The Wish List: Escape with the most hilarious and feel-good read of 2020!

by Sophia Money-Coutts

  We settled on bar stools and watched as Mia pulled out the first pair.

  It was black lace with a red bow on the back. She squinted around the circle at us. ‘Amy! It’s got to be you. They’re beautiful!’

  They looked like the sort of pants that would ride right up your bottom, but Amy – one of the fashionables – nodded and smiled. ‘Enjoy them, babe.’

  Then came a pair with ‘Just Married’ written on them; an edible G-string made from sweets; a thong with the phrase ‘Ain’t going to lick itself!’ on the front (from Ruby) and a frilly coral pair with the word ‘wifey’ on it. Mia squealed at this while I wondered which word was worse: wifey or hubby?

  My pair were pulled from the bag last. ‘They must be from Flo!’ said Mia and I braced myself for a ticking off. ‘How did you know I love this brand?’ she said, holding them up in front of her. ‘You’re so clever, thank you.’

  Phew.

  Patricia left after this game and the rest of us returned to the table downstairs for dinner. Between the windows, Ruby had strung up home-made bunting made from photos of Mia and Hugo. She’d also done a seating plan that put me at the end, next to Cressida from Mia’s office.

  Plates of salmon appeared but most people were too pissed to eat. The fashion sorts kept drifting to the window and back again to hang out of it and smoke, gazing down on the Soho street beneath as tourists and punters wandered between pubs.

  ‘Are you the sister who’s going out with Rory Dundee?’ Cressida asked.

  ‘Yeah, how come?’

  She giggled and the smell of cigarette wafted from her mouth. ‘How funny. My husband knows him.’

  ‘Oh right. What does he do?’

  ‘He’s in politics.’

  ‘With Rory?’

  ‘In the Foreign Office, mmm.’ She giggled again. ‘I think they have quite a wild time on their travels.’

  ‘Wild?’

  She giggled again. ‘Yes, sort of debauched. On that trip to Nigeria they did recently, Wilf said they were lucky not to have gotten arrested but Rory’s so charming – he talked the policeman down. And there was that time in Brussels when Rory got in a fight with someone’s husband. So funny! Naughty boys.’

  At my silence, her giggles stopped.

  ‘Debauched? Debauched like how?’

  ‘No, sorry, I didn’t mean… I think he’s better behaved now. I mean, not better behaved. Oh gosh, this is all coming out wrong.’

  I smiled at her, not wanting to give away that my heart was beating at double time under my dress. What did she know that I didn’t?

  Cressida waved a hand in the air. She had dark blue nails which matched her jumpsuit. ‘Just drunken stuff. Forget I said anything. Wilf says he’ll be prime minister one day,’ she added, with a more sympathetic smile.

  ‘He does want to be, yes,’ I replied, the fake smile starting to make my cheeks ache.

  ‘I’m going to have another fag,’ Cressida said, clearly desperate to escape the situation she had placed us both in. She stood and hurried to the window with her clutch bag.

  I leant back in my chair as an espresso martini was put down in front of me.

  ‘I’ve ordered a round,’ Ruby shouted at me from the other side of the table.

  That was the moment Mia swayed to her feet and caught the room’s attention – ting, ting, ting – by tapping her walnut-sized engagement ring against her empty wine glass.

  ‘Ijustwanttosay,’ she started. ‘ThatIloveyouall. AndI’msogladyou’rehere.’

  ‘SIDDOWN,’ shouted Ruby, laughing at her sister.

  Mia hiccupped and slumped back into her seat. There’d been talk of going on to a gay club round the corner where men danced on podiums but Cressida’s revelation had winded me. Plus, I wasn’t much of a podium person and was worried about Harry having been on his own for so long.

  ‘Just going to the loo,’ I mouthed at Ruby, before making for the door with my bag and taking the bus home. They wouldn’t notice. Sneaking off was a skill I’d honed on university nights out, leaving when the party was in full swing so I could fall into bed with a book. This hadn’t helped my romantic life, I knew, since people only started pairing off towards the end of the night. But I’d rather get into bed with Mr Rochester or Captain Wentworth than a dribbling student who’d drunk ten pints and wanted chips with curry sauce on the way home.

  I let myself into the house, poured a pint of water in the kitchen and walked upstairs. Pushing open my bedroom door, I saw Harry curled under a corner of my pillow. I should have been cross. I was trying to persuade him to sleep in his basket on the floor, but he’d learnt to leap on to the corner of my duvet and claw his way up like a very small mountain climber.

  I pulled my phone from my bag. Since the aeroplane selfie, I’d heard nothing from Rory, but Mia had told me that they were on a stag and ‘as long as they didn’t get arrested’, it was better not to know what was going on.

  I took a few photos of Harry and looked at the time. It was 11.43 p.m. Too late to message?

  I opened up WhatsApp, scrolled to find Zach’s name, and sent a picture of Harry to him anyway. The baby’s asleep xxx, I wrote, hoping that it wasn’t one of those messages I regretted in the morning.

  For some extraordinary reason, Mia had decided that the Sunday after her hen party would be a good day for our final bridesmaid dress fitting. I didn’t feel great but my hangover was nothing compared to Mia and Ruby. Sitting between them in an Uber to the dress shop the following morning (Mia had actually cried when I’d suggested taking the Tube) was like travelling with a couple of cadavers.

  ‘This is all your fault,’ Ruby said, slumped against the car door.

  ‘I wasn’t the one who ordered nine hundred martinis,’ Mia replied, leaning against the other door.

  ‘I need a coffee before we do anything else,’ said Ruby.

  Mia retched.

  They climbed out of the car slowly, groaning as if they’d just finished a marathon.

  ‘Morning, darlings!’ trilled Patricia. She was standing on the shop’s step wearing a beret and a pair of sunglasses.

  Mia held a hand up in the air. ‘Pat, not so loud.’

  ‘Not that name, you know I don’t like it. But oh dear, are we suffering?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Ruby. ‘Aren’t you?’

  ‘No. I feel fine. Florence, how about you? You look wretched.’

  I cleared my throat. ‘I’m all right. Could do with a coffee.’

  ‘We can ask them inside,’ said Mia, pushing open the door.

  We followed her in and the smell of expensive candles made me gag again. And it was too hot in here. Why did they keep it so hot? It was like stepping into a crispy pancake.

  Hilda, the lady who’d helped with Mia’s dress fittings, ushered us to a changing room and all three of us slid down on the sofa, as if our legs couldn’t sustain us for another second. Dressing that morning had been an effort. The idea of peeling my clothes off to slide a silky peach gown over my head was deeply, deeply unpleasant.

  ‘Can I get you ladies anything to drink?’

  ‘Could I have a coffee? Black,’ demanded Ruby. ‘And a large glass of sparking water? And an orange juice?’

  ‘A cappuccino for me,’ said Patricia.

  ‘I’d like a coffee with milk,’ said Mia. ‘And have you got any San Pellegrino?’

  If Hilda was exasperated by the multiple beverage demands of my family, she didn’t show it. She nodded and looked to me.

  ‘A white coffee, please,’ I said.

  ‘How was the rest of last night?’ asked Patricia.

  ‘Mia ended up being smacked round the face by a penis in a nightclub,’ said Ruby.

  ‘What?’ I said.

  ‘WHAT?’ demanded Patricia.

  ‘Volume, please,’ said Mia, leaning back on the sofa with her eyes closed. ‘And she’s exaggerating. We went to a club and I very briefly danced around a pole.’

  ‘With a man who was wearing a sock shape
d like an elephant on his cock,’ added Ruby, just as Hilda reappeared in the room carrying the dresses. Her pencilled eyebrows leapt in alarm.

  ‘Forgive my daughters, Hilda,’ said Patricia. ‘But these look wonderful. Don’t they look wonderful?’

  ‘This one is Ruby’s,’ said Hilda, inspecting a label attached to the hanger. ‘And this one is for Florence.’ They were exactly the same design – pale pink silk, floor-length, with thin shoulder straps and a deep V-neckline. But Ruby was shorter than me and had a more heaving bosom. She was going to look like a fairytale nymph in her dress while I’d look like a drag act.

  Hilda looked at us expectantly on the sofa. Nobody moved.

  ‘Come on, girls,’ chivvied Patricia.

  ‘I can’t stand up until I’ve had my coffee,’ said Ruby.

  Embarrassed by my family and not wanting to annoy Hilda, I stood, pulled the curtain of the changing booth behind me and started undressing.

  ‘Any word from the chaps in Prague?’ Patricia asked loudly as I peeled down my jeans.

  ‘No,’ said Mia. ‘Florence? You heard anything?’

  ‘Nope,’ I shouted back, while I scowled at myself in the mirror. Naked but for my knickers, bra and socks. Not a good look. The only messages on my phone that morning had been from Zach, a series of them sent at 1 a.m. in reply to my photo of Harry.

  Hello, how come you’re up so late?

  Oh, Mia’s hen. I remember now. Hope it was… fun?

  Hey also, there’s a new Quentin Blake exhibition on in Dulwich tomorrow which I thought I might check out if you feel up to it?

  Curtis the counting caterpillar research?

  But no worries if not.

  I’d read them while lying in bed, staring at the screen for so long it kept going black, but I wasn’t sure what to answer. The idea of going to an exhibition on the weekend with Zach made me feel uneasy. Rory was my boyfriend. Rory was the one who loved me. And I couldn’t gallivant off to an exhibition, anyway, because I had to try on this unflattering dress. In the end, I sent one line back, using the dress fitting as an excuse, and said I’d see him in the shop the next day.

  I unzipped the dress from its plastic sheath and held it over my head, letting the silk slide down my body.

  ‘How’s it going in there?’ demanded Patricia.

  I turned to look in the mirror again. The light bounced off my lumpiest bits – my hips and the curve of my belly. And my bottom looked enormous. I might as well slap a ‘wide load’ sticker on it and reverse out of the cubicle making a beeping sound.

  Hilda whipped back the curtain and I turned to see them all frowning at me.

  ‘Perhaps, with a better bra?’ ventured Hilda.

  ‘Turn round,’ instructed Patricia, circling a finger in the air.

  I turned.

  ‘Mmm,’ Patricia went on, ‘definitely a better bra.’

  ‘And no knickers,’ said Mia.

  ‘What?’ I shrieked. ‘We can’t wear no knickers.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because it’s your wedding. We can’t go down the aisle of Claridge’s commando. What if there’s leaking?’

  ‘Oh, Florence, really,’ said Patricia, wrinkling her nose.

  ‘I don’t mind,’ said Ruby.

  ‘I do!’

  ‘Florence, do stop fussing,’ said my stepmother, as Hilda stepped forward and adjusted my dress while the others watched over their coffee cups. She pinned it at the back and along the right side of my body to stop it gaping around my chest, but the silk still didn’t look right because it was pulled more tightly across my stomach. Oh, too bad. On the day itself I’d be carrying a small posy of roses so I could always try and hide my belly behind that.

  Hugo and Rory were supposed to come back to Kennington that night. Mia had said it would be fun, that we could order a takeaway and all have it on the sofa, united in our hangovers. But in the end Hugo arrived home by himself.

  ‘You just got out of prison?’ said Ruby, laughing at him from the sofa. She and I were watching Grand Designs while Mia plucked her eyebrows upstairs.

  ‘No,’ he said hoarsely, leaning against the doorframe. ‘Why?’

  ‘I’ve never seen you look worse. What did they do to you?’

  Hugo flinched as if in physical pain. ‘This and that. Where’s the wife?’

  I shuddered. He’d only started calling her that recently but it irritated me every time.

  ‘In her room,’ said Ruby.

  Hugo trudged upstairs and she looked across at me. ‘I thought Rory was coming back?’

  ‘He was but he’s got to work,’ I said, staring at a message on my phone. Darling, heading to mine as I need to do some work on this European summit before tomorrow. And I couldn’t possibly see you like this. I need to wash Prague off me. Speak tomorrow? R

  ‘Borrr-ring,’ said Ruby. ‘Hey, since you’ve got your phone out, do you wanna see what we want from Deliveroo?’

  She embarked on a ten-minute soliloquy about whether she felt more like pizza or Chinese while I tried to decipher why Rory’s message left me feeling so deflated. Because I wasn’t seeing him? Because it was Sunday evening? Because I was still fretting about what Cressida had told me? Or because what I really wanted was to be with someone who’d come over to scoop me up and ask about my weekend even if he was presenting to the frigging UN the next day?

  We had pizza in the end and I paid for it, obviously.

  ‘GOOD NEWS!’ said Zach, running upstairs in the shop the next morning and flinging his arms into the air like an evangelical priest.

  I narrowed my eyes at him. ‘You’ve cleaned out the fridge?’

  Zach shook his head.

  ‘Someone has emailed you saying you are the sole beneficiary of a fifty-three-million-pound will after everyone else died in mysterious circumstances?’

  Another shake.

  ‘They’ve discovered a new and entirely painless way to remove tattoos?’

  ‘Very amusing. But no. The agent’s interested in your Curtis story.’

  ‘WHAT? You’re kidding me. Zach, don’t joke about this.’

  ‘I’m not joking, I literally just got an email from her. She likes it and says could I put you guys in touch.’

  I put my palms to my forehead. ‘This is mad. I never thought… I didn’t think… I—’

  Zach was jumping from one foot to the other, grinning at me. ‘So can I do it? Can I put you in touch?’

  ‘Course,’ I said, with a laugh. ‘I mean, yes please, thank you.’

  He reached his hand out to high-five me across the counter and our palms slapped just as Norris appeared, pinching a red furry jacket between his fingers and holding it out in front of him.

  ‘Zachary, what is this and why was it addressed to me?’

  Zach’s face became more serious. ‘Ah, yes. That’s your outfit for Thursday evening. Part of it, anyway.’

  ‘What am I expected to do with it?’

  ‘Wear it, Uncle Norris. Where’s the rest of it? There should be some trousers. And a belt. And a hat.’

  Eugene sniggered from the history section.

  ‘Funny, is it?’ said Norris, spinning round and glaring at him.

  ‘Ignore Eugene,’ said Zach, ‘he’s got his own costume.’

  ‘Excuse me,’ said Eugene, hurrying over. ‘I didn’t know anything about this.’

  Zach leant back against the shelves. ‘It was going to be a surprise but seeing as we’re all so uptight and anti-fun in this shop, I’ll tell you. I’ve bought us all costumes for Thursday.’

  ‘What am I?’ Eugene asked warily.

  ‘You are an elf.’

  I snorted from behind the till.

  Zach raised his eyebrows at me. ‘Florence, I wouldn’t get too cocky because you’re a Christmas pudding.’

  ‘Ha!’ barked Eugene.

  ‘And Norris is Father Christmas.’

  Norris grunted.

  ‘What about you?’ I asked. ‘You can’t be
the only one who gets away with it.’

  ‘No, you’re right,’ said Zach. ‘I will be attending the party as Mr Snowman.’

  ‘How many kids are coming?’

  ‘About fifty at the moment. So I thought you, Uncle Norris, could be stationed in a chair up here and hand out presents from your sack? Then a few carols with mulled wine and mince pies. If you guys don’t mind being in charge of handing those out? They’re being delivered on Thursday afternoon.’

  ‘What sack?’ said Norris.

  ‘I’ve bought you one. And presents. Don’t worry.’

  ‘How much is all this costing me?’

  ‘Very cheap. All made in China.’

  ‘Zachary…’ Norris growled again.

  He held his hands in the air. ‘I’m joking, I’m joking. Sort of. But come on, where’s the community spirit? That’s what we need. And Florence, I’m going to email this agent back right now and loop you in.’

  He bounded back downstairs and I wondered whether my Christmas pudding costume might, in fact, be more flattering than my bridesmaid dress.

  I walked to Rory’s after work, happily weaving my way through the shoppers, untroubled by their lethargic pace. Zach had emailed the agent. Jacinta, she was called, and she’d emailed me straight back suggesting a coffee the following week. Just seeing her name and email signature in my inbox – Jacinta Ewing, Millward & Middleton Literary Agents Ltd – gave me a kick.