‘You’re not going to start using that against me,’ I grumble. ‘It’s not like me eating a big breakfast is going to make a blind bit of difference to them.’
However, mom is already putting a plate on the cooker top to warm it. With a resigned sigh I watch her put the skillet on the stove and lay two thick cut slices of bacon on the black iron.
The bacon has just become limp and mom has just pushed it to one side to make space for the eggs when the doorbell goes. Both mom and me look at each other.
‘Who on earth could that be?’ mom says.
‘I’ll go,’ I say, and hop off the chair. I peep out of the window and it’s a delivery man holding a box. I open the door, sign for the package that is for me and come back in.
‘Who was it?’ mom calls from the kitchen.
‘It was a package for me.’ I put the package on the kitchen table.
‘Who is it from?’
‘I don’t know. It doesn’t say.’
‘It’s not ticking, is it?’ she laughs.
‘I don’t think so.’
‘Well, open it then,’ she says giving me a knife.
I slit through the string and brown paper and open the box inside, and stare at the contents.
Mom comes to peer over my shoulder. ‘What on earth is all that?’
I look at the measuring tape, the knife, the scissors, clothes pins, and thin and thick rods and I start to laugh.
My mom looks at me strangely.
‘These are the items you need for basket weaving, Mom,’ I tell her grinning happily.
‘Basket weaving? Why in heaven’s name would someone send you basket, uh, why’re you crying?’
‘Mom, your eggs are burning,’ I half sob.
She rushes to the skillet and takes it off the stove just as we hear music coming from the back garden. I rush to the back door and wrench it open, and without warning my legs give way. I sink to my knees. My body goes into shock and my little heart feels as if it will burst with happiness.
Cash Hunter is standing in my garden playing the guitar and serenading me! Can this even be real? All those years when I stood in front of the TV and pretended he was singing to me! And now this. Oh my!
You live your life as if it’s real.
The girls are young, the music is good,
But your heart is hard.
Hey, look at me, I’m a big star.
There are no limits. You can have anything, man,
But your heart is hard.
I saw her bathing and she didn’t even need moonlight.
She used the sunshine in her hair.
I looked into her eyes, I moved in her
And drank from the pool of her soul.
But my heart was hard.
There are no oceans left for you to swallow, she said.
They call me diamond
I’ll break your hard heart for you, she said.
So she broke it with one kiss.
It lay in a million pieces at her feet
And then she passed on by.
Like a cloud. Like a fuckin’ cloud.
Like a cloud. Like a fuckin’ cloud.
He stops playing the guitar and walks up the wooden steps on to the back veranda and crouches in front of me. I blink at him. I feel as if I am drowning in a tidal wave of emotion. Cash Hunter is in my backyard and there are a thousand things in his eyes.
I can’t think. I can’t speak. I can’t even breathe.
‘I finally stopped being mad and stupid and I read your diary. All of it. Every single word, and I loved you even more after I finished than I did before I started. You’re no crazy stalker fan, Tori Diamond. You’re the bravest person I know. You travelled half way around the world to chase your dream. I needed a fucking tragedy before I went after mine.’
‘I’m so sorry about everything. I honestly didn’t mean to hurt anyone.’
He smiles. ‘You were always my fate as sure as I am yours. It can’t be escaped. Our connection is real. I love you, Tori Diamond.’
With one finger he wipes away the tears that are running down my face.
‘I travelled all night to get to you so these better be happy tears,’ he says.
I start laughing.
‘That’s better.’
‘Oh, Cash. I love you so much. I thought I would die when I heard Octavia reading my diary. God, I missed you. I can’t even describe how much. It’s like no matter where I turned I came back to you. It was hell. There was no solace anywhere.’
‘Me too, Wildcat. Me too. I couldn’t weave a single basket without you.’
‘Not a single one?’
He shakes his head slowly. ‘Nope.’
With a cry of joy, I throw my arms around his neck and the force of my lunge makes him topple backwards, and we both fall sprawled on the veranda. Me on top of him.
‘Oh, Cash. I’m so proud of you. I heard your new stuff last night on a German talk show and your music is just amazing.’
‘You made my guitar burn, baby.’
Someone clears their throat. I look up and my mom is standing over us.
‘Do you kids want some breakfast?’ she asks with a wink.
‘Thanks, Mrs. D. I’m starving,’ Cash says.
And my heart swells up with joy.
Epilogue
Tori
2 Years Later
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-MlR6tFh8Gs
(I’m Your Man)
‘Don’t cry, Mom, or I’m going to start too and it’ll ruin my makeup.’
‘Oh, honey,’ my mom sobs, actually sobs. ‘You look so beautiful.’
‘That’s a good thing, right?’ I quip to lighten the mood.
But my mother is already in full flow. ‘I still can’t believe you’re marrying Cash Hunter. Dad and I used to secretly call you Mrs. Hunter.’
‘What? When was this?’ I ask incredulously.
Mom smiles through her tears. ‘When you were young. When you were so crazy about him, we used to joke about it.’
‘I never knew.’
‘Obviously, we were not going to tell you.’
‘I don’t know what to do with the information.’
Mom laughs and carefully dabs the corners of her eyes with her handkerchief. ‘I’m so happy for you, my darling. Come and see how you look.’
I take a deep breath and walk to the mirror. I look at myself and I have to stare at my own reflection with wide eyes. Wow! Look at me. I decided I didn’t want to marry in white, so I went for this astonishingly beautiful strapless multi-colored silk gazar draped ball gown. The bodice is fashioned into a gorgeous rose and the waist is made of pleats that bloom into the gleaming petals of large red and orange roses.
Leah appears next to me in the mirror. She’s wearing her bridesmaid’s outfit, a pink dress with a darker pink underskirt showing and her shoes are the same deep pink.
‘Can you believe it?’ she asks with a grin.
‘No. Pinch me,’ I say softly.
‘Neither can I, actually. But I?
??m so freaking glad you never took my sane advice, and went with the mad option of following your impossible dream instead.’
I laugh.
There is a knock on the door, someone opens it, and my father comes in. I turn towards him and he stops in his tracks.
‘Oh my God,’ he exclaims unsteadily. He shakes his head in disbelief. ‘You look … did your mother and I really make you?’
‘I’m afraid so, Dad.’
His eyes fill with tears as he comes forward to stand in front of me. He takes off his glasses and wipes his eyes. ‘You’re all grown up now, but you’ll always be my baby girl, my little Princess, sitting on my lap telling tales on your brother.’
‘I did not,’ I mutter.
‘I’ll be giving you away today, Princess, but not from my heart. Just remember, I’ll be here for you, always, until the day I am no more.’
What my mother did not accomplish with her tears my father accomplishes with his words. Tears start rolling down my face and all around me women start tutting and scolding. I am pulled back onto the bed and the woman who did my make-up starts fussing and dabbing at my face.
‘No more tears,’ she says sternly to no one in particular.
‘There’s nothing a glass of champagne won’t cure,’ Britney says putting a glass of bubbling liquid into my hand.
I take it and smile up at her. In my mind I see that day two years ago when Cash came to get me in Georgia and brought me back to his father’s house. I was a nervous wreck. I thought she would be angry with me, but she ran up to me, and in her generous wonderful way, hugged me tightly, and said, ‘I was never angry with you. You were right. I was a selfish, shallow, self-absorbed creature.’ And we both cried our eyes out.
‘Bottom’s up,’ Britney says.
I drink up and thread my hand through my father’s.
‘I’m ready, Dad.’
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9xdyRsGOl6U
Dad squeezes my hand as the car travels in the darkness. Cash and I decided to have a secret midnight wedding.
‘I want a marriage not a wedding,’ he said, and I couldn’t agree more.