Page 27 of The Moon Also Rises
Jake stays in the bathroom for well over an hour and I set about getting myself ready in the bedroom. I would have liked to have had a shower before changing into my tux but I know Jake needs the time alone more. I’m relieved when my suit still fits me – I lost a lot of weight while I was in RemiX – but time at home when I returned from California did help me gain some of it back. There really is no better cooking than my mother’s, and it was her cooking – her careful adapting of her best dishes to still be vegan for me – her comfort and her company that helped get me back to a place where I felt ready to live again. It took many long months, but I got there, all thanks to her. Thinking about this, I reach for my phone and send her a quick text.
I don’t expect her to text back for a while, so I go to my messages with my youngest sister Roxie and send her one too.
As predicted, Roxie texts back immediately.
I roll my eyes.Thanks, Radia.
I laugh at Roxie’s take-no-prisoner’s sense of humour and a strange thought blasts into my mind. Jake and my little sister would get on like a house on fire.
I hold my breath as I type back.
And that’s exactly why I’m going. To make my mother smile. To make her happy. Because for a long time, too long, I didn’t do that.
I reply.
When I put my phone away I realise that I can hear Jake humming along to D’Angelo. After being momentarily surprised he knows the song, I find myself smiling at how his voice is a little flat and breaks on the higher notes. It makes me smile so much that I have an irrational urge to leave the room.
I tell myself it’s because a walk before the ceremony would be nice. I tell myself it’s because Jake will need space to get dressed in the bedroom and probably doesn’t want an audience. I tell myself it’s because it may be the last chance I get ten minutes to myself before the end of the day. But really, I know it’s because I can’t stop thinking about Jake’s freckles, how nice it felt when we held hands in the garden, and how something like hope or maybe even desire bloomed inside me when he leaned his bodyweight against mine as we stood chatting to Lionel and Luigi. I know it was all for show, so it frustrates me I’m still thinking about it now.
“Jake!” I call out through the door.
“Yes, Lover Boy,” he replies in a high-pitched voice.
“Going for a quick walk and to find that drink I promised you,” I say, applauding myself for coming up with the perfect excuse.
“Oh, no minibar?” Jake asks and he sounds disappointed.
I quickly look around the room, searching. “Not that I can see.”
“Well, thank you,” he says and the authenticity in his tone makes me pause for a moment outside the bathroom before I turn and leave.
*****
Following more crested signs to the bar, I am surprised to see Luigi – looking incredibly smart and handsome in a cream tux with black details – on his phone pacing back and forth in front of the long wooden bar where three waistcoated servers are arranging glasses. I ask one of them if they could pour me a glass of whisky and soda with two ice cubes. While I wait, I realise Luigi is talking in Italian but even if I don’t understand a word, I can tell that he’s not happy with whoever he is talking to. I’m being handed my drink when Luigi’s call ends.
“Curses!” He stares at his phone.
