Читать книгу How Not to be a Bride - Portia MacIntosh, Portia MacIntosh - Страница 13

Chapter Five

I gently tap my fingers against the keys of my MacBook – not because I’m typing, because I’m stressed. I have just two chapters left to write and then I can send this book to my editor, and I really can’t wait to see the back of it.

When I was living in LA I was part of a team of screenwriters responsible for all the big romcom hits of our generation, but leaving LA meant leaving my job too, and back here in Kent there’s not much call for big-screen romcom writers. I looked into other writing jobs, but writing romantic comedies is what I’m good at, so I transitioned from writing movies to writing novels. Working with a team of screenwriters, I’d be in a sunny city, in a big, fancy office, with a well-stocked table of fresh food put out every morning. I could grab a Starbucks on my way to work, do my job with ease, flirt with my boss’s latest handsome assistant and plan the night’s social events with whichever movie stars were hanging around the office that day. Writing novels is not as social as writing movies. It’s October, so Kent is pretty cold, and instead of being in an office I am in my living room. I’m wearing a onesie because I’m freezing, I’m all alone because, other than emailing my editor or my agent, I work entirely by myself, and I don’t really eat properly, I just grab things when I can.

It’s been three months since Leo proposed, which means it’s been three months since I made the decision to get back to my LA diet and exercise regime, and I’ve snapped right back into shape. I’m happy to admit that LA Mia was maybe a bit too skinny, but thanks to all my hard work I’ve lost that stubborn stone everyone warned me I’d put on when I got a boyfriend – although I think the weight gain was more to do with the fact that I was eating too much junk while I was working. I’m really happy with the way I look again – I’ve even been taking these vitamins and using special conditioning treatments to try and encourage my hair to grow back again, because now I’ve got my body back, I want my hair back too.

It’s Saturday night and the street outside is abuzz with students. Leo is at work and I’m here alone, trying to work, but I’m getting so easily distracted.

I walk over to the living-room window to see what’s going on outside. There’s what I’d guess is a nineteen-year-old man, holding a traffic cone to his crotch as he chases near-naked young girls across the street, prodding them in the butt with his plastic appendage. Our house sits in the middle of a long road that leads from the university right into the centre of town, which is why there are so many students around. Our house is also situated right in the middle of the Merry Mile, a famous pub crawl that runs from the uni into the centre, in which participants dress up and have a drink in each pub along the way. I study the students, trying to work out who they’re all supposed to be. There’s one guy dressed up as a Minion and another one dressed as a sanitary towel (you’d be surprised how popular that one is among men, and my inner feminist isn’t sure whether it’s empowering or just insulting), and the girls are all just random things (a cavewoman, a cat, a nurse) that don’t involve much clothing, which is unfathomable to me because it’s freezing out there. It suddenly occurs to me that I’m 14 years older than these kids and I feel like an old lady, spending my Saturday night in my pyjamas.

When I think about my life back in LA, it feels like something that happened in a dream a long time ago. I might have got myself back into a shape I’m happy with, but Mia from four years ago wouldn’t have been caught dead in a onesie – least of all a tea-stained one – spending a Saturday night at home while everyone else was out having fun. I would’ve been out having cocktails, bumping into Margot Robbie, begging her to introduce to me Leonardo DiCaprio so I could be his latest blonde squeeze, not here, putting off doing my work by watching a Minion with a traffic cone for a dick.

I head into the still-unfinished kitchen and put the kettle on. We haven’t got much done with the house over the past three months. Leo has been working a lot and I’ve been working on my book. Leo has been taking all the overtime he can get because it turned out the house had some major electrical problems that needed fixing before we could get on with anything. Now that’s done and finally all of the rooms are painted white, ready for us to make each one our own. I am hoping and praying we start with the kitchen because it’s really hard to keep up the healthy eating when it’s almost impossible to cook in there. I’m sure it will feel easier to eat healthier when this book is done too, because it’s too easy to just keep writing and eat an entire tube of Pringles for dinner, rather than cooking, only pausing momentarily to wonder if Pringles tubes are getting smaller or your hands are getting bigger. Well, that’s what I’d have been doing this time last year, anyway. These days I have to waste time I don’t really have making healthy snacks I don’t really want.

Armed with my cup of tea I sit back down on the sofa, grab my laptop and try to get back on with my work. The sooner I get this book done, the sooner I can send it off and get to work on the next one. It’s hard to function as an adult when you write books for a living because you have no real guaranteed income. By the time your publishers and your agent take their cut you are left with what you’re left with, and you have to survive from quarter to quarter without a top-up. You never really know how much you’re going to be paid from one quarter to the next, so it’s hard to make plans. Were I not lucky enough to live with Leo, and were it not for the fact he has a good job, I’m not sure I’d feel financially comfortable doing this for a living.

I am just about to start typing when I hear a loud bang on the door. It’s a bit late for knock-on-the-door, just-stopping-by visitors, but not so late I’m scared to see who it is.

‘Hello, boys,’ I say, seeing my friends Rory and Iwan on the doorstep.

‘Mamma Mia,’ Rory bellows after swigging from a bottle of bourbon, passing it to Iwan before giving me a hug.

‘Hi,’ I laugh. ‘You boys seem like you’ve had a good night.’

‘We’re just heading into town now,’ Iwan slurs, his thick Welsh accent sounding even stronger thanks to all the alcohol. ‘We thought we’d see if you and Leo fancied it?’

‘Leo is working,’ I tell them. ‘So am I, to be honest.’

‘Come on, come out with us,’ Rory whines. ‘Come on.’

I can’t help but laugh at his drunk tantrum.

Rory and Iwan share a flat in the house next door. While the houses are aimed at students, they’re also marketed to young professionals as a cheaper alternative to the swanky apartments in the more favourable parts of town. They both work together at a digital agency, Rory as a project manager and Iwan as a web developer. Iwan definitely looks as you’d expect him to, with his handsome good looks, his trendy beard and his geek-chic hipster clothing. Rory, on the other hand, seems to only take style inspiration from James Bay, with his long, messy hair always covered with a wide-brimmed hat and his stick-thin legs encased in the skinniest of skinny jeans. Leo and I have been friends with Rory and Iwan for years now. In fact, it was them who let us know about this house going up for sale.

‘I really need to get this book finished,’ I tell them, ‘but then we’ll go out to celebrate – next weekend maybe?’

‘Boo,’ Rory, clearly the drunker of the two, heckles me.

‘You want a drink before we go?’ Iwan asks.

‘Just made a cuppa,’ I tell him.

I close the door and plonk myself down on the sofa, sighing deeply. I would love to go out, but I need to be responsible. Just a few more chapters and then I can send this off, and finally start having some fun.