Lucy in the Sky

sit there silently for a short while.
    ‘Molly and Sam like her,’ I prompt, and immediately regret it. What am I trying to do–force her on him?
    He sighs. ‘Maybe that’s why I’m confused. She’s a nice girl. But I don’t know…I think Molly just loves a love story. And Samjust wants me to be happy like him.’ He flicks his cigarette ash into the ashtray and his arm brushes against mine, giving me goosebumps.
    I wonder what Molly would think if she knew what was going through my mind about her fiancé’s younger brother. I get the distinct feeling she might find it funny. Or disapprove. Neither thought makes me feel very comfortable.
    ‘What about your boyfriend? Do you believe him?’ Nathan asks quietly.
    ‘I don’t know,’ I answer truthfully.
    ‘How long have you two been together?’
    ‘Three years. But sometimes it feels like only weeks. Sometimes I feel like I don’t know him at all.’
    He nods his head in the darkness.
    ‘He tells… stories ,’ I say cautiously. I’ve never really spoken to anyone about this before. I don’t know why I feel compelled to tell Nathan now. ‘They’re not serious–just a bit bonkers,’ I explain.
    ‘Give me an example.’
    So I tell him about the Big Feet.
    When we first started going out James came on holiday with my family to Spain. On the first day, by the pool, he told my stepbrothers Tom, who at the time was eighteen, and Nick, fifteen, that he really wanted to buy some Big Feet.
    ‘What are Big Feet?’ we all asked, and James told us about these cool giant, inflatable feet-shaped shoes which literally allowed you to walk on water. He’d had a go with some in the South of France the summer before and he’d never had so much fun.
    That night, Tom, a hard-up student, refused to buy a third pintof beer because he wanted to save his money for the Big Feet he was hoping to buy the next day. Every day for the rest of the holiday the four of us were on a mission to track some down. We’d drag my mum and Terry on trips via places that we thought might stock them. We scoured store upon beachfront store, department stores and sports shops. In pigeon Spanish we’d ask: ‘Los Big Feetos! Grandes Feetos!’ We’d mime gigantic webbed shoes, while Nick pretended to walk on water in big, astronaut-style steps.
    The fact that we couldn’t find them, and the fact that nobody else on the beach had them, only made us want them more. We imagined with glee the looks on other beach-goers’ faces as we stepped onto the waves and strode out to the open ocean.
    We never did manage to find those Big Feet.
    Six months later when Tom, who’d just started university in London, joined us for a few pints at our local, James told him he had the original Darth Vader mask at home, which his uncle had bought for him after winning a small fortune on the lottery. I’d never heard this story before so we went back to our flat, Tom brimming with excitement. When James opened the cupboard under the stairs and pulled out a box containing a thin, vacuum-formed plastic mask that very obviously did not belong to Mr Vader, Tom accused him of telling porkies. And while James, perfectly straight-faced, continued to insist, Tom just laughed it off.
    A couple of months later, it occurred to my stepbrother, still bitter about the time he’d wasted on holiday traipsing around looking for Big Feet, that maybe James had lied about that also. Were they real?
    ‘No,’ said James, he’d made them up.
    Tom and Nick have never quite forgiven him.
    Nathan shakes his head. ‘That’s mad.’
    ‘Yeah, but it’s not that big a deal, is it? I mean, we’re just talking white lies.’
    He doesn’t answer.
    ‘You know, it’s pretty darn funny when you think about it,’ I persist. ‘There he was, leading us around the Costa del Sol in search of these great big inflatable feet, knowing all the while that they didn’t exist.’ I laugh. ‘It’s quite imaginative.’
    ‘It certainly is that.’
    I sigh. ‘No, I know it’s weird. I keep trying to kid myself that it’s not. But it’s hardly on a par with cheating, is it?’
    ‘Don’t you suspect he’s been doing that too?’
    ‘No! He would never, ever cheat on me. I really don’t think he has. I don’t know why I…Oh, I don’t know.’
    Nathan doesn’t press the issue. Instead he moves on to a lighter subject of discussion: Molly, Sam and the wedding. We sit there and chat to each other for ages until eventually I stifle