Free Love Lies by Adele Parks

didn’t have time to run around looking for vases, plus they set off sneezing among patients with hay fever. That sort of brought the conversation to an end. Fiona’s text reads: HAPPY BIRTHDAY, FGR+D. She doesn’t have thumb time to text her family’s full names.
    Then there’s Jake. I didn’t really expect a call from him since he’s resting at Her Majesty’s pleasure; nine months for some piracy crime. I don’t know the details because I avoided reading about them in the local rag and I tune out whenever Mum starts explaining the circumstances of his arrest. Mum maintains my brother Jake suffers from middle child syndrome. He tried too hard to carve out a point of difference in the family. It’s her excuse for him being a criminal; she can make as many excuses for him as she likes. He was a thieving bastard from the day he could walk and I’ll never forgive him for selling my Barbie doll in the playground when I was seven; Airhostess Barbie was a difficult doll to come by.
    Then there’s me. I’ve resisted sending a text to myself or posting cards to myself, as though I’m some sort of Mr Bean saddo. My younger brother, Rick’s, text reads:
    :-)   bday   sis.   mAk   suR   itz   a   gud   l.   hav   lots   of   SX   w   Adam   while   he   stil   fancies   u.   jst   kidding.   hav   a   gr8   dA.
    It takes me a while to translate. Ha ha very funny. The chance of having lots of sex with Adam never arose, did it? Clearly, Adam has already reached the point of no return in terms of lusting after me.
    If I had to pick a sibling I’d take with me to a desert island it would probably be Rick. Something to do with him being the only one I could boss around, perhaps. No one in our family has any idea whether Rick’s naturally brilliant, like Bill, but we do know that he’s not prepared to work like Fiona. All Rick wants to do, has ever wanted to do, is play video games. He discovered Pac Man when he was about three years old and has been surgically attached to buttons and screens ever since. Mum and Dad despaired. Mum regularly tortures herself by going on to the internet, late at night, and reading cases about psychotic murderers who listed video game playing on their otherwise blank CVs. Fortunately, and somewhat miraculously, Rick hasn’t turned out to be a psycho (one jailbird is enough for any family struggling to appear respectable) and he’s somehow managed to turn his obsession with games into a career; he’s a games tester for Sony. He does conform to stereotype in so much as he does smell and he doesn’t talk. Which is why his long text is quite thoughtful.
    Still, that’s the sum total of messages. Ben will no doubt call when he gets a minute but he’s in the shop on his own, which he never likes; he’s probably busy. Lisa will be dropping the kids off at nursery and the gym crèche. She’ll probably call after her aerobics class. As I mentioned, nothing comes between Lisa and her being ‘well turned out’ – not even a thirtieth birthday.
    I sigh. The low number of messages wishing me many happy returns is depressing. In my opinion birthday celebrations peak when you are about six and ever after there is an annual decrease in merriment (with quite a steep gradient). Rationally, I know that there are a number of people scattered across the country who will look at the calendar today and think, ‘Oh, it’s Fern’s birthday!’ A few of them might have popped a card in the post. Of course, I can’t expect everyone I know to interrupt their busy schedules just to shower me with gifts and present me with balloons, cakes and lashings of champagne, but –
    I blame the media, or books, or movies, or ten seasons of Friends or all of these things combined. Because, truth is, a little part of me does expect everyone I know to interrupt their busy schedules to shower me with gifts and present me with balloons, cakes and lashings of champagne