It didn’t matter that she’d put twelve-thirty for lunch on her final email with instructions to her parents. Or that every Sunday for the past two months she’d repeatedly said it again and again. No, this wasn’t her first rodeo with her family, so she had already factored in the ‘Parental Delay Factor’.
‘You get used to it’, she’d said years ago to Gee the first time he’d met her parents. They were supposed to be picking her up from the house for lunch, it was a few months after she’d moved in after the disastrous summer when they’d stopped paying for her accommodation.
‘It’s like London Underground time,’ she said, as she hung over the back of the sofa and stared out of the bay window. She’d been there waiting for two hours. ‘You know how it is, the display says the next Circle line train is due in two minutes and you stand there for about five and it is still saying two minutes.’
‘But Ems, that is plain rude,’ Gee had argued. And it was, but it was family. She’d ignored the way he was frowning when they eventually turned up. He’d been waiting for her when they dropped her home after the world’s shortest lunch. He hadn’t said a word, only put on Firefly and poured her a glass of wine. He never mentioned the way the liquid spilled down the sides when her hands shook as she cried, only handed her tissues.
Things hadn’t changed in ten years, except less crying and less wine spillage after seeing them. Emma knew that the earliest she could expect them was two, so she had planned accordingly. It was a pain because it meant she’d be dealing with the aftermath of Ed and Frankie’s pap walk during lunch.
‘I’m starving,’ Johnnie said from where he was lying on the sofa in the kitchen, his face pallid from the amount of alcohol he’d drunk the night before. Georgie was snoring on his chest; the pink unicorn outfit Johnnie had put back on him the night before looking scruffy.
‘There is a bag of crisps in the cupboard,’ Gee said as he poked the turkey with a thermometer and stared at it, biting his lip.
‘That is too far, dude,’ Johnnie whined making sad eyes and grabby hands as he still lay supine.
Emma stopped stirring the gravy and looked over at Gee. He looked back at her and raised his eyebrows. It almost felt like normal.
Except usually she would make a production of this, make a big fuss and complain about what their last slave had died of. Instead she put the spoon down on the novelty snowman spoon rest and without a word went to the cupboard. If this had been a normal day she would grab the six-pack bag of pickled onion Monster Munch and tell Gee she was going to give his precious stash away to Johnnie.
She grabbed a bag of cheese and onion crisps and threw them over to Johnnie, who missed them. They bounced off Georgie who woke up with a snort and a bark.
‘So, when are you two going to make up?’ Johnnie asked point blank rather than thank her for the crisps.
She quickly picked up the spoon, maybe they wouldn’t notice that her hand had started to tremble. She could see Gee stop briefly as he recovered the turkey with foil to keep it warm.
‘I don’t know what…’ She began to deny it. Did she really want Johnnie to know that she had betrayed him as much as she’d betrayed Gee? She might complain about him but she loved him, with all his fragile complexity.
‘I know something major has happened, I might not be the brightest spark in the world but even I can tell that not everything is rosy in the Knightley-Woodhouse home. Come on, make up, I hate it when Mummy and Daddy fight. Don’t I, Georgie Boy?’ Johnnie crooned to the pug.
She looked at Gee who was staring at her with his eyebrows raised. Didn’t he know how sorry she was, that she’d become so swept up in everything that she forgot the most important thing in her life?
Please, she thought at him, please, I’m sorry. So sorry.
But would their usual ESP work? The way he knew without being told exactly what she thought. Would that be enough? Just because she was sorry, didn’t stop the hurt from having happened.
Gee carried on looking at her, it was as if she and Johnnie were holding their breath to see what he would do. Her heart sped up.
How could she make it up to him?
Georgie farted loudly in the silence.
Emma jumped but she hadn’t stopped looking at Gee. His mouth twitched and before she knew it they both started laughing. Okay, there was an edge of hysteria to hers. And tears burned in her eyes.
‘See, that’s better.’ Johnnie said while waving a hand under his nose from the smell Georgie made. She wasn’t sure whether the ‘that’s better’ was directed at Georgie or her and Gee.
‘We’re not fighting,’ he said to Johnnie while still watching Emma. ‘We’re merely having a difference of opinion.’ He finished.
A difference of opinion was a nice thing to say when she had been a homophobic insensitive bitch.
‘I did something incredibly stupid and cruel. And I’m not proud of it. Gee quite rightly called me on it. So, we’re in a sort of limbo. I’ve apologised but I know that words don’t go far, so I’m trying to show him I’m changing.’ She decided that she could say it. Put it out there, show that she was done with hiding and spinning tales.
‘Ems, you don’t have to…’ he started.
‘If the girl needs to show she’s sorry then let her.’ Johnnie interrupted. ‘And on that bombshell, Georgie Boy and I are going for a short wander round the garden. Which is my subtle way of getting lost so you two can kiss and make up.’
Her cheeks flashed hot. Even at the thought of kissing Gee, she could feel the ghost of his lips on her neck. She shivered at the same time as sweat sprang out on her hairline.
Bloody hell, why had she figured out the Gee attraction so late? There wouldn’t be any more kissing. She stirred the gravy not caring that some of it slopped out and burnt on the gas ring.
She blocked out Johnnie’s kissing noises, hoping that it was just him blowing kisses at Georgie Boy as he cuddled him.
***
The continuous screech of the doorbell carried on as if someone was leaning on it. Emma raced upstairs and flung open the door.
She was right. Her stepfather, Derek was pressing down on it and frowning as if it had done him a great injustice for merely existing.
‘Merry Christ…’ she started to say.
‘Emma, it has been hell,’ her mum interrupted her. ‘The vicar called and wanted us to volunteer this morning, and of course we couldn’t say no.’
Of course they couldn’t, she thought, not when the vicar was of a glamorous church where her mother could do good and her stepdad could make connections. And she couldn’t bitch about it because it was charity. But she wanted to know why charity had never started at home?
Her mum pushed her way into the hall.
Derek followed with a nod. As they moved into the house she realised her dad and stepmother were behind them. They were standing at the bottom of the steps as if they wanted to be anywhere else but here. Which was probably the case.
Emma wasn’t sure why she kept up with it, but it was what family did. Every year she had both her mum and dad plus their partners. But with her dad every other year she also got her stepsister. She shuddered. Thank god it was her turn to go to her dad this year. It was a lucky escape, she couldn’t have handled Boopsie on top of everything else. Especially since she’d become convinced that Gee was in love with her and that he was going to help her break into the music business.
Last year had not ended well. If Gee hadn’t been so nice and understood how much she needed to pretend that her family was close, it could’ve ended differently. She was surprised he hadn’t booked a holiday abroad.
Maybe he’d be doing that next year, with Jamie?
She closed the door, she didn’t slam it. She didn’t.
***
Her laptop pinged again with a message.
Emma put down her fork, loaded with turkey and got up from the table. It was the fifth time since they’d sat down for lunch.
‘I don’t know why you can’t just ignore it? Up and down like a jack in the box,’ Derek harrumphed.
‘You are such a career girl,’ her mum sighed in disappointment.
‘Don’t speak to Emma like that,’ her dad said, but she knew it was a knee jerk reaction. Taking the opposing side from her mum and Derek because he had to.
She froze, half out of her seat. But it was work and she needed to do it. Or did she? She stood there and looked round the room. For so long, family had let her down, and work was the only thing that hadn’t. But that wasn’t true anymore, was it?
She looked as her mum dripped tears over the dinner she and Gee had prepared, most of her food mushed up and not eaten. Derek was frowning at her in distaste. Dad wasn’t even looking at her, he was glaring at Derek. And Janice, her stepmum was not so surreptitiously trying to take a photo of Gee, which she knew was going to be sent to Boopsie. And probably be posted on social media within the hour.
‘Emma works very hard,’ Gee said.
Her heart stopped, waiting for the ‘but’. Waiting for him to lay into her about her immoral job.
But he carried on eating.
Thank you, she wanted to shout. Instead she smiled hesitantly at him. He raised his eyebrows but said nothing then looked back down and speared a Brussels sprout on his fork.
Her laptop beeped again. She should be over there dealing with her job. The one that had her forcibly closeting two gay men. And who knew what Amit identified as and why he needed a girlfriend?
Something in her broke. There was an internal snap, quiet but it took her breath away.
This was her closet. She surrounded herself with her family and tried to make it seem to the outside world that she was normal. That Emma Woodhouse came from a happy family, where it was all unicorns and puppies and rainbows. Where Christmas was a John Lewis advert and Norman Rockwell painting rolled into one.
But it wasn’t.
This wasn’t any more real than the photos she knew were waiting in her email inbox.
And she had no one to blame this on but herself.
All those Sunday calls she made to them were like paparazzi walks she called on herself, or social media plans where she perpetuated the narrative that she’d drawn up.
That was all it was. A narrative, a PR story that she had spun so well she had begun to believe it herself. They weren’t her family.
She took a deep breath, waiting for the swooping dread of freefall that usually overtook her. The empty feeling that she was all alone, that she dreaded. But that snap, that break. It was like she’d broken the distorted glass she’d been seeing things through.
And she saw her real family.
Johnnie, his cheeks full of nut roast, ignoring everyone else to feed Georgie under the table.
The snorting of the little pug giving off noxious fumes from the sprouts Johnnie had slipped him.
And Gee. Wonderful, glorious Gee who was staring daggers at Janice, Derek and her mum and dad. Gee who should be able to enjoy Christmas with his own family but instead stood by her.
Gee, who she had probably lost but would still be her family.
There was no gaping empty hole left to be filled. It had already been filled many times over. By Johnnie and Georgie, Harry and Lewis. And by Gee.
How soon could she get rid of her parents, she wondered.
‘Aren’t you going to get that?’ Gee interrupted her Damascene moment.
She realised her laptop had been pinging while she’d been having her revelation. Sighing, she went to check her latest message. Much as she wanted to cause a scene, chuck her family out and stuff her job, she owed it to Ed and Will to make it up to them.
Opening the email, she saw the link to a photo gallery.
Any contentment she felt from having figured out her family drained away. She could escape her self-appointed closet. She hadn’t signed any kind of contract.
The Christmas pap walk had happened. Exactly as planned. Her usual sense of satisfaction of a plan coming together was lacking. There had been no news about the apocalypse starting somewhere in the Sandbach area, Ed’s home town so she figured it hadn’t gone too badly. She needed to grab at the small things to get through this.
She clicked on the link and the photos loaded slowly. She felt sick, as if everything she touched to do with work was now sullied, dirty and rotten. As if any part of her that touched it was contaminated. And she had no one to blame but herself. A toxic cocktail that she had invented, mixed and thrown over everything.
Would she ever be clean?
Hell, Ed looked miserable. The photos started to load. Frankie had dragged him round some park near his parents’ house.
She snorted, this was the sort of nonsense that happened when you gave up all pretence of trying to make a PR relationship look organic.
Who would ever believe that a paparazzi was hanging out in a small country park in Cheshire on Christmas Day? And, wow, what a coincidence just happened to snap these photos. And not one blurry one, as if taken from a long way away. No, there were hundreds of them, all sharp and in focus, so obviously taken where Ed and Frankie would’ve been able to see them and presumably stop them if it were real.
Which it wasn’t.
Ridiculous.
Had it always been this fake? Even with Phooke? Had she been too busy spinning it to herself to see it? Congratulating herself on how clever she was, at how she could manipulate everyone around her? How had she allowed herself to get this far? If she didn’t think it would sink the boys she’d be quitting now.
But that wouldn’t make amends.
She flicked through the photos, she needed to decide which photos would best sell the ‘they’re dating’ angle. The irony… but was it any different than the photos she’d deleted before she found the best ‘perfect family Christmas’ one that she’d posted on Instagram an hour ago?
Now she knew why she was good at her job. She’d been in training for it all her life. Spinning fairy tales.
She looked up to find Gee and Johnnie watching her. Johnnie sent her a small smile. Please be okay, she thought, I have to do this to make it right.
Gee’s mouth quirked up on one side, his eyes slowly blinked.
‘So Janice, I hear Boopsie has applied to The X Factor.’
Air rushed out of her. He hated X Factor with a passion, never voluntarily talked about it unless he was ranting about it.
It was as much of a blessing to carry on she was going to get.
Thank you, she mouthed.
Okay, now she had to work out how best to start the #Freddie hashtag trending whilst simultaneously undermining the narrative without anyone from Mega! or Maple Groove records working it out it was her.
Yean, she could do this, she lied to herself.
Why was this suddenly so hard? This was what she had been doing for years but now? Now, she wasn’t sure she could keep the turkey she’d just eaten down.
Ed looked so miserable and grumpy in so many of them, they were completely unusable. She peered closer, it looked like he’d been crying.
No, she wasn’t going to be having seconds of lunch. The smell from the table was making her feel sick.
At a quick glance, it looked like a happy couple wandering round a park, walking off their Christmas lunch. It was all surface though, the red eyes, the lack of smiles, even if you bought the conceit that either of these two were so famous they were followed everywhere. Very clearly under the shiny surface, you could see the real story.
She scanned through them all again.
How could she do this? Walk the tightrope that showed she was on their side. Make the move that took her from the enemy to at least neutral ground and them maybe co-conspirator.
There. She stopped scrolling on one photo. This was the one. This was how she could show that she wasn’t a horrible human being. Or at least the one that would show she was learning how to be better.
The photo didn’t look any different from ten others in the gallery. Ed and Frankie were doing a less than stellar job of holding hands as Ed stared grumpily into the camera. Honestly it looked like Ed was holding her thumb.
Emma of last week would have tutted and despaired. But this Emma… every little tell was good. She didn’t need this to be perfect.
She skimmed across the pose. She wasn’t sure who’d told Frankie that wearing a wolf jumper was a good idea, she looked like a throwback to the Eighties and not in an ironic way. She would’ve been better with a tacky Christmas one.
There, Emma had to enlarge the photo to check but in the background, wearing the same beanie he always did was Will. Far enough away that unless you looked closely you would think he was merely another person out for a Christmas morning stroll.
And she knew the BOTP fandom looked at everything closely. This would be her smoking gun.
But if she greenlit this one, would it be enough for the fandom to work out what she was trying to say? That she was flagging to them that, contrary to popular belief and what the gossip columns said, Will and Ed were spending Christmas together. Keeping the Wed Pulley rumours alive and well.
And they were spending Christmas together, that wasn’t a secret with the Mega! team. Si had been complaining that trying to hide Will and his large and noisy family from any nosey neighbours should come with extra pay.
When she’d originally heard she’d been exasperated that they couldn’t play along for even one day. But now… she got it. When you worked out what you wanted and how you wanted your life to be, the lies grated. Like lemon juice on a paper cut.
It was everything that Gee had always said it was.
She noted the numbers on all the photos that showed some part of Will. She attached them to a reply.
This was it, she hesitated. If she did this there was no going back. If she started on this road she couldn’t turn around. This would eventually mean she would lose her job.
Looking up she realised that she had managed to tune out the whole dinner table conversation.
‘Boopsie is such a talent, and so attractive. If only she got a bit of notice. Maybe you could follow her?’ Janice said, fluttering her eyelashes at Gee.
Her mum had started to cry over the stuffing about all the poor starving children in Syria. Derek and her dad were caught in a passive aggressive stand-off over the last roast potato.
Was a job worth keeping up this sort of pretence? If the thought of another Christmas felt like this to her, what did it feel to the BOTP boys?
She pressed send, her heart beating so fast, she was almost gasping.
There. A blow to one of what she thought were the foundations of her life. It didn’t feel as scary as she’d expected.
She closed her laptop with a snap.
***
‘Bye, safe travels.’ She said as she air-kissed her mum’s cheek. Her dad had his coat on and was still glaring at Derek. Janice was hanging onto Gee as if he were a Christmas gift that she had found under the tree and was desperate to get home and unwrap.
Gee was beginning to look hunted.
Damn, she was probably going to have to check his social media and get Janice to remove photos she was pretty sure she’d been taking all day.
Ushering them out, Janice the last to leave as if she couldn’t put Gee down, Emma waved briefly and closed the door.
Leaning her back against it, she closed her eyes. Never again. She was going away next year. Maybe there would be Christmas cards but if Mum and Derek wanted to visit the Alps she would give them recommendations.
They weren’t her family, she’d had to make her own.
Emma walked into the living room, it was empty. She could hear Gee rattling dishes downstairs and chatting with Johnnie.
There was a warm feeling in her stomach, and she felt relaxed for the first time all day. Maybe they could get through this. They still had to speak properly, but maybe he wasn’t going to throw her out just yet. And if they could survive this she would even smile sweetly. Okay, not sweetly but she would try and smile when he brought Jamie round. It was a small price to pay.
Because she wanted to keep this. Her wonderful patchwork chosen family, she didn’t want to stay hidden behind all the masks and walls anymore.
She sat on the top of the stairs leading down to the kitchen and leant her head against the bannister… This was her favourite part of Christmas, it always had been. The time when it was real, with traditions they had grown over the years. The silly presents that they exchanged when her parents had left. She need to make it right. God, she hoped she could.
Her phone vibrated in her pocket, she pulled it out.
Did you know? That I was in the background? Or are you really clueless?
The sender was Will. She chewed on her nail. This was the final step, she still had the chance to step back from the edge of the cliff. There was still plausible deniability.
She typed out Yes, I knew about the photos. I chose them. And pressed send without pausing.
If she stepped back now she would never be able to meet Gee’s eyes again. She might have been clueless before, but not now. She couldn’t turn her head and pretend. She could see her monochrome-planned world retreat. Should she delete her Google doc with all those Gantt charts? Before she could make the decision, there was a reply.
Are you playing us or are you for real?
Of course, they wouldn’t trust her. Why should they?
I’m sorry for before. I’m now a completely committed follower of the Rainbow Bop Bear. She pressed ‘send’.
Emma logged into to her personal Twitter account, took a deep breath and pressed follow. Maybe the fans would never put it together that she was following the bears, but Will would get the message. She was all in.