The Seven Month Itch Read online

  ‘Nessa?’ Marc’s face is in front of mine.

  My eyes meet his and, still in my where-has-the-past-year-gone? daze, I register that it’s going to be weird not having him around after the wedding, once the summer break’s over. He’s moving right across the country after that, having been accepted into film school in LA. And me? Well, I guess I’ll still have Vera. And my waffles. Maybe pancakes tomorrow. Maybe bacon and eggs. Mmm. Yummy. Bacon and eggs and maybe a little hash brown on the side –

  ‘NESSA!’ Marc’s face can’t get any closer than this.

  ‘Wha?’ I wake up to myself, still sitting in the same place in the kitchen, waffles before me, and suppress the urge to ask how long I’ve been out for. Everyone is looking at me. Marc, Holly, Vera – and my dad, I notice now, and … oh, who’s that? My eyes pause when they meet the new face in the line-up.

  ‘Nessa,’ my dad speaks up. ‘As I’ve already said, er, thrice now, this is Susannah. She’s my research assistant for the new project.’

  I’m not sure what to focus on – the fact that my dad just used the word ‘thrice’ or on Susannah herself. I end up choosing Susannah. ‘Um, hi,’ I say.

  With her standing right next to Holly, my eyes can’t help flitting from one to the other. The contrast almost makes my retinas hurt. Susannah is the exact opposite of tall, dark and curvy old-world Hollywood Holly. She’s new-world Hollywood all the way: blonde and I think ‘petite’ is the word. (I’d hardly know – no-one has ever used the term to describe me.)

  Right. Everyone’s really looking at me now. Don’t they know it’s rude to stare? And here I am, troll-haired, pyjama-ed, on a Monday morning, surrounded by a bevy of beauties, or at least people who have showered (Dad, Vera, Marc …), with a towering plate of waffles in front of me. Looking good, Nessa, looking good. But wait. Something’s wrong here.

  My eyes move swiftly to find Vera now, and I instantly wonder why, when there’s a guest in the room, especially such an underfed one, she hasn’t tied Susannah down to a chair and started the process of force-feeding (kind of like those geese they force-feed in France so they can make foie gras out of their little livers later). But no, there’s no force-feeding going on here.

  ‘Hmpf,’ Vera snorts, giving Susannah the eye. Then she goes back to watching the waffle-maker like a hawk. (It would be a brave waffle that dared to burn on Vera’s shift.)

  ‘Yes, well …’ My dad looks slightly perturbed at the reaction Susannah’s getting here. ‘It’s great that you got to meet Holly,’ he says, before turning to his fiancée. ‘Holly, Susannah used to be an actress herself. Before she found sociology, that is.’

  Holly nods. ‘Really? That’s interesting.’

  Susannah shakes her head modestly. ‘Oh, no. You’re embarrassing me. I was in a couple of off-Broadway plays. It was nothing.’

  ‘Susannah’s thesis centres on fame,’ my dad continues.

  My ears perk up at this. Fame. Now that is interesting. I give her a really good once-over to see how she’s reacting to being around Holly.

  It’s weird, the fame thing. People react in all kinds of different ways when they meet Holly. Some people freak out and tell her they love her, like they’ve known her forever. Other people pretend they don’t know who she is when they obviously do. Once, when we were going to the bathroom at the Time Warner Center, a woman slipped a piece of paper and a pen under Holly’s stall and asked for her autograph! It’s really rare for someone to act normal the first time they meet Holly. I definitely didn’t, that’s for sure.

  But, to give Susannah her credit, she does act pretty normal, and she and Holly end up chatting for a good few minutes about her thesis. Marc, of course, gives his usual ‘You gotta get through me to get to Holly, lady’ glare. He is such a scream. As her nephew, he’s lived with the fame thing for a very long time. And while we’re all protective of Holly, Marc takes it to another level. When it comes to his aunt, in fact, Marc can be like a yappy little terrier. Watch out for your skinny little ankles, Susannah.

  I tune in again to hear Dad still raving on about Susannah’s thesis.

  ‘Dumpling, I’m so sorry,’ Holly cuts him off at the chase, ‘but I’ve got to run or we’ll miss our plane. I’ll call you tonight so you can tell me all about it, okay?’

  ‘Oh, of course,’ Dad says with a nod.

  Holly turns to Susannah. ‘Now, you’ve got to promise that you’re going to work him hard, Susannah. We’ve got to have that study proposal finished and submitted before the wedding and the honeymoon.’ Holly shakes her head. ‘If it wasn’t for that stupid Kent …’ And then off she goes on her Kent rant.

  We’ve all heard it a lot lately. Kent Sweetman is her ex-fiancé (real name: Kenneth Mananopolous!) and the reason she and Marc are now headed to LA. Holly thought she’d finished shooting this movie months ago, but now Kent, as co-star and one of the film’s producers, has decided he’s not happy with a whole heap of scenes and has insisted that they re-shoot them. I think everyone, including Kent, knows he’s just doing this to annoy Holly in the lead-up to her wedding, but as a co-producer, he’s got the clout to call the shots, even over Holly Isles.

  ‘Anyway, what was I saying?’ Holly interrupts herself. ‘Oh yes … Work hard, sweet-cheeks.’ She skips forward to kiss my dad and everyone looks away. (Retch. I mean, I love that they’re happy, but my intestines have their limits.)

  ‘And you work hard too, sweet-cheeks the second,’ Holly says, grinning in my direction.

  Oh yeah, I forgot about that. Work. I’ve got to go there today. Dad got me a part-time job over the summer, working two days a week re-shelving books in the library at the college. I glance at Marc now, standing beside Holly, and wish I hadn’t said yes so quickly when Dad first offered. Marc ended up getting the plum job, going to LA to work as Holly’s PA. ‘I’ll try,’ I tell her as Marc returns my look with a ‘Have fun, I’m sure I will!’ grin.

  Like Vera said before, ‘Hmpf.’

  ‘Okay, then. We’re off.’ Holly and Marc head for the elevator.

  As they go, Vera presses a huge container of waffles on them, loaded with strawberries, maple syrup and just a dusting of icing sugar.

  ‘Here. Waffles. You too skinny! So skinny! Eat! Eat!’

  Holly laughs. ‘You’re a star, Vera.’

  Vera pauses. ‘No. You star,’ she deadpans.

  Holly shakes her head and laughs again. But she also takes the time to crack open the lid of the container and fish out a strawberry. ‘Mmm. Good!’

  ‘Yes! Eat! Too skinny! So skinny!’ Vera keeps right on going, just like the Energizer bunny, even when the elevator doors have closed behind Marc and Holly.

  And then, they’re gone. Vera turns back to see Susannah right in her path. ‘Hmpf,’ she says again and returns to the kitchen.

  ‘Oh! And don’t forget …’ Everyone whips around at the sound of Holly’s voice, as the elevator pings and the doors start to slide open. ‘Plan me a fabulous wedding, dahlink!’

  ‘I will!’ I yell back as the doors shut once more. And I can’t help but smile as I swivel back around on my seat again.

  Get this. Dad and Holly are letting me plan their wedding! They’ve given me a budget and a basic idea of what they’d like, and are letting me run with it. (I keep scaring them by casually leaving brochures for nudist wedding ceremonies and six-foot-tall swan-shaped marshmallow cakes around the apartment – I just can’t help myself.) Before I started in on the planning, I thought it would be all fun and cake tasting, but so far it’s mostly been plain hard work. In fact, I’ve spent most of my wedding-planning days doing ‘fun’ things like staggering towards the post office with a million and one invitation-stuffed envelopes. I don’t mind, though. The day itself is going to be amazing. And it’s less than two weeks away! I really can’t believe it. My dad and Holly Isles. What is my stomach worrying about? I should go with the flow and enjoy this, because everything is simply PPP (perfect, perfect, perfect). Sigh.

 
Um, er …

  Except for the fact that everyone is staring at me again. Well, Dad and Susannah, that is, because Vera, it seems, is busy staring at something else. A suitcase. On the floor. Beside Susannah. It’s not Holly’s, and it’s not Marc’s. It’s small. Petite. Perfect. PPP … Yes, well, everything was PPP up until about fifteen minutes ago. Because it seems my dad has neglected to tell me a little something about Susannah.

  The fact, that is, that she’s moving in.

  My waffles sit in a big, fat lump in the bottom of my stomach as I make my way over to City Hall to catch the subway uptown to the library. Usually my waffles/pancakes/other Vera-lovingly-prepared goodies are happy little campers as they make their way through my intestines, but today I feel sick in the airless subway as we lurch to and fro and the guy sitting next to me breathes his garlic breath down my throat. (What did he have for breakfast anyway, garlic Cheerios?) I try to cheer myself up by wondering if I’ll have time to see Alexa before I start work. Alexa has that best-friend knack of always being able to make me feel better. I’m feeling slightly weirded out by the fact that everyone except me thinks it’s completely normal that Susannah’s moving into our apartment while Holly’s away, and I’m hoping Alexa will be able to explain it all to me in Alexa Milton kind of terms.

  She’s a very grounded person, Alexa. The opposite of me. I’m like my dad – my head always in the clouds – but Alexa has had to keep her head close to the ground from a very young age. And if Dad and I have our head in the clouds, Alexa’s parents (also academics) are somewhere in the stratosphere. Alexa’s been paying the bills, buying the groceries, cooking, and keeping an eye on all of us for quite a number of years now. I wince as I think back to the one time she couldn’t keep an eye on me – on the cruise ship last summer. (Her parents had lugged her to the middle of a desert where she had only intermittent email contact. Forget animals, what about cruelty to children?) Even then, as I attempted stunt after ridiculous stunt to try to find Holly some cruise-ship lovin’, Alexa had tried her hardest to keep tabs on me via email and some very expensive satellite phone calls. Anyway, I’ve been seeing heaps more of her this summer as she’s working on the other side of the college, in the Department of Classics and Ancient History museum (totally cruisey, dust-free, best AC on campus, the lucky thing). We get to meet up for lunch most days when we’re working, which is great.

  Alexa’s also been helping me get my head around this wedding-planning thing. Together, we’ve got it all sorted out down to the finest detail. For the venue, we ended up going with Nico’s, which is Dad and Holly’s favourite restaurant. It’s kind of rustic family-style Italian and has this gorgeous little fountain courtyard out the back. Dad and Holly are going to get married in the courtyard and then we’ll all move into the restaurant for the reception. Under security detail, of course. Because that was the one really freaky thing about planning this wedding – Holly said she was fine with whatever I chose as long as there were three things: good food, good wine and good security. It’s been kind of strange planning a wedding where the first thing I had to book was bouncers and bodyguards, but there you go. That’s stardom for you, I guess. I joked with the agency that I’d need all their staff to wear top hats and tails and carry canes (tip: don’t joke with security guys; they have their sense of humour removed as standard practice).

  The other security issue is with the guests. Flights had to be booked and accommodation had to be arranged for everyone, even the people who live in NYC. Here’s the thing – everyone, the NYC guests included, is staying at the Mercer the night before the wedding, and they don’t know the time or the venue the ceremony and reception will be held at, because Holly needs to keep the details secret from the media. So, what’s going to happen is that, a couple of hours before the wedding, a pre-recorded message will let them all know where they have to go. It’s all very Secret Squirrel.

  The flights, accommodation and the security have been the expensive part of the wedding. Strangely, everything else has been pretty cheap. When I started my planning, I thought Holly would want the whole big celebrity-wedding deal, but then when I told her about all the big hotels I’d been to see, she actually looked a bit sad. She confided in me that that was what her whole wedding to Kent (the one that never happened) had been about: show. The most expensive reception, the most expensive gifts, the biggest, most expensive engagement ring. I could hardly believe it when Holly told my dad she didn’t really want an engagement ring. I mean, I’d seen the one Kent gave her. It was HUGE! And I mean huge. That rock was so big, I was surprised she hadn’t had to drag her hand along the ground behind her every time she wore it. Dad did buy Holly a ring in the end – a gorgeous smoky square-cut sapphire. It’s dark and beautiful and suits her perfectly. Not like that three-carat diamond monstrosity from Kent, which was all about him. (Don’t get me started on a Kent rant …)

  Anyway, when Holly explained that she wanted a simple wedding that was about her and Dad, I realised what I had to do. I decided to go for the things that make them happy every day. Like Nico’s. And I’m getting the cake – or I should say, cakes – from City Bakery. Dad, Holly and I walk there every Sunday for a cupcake, and every week Holly makes us walk fast because she has cupcake guilt. I tell her she shouldn’t make me feel bad about eating the cupcake, because I’m an impressionable youngster and if she’s not careful I’ll get an eating disorder. Then Holly and Dad laugh for at least three blocks. It’s sort of a ritual with us.

  Still, I do think that Holly worries about her weight too much. She was in this movie a while ago with Renée Zellweger, and every time she stood next to Ms Z, she looked fat. I hated that, because Holly looks amazing. Nice and cupcake curvy. Like a woman rather than a scarecrow. Just like Marilyn Monroe …

  Oh.

  Er.

  Oops.

  The subway lurches once more and my eyes widen. Don’t think about it, don’t think about it, don’t think about her.

  Instantly, I forget about Susannah, I forget about the wedding, and I am brought way, way, way back down to earth. To beneath the earth. To the subway. And garlic Cheerios man. And the trickle of sweat slowly skipping its way down my back.

  I’m not allowed to think about Marilyn Monroe, you see. I know I did before and everything, in the apartment, but that was because I forgot to stop myself. Marilyn Monroe and I have a … I guess you could call it a chequered past. The thing is, I’m a little bit obsessed with her. Or used to be, that is. I just love her films and … right, there I go again. Don’t think about it, don’t think about it, don’t think about her. You know all that business with the cruise ship, about finding Holly some love on the high seas? It was Marilyn herself who got me into a bit of trouble there. I sort of started to make myself believe that the plot of one of her films was playing itself out for real. I started thinking there were these coincidences going on left, right and centre (I like to call these little coincidences ‘Marilynisms’)… and, well, Dad, Holly, some weird photographer guy and I found ourselves in a bit of a muddle.

  Dad’s always been a bit worried about my Marilyn thing. About my DVD collection, my collectable Marilyn dolls and plates, and even more so about the $35,000 bra of Marilyn’s I once coveted on ebay (well, it was a bargain!). But this time, when I started to mess with people’s lives, he got serious: if I didn’t knock it off, it was back to the kiddie psychiatrist again. Thus, I’m trying very hard to kick the Marilyn habit. It’s difficult, though, because she’s everywhere. Rhinestone-encrusted on women’s handbags, on ads selling pantyhose and lipstick, on posters. Dad says I don’t have to forget about her, that it’s fine to admire her work – just not as much as I do. Or used to. I once asked him if I could like her as much as Holly likes her City Bakery cupcakes. He thought about it for a minute, then said yes. He told me that if all I did was have a fifteen-minute Marilyn moment once a week, he’d be happy with that. (Yeah, right. Like Holly’s cupcake lasts fifteen minutes!)

  Anyway, since the cr
uise-ship debacle, I’ve been on a strict low-Marilyn diet. Cupcakes, though, they’re another story. Like I was saying, we’re having Holly’s favourite – white chocolate. White chocolate cupcakes with white chocolate frosting, sprinkled with tiny white candy hearts. They’re going to be stacked almost to the ceiling. City Bakery offered to do it all for free (Holly is, after all, a big fan), but by that stage almost everyone was offering to do everything for free (which happens to Holly a lot) and Dad went all funny. He started calling up all the suppliers and insisting on paying. He went all Australian (because we are, though not quite Russell Crowe – he didn’t manage to assault anyone with the phone) and stormed about the apartment saying he’d look like a ‘bloody fool’ if he didn’t pay for anything. I was impressed, really. He was quite the man.

  Damn. I’ve missed my stop.

  Because I overshoot and have to double-back on the subway, I don’t have time to meet up with Alexa. I text her as I walk towards the library …

  c u @ lunch

  ‘Nessa! Hey! Wait up!’

  I whip around to see Toby running up behind me.

  ‘I thought I saw you in the next carriage. What were you doing uptown?’

  Um. ‘Oh, I, um … I had some wedding stuff to do.’ Better to tell a little white lie than look ‘I missed my stop’ stupid in front of your brand new boyfriend, right?

  Yes, that’s right.

  Boyfriend.

  I, Nessa Joanne Mulholland, aged fifteen (almost sixteen!), have an actual, real, live boyfriend. Wild, too. No, no, not in that sense of the word; I mean ‘wild’ as in I’m not holding him captive or anything. And when I say ‘boyfriend’, I don’t mean I just have a crush on him. And I also don’t mean he’s a boy who’s a friend. I mean a proper boyfriend. Really! We’ve been dating for six weeks now. Lunches, movies, the whole deal. I met Toby on orientation day – a nice word for the meanest librarian on earth grabbing us both by the throats and telling us exactly what we would and would not be doing during work hours in the library. Frankly, I could hardly believe we even had orientation. How hard can putting books on shelves be? Not very hard, as I’ve discovered. It’s not exactly taxing on the brain, but it’s a great little workout for my biceps, which are going to look great in my bridesmaid dress in eleven days’ time.