I’ve clocked enough family hours to last me at least a couple of years.

‘Bacon sandwich?’ my sister asks me.

‘Oh, no thank you,’ I say politely. ‘I’m not really a fried food person.’

‘But you used to love bacon sandwiches,’ my mum insists.

‘I’m sure I used to love being breastfed, but I wouldn’t very much like to do it now,’ I insist.

I don’t know why I expected to get a few laughs from the room, that joke was never going to go down well. My mum rolls her eyes, my gran tuts and my auntie looks repulsed.

‘Mia, I’m not entirely happy about your foul mouth and your disgusting sense of humour being around my kids,’ my auntie explains.

‘Well, I’m quite fond of my foul mouth and my disgusting sense of humour – in fact, I’m literally attached to my foul mouth, so unless you want me to stay away from my cousins…’

‘Could you? Thanks.’ My auntie forces a fake smile. I told you, she just hates me.

‘I could do you some sausage while the pan is still on,’ my sister suggests in an attempt to diffuse the situation.

‘I’m fine, honestly. I’ll just grab a coffee, I’m not much of a morning person.’

I don’t point out to my sister that sausages are also fried – the pan and the oil are the giveaway when it comes to what is and isn’t fried.

‘Well, there’s a machine over there. None of us have any idea how to use it though,’ my sister says with a shrug of her shoulders.

I glance over at the fancy, hi-tech coffee machine that no one has been able to figure out how to use. I’m a coffee junkie, so I have a similar machine at home – I’ll be able to work this, no problem.

‘When you’re done, go and put some clothes on because we’re all going to this fish and chip restaurant in the town. Well, everyone but Dan, he’s still stuck in bed with a bad back,’ my sister reminds me, like I might have forgotten.

‘I am dressed,’ I protest, glancing down at the hot pink beach dress I had deemed the most appropriate to wear around my family. ‘Anyway, I’m really tired from all the travelling yesterday so I thought I might just chill out here today, make sure I’m ready to start celebrating tomorrow.’

I give my sister an overly enthusiastic thumbs-up. Hopefully by mentioning the thousands of miles I have travelled just to be with her on her big day she will be grateful enough not to force me into wedding-based celebrations just yet.

‘That’s fine,’ my sister says, much to my surprise. ‘Well, we’d rather not take the kids with us and Dan isn’t exactly up to looking after them.’

Wow, that’s twice today she’s brought up the fact I injured her fiancé. As far as I’m concerned, Dan’s bad back is not my fault, but I’m the only person in this house who doesn’t blame me.

‘You want me to look after kids?’ I laugh. ‘I’m sure they can take care of themselves.’

‘Josh and Max are only ten.’ My sister says this with such an alarmed squeak that you’d think I had just suggested we leave a toddler in the cutlery drawer.

‘Anyway, she doesn’t want me near her kids,’ I say with a nod towards my auntie.

‘She’s the cat’s mother,’ my mum insists, reminding me of my manners – God forbid anyone should say anything that might be considered rude this morning.

‘It will do you good to learn some responsibility,’ my Auntie June insists.

‘You mean it will do you good to dump your child on me while you go off and eat chips,’ I reply.

‘Mia, why can’t you just do this?’ Belle pleads.

‘Because I’m not a child-friendly person,’ I insist.

‘You’re not a fried food person, you not a morning person, you’re not a child-friendly person – are you sure you’re a person at all?’ my mum snaps.

‘OK, fine,’ I say in submission. ‘I’m going to go and do some work by the pool, just let me know when you need me.’

It’s like I only need to be in a room for five minutes before everyone is pissed off and it’s all thanks to me. I’m not sure what it is about me that my family seem to find so intolerable because, from where I’m standing, they’re the ones with the flaws, not me. OK, so I may not be into love, marriage and babies, but I’m a nice person, I’m kind, generous and polite – all the things you’re supposed to be – until people give me reason not to be. I’m not cold like my mum, I’m not a bully like my sister and I’m not a horrible cow like my auntie. Perhaps I’m not as nice to my Auntie June as I could be, but this level of dislike comes after years and years of her actively despising me, and for no good reason.

The plan is to get comfortable by the pool, do a bit of work and then try and swim off the dinner I ate out of manners last night. I hadn’t bargained on babysitting two young boys but they’re good kids, I’m sure keeping an eye on them won’t affect my plans.

Chapter 8

Finally connected to the beach house wi-fi, my phone springs back to life. After a day of peace and quiet from my best friend (who is also my calendar, camera, alarm clock, emailing device, web browser… oh, and it can make calls too) normal service has been resumed. There are several emails from my assistant, Dalia, filling me in on every little thing that has happened in the office as well as a few from Savannah and Molly who are already seeming pretty stressed out trying to get on with our latest project without me. Molly hinted that my boss was unhappy with me taking vacation days (that I was owed, might I add) while we’re in the middle of a new movie. If only they knew what a rubbish time I was having, I’d much rather be at work.

I have only just made myself comfortable next to the pool, but I know that I’ll get my work done a lot easier if I type on my iPad instead of my phone. I drag myself to my feet and begin (what feels like) the long journey up to my room – then again, running up two flights of stairs will do me good, I can practically feel the bolognese making itself at home on my hips.

When I finally reach my room I am a little taken aback to see my uncle already in there.

‘Can I help you?’ I ask bluntly.

‘I was just…’ My uncle’s voice quickly changes from a hushed tone to an awkwardly loud one. ‘…making sure that spider hadn’t come back.’

‘What?’ I ask, but as I notice him looking over my shoulder I turn around and see my Auntie June standing behind me.

‘You’re with Mia,’ my auntie says, like I’m not even there. ‘Again.’

‘Spiders,’ my uncle laughs with a shrug of his shoulders.

‘You’re that scared of spiders?’ my auntie asks me in disbelief.

‘Oh, if there’s a creepy crawly around I feel like I can’t rest until I know someone has squashed it,’ I reply, making my uncle look even more uneasy.

‘Anyway, we’re heading out now. You will take proper care of the children, won’t you?’ my auntie asks again.

‘Yes, yes,’ I reply. ‘I thought I’d take a nap while they play in the sea. Sound good?’

My uncle laughs at my blatant attempt at humour but my auntie looks disturbed.

‘Mia, you don’t take your eyes off them,’ she says sternly.

‘I won’t,’ I reply sincerely.

‘Come on, Steve,’ my auntie instructs her husband before they leave my room together.

‘Unbelievable,’ I say to myself before grabbing my iPad and heading back downstairs.

I am only back in my seat by the pool for a few minutes before my sister wanders in with Josh and Max.

‘Now, be good for Mia,’ my sister instructs the children. ‘And you be good for the kids,’ she warns me.

I find it funny that no one trusts me with these children, and yet they will leave them with me anyway because it suits them.

‘Right, who fancies a cigarette?’ I ask Josh and Max the second my sister has closed the door behind her. The boys laugh, which says it all about my sense of humour. ‘But seriously, are you guys OK to amuse yourselves while I do some work?’

‘Can we go in the pool?’ Josh asks.

‘Can you both swim?’

The boys nod.

‘Are you sure?’ I ask. ‘Because your mum will like me even less if you die.’

Both Josh and Max simultaneously talk me through their swimming achievements to date.

‘OK then, but only if you stay in the shallow end. I’ll be sat right here so I’ll notice if you wander into the deep end,’ I warn them.

‘Can you get us our swimming trunks?’ Josh asks.

Not only do I not fancy rooting through other people’s things to find swimwear for the boys, but that sounds like it will take a long time and I’m worried today will be my last chance to get some proper work done.

‘You wear underwear, right?’

Josh and Max nod.

‘Well, you’re sorted. Go, have fun.’

The boys look at each other for a moment, unsure of whether or not I have the authority to let them go swimming in their underpants. They don’t think it over for too long before running towards the pool, screaming with delight before dive bombing into the beautiful blue water.

I only get to feel like the world’s coolest babysitter for a moment before I realise that it is proving almost impossible to concentrate on my work with Josh and Max screaming and splashing each other. I can’t exactly go and work in another room, not after the jokes I made about drowning them in the sea. Whether it’s the sea or a swimming pool, if I kill these kids my sister will almost certainly have another reason to blame me for ruining her wedding – and I can’t have that.

‘Hey guys, do you want to watch a movie?’ I ask.

‘We’ve seen all the kids’ movies they have here,’ Max calls back.

‘What about if I let you watch a grown-up movie?’

The boys both cheer with excitement as they climb out of the pool.

‘Come on, this way.’ I toss them each a towel and head for the play room.

‘Right, let’s see,’ I say to myself as I examine the top shelf of the cupboard where the DVDs are kept. They actually have quite a good selection – I’m a total film buff and even I’m impressed. I quickly run my finger past any movie that I was involved in writing or any others of a similar genre, I don’t want to fill their young, impressionable minds with any romantic junk. ‘Pulp Fiction,’ I squeak with delight. ‘Have you seen it?’

The boys shake their heads, it’s like they haven’t even heard of it.

‘What? You haven’t seen Pulp Fiction?’ I ask in disbelief, putting to the back of my mind the fact that the boys are ten years old. ‘It’s a masterpiece.’

Maybe it’s because I take my love of movies very seriously, maybe it’s because I’m a devout Quentin Tarantino fan or maybe it’s because I just want to go against my auntie’s wishes, but I decide that this is the movie the boys should watch.

‘Just don’t tell your parents, OK?’

They nod eagerly.

I pop the DVD in the machine and sit myself down on the sofa with Josh and Max. I’ll stick around for a few minutes, just to make sure they’re enjoying it, and then I’ll head back into the pool room and do my work.

As the opening scene in the diner plays out, Josh and Max’s eyes are glued to the big screen. Ah, that look of wonder, that mesmerised stare – I remember when I watched my first Tarantino movie, they’re going to love it.

“I love you, Pumpkin.”

“I love you, Honey Bunny.”

‘Well, I’m going to leave you guys to enjoy this,’ I say as I head for the door, but it falls on deaf ears.

I grab a couple of beanbags, one to hold the door to the games room open and one to do the same with the door to the pool, that way I’ll be able to hear them if they need me. As I put the second beanbag in place, I overhear the line: “Any of you fucking pricks move and I’ll execute every one of you motherfuckers! Got that?” For a moment it occurs to me that maybe this isn’t the best film to put on for a couple of kids whose parents have sheltered them from bad language and inappropriate behaviour their entire lives, but that’s exactly the reason they should see it. This movie is a work of art, everyone needs to see it… although probably not when they’re ten years old. Well, Josh and Max are clearly enjoying it and that leaves me to get on with some work. What’s the worst that can happen?

***

Perhaps it has something to do with the water – the way it reflects on the walls and the gentle sounds it makes as it laps against the sides of the pool when there aren’t any noisy children splashing around in it – or the fact that jetlag is still screwing with me a little, but it wasn’t long after I sat back down by the pool when I fell asleep. So much for getting some work done before the adults get back… oh my God, the kids!

I jump up from my seat and dash into the games room, only to find Josh and Max exactly as I left them, their eyes still glued to the screen as Samuel L. Jackson finishes delivering that epic speech from the final scene of the movie.

“And you will know I am the Lord when I lay my vengeance upon you.”

The boys, who are not even aware I have re-entered the room, both blink at the screen, their facial expressions giving nothing away. I wonder if they have even spoken to one another during the film.

‘So, what do you think?’ I ask them as the credits roll.

‘That was so cool,’ Josh enthuses.

‘I didn’t want it to end,’ Max adds.

‘Well, there’s plenty more where that came from,’ I tell them, proud to have introduced them to a cinematic genius. ‘Just don’t tell your parents.’

‘When can we watch another?’ Josh asks excitedly. ‘Do you think you can make everyone go out again tomorrow? What are we watching next?’

‘Hold your horses,’ I chuckle. ‘I’ll do my best.’

Right on cue I hear the sound of footsteps on the stairs. I quickly remove Pulp Fiction from the DVD player and put it back on the shelf, just as Auntie June walks in.

‘Did everyone behave?’ she asks, not wasting a second on pleasantries.

‘Of course,’ I reply. ‘They’re little angels.’

‘I was talking to them,’ my auntie informs me.

I roll my eyes at my auntie as Tarantino’s two newest fans nod their heads.

I grab a bottle of water from the mini fridge and take a swig, safe in the knowledge I have passed myself off as a capable babysitter.

‘Wait a second,’ my auntie starts, puzzled. ‘Why are you two in your underpants?’

Caught off guard, I spray the big gulp of water I had taken out of my mouth. I cough and splutter for a moment (much to the amusement of Josh and Max) before trying to explain.

‘It’s not what it looks like,’ I start, but my auntie cuts me off.

‘What does it look like?’

I hesitate for a moment.

‘I don’t know, but the boys wanted to swim and I didn’t think you’d appreciate me going in your room to find shorts.’

My auntie looks at the boys for confirmation and they dutifully nod. I think my auntie is picking up on the fact that we are all behaving very shiftily, but that’s only because I let the boys watch a movie with an ‘eighteen’ rating, not because I held an impromptu orgy and decided my ten-year-old cousin and his mate could attend if they adhered to the dress code.

Auntie June sniffs her son suspiciously.

‘You two, go and shower,’ she instructs them, having obviously smelt the unmistakable whiff of chlorine on their skin, even though they’re dry because they’ve been watching the movie for the past few hours.

‘You’re welcome,’ I say victoriously. I may not have wanted to babysit today but I successfully kept the boys alive – something no one thought for a second that I could do, and yet they still left them with me. Never underestimate the lure of chips.

My auntie follows the boys back upstairs, eyeballing me cautiously as she leaves the room.

I don’t waste my time wondering why June hates me these days, she just does and I’m weirdly OK with it. You would think I’d be distraught by the fact that pretty much every member of my family doesn’t really like me but I’m OK with that too. I have a few theories going, most of which involve me being born to a sexy celebrity couple and ending up getting swapped in the hospital, but I made peace with them emotionally exiling me a long time ago.

I suppose I should go and do some work. As I head back to my poolside workstation I glance over the DVDs again, making a mental note that the boys should watch Reservoir Dogs next – as part of their film education, it’s called Media Studies, I promise.

Chapter 9

Despite promising to keep working while I’m away, I didn’t get very much done today. I tried, but I was only on a roll for about ten minutes before Belle called me for dinner, and all group activities are not optional – unless they need a babysitter.

‘Bangers and mash,’ my sister informs me cheerily as I enter the dining room. I knew I was going to have trouble keeping up my diet while I was here but this is ridiculous. Still, my sister will take it personally if I don’t participate so I suppose I’ll eat the vegetables and push the rest around my plate to create the illusion that I am eating it.

‘Yummy,’ I reply enthusiastically – as you know, when it comes to sausage I am an expert at faking it.

Soon enough everyone is seated at the two tables, the grown-ups on the main table and everyone under sixteen at the kids’ table next to us. Even though not everyone is staying at the beach house, we seem to be spending a lot of time together and eating all our meals together – thanks to Bridezilla’s ridiculously strict scheduling.

This evening I am sitting between my grandma and a hard face… my Auntie June. I was expecting to be in a horrible position, with shit being flung at me from both sides, but they’re not giving me a hard time at all tonight. My gran has always had moments of indifference towards me, but my auntie is usually unrelenting. Not tonight though.

‘I hear you did a good job with the kids,’ my dad says to me from across the table. ‘Well done.’

This comment catches me off guard as I am eating a mouthful of peas, causing me to swallow the wrong way and cough a little.

‘Yeah.’ I sip my water. ‘Well, they’re good kids. I had fun.’

‘Maybe you do have maternal instincts,’ my mum says warmly.

I glance around the table and see that everyone is smiling at me.

‘Maybe,’ I reply, knowing full well that I am about as maternal as a shoe. Still, if people are going to be nicer to me for showcasing these “normal” feelings then I’m all for it. Whatever makes my stay here more tolerable.

‘You did do a good job,’ a voice that sounds exactly like my auntie’s says, but it can’t be her, can it?

I look to my right to see my Auntie June smiling at me. Yes, smiling at me, and it’s not forced or smug, it’s genuine.

‘You’ve clearly done some growing up, Mia,’ she adds.

Belle, visibly annoyed that I am getting more attention than her, attempts to put me back in my place.

‘Mia, why aren’t you eating your dinner?’ she asks angrily.

‘The vegetables are delicious,’ I lie.

‘Well, it’s your show business diet, isn’t it,’ my mum chimes in. ‘It’s a tough business. Things like that matter.’

My eyes widen. First my dad compliments me, then my auntie is nice to me and now my mum is defending me – and everyone is still smiling. I must be dreaming.

Perhaps now everyone is seeing me in a better light, this wedding might not be so bad – I might even have fun.

‘So you’re refusing to eat my sausages?’ my sister persists.

‘I don’t really eat pork,’ I reason. My sister looks angry but everyone else in the room seems fine with me until…

‘I don’t eat pork,’ a voice echoes my own. Everyone looks towards the end of the table, where the kids’ table is. Josh is grinning widely.

‘Excuse me?’ my auntie says to her son.

‘I don’t eat pork,’ he continues as he eats, much to Max’s amusement.

When I let Josh and Max watch Pulp Fiction I knew that they wouldn’t tell their parents on me, but there’s one thing I didn’t anticipate happening – something that is inevitable when you watch a Tarantino flick – they caught the quoting bug.

I glance down the table at them, pleading at them with my eyes not to take this any further, but they’re not looking at me, they’re having too much fun.

‘Why not?’ my uncle asks his son curiously.

‘I don’t eat filthy animals,’ Josh replies.

Everyone in the room is still baffled, apart from Dan’s older brother Mike who is chuckling to himself – he’s clearly a fan of the movie. If this situation wasn’t all my fault I’d probably be amused too – and impressed, Josh is nailing the delivery of these lines, and he has remembered them perfectly. It’s true what they say, children have minds like sponges.

‘They root in shit,’ Josh elaborates, clearly on a roll. ‘That’s a filthy animal.’

On hearing her ten-year-old son say shit, my auntie snaps her head to the right at an impressive speed. The smile is immediately wiped from Josh’s face when he realises how angry his mum is, and just how much trouble he’s in.

‘Where did you hear that?’ his mum asks him.

‘I don’t know,’ he replies, fooling no one.

‘Max?’ my auntie asks her son’s partner in crime, but he’s frozen still and completely silent.

‘Josh, tell us where you heard that,’ my uncle demands, sounding angrier and angrier as he says each word.

Just keep your mouth shut, Josh. This will all blow over.

‘It’s Pulp Fiction,’ Mike says in an attempt to diffuse the situation. Little does he know, he has just sealed my fate.

‘Where have you seen…’ my auntie’s voice trails off as she turns to face me, this time her movements are slow and sinister. ‘You!’

My auntie points at me with her knife, and whether she just happens to have it in her hand or she’s actually planning to stab me, I decide not to take any chances and jump up from my seat. I move around the table as I try and explain.

‘You let my son watch a “fifteen” rated film,’ she shrieks as she tries to chase me around the table.

‘I think it’s an “eighteen”,’ Mike unhelpfully chimes in, which only makes my auntie angrier.

I’m too busy trying not to get stabbed to notice what everyone else in the room is making of this, but I know for sure that no one is doing anything to intervene.

‘It’s a classic,’ I reason.

‘A classic that’s full of swearing,’ my auntie yells.

‘It isn’t gratuitous swearing, it’s all in context,’ I insist.

‘Actually, I think it features over two hundred and sixty uses of the F word,’ Mike muses.

‘Piss off, Wikipedia,’ I snap, which provokes an unimpressed reaction from everyone in the room. Everyone but Belle, that is, who looks delighted that universal balance has been restored. Everyone hates me again.

Chapter 10

‘I’m not saying you’re not likeable,’ my sister explains as she admires her underwear-clad body in my bedroom mirror. ‘Just that you need to try harder to make people like you.’

I lie back on my bed and exhale deeply. Dan’s back is still bad so he’s still stuck in bed. I assumed that was why Belle asked me if she could try on her bridal underwear in my bedroom, so he didn’t see it. In actual fact this is her not so subtle way of telling me that I need to try harder to “make people like me” – which, in my opinion, is as good as telling me that I am not likeable.

‘What do you think of the shoes?’ Belle asks. OK, so I’m here for a lecture and to watch my sister prance around in her underwear and a pair of white ballet pumps.

‘They’re nice,’ I reply. Personally I would have gone for something with a heel, but with my sister usually opting for ugly, clumsy, flat mules no matter what the weather, I’m lucky she isn’t forcing a pair on me to go with my bridesmaid dress. The wedding ceremony is taking place on the beach, so the outfits have been tweaked accordingly.

‘I can’t wait to see what my dress looks like with the shoes and the veil,’ she says to herself as she wiggles her hips in front of the mirror with a level of narcissism not unlike that of Patrick Bateman when he’s shagging those hookers in American Psycho. ‘The clothes should have been delivered by now.’

Right on cue there is a knock on the door.

‘Come in,’ Belle calls out, still admiring her figure. It’s great that despite being a bit overweight she’s still so full of self-confidence. I know that when I was fat I wouldn’t ever have felt comfortable showing as much skin around other people – even when I was alone I didn’t like catching the sight of my own podgy reflection.

Uncle Steve walks into room with an armful of garment bags.

‘Here’s the first lot,’ he starts, before clapping eyes on a nearly naked Belle and stopping in his tracks.

‘Thanks, Uncle Steve,’ she squeaks as she takes the clothes from him. As Belle dumps the clothes down on the floor and begins ripping into them, my uncle sidles over to me.

‘Are you trying anything on?’ he asks.

‘No,’ I laugh.

‘You should, I can give you a male perspective.’

‘Aw, thanks, uncle,’ Belle interrupts. ‘Can you go get the rest of the clothes first?’

Worried he might miss something while he’s gone, my uncle dashes out of the room.

‘Right, if you want me to try anything on we’re doing it now, before Uncle Sleaze gets back,’ I hurry my sister.

‘Hey, I’m the bride, me first,’ Belle complains. ‘Not everything is about you.’

I exhale deeply. Steve trying to catch sight of me in the nip is very much about me, but there’s no reasoning with Belle at the moment. Whether I have to try anything on or not, I suddenly feel very naked around my uncle in the super-short, hot pink, tiny nightdress I slept in last night.

Belle finds her dress, hops into it and demands I zip her up.

‘Wow,’ I exclaim.

‘I know, right?’ my sister replies as she twirls around in front of the mirror.

Lucky for me, Belle took my exclamation as one of delight rather than one of horror. Make no mistake though, I am horrified.

In addition to her white stockings and white ballet pumps, my sister has slipped on a strapless, white tutu dress. She looks like a little girl about to perform Swan Lake with the rest of her ballet class, but if I tell her as much she will no doubt act as moody and stubborn as a bratty little diva.

‘So you like it?’ my sister asks.

‘It’s…’ I pause to think carefully about what I’m going to say. ‘Is it a bit short for a bridal gown?’

‘I’m getting married on the beach – duh! It has to be short or it will get covered in sand. All the outfits are short, even the men’s trousers. We’re going for a sort of casual formal look.’

As my brain tries to process exactly what a casual formal look is, I feel a headache coming on.

‘So, what’s my dress like?’ I ask, suddenly terrified.

‘All in good time,’ my sister says. ‘I’m trying to figure out how this veil goes on.’

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