PART TWENTY THREE
“Please!” she begged me into the phone, “Sunday is like a huge deal for my family!”
“I’ve got a premier!!” I argued back.
“But it’s not till later in the day!” she reasoned, “We can do both things!”
“I don’t want to spend the whole day with you,” I whined.
“Wow, how charming,” Jess said bluntly.
“That’s not what I meant!”
“I don’t want to hear it,” she said, clearly annoyed by my statement.
“Fine, I’ll do Sunday with you, if you come to my premier.”
“Done,” Jess said, “Just one question… Do you have a top hat?”
“Excuse me?”
“A top hat?” Jess said again, slowly, enunciating each syllable.
“You’re taking the piss right?” I asked, “People do not wear those anymore.”
“Yes they do,” she sighed, “You need one for this event. I’ll ask Freddy if he’s got a spare.”
“What have I signed myself up for?” I asked, ignoring her statement.
“Don’t worry about it,” Jess smirked over the phone.
“Tell me! I need to mentally prepare myself.”
“We’re going to the horse races,” she said, “I have to go now so, bye!”
The horse races? What the hell?
As it was only Wednesday I had a few days to prepare myself for spending the day with Jess. I’d figured out after a month and a half of our fake relationship that I could only really handle her in short spurts. She was always a ball of drama. Sometimes it would be work stuff, and she’d get fifteen calls while we were trying to have a meal out. Or it would be stuff at family events; we hadn’t actually run into George again, but I had this inkling that we would soon enough. Other times she’d be completely normal, like when we went to the football game together. I never actually knew which Jess I was getting which is what made everything so frustrating.
“What do I wear to a horse race?” I asked JB one day when we were waiting to get styled for a photo shoot.
“Haha, what?”
“Jess is making me go to some horse race with her family,” I sighed.
“You don’t sound excited.”
“It doesn’t sound like my ideal day, that’s all.”
“Well you can always have a drink or two and try your hand at the betting,” JB said, “Try and distract yourself, you know.”
“Might be best,” I replied, “She said I have to wear a top hat!”
“Oh god,” JB laughed, “I don’t get what you see in this girl.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“You almost never seem excited to see her. You never call or text her. If I didn’t know any better I’d say you don’t even like her!”
“Well…” I said, trying to formulate a comeback. I didn’t want JB to figure out the truth, it would be humiliating.
“She must be really good in bed,” he winked.
“Umm… Yeah,” I said, trying to put on a fake smile. Jess would probably kill me if this ever got back to her, but I didn’t really care at the moment, JB could not find out the truth!
“Aston, you’re up!” our stylist called.
“Ask her if she knows what you should wear,” JB laughed.
“Oh good call.”
I wandered over to the stylist, who started pulling things off a rack of clothes and holding them up against me. I figured I might as well pose my question to her, about the horse race, and was promptly promised that she would sort something for me by the time we came in for round two of shooting the next morning.
“Thanks,” I said to her.
“Just, if anyone asks, tell them I styled you?” she said.
“Course,” I replied.
“No worries. That crowd is very particular about who styles them,” she said, “And I would not mind getting a bit of business from them. If you know what I mean…” she trailed off, hinting that it was definitely good money.
“Ahhh… That makes sense. I’ll definitely name drop when I can!”
--
Sunday came fast and I stood in my wardrobe, in front of the full-length mirror, feeling like a total idiot. I hoped to god I didn’t get papped, especially with the ridiculous top hat I had on. I also had on a fitted suit and matching waistcoat, with a crisp white shirt underneath. I could drop the waistcoat and hat and wear the suit to the premier that night, which was certainly helpful and well planned by our stylist.
My doorbell dinged, prompting me to throw my keys in my pocket and rush out. Jess was picking me up, insisting that it would be better if I rode with her for once. I pulled the stupid hat off my head and held it in my hand as I wrenched the door open.
“Aston Merrygold?” a gentleman in a suit and driver’s cap asked.
“That’s me,” I said, my brow furrowed. Who was this guy?
“I’m here to pick you up.”
“Oh great,” I replied, turning to lock up my house behind me. I followed the driver down to the car that was idling in my drive, the same Rolls Royce I’d seen Jess in when I’d gone to the football with her. The driver pulled the door open for me and I slid in, to find Jess sat there waiting.
“Let’s see what you’re waering then,” she said. No hello or anything.
“Hi back.”
“Sorry. Hello. How are you? What are you wearing?” she said wryly.
I opened my arms so she could see my outfit, the top hat sitting on my knee. “This work?”
“It’s fine,” she replied. I turned to give her an incredulous look, shocked when I saw what she was wearing. It was a very simple cream colored dress that stopped above her knee in a flowing skirt and accentuated her toned arms with a boat-necked cut at the top. Her hair was down, the first time I’d ever seen it that way, and she had a simple headpiece on instead of some big ridiculous hat. It was very fashionable. She looked kinda hot, in a weird royal way.
“You look nice,” I said quietly.
“What?”
“I said…”
“No, I heard you,” she replied, looking me up and down.
“Just being nice,” I said.
“Well thanks. You scrubbed up well too,” she smiled faintly.
I could see her knee jiggling up and down as we drove through West London. “You ok?” I questioned, tapping her knee with the top hat.
“Just nervous.”
“Nervous?” I questioned. She always seemed so confident, powerful, and in charge of every situation.
“I’ve made you come to a few family things now,” she said, “They always get me a bit wound up.”
“You’re right,” I replied, trying not to laugh at her.
“Stoppp,” she sighed.
“Well, think of it this way… We’ll get this over with and then go have a ball at the premier. Something fun to look forward to.”
“Ok,” she said, nodding gently, not saying anything else as the car headed into a more rural area.
This was a new Jess. Of course she managed to pull the crazy out of the bag for this event and come up with a new personality. Should I have expected anything less?
PART TWENTY FOUR
Papped almost immediately after stepping out of the car, I was in a foul mood going into the grandstand of the horse-racing track. I didn’t so much mind that I was papped, just that I was papped looking like a total mug in the top hat Jess had insisted I wore. I knew the only real way of calming myself down was to hit the bar as soon as possible.
It wasn’t to be though. Upon arriving at our allotted seats, I was reintroduced to Jess’ family, who were all sitting around chatting while they waited for the event to start.
“Aston, it’s great to see you again,” Jess’ Dad, the Earl, said as he shook my hand.
“Where’s mum?” Jess asked.
“She had to do an emergency surgery,” the Earl said with a slight frown.
“Oh,” Jess said, as if this was a common thing. After that she turned to say hello to her brother and his wife leaving me stood there slightly awkward.
Once the greetings were completed I took my seat at the end of the row, Jess next to me. She was weirdly quiet and she kept up with the nervous twitches and jiggling her knee.
“Come with me a second,” I said to Jess, grabbing her arm and pulling her up with me. I dragged her through the grand stand, to the concessions area, where we stopped in a quiet corner.
“Seriously, what’s your deal?” I asked her. “You’re still jiggling your knee like you were in the car!”
“I don’t wanna be here ok!” she hissed at me.
“Why?” I questioned, staring at her. She was seriously confusing me.
She shrugged quickly.
“Tell me!”
“I just don’t like this scene,” she said, “And horse-racing kind of bothers me.”
“So why are we here?” I asked.
“Being a part of this family means I show up to certain things, no excuses. This whole social scene is about being seen. It doesn’t matter if I’m having a miserable time, it looks bad if I’m not here.”
“So? Why do you care what people think?”
“I’m just trying to be a member of this family,” she replied, “It’s important to my Dad, so I’m going to do my best to pretend like I’m enjoying myself. And without my mum here, I’ve really got to represent.”
“So is that why you have like fifty personalities?” I asked her pointedly.
“Excuse me?” she said slowly, a shocked look on her face.
“Seriously! You have more personalities than half of London combined! I can’t keep up with it anymore!”
“I…”
“Save it,” I sighed, “Just try to be yourself? You know, the girl I went to the Chelsea game with? For my sanity?”
“Ok…” she groaned, “I’ll try to act more like myself.”
“Why can’t you always be her?” I questioned, grabbing her arm again.
“Sometimes its easier for me to pretend to be someone else?” she shrugged.
I frowned at her before dragging her over to the bar. “If we’re going to enjoy ourselves at this thing, since its clear neither of us particularly want to be here, we need to distract ourselves a bit,” I declared, citing what JB had said to me.
“Distract ourselves?”
“First we have a drink or two, and then we’ll try our hand at the betting.”
“Not very lady-like,” Jess said. I sighed deeply, glaring at her. “I’m kidding!” she replied, smiling at me.
“You better be,” I said, “Or today really will be miserable!”
I turned to the bar and ordered four glasses of champagne, handing over some money to the bartender.
“Take two,” I told Jess, grabbing my drinks and sipping one. We stood near the bar and bolted down one of our drinks before heading back down by her family.
Because we’d pretty much shot the first glass of champagne, we both started to get a bit giggly, instantly relaxed.
“This was a good idea,” Jess whispered to me as the first race went off.
“Lesson learned from going to all sorts of events that I wasn’t really enjoying,” I said, “Just grab a drink!”
“Just don’t let my Dad catch on,” Jess whispered.
“Why not?” I smirked. It would be kind of funny to out her when she was drunk, especially to her father.
“He’ll want to join in, and then my whole family will be plastered!”
“Seriously?”
“Oh god,” Jess laughed, “Then this whole, keeping up appearances thing will be for nothing!”
“Sounds like fun to me!”
“No please don’t!” she giggled. Whoops, I already had her kind of drunk!
“Let’s go place some bets,” I told her, grabbing her hand and dragging her up again. She didn’t resist, and as she stepped out of the row I caught her brother’s eye. He mimed drinking to me, flashing me a quick wink. I couldn’t help but grin at him… Even though he couldn’t hear our conversation he knew what was going on. I received a quick fist bump from him as Jess and I again headed up to the concessions area.
“Hmmm…” Jess said, looking over the booklet that gave the information for all of the horses, “I want to bet on Happy Feet.”
“Sorry?” I laughed, peeking over her shoulder at the book.
“Happy Feet.”
“Jess, his odds are like 1000 to 1. That means he’s slow.”
“I don’t care, I want to give him a moral boost.”
“You’re kidding!” I laughed, “And here I thought you would be beyond competitive about this. Trying to guess everything right!”
“If I were betting on the football then you better believe I’d be betting to win, but this is horses Aston.”
“So?”
"It's inhumane to race horses," Jess frowned.
“I don’t care what you say, you’re bipolar,” I laughed, taking in her somber attitude.
We took the booklet with us over to the bar, stopping off for another round before finding a perch at a table and flipping through, looking at the different races. We found a few more horses with ridiculous names (including Sugar Lips and Missile Toes) to bet on, and then I went over to put a few pounds on each.
After getting my tickets I wandered back to where I left Jess, only to be shocked at what I saw before me. The smiley fun girl that she’d been for the last hour was gone, and she was back to being harsh and intense, her hands on her hips and a scowl on her face.
“What’s going on?”
“George,” she spit out, “I just dumped my drink down his front.”
“Better get you another then,” I winked, grabbing her arm and pulling her towards the bar.
“Give me a minute Aston,” Jess said, digging her heels into the ground and peeling my hand from her arm.
“You ok?” I asked, turning to look at her. Were those actual tears in her eyes?!