Peevish (adj.) – Easily irritated, particularly by unimportant things
I was like a kid on its first visit to the big city, the way I was craning my neck to peer out of the taxi windows. Everything was so tall in Sydney, the gleaming skyscrapers we passed on our way to Cara’s flat could rival the skyline in New York. It made Adelaide seem like a small village compared to the bustle and energy here.
We’d left the sample sale and driven to the airport to return The Beast to the car-hire place. Shelley had got misty eyed saying goodbye to the rusting heap, but Cara and I were glad to see the back of it. Now we’d landed after the short flight to Sydney and I couldn’t wait to get out and explore.
‘Right, this is us,’ Cara said, getting out of the taxi and nodding her head up to the stone-clad building looming over us. I helped get our bags out and traipsed into the plush lobby, trying my hardest not to gawp.
‘Wow, Cara, this place is insane!’ I breathed, as I walked from room to room in her flat. ‘Flat’ seemed the wrong word to use; it was more like a flashy penthouse slash three-bed house slash Grand Designs dream.
‘It’s all right for now.’ She shrugged without a hint of sarcasm. I turned to Shelley, who shook her head at her cousin’s blasé attitude about living in such a dreamy place.
‘It’s amazing, isn’t it?’ Shelley said, giving my arm a little squeeze.
‘Epic, is the word I’d use. Epic.’
Shelley walked off to the kitchen laughing, as Cara went through her mail. I trailed around the bright and airy lounge, enjoying the rustle of the warm breeze that made the sheer white drapes swish slightly. There were two large chenille sofas that looked like they would eat you up if you sat down. A flat-screen TV hung on the opposite wall over an exposed brick fireplace. The brickwork had been whitewashed to complement the cool, dusky grey walls. The kitchen was to the right through a coved doorway and every surface shone under the halogen celling lights. The black marble and chrome fittings looked like they’d never been used, not a fingerprint or coffee stain in sight. No wonder Jimmy and Shelley weren’t in a hurry to move out of here. I’d never want to leave either.
‘You want to see your room?’ Shelley asked, as I absent-mindedly traced my hand over the cool, smooth surface, never having been so enamoured with fixtures and fittings before.
‘Erm, yeah!’
There were three bedrooms, the largest for Cara, the second that Jimmy and Shelley shared, and the third was for guests. My room had a king-size bed in its centre facing the small balcony. It was decorated in soft, blush-apricot hues, and, with the sun streaming through the toile drapes, it looked like I was going to be sleeping in the middle of a giant fuzzy peach. I padded over to the balcony doors, hearing Shelley and Cara excitedly talking about the hand-painted cake toppers that had arrived from some Etsy seller that were ‘better than she’d dreamt about’. I held back the drapes and inhaled sharply at what I saw.
Cara hadn’t said anything about having the best bloody view in all of Sydney. The glinting white sails of the Opera House lay to my right, and across the glistening harbour stood the imposing steel lattice of the famous bridge. Small steam boats and white ferries bobbed along the waterways, with tourists leaning from the railings to get the best shot of the iconic scenes around them.
‘Pretty good, hey.’ Jimmy’s deep tones made me jump as I stepped back, tried to pick my jaw from the floor and gave him a hug.
‘Good? More like incredible!’ I smiled, shaking my head at having a room with such a view. ‘How are you, apart from being so jammy in getting to live here?’
He hadn’t changed, apart from a deeper tan, his blond spiky hair a shade lighter from the sun, and a tight tank top showing off his gym-instructor sculptured arms – he still had that boyish grin I knew and loved.
‘Ah, not so bad.’ He smiled, revealing white teeth that shone against his stubble. ‘It’s good to see you, Georgia. How was your wild hen-do trip?’
I was just about to explain that his wife-to-be hadn’t been tempted by any outback Australian men when Shelley burst into the room.
‘Jimmy, why is there a message on the answerphone about the cake?’ she barked, hands on her hips and a fierce expression on her scowling face.
Jimmy seemed to shrink back into himself.
‘You did go and sort that while we were away, didn’t you?’ she demanded.
Under her piercing stare I felt like I wanted to wrap the drapes around myself and be at one with the view, not in the middle of a boiling domestic row.
‘Ah, shit.’ Jimmy ran a hand through his hair and shuffled his large feet against the fluffy beige carpet.
‘Oh great. I gave you one job to do. One!’ she shouted. ‘Well, you’d better go and get it sorted right now before we have to go and see Lars.’
Jimmy nodded. ‘Okay, okay, I will.’ He leapt into action then paused. ‘Where is it again?’
At this Shelley sighed overdramatically. ‘Do you know what, I’ll go. I’ll just do everything, shall I?’ It was less of a question and more in order to bait him into an argument. ‘Also, Cara is fuming at the state you’ve left the bathroom in. She’s gone to the gym to calm down. That had better be sorted when I get back.’
‘I don’t mind helping out,’ I offered, my voice not sounding like my own against her high-pitched tirade.
‘No, I’ll go. You’d better stay and watch that he actually does something around here for once.’ With that, she slammed the bedroom door, making a picture frame dance against the shuddering wall.
Jimmy sank onto the bed and rubbed his face. ‘She’s still as uptight as ever then.’
I stared at the door, the view seeming less important than what I’d just witnessed. I’d never seen Shelley speak to anyone like that before, but judging from Jimmy’s reaction, it was not the first time.
‘You okay?’ I asked him softly.
‘Yeah,’ he said in a low groan. ‘Just hoping that once this is all over, I’ll get my Shelley back.’
I winced. This wedding was really getting to her, to the pair of them.
‘Come on, let’s go and clean the bathroom. You don’t want to be in the doghouse any longer.’
He wearily got to his feet and plodded behind me. ‘Ben can’t bloody get here soon enough, if you ask me. To be honest it will be nice to have a break from it all and hang out with him.’
‘You been finding it hard?’
Jimmy nodded. ‘Yeah, I mean you saw what she was like just then. We haven’t had as many rows in all the time we’ve been together as we have had in the last few weeks.’ He looked like he needed to vent, and before Ben made his way here I was the one to lend a sympathetic ear.
‘This stupid crash diet she’s been on is making her even crankier. The stress of my parents coming – but without my grandma – has fucked up her seating plan; she’s full of ideas of how to make it “original”, but seems to forget that there’s a limited budget, which makes me feel shit that I can’t afford to throw more cash at the damn thing to keep her happy. I’m terrified that after all this she’s going to be so disappointed that none of it matched up to the ridiculously perfect vision she has in her head.’
His eyes looked like they were about to well up. I could see that the past few weeks of full-on wedding planning had put him on edge.
‘She cares too much about what others will think, and she can’t step back and see that it only matters what we think. I just want to marry the girl and call her my wife; I can’t be doing with all the drama that comes with it.’ He paused, catching his breath and letting out a deep sigh. ‘I mean, the other night we got into yet another sodding row because she told me that my mate Neil from the gym wasn’t allowed to bring his missus. Apparently, her tattoos would look crap on the wedding photos.’ I wished I thought that he was joking, but judging by how uptight Shelley had been about it all, I could easily imagine this bridezilla version of herself saying that. ‘So, did you have a nice trip or was it wedding talk non-stop?’ He changed the conversation and passed me a pair of Marigolds.
I shook my head. ‘It wasn’t too bad, she’s just keen that everything goes to plan. You can’t blame her. I mean, every woman wants their wedding day to be amazing.’ I began squirting bleach into the toilet pan.
‘Yeah, I get that. But, at the same time, it’s like she’s lost all perspective on everything. All she talks about, her and Cara, is bridal this and bridal that, and whenever I try and show an interest my ideas get shot down. Then she moans that I’m not doing enough to help.’ He huffed, aggressively scouring the taps. ‘It’s my wedding too, but apparently anything I suggest is ridiculous.’
He was a braver man than I thought to even offer suggestions when Shelley seemed to have such a tight image in her mind of what she wanted. He had a point though. This was about the two of them.
‘What ideas did you have?’ I squeezed out the soap suds as I began on the scuzz lining the sink.
His eyes lit up. ‘Well, I’ve seen this thing where you can hire a fella and his bird of prey to come to the ceremony, and the bird has our wedding rings clasped in its talons. Now that would be epic. Imagine me at the front with Shell, each of us with a bird on our shoulder and a ring on our finger.’
I almost dropped the scouring pad as he was speaking. ‘Oh, erm, that’s interesting,’ I said, not able to look at him without wanting to laugh at the image he was conjuring. No wonder Shelley and Cara knocked him down if his ideas were like that.
‘Don’t you reckon that would be really cool?’ he asked without a hint of sarcasm.
‘Well, it would be different,’ I managed to say. ‘I guess the only problem is that what if one of the birds shat on you. I doubt bird poo would be the easiest thing to get out of a wedding dress or your suit.’
‘Ah.’ He paused. ‘Yeah, hadn’t thought of that.’
‘Any other ideas?’
‘Oh, there is one thing I wanted your help with.’ He glanced behind him, even though we were the only ones in the flat.
‘Mmm,’ I mused, hoping that he wouldn’t suggest swapping birds of prey with any other feathered species.
‘I wanted to surprise her.’
Oh gawd. ‘Oh?’
‘Yeah, well, kind of to show her that I do have some good ideas and also that she doesn’t need to control every part of the day.’
I nodded along, wondering if he had a death wish. Surprises and Shelley were not something I would imagine would go down too well, given her current control-freak status over every wedding-related detail. ‘What do you have in mind?’
He took a deep breath and flicked a small bath towel over one shoulder. ‘I’ve been taking singing lessons in secret.’
I turned to look at him, wondering if he was having me on. Jimmy had a worse voice than I did, and that was saying something. When they’d lived in Manchester we’d once had a night out to an open-mic evening, where Jimmy had got booed off the stage as it sounded like he was murdering a cat.
‘Now you can’t tell anyone, not even Ben.’ Jimmy shook his head as a slight blush developed on his cheeks. ‘He’d never believe me and would probably make me chicken out. I’m already starting to shit myself about getting up there to perform.’
‘Wow, I mean, that will be lovely.’ I hoped to God that he’d chosen a decent singing teacher. ‘What do you want me to do though?’
‘I need you to keep it a secret and distract her when I get up on stage to sing. I’ve also had to send an email to the DJ asking him to add it to the set list without telling her.’
‘I think that will certainly be memorable. You still got many rehearsals to do?’
‘Yeah, one more tonight. I’ve told her that I’m working late so hopefully she won’t twig. Cheers, Georgia. I’m so pleased you’re here to help her out.’
‘Yeah, me too,’ I said, watching the dirty water pour down the drain, not one hundred per cent sure if I meant it or not.