to her face .’
I do not have legs up to my face. I barely have legs up to my hips.
‘And lips like pillows.’
In fairness to me, my upper lip is pillow-like. It’s just my lower one that’s letting the side down – though I suspect he doesn’t care. This is a very pointed “I made a mistake” sort of speech, and I know it.
He couldn’t have made it clearer if he’d drawn a diagram.
‘Not to mention her arse.’
He doesn’t need to say what made her arse so special. I can see it in my mind’s eyes, so much perkier – and more importantly – smaller than mine. And even if I couldn’t, my idiot brother is here to make things worse for me.
‘I too would mention her arse, if I was not sat next to the most beautiful posterior in the history of the world,’ he says. And though I know, rationally, that he’s just paying Kimberley a compliment – probably because she’s been rolling her eyes for the last five minutes – I can’t help seeing it as a dig.
My brother loves me, and wants to protect me, but he’s never understood what it’s like to be less than svelte. He once bought me a rowing machine for my birthday, in all earnestness. He thinks being plump is a character flaw, and right now I agree.
I feel so flawed I could fall through the floor.
‘Kimberley would concur, if she’d only seen it.’
‘I probably would,’ Kimberley says. ‘Was it akin to two apples in a plastic bag?’
Both men laugh, of course. I’m wondering what my arse would be equivalent to. Two melons? Maybe some oddly shaped potatoes? I lean back against the canvas chair I’m in and let my eyes drift closed – as though I’m tired. But really it’s just so I can better picture the fruit and veg aisle in Asda. And maybe eventually manage to tune this conversation out.
‘Oh, it was better than two apples.’
‘More like – tennis balls,’ my brother says, now that he’s got the green light to discuss another woman’s bottom in front of his wife. He’s really lucky to have someone like her – someone so restrained and refined and yet still willing to have a laugh.
Who could ask for more than that?
‘Tennis balls?’ Steven says, and then he’s laughing. They’re both laughing. ‘Your arse metaphors stink .’
‘Actually it’s arse similes.’
‘Well, excuse me. I don’t have a degree in literature – just the degree in how to describe a woman’s body. And I’m pretty sure tennis balls never come into it.’
‘Then what does come into it?’
‘Anything round and soft. Clouds, marshmallows …’
‘So she had an arse like a marshmallow?’
Steven’s laughing so hard now he can’t speak, which is perhaps my favourite state of his. His eyes always crinkle into these perfect little cartoon-a-like stars, and usually he actually squeezes some tears out. I used to live for those tears.
But I’m already crossing him back off my “things I’m crazy about” list. It’s going to be hard this time, I can see it. Maybe even harder than it was when I first realised we were in two different leagues, and that he would never see me as anything other than his friend’s sister.
But I know I can do it. I just have to focus on other things – like the lights over the harbour, so pretty in the darkness, and the gentle lap of the water against the boat. I’ve had a good time, I think. I should see all of this as a positive, as a little taste of heaven.
Things can get back to normal, now. They can return to reality. All I have to do is keep tuning and tuning and tuning things out, and in truth I’m almost there. I’m just a millimetre away from it, when he speaks again.
‘Seriously, though … All the girls, all of those clouds and marshmallows … None of it really matters to me any more.’
‘So you’re turning a new leaf for the tenth time?’ Jason asks, as though we’re momentarily one person. We think the same thoughts and voice the same questions and roll the same
I do not have legs up to my face. I barely have legs up to my hips.
‘And lips like pillows.’
In fairness to me, my upper lip is pillow-like. It’s just my lower one that’s letting the side down – though I suspect he doesn’t care. This is a very pointed “I made a mistake” sort of speech, and I know it.
He couldn’t have made it clearer if he’d drawn a diagram.
‘Not to mention her arse.’
He doesn’t need to say what made her arse so special. I can see it in my mind’s eyes, so much perkier – and more importantly – smaller than mine. And even if I couldn’t, my idiot brother is here to make things worse for me.
‘I too would mention her arse, if I was not sat next to the most beautiful posterior in the history of the world,’ he says. And though I know, rationally, that he’s just paying Kimberley a compliment – probably because she’s been rolling her eyes for the last five minutes – I can’t help seeing it as a dig.
My brother loves me, and wants to protect me, but he’s never understood what it’s like to be less than svelte. He once bought me a rowing machine for my birthday, in all earnestness. He thinks being plump is a character flaw, and right now I agree.
I feel so flawed I could fall through the floor.
‘Kimberley would concur, if she’d only seen it.’
‘I probably would,’ Kimberley says. ‘Was it akin to two apples in a plastic bag?’
Both men laugh, of course. I’m wondering what my arse would be equivalent to. Two melons? Maybe some oddly shaped potatoes? I lean back against the canvas chair I’m in and let my eyes drift closed – as though I’m tired. But really it’s just so I can better picture the fruit and veg aisle in Asda. And maybe eventually manage to tune this conversation out.
‘Oh, it was better than two apples.’
‘More like – tennis balls,’ my brother says, now that he’s got the green light to discuss another woman’s bottom in front of his wife. He’s really lucky to have someone like her – someone so restrained and refined and yet still willing to have a laugh.
Who could ask for more than that?
‘Tennis balls?’ Steven says, and then he’s laughing. They’re both laughing. ‘Your arse metaphors stink .’
‘Actually it’s arse similes.’
‘Well, excuse me. I don’t have a degree in literature – just the degree in how to describe a woman’s body. And I’m pretty sure tennis balls never come into it.’
‘Then what does come into it?’
‘Anything round and soft. Clouds, marshmallows …’
‘So she had an arse like a marshmallow?’
Steven’s laughing so hard now he can’t speak, which is perhaps my favourite state of his. His eyes always crinkle into these perfect little cartoon-a-like stars, and usually he actually squeezes some tears out. I used to live for those tears.
But I’m already crossing him back off my “things I’m crazy about” list. It’s going to be hard this time, I can see it. Maybe even harder than it was when I first realised we were in two different leagues, and that he would never see me as anything other than his friend’s sister.
But I know I can do it. I just have to focus on other things – like the lights over the harbour, so pretty in the darkness, and the gentle lap of the water against the boat. I’ve had a good time, I think. I should see all of this as a positive, as a little taste of heaven.
Things can get back to normal, now. They can return to reality. All I have to do is keep tuning and tuning and tuning things out, and in truth I’m almost there. I’m just a millimetre away from it, when he speaks again.
‘Seriously, though … All the girls, all of those clouds and marshmallows … None of it really matters to me any more.’
‘So you’re turning a new leaf for the tenth time?’ Jason asks, as though we’re momentarily one person. We think the same thoughts and voice the same questions and roll the same
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