The Birds and the Bees(48)

‘Don't be obscene!'

‘Anyway, I'm glad he sorted Dickhead and his balloons out for you.'

‘Yes, he did,' said Stevie, not realizing she was smiling. She had  played that little scene over and over again to herself on a continuous  loop – Adam MacLean coming around the corner just at the very moment when  she felt at her most helpless. She had used it in her book where Damme  arrived, just as the evil Richard had Evie pinned in a corner. The  difference being that Evie's heart had started fluttering, whilst her  own had … er … started fluttering actually. Stop that. That is a ridiculous  thought, and not a true recollection, she mentally slapped herself. That  was the trouble with having the imagination of a romantic novelist: the  story world and the real world blurred and crossed over in some cases.  She had ended up on more than one occasion seeing things as she wanted  to see them and not as they really were. Men being the prime example.                       
       
           



       

‘So as we were saying,' prompted Catherine, waving her hand in front of  Stevie's face to check she was still with them, ‘ … about Adam. How did it  feel to snog him?'

‘I didn't snog him, Cath. I just kissed him very lightly once, and then we both went inside and started wiping our mouths.'

She had only been so playground puerile because she saw his hand come up  to his mouth first and therefore she needed to prove that kissing him  was every bit and more disgusting than he seemed to find it. Although it  hadn't been disgusting at all, she was forced to admit. He had very  soft lips not that she wanted to dwell on that particular detail.

‘Steve, is all this worth it?' Catherine asked suddenly. ‘Kissing men you can't stand, buying expensive frocks … '

‘Yes, Cath, it is,' Stevie said, picking up her carrier bag with the  lovely blue dress in it. She had lost Mick to Linda, there was no way  she would let history repeat itself by losing Matthew to Jo.





Chapter 38




There was a slight panic on the Friday as unforecasted rains came: great  heavy flash floods and sparking lightning that Saturday brides and  barbecuers alike stared out at in dismay. Stevie and Danny, walking home  from an after-school visit to the park, were caught in a spectacular  shower that drenched them totally, and they ran home half-laughing,  half-screaming like mad things, then peeled off their saturated clothes  and climbed straight into a big bubbly bath together.

Luckily, the clouds were gone the next day, except for a few wispy  mares' tails and the air was already very warm and shimmery above the  garden. By mid-morning, brides everywhere reached for their lipsticks  with relieved smiles. Stevie had worked in the sunny garden all week,  and a splash of freckles had appeared all over her nose and cheeks as if  flicked there by a paintbrush. The light tanning of her skin made her  eyes seem as blue as that day's skies and they shone with anticipation  and excitement. She toasted a little further as she and Danny spent most  of the day in the garden weeding out the potatoes that plagued the  flowerbeds and digging out the dandelions, and the physical work took  her mind nicely off the nervous anticipations of the evening to come.  Then Danny fell asleep under the umbrella whilst she was mowing the  grass, and as it was probably going to be a late evening for him, she  let him sleep on until it was time to get his bath and then his party  shirt on. Catherine had arranged for Eddie to pick him up and take him  to the Flanagans' house so he could go along with the rest of the  children.

‘That'll give you another two hours to make yourself beautiful,' she had  said with a wink, and Stevie had retorted, ‘I'll need more than that!'

‘Not in that frock you won't,' said Catherine. ‘All the work's done for you.'

And so, as soon as Danny ran joyfully down the lane in his red dragon  party shirt to Uncle Eddie and Gareth awaiting in the car, Stevie jumped  in a bath armed with exfoliators, hair treatments and her trusty razor  blade – a woman with a mission.



Apart from the fact that her hand was shaking when she put her eyeliner  on and she had to redo one total socket, Stevie was quite pleased with  her self-treatment, although she knew she couldn't compete with Jo's  salon-perfection. Catherine was right, the dress was beautiful and  fitted as if it had been made for her. She had dropped over a stone and a  half in weight since all this business had started and the nipped-in  waist only served to accentuate the curves below and above it. The dress  pointed out the best bits even further, and teamed up with some strappy  gold sandals that would probably cripple her in an hour, and a blue  flower holding back her hair at one side, she looked fresh and rather  lovely.

She had met Adam briefly at the gym the previous day. He was zipping  about busily but found her at the weight bench to say that he would pick  her and Danny up at seven-thirty. He was going to drive, because he  didn't want to drink enough to put himself over the limit, and he wanted  his head clear. When Stevie told him that Danny was going on ahead, she  thought he had looked slightly disappointed. But then again, Adam  MacLean, Family Man, would have shoved Matthew's nose a little further  out of joint, she thought cynically. She hoped Danny wouldn't be upset  by seeing Jo and Matthew together but, as Catherine had said, she  couldn't hide it from him forever that life moved on.

At seven she heard a taxi beep and peeped through the upstairs window to  see Matthew and Jo climbing into it. He was wearing a loud Hawaiian  shirt that would have looked ridiculous on anyone else but on him, it  looked fun and summery and his shoulders looked big and broad in it. She  had on a white strappy sundress with incredibly high black sandals. The  whole ensemble looked very simple, but stunning, and Stevie's nerve  took a bit of a nosedive. Then again, she knew there was nothing she  could have done to look better than she did with what she had available.  Stevie felt right. Right shade of lipstick, right shoes, right  hairstyle. This was it: shit or bust, as her Auntie Rita used to say,  pre-posh husband.                       
       
           



       

She spent the last half an hour trying to keep her fingernails out of  her mouth. She had French manicured them herself and they looked quite  nice, although they weren't long talons like Jo's because she had to  keep them short for typing. She was so nervous that when Adam was thirty  seconds late she was all for ringing him to say she wasn't going – but  just as she was doing the five-billionth check that there was no  lipstick on her teeth, she heard a car pull up outside. Her legs  wouldn't move. She heard the car door shut, she heard his steps, she  heard his heavy rap on the door. Maybe if she pretended she wasn't in …

Telling herself off for being so pathetic, Stevie got up, went out into  the hall and opened the door. Adam was wearing the same colour shirt as  her dress. He looked big and blue and a bit handsome, and she found that  her breath got all snagged up in her throat and she gave a little  involuntary gasp.

He, meanwhile, gave her a discreet look up and down, then said quietly and as if surprised, ‘You look nice.'

‘Oh … er … thanks,' coughed Stevie, who was quite thrown, seeing as she  hadn't expected a compliment from him, not in a million years. She  thought it only polite to give one back. ‘So do you, actually.'

‘Aye, well, enough of the Mutual Appreciation Society annual day oot,  let's get tae the party,' he grumbled, suddenly impatient. Stevie, who  found she was a lot more comfortable with Adam MacLean in hostile mode  than being a pretend nice-person, took a deep breath and climbed into  the passenger seat.



The journey to Will and Pam's house was too short. They had to park up  at the end of the street as there were so many cars. Stevie's heart was  boom-booming and she was trembling with tension. When Adam turned off  the ignition, he didn't look too keen to get out of the car himself.

‘You okay?' he asked.

‘No,' said Stevie.

‘You … we'll be fine.' Sounds of laughter and music filtered into the  ensuing silence that hung between them. ‘I'm a wee bit scared myself for  the record,' he added eventually.

‘Are you?'

‘Aye.'

And scared as she was, it was Stevie who said, ‘Well, come on, we know  what we're doing. Let's get on with it,' and with that she opened the  car door.



Contrary to what she thought might happen i.e. that the world would stop  revolving and there would be a silence so profound that if a pin  dropped it would deafen everyone within a forty-mile radius, what  actually transpired was that Adam rang Pam's doorbell, Pam answered,  kissed and hugged them both and shoved them out into the back garden.  There, they fell straight into the welcoming company of Catherine and  Eddie, who were halfway down their first lagers. Adam, with his  advantage of height, did a quick sweep of the merrily drinking crowds,  but there was no sign of the lovebirds. He shook his head and Stevie was  a paradoxical mix of relieved and disappointed.