Two Venues

The wedding was on Saturday, June 23. The invitations had not been printed, because the invitations needed an address, and there was no address, because Lina and Marco could not agree on one.

It had started as a joke in March. By April, it was a discussion. By May, it was the only subject at the kitchen table that could make the room go quiet.

Marco wanted the Blue Plate.

Lina wanted the new Room 4.

Theo, fifteen now, taller than his mother since February, with a voice that had dropped half an octave over the winter, wanted everyone to stop talking about it at breakfast.

On the first Sunday of May, he put down his spoon and said: "Okay. Enough. You both keep saying the same things. You're like the candidates on the radio. Let's do it properly."

"Properly?" said Lina.

"Task 5," said Theo. "Grace makes us do it at the homework centre. Comparing and persuading. You choose an option and persuade someone who prefers the other one. Except here, I'm the someone. You each get ninety seconds. You have to compare both places fairly. Then I decide. And whatever I decide, that's it. No arguing."

Lina and Marco looked at each other across the table.

"Deal," said Marco.

"Deal," said Lina.

Theo took out his phone and opened the timer. "Marco first, because he's older."

"I'm not older," said Marco. "I'm forty-three. Your mother is thirty-nine."

"Exactly," said Theo. "Ninety seconds. Go."