by Zoe May
‘You know, that stuff! Those tiny white flowers that are just kind of fuzzy.’ The girl looks around the room until her eyes land on a vase of ‘flower fuzz’. ‘Look!’ She points. ‘It’s not quite a flower, is it? More like flower fuzz that just goes around the flowers.’
‘But it always adds that je ne sais quoi, doesn’t it?’ another girl comments.
‘Oh absolutely! I love flower fuzz!’ someone else enthuses.
‘Actually,’ Tamara clears her throat, ‘it’s not known as flower fuzz, it’s called baby’s breath and no, lovely as it is, it is not the secret to the perfect bridal bouquet.’
‘Hmm . . . ’ The girls lapse into silence again.
‘Oh!’ another girl shrieks, clasping her hands together. ‘Leaves!’
‘Leaves!’ Everyone nods sagely.
‘Leaves are so on trend, it’s all about foliage,’ the girl to my right says, giving me a knowing look. I nod in agreement and try to ignore Collette snickering beside me.
‘Ok, ladies, I’m afraid it’s not leaves, even though leaves are fabulous! It’s not baby’s breath and it’s not succulents imported from Morocco. It’s more intangible quality.’
‘Ohhh!’ Everyone gazes at her, a look of wonder on their faces.
‘I’ve got it!’ one of the girls pipes up. ‘I can’t believe we missed this, guys! It’s love! Duh!’
Everyone tuts. ‘Of course!’ someone says. ‘It’s love!’
‘Love is the secret ingredient to everything!’ the girl to my right announces proudly.
Collette can’t hold it together any more and starts giggling, causing a few of the girls to look over. I elbow her, and she tries to cover her laughter by coughing, but it just comes out like she’s having some kind of sputtering fit. The girls eye her with appalled expressions. I can feel laughter building in my own chest, but they’re all looking over now and I have to hold it together.
‘She’s a bit unwell. Hacking cough! Something nasty’s going around!’ I tell them, as I rub Collette’s back. I shoot her a glare, willing her to get it under control, but she keeps convulsing with fake coughs and giggles.
The girls eye her warily and a few step aside, clearly not wanting to get her germs.
‘Who does she even write for?’ one of the girls asks.
‘Actually, she’s work experience,’ I tell them.
‘Ohhh!’ they all murmur knowingly, as if Collette’s odd behaviour now makes perfect sense.
‘Work experience!’ the girl with the massive diamond ring tuts.
Collette shoots her a look, rolls her eyes and manages to regain some composure.
‘Ladies!’ Tamara draws everyone’s attention back to bridal bouquets. ‘Believe it or not, the secret ingredient is not love. Although every flower arrangement I’ve ever made has been made with love.’
‘Is it skill?’ one of the girls asks.
Tamara purses her lips and I can tell that even she’s beginning to lose patience a little now.
‘No, it’s not skill, although of course I put skill into everything I do as well. Look, I’m going to put you all out of your misery. The secret to the perfect bridal bouquet is connection,’ she tells us, clutching her fist rousingly as she says the word.
‘Connection!’ the girls echo, wide-eyed and nodding. It’s almost cult-like. I’m pretty sure Tamara could have told them the key was crack and they’d probably be lapping it up.
‘Connection, of course!’ one of them adds, but then we all descent into silence.
‘Ummm…What does that actually mean?’ Collette asks, voicing the thought that we’re all probably having but that we’re too proud to ask. Everyone remains poker-faced, not wanting to admit that they too don’t have the foggiest what Tamara’s on about either.
‘Connection not just between you as the florist and the bouquet, and not just between love and your work, but connection to the bride and groom,’ Tamara explains. ‘That’s why for Holly’s bouquet I’ve combined classic English flowers like the ones grown in Holly’s own garden. Her mum loved to keep a pretty garden, and we’ve combined the types of flowers she grew there with flowers from the palace where Isaac grew up. They were both earthy kids who loved to play outside and this bouquet represents them both perfectly!’
‘Awwww!’ all the girls sigh.
‘That is perfect! Just perfect!’ the girl to my right enthuses.
‘A union not just between Holly and Isaac, but between the flowers that represent them,’ one of the girls adds dreamily.
‘Exactly!’
I steal a glance at Collette, whose lips are twitching. I quickly look away, not wanting to catch the giggles.
‘That is just so romantic!’ the girl with the massive diamond ring comments.
‘Too romantic!’ another adds.
‘I’m glad you think so. Holly and Isaac love the idea. We think it’ll bring something a little different and authentic to their special day.’
‘So authentic!’ one of the girls chirps.
‘Yah!’ another agrees.
‘So, today, I’m going to show you the flowers we’ll be using in the bouquet,’ Tamara says, gesturing at the flowers displayed on the table. She begins talking us through the English flowers found in Holly’s backyard – the peonies, roses, sweet peas and daisies – and the flowers grown at Prince Isaac’s palace in Norway, – the wild heather, roses and fireweed – and then begins explaining how the flowers will be ‘juxtaposed’ so that the ‘colours and textures dance together’. The flowers look and smell beautiful and watching them ‘dance’ together, as Tamara prepares an arrangement, is pretty impressive. I always thought flower arranging was just something retired people did to pass the time between lunch and their afternoon nap, but there does seem to be a certain art form to it. Tamara adds a few more touches to her impressive bouquet and everyone admires it rapturously.
‘Now, ladies, it’s your turn!’ Tamara announces. ‘I want you to team up in pairs and try to arrange your own bridal bouquet! The bouquet that’s the most beautiful will win a special prize!’
Tamara gestures at the piles of flowers on the table. ‘Help yourselves. You have twenty minutes.’
Everyone (apart from me and Collette) starts shrieking excitedly before diving towards the various piles to grab the best and brightest flowers. All of the girls are trying to be polite and classy, but let’s face it, this is also a competition between die-hard bridal enthusiasts and after about thirty seconds the decorum wears off and petals start flying. Two girls fight over the last white rose on the table with one attempting to tear it from the other’s grasp, forgetting it’s covered in thorns. She grasps at it so vigorously that she ends up crying out in pain, her palm bleeding like the stigmata of Christ. The girl who got the rose struts off victoriously, presenting the bloodied stem to her friend with a victorious swagger. Collette and I watch in bemusement as the girls start arranging the flowers. We catch standard phrases like, ‘it needs more pink’, ‘move that rose to the right’, ‘add a sprig of baby’s breath there’, to other more worrying lines such as one girl huffing through gritted teeth, ‘It needs to be crafted with love. Can you just try to make it with a bit more love?!’ Her partner sighs, ‘No, it needs connection,’ to which she snaps, ‘Love is connection!’
Meanwhile, Collette and I absently move the stems we managed to get hold of (mostly the ones left over from the scrum) into a semblance of something pretty. Everyone else seems to have at least two dozen stems, but we’ve only got about eight and it doesn’t matter how we arrange them, our ‘bouquet’, if you can even call it that, just looks pathetic.
‘Five minutes left, ladies, and then you can present your bouquets in the reception room next door for judging!’ Tamara gestures towards a door at the side of the room. All of the girls suddenly start nervously repositioning flowers, while Collette and I just appraise our bouquet despondently.
‘Oh look, it’s your favourite,’ Collette says, repositioning a daisy. ‘Let�
�s play!’ she insists. ‘So, Anders. He loves you!’ Collette pulls a petal from the daisy and lets it fall to the table. She pulls another. ‘He loves you not.’
‘Collette, you’re ruining our bouquet,’ I tut.
Collette raises an eyebrow. ‘It was hardly going to steal the show now, was it?’
I roll my eyes. ‘Fine!’
‘Anyway, I’m having a connection with the flowers and don’t forget, it’s all about connection!’ she teases.
‘Don’t forget love though, because what’s connection without love,’ I joke.
‘Oh, never!’ Collette giggles. ‘So, where was I?’ She looks back to the daisy.
‘He loves me not,’ I remind her.
‘Right, yes, so he loves you.’ She pulls another petal from the daisy. A few of the other girls look over, wholly unimpressed, but no doubt expecting such behaviour from a work experience girl.
Collette keeps plucking petals, alternating between ‘he loves me’ and ‘he loves me not’, until a little pile has formed on the table and only half a dozen or so petals are left on the flower.
‘This way, ladies. Please bring your bouquets for judging!’ Tamara says.
The girls all start fretting, making final adjustments to their bouquets before hurrying after Tamara into the reception room.
‘He loves you,’ Collette says, pulling out another petal and ignoring the ruckus around us. ‘He loves you not.’ She tears out another.
‘Collette, let’s go.’ I watch as the girls rush through the door, the last pair disappearing, leaving us alone.
‘One second,’ Collette groans. ‘He loves you.’ She pulls out another petal.
I groan. ‘Come on!’
‘He loves you not.’ She pulls another. ‘He loves you.’ Another falls to the table. ‘He loves you not.’ It’s joined by its friend, and finally there’s only one left. Our eyes meet.
‘He loves you!’ Collette shrieks.
‘Ahhh!’ I shriek back, suddenly reverting to my six-year-old romantic self. I grab the daisy, staring at the singular petal as if it represents true love, my very own fairy-tale ending, my Disney princess happily ever after. I’m gazing at the flower like I used to do in the playground when I was a kid.
‘Who loves you?’ a male voice interrupts us. I turn around to see none other than Anders standing behind us, a playful expression on his handsome face. He’s wearing a long coat and his cheeks are flushed from the windy weather.
‘Er . . . ’ Collette and I exchange a look.
‘No one! Just umm . . .’ I feel my cheeks flushing red. The silence passing between us is probably only a few seconds long but it feels like it’s going on for an eternity as we look between each other, tumbleweed rolling, my cheeks growing redder and redder.
‘Her dad,’ Collette lands upon, as though she’s saved the day. My dad? I shoot her a look.
‘Her Dad?’ Anders repeats, flummoxed. ‘You don’t think your dad loves you?’
‘Ummm, maybe! I mean, yeah, he does! The daisy said so!’
‘Right . . . ’ Anders gives me a wide-eyed look like I’m crazy, which is fair enough.
I feel it would almost be preferable to have just admitted that we were playing the childish daisy game over him than be standing here right now with him thinking I’m some kind of freak with daddy issues.
‘So, is this your bouquet for Tamara’s competition?’ Anders asks, mercifully changing the subject. He eyes the pitiful bouquet.
‘Er, yeah, I think we’re opting out basically,’ Collette says.
‘Hmmm, it does look like it could do with a little . . . ’ He searches for the right word.
‘Please don’t say “connection”,’ I warn him, although I’m wondering how he even knows about Tamara’s competition. He wasn’t here when she told us about it.
‘I was thinking pizazz and, to perfectly honest, flowers!’
‘We ran out!’ I explain. ‘The scrum got the better of us.’
‘What about these then?’ Anders takes a bouquet from a table by the side. It’s wrapped in slate grey paper and has his name written on it in italics on a tag, but he begins unwrapping it to reveal the most stunning arrangement of flowers – the same ones Tamara showed us she would be using in the bouquet for the wedding.
‘Is that yours?’
‘Yeah, Tamara arranged it for me. Pretty, isn’t it?’
‘Yeah, it’s beautiful. But how come Tamara arranged it for you?’ I ask.
First this guy gets handed a slice of the royal wedding cake by Esmerelda, then he has seating plans for the palace in the back of his car, and now he’s got his very own bridal bouquet and doesn’t even have to take part in bizarre workshops on the art of flower arranging. How does he do it?
‘Oh, it was just a, ermmm . . . ’ he hesitates ‘ . . . a favour.’
Collette raises an eyebrow, looking between us and sensing how confused I am.
‘Impressive,’ I comment eventually.
‘Well, you got to meet Holly the other day,’ Collette points out.
‘Oh yeah, she mentioned that,’ Anders says.
‘She mentioned it?!’ I balk.
Anders looks a little flustered. ‘Er, yeah.’
‘What, are you two, like, best mates or something?’
‘No!’ Anders scoffs, turning his attention back to the bouquet. ‘Anyway, if you just rearrange this a bit, maybe add some of the daisies and pansies from your arrangement, you might actually stand a chance.’
‘Really? We can use yours?’ Collette asks, already reaching for it.
‘Sure, have it!’ Anders hands it to her with a smile.
‘Thanks!’ Collette grabs it and squashes a few of our flowers to the side, before making a move towards the room next door. ‘Come on, guys, we can probably still enter the competition.’
‘Ummm…are you coming?’ I ask Anders.
‘Oh, no! I was just passing by,’ he says. ‘I came to pick up the bouquet, but I don’t really need it.’
I eye him quizzically. How was he ‘just passing by’? The rest of us had to put this date in our diaries and formally RSVP. How did he get to just swing by and pick up a bouquet with a handwritten name tag? It makes no sense. But perhaps people just respect journalists from The Chronicle a lot more. Maybe this is what it’s like to work there? The clear-cut approach of the paper is reflected in the quick and efficient way all the PRs deal with you too?
‘Well, thanks!’ I comment.
‘No problem!’ Anders replies, holding my gaze for just a little bit too long. I get that overpowering feeling again, as though everything else has been drowned out, the world around us falling away, blurring as if the only thing that’s in sharp focus is him.
‘Come on, Sam!’ Collette calls from the doorway, beckoning me through.
Chapter Fourteen
It can’t hurt to glam up, can it? If I’m going to be a proper bridal reporter, it wouldn’t hurt to look the part. It might help me make connections. In fact, it’s probably quite professional. At least that’s what I told myself when I accepted an offer from Holly’s bridal make-up artist for a personal one-to-one makeover session. The fact that I asked her to come over to the flat ahead of a dinner in a high-end London hotel where a famous Michelin star chef will be showcasing dishes from the royal wedding menu to journalists like myself and, umm, Anders, has nothing to do with it. Nothing at all.
‘Highlighter is all the rage at the moment,’ the make-up artist says, applying something shimmery to my cheekbones.
‘Oh yeah, that looks awesome,’ Collette enthuses.
‘It’s so reflective,’ our friend, Sarah, chimes in. Collette decided to invite a few of the girls over to witness my transformation. I brought over some of the wedding freebies and while I’m being made up, they’re playing with garters and sipping the vintage champagne Collette and I won yesterday thanks to Tamara’s competition. Because yes, we won! Of course, we did. With Anders’ magic touch, we were bound to.
Collette tears open a box of wedding favours containing sparkly bags of sugary popcorn tied with pink ribbon and passes them around.
‘I don’t want to look too done up,’ I insist. ‘I want to look pretty but not like I’ve tried too hard.’
The make-up artist, Rachel Samuels, who’s incredibly famous and has seven million subscribers to her YouTube beauty channel, raises an eyebrow. ‘But this is bridal make-up. That’s what I’m here to show you. It’s the very definition of trying hard. It’s for your wedding day!’
Collette grins mischievously.
‘Oh, well, can’t I just look like a natural bride?’ I suggest, but Rachel isn’t keen.
‘That’s not my forte, sweetheart. Anyway, you’ve seen Holly, she likes her glamour.’
It’s true. Holly is no stranger to false eyelashes. And she loves what Collette refers to as a ‘bold lip’. But going from a mousy make-up free, trouser suit-wearing Westminster reporter to a false eyelash-rocking bridal girl is a bit too much of a leap. I’d been hoping for a middle ground.
‘Can’t you just tone it down a little?’ I suggest.
‘Well, I’m meant to be showcasing Holly’s bridal make-up and, trust me, it’s not toned down.’
She has a point. She’s not here to be my personal unpaid make-up artist, she’s here to demonstrate Holly’s wedding day make-up.
‘I’m sorry, you’re right. Go for it!’
‘Great!’ She lowers her wand of highlighter back to my face.
‘You’re going to look fab!’ Sarah insists through a mouthful of popcorn. Sarah’s another one of our friends from school. Like Collette, she’s always been girly.
‘The guy she’s doing it for is totally worth it!’ Collette comments, as she refills everyone’s champagne glasses.
‘Collette!’ I groan, as Sarah’s, and our other friends Liv and Anna’s ears prick up. Even Rachel looks suddenly interested.
‘He’s stunning!’ Collette enthuses. ‘Tall, handsome, muscular, blond. He’s just wow!’
‘Really?’ Liv pipes up.
‘Yeah, he’s hot,’ Collette adds.
‘Samantha Fischer! Getting made up for a man!’ Liv jokes. I met Liv a few years ago at a protest I covered for my blog. She’s only ever known the non-romantic happily single me.