A Beginner's Guide To Saying I Do

by Jennifer Joyce

  ‘Do not ruin my chances of having Sadie as my photographer,’ I hissed before shutting the door in his bewildered face. I plastered on a smile before I returned to the sitting room. ‘Sorry about that. He had to rush off. He’s so busy, our Theo. Always rushing around!’

  ‘Never mind. Maybe we’ll get a chance to chat at the wedding,’ Sadie said and I nodded, while silently vowing that I’d never allow that to happen. Not until the photos had been taken, at least. ‘Anyway, I think that’s everything. I’ll see you on your big day.’

  After showing Sadie to the door, I did a little victory lap around the sitting room before collapsing on the sofa. This wedding was really coming together. I had my first dress fitting scheduled for the following weekend, and I knew that once I was wearing my dress it would be real. I would actually believe that I was getting married.

  After Sadie had left and I’d recovered from my sprint around the sitting room, I got ready to go out, then gathered the invitations to post on the way to the bus stop. I’d arranged to have lunch with my parents, but Jared couldn’t make it as he’d already made plans with Gavin. They were working on some sort of surprise for me for the wedding. I was pretending I didn’t mind being kept in the dark, but all the secrecy was driving me mad. I’d grilled Mum and Dad about it, but if they knew what Jared was cooking up, they hid it well and claimed they didn’t know what I was talking about.

  ‘Do you want to see what I’ve done with the caragym?’

  I’d barely put my bum on the sofa before Dad was trying to manhandle me out of the door again.

  I looked at Mum but she simply rolled her eyes.

  ‘Sure, Dad. I’d love to see it.’ Moments later I was standing in front of the caravan, feeling rather disappointed. It looked exactly the same as the last time I’d seen it. Dad hadn’t even cleaned it.

  ‘Look!’ Dad swung the door open and I peered inside, my expectations rising.

  They plummeted pretty rapidly.

  ‘It looks the same.’

  ‘It does not.’ Dad shook his head at me, genuinely baffled. I was too. ‘The hole in the floor! It’s gone!’

  I dropped my eyes to the floor. Sure enough, the hole had been patched up and I could no longer see what had once been Mum’s lawn. ‘Oh. Yes. Well done, Dad.’

  Dad’s chest puffed out as he gave a satisfied nod. ‘Isn’t it marvellous?’

  ‘It is, Dad. You’ll be jogging away on the treadmill in no time.’

  Dad slung his arm around my shoulders and together we wandered back into the house. I put the kettle on before we settled in the sitting room.

  ‘I spoke to Stephen on that Skype doo-da last night,’ Mum told me. ‘I couldn’t get his face up on it, but I could hear him well enough.’ Stephen had been living in New York for over a decade, but Mum still had trouble chatting to him when Dad wasn’t around to set up the laptop.

  ‘How is he?’ I missed my brother terribly. The distance never got any easier, no matter how many years had passed.

  ‘He’s okay. Busy at work and everything, and he’s been looking after the little ones as Aubrey isn’t feeling too good.’

  ‘What’s wrong with her?’ Selfishly, I was worrying about the wedding. I didn’t want Stephen and his family to miss it.

  ‘Stephen says it’s just a stomach bug.’ Mum pressed her lips together for a moment. ‘Anyway, he was calling about the wedding.’

  My gut tightened. He was going to miss it. Aubrey was too ill to fly over and my big brother was going to miss my wedding. I knew everything was running too smoothly!

  ‘As you know, they won’t be arriving until the day before the wedding, so Aubrey has suggested they buy Riley’s bridesmaid dress over there and bring it over with them to make sure it fits. You know what American sizes are like.’

  ‘So they’re still coming?’

  ‘To the wedding?’ Mum asked. ‘Of course they’re still coming to the wedding. They’re not going to miss it, are they?’

  ‘But I thought Aubrey was ill.’

  ‘Oh, yes. The stomach bug.’ Mum’s lips pressed together again and she raised her eyebrows a fraction. ‘I’m sure she’ll be fine by the wedding.’

  Thank cupcakes for that! The thought of getting married without Stephen being there was a horrible one.

  ‘So, the dress? You are still getting them from the high street, aren’t you?’

  I nodded. ‘Unless we win the lottery between now and the big day.’

  ‘Right. So if you let Aubrey know the specifications, they can sort it out at their end.’

  I didn’t really have any specifications for the bridesmaid dresses, as long as the wearer was comfortable, but I would email Aubrey with a budget.

  ‘I’ll also let Aubrey know about the hen night plans.’ I hadn’t wanted to have my hen night on the night before my wedding, as I wanted to enjoy my big day without being in the throes of a hangover, but time restraints meant I had little choice. The only upside was that Aubrey could now attend.

  ‘About your hen night.’ Mum squirmed a little in her seat. ‘Aren’t I bit old for that sort of carry-on?’

  ‘You’re never too old for fun, Mum. Besides, Dad’s going to Jared’s stag do.’

  ‘And I’m looking forward to it too.’ Dad rubbed his hands together. ‘It’ll be the only chance I’ll get to see a woman in the nip these days.’

  Mum and I glared at Dad.

  ‘I hate to disappoint you, Dad, but there aren’t going to be any strippers.’ I didn’t hate it at all. I was glad, the mucky old sod. ‘Jared just wants a few drinks in the pub.’

  Dad spluttered. ‘Of course he’s going to say that. Do you think I told your mother what I got up to on my last night of freedom?’

  I was appalled but Mum simply gave a tut. ‘Don’t listen to the silly old fool. On his last night of freedom, he had a couple of pints with your Uncle Ray and was tucked up in bed by nine. Your gran told me, and that woman would have cut off her own tongue before she told a lie.’

  Dad folded his arms across his chest. ‘Well, luckily our Jared has a bit more to him than this old sap. If he doesn’t have a stripper, I’ll eat my hat.’

  I decided the best course of action was to ignore Dad and attempt to wipe our conversation from my memory. Unfortunately, the image of my father salivating over a woman young enough to be his offspring while she twiddled tassels stuck to her nipples was a difficult one to erase.

  Thirty-Five

  Erin

  With a groan, Erin rolled over in the garden-gnome-sized single bed and picked up her phone to squint at the time. 8:35 am. Whoever was banging on her door could bog right off. It was the weekend and Erin had sleep to catch up on. Wasn’t it enough that she’d endured a coach trip from hell? That she was trapped in this spa with a gaggle of bimbos without having so much as a foot rub, never mind a full-on massage? She was owed a decent sleep, at the very least.

  ‘Erin, are you in there? You’re going to miss breakfast if you don’t get a wriggle on.’

  Sod breakfast. In fact, sod this whole arsing hen weekend. Erin didn’t want to spend the morning with a bunch of women she barely knew. Especially when those women were armed with pink bloody whistles.

  ‘Erin?’

  Whoever was out there was persistent. Couldn’t they understand Erin’s need to recuperate after their night out? Whichever obstinate bastard was out there had stumbled back to the hotel in the stupidly small hours just as much as Erin had. Why couldn’t they be normal and bog off back to bed until a more reasonable hour? Lunchtime, for example.

  Erin lifted her head a painful millimetre to squint at the neighbouring bed, but it was empty. Rita was already up – or hadn’t gone to bed in the first place; Erin couldn’t be sure. There’d been a bit of a boozy get-together in one of the other rooms when they’d returned from their night out, but Erin had declined the offer and had climbed into bed while she was still capable. She’d gone to sleep in a blissfully empty room and had only woken because
of the bellend banging on the door.

  ‘Erin, are you in there?’

  It was no use. Erin was going to have to have a conversation with this person. And by ‘conversation’, Erin meant she was going to have to yell at them to back the fuck off and leave her to sleep off the hangover that was gurgling in her stomach and thumping in her head.

  Erin didn’t usually regret a hangover, as it usually signalled a bloody good night out, but this one felt like such a waste after spending the night with Lindsay and her cronies. After dinner, the group had piled into a convoy of taxis – thankfully minus the pink whistles and cowgirl hats. The taxi had taken them into the nearest town, which had been a crappy, mainly deserted gathering of prehistoric buildings. The maid of honour had booked the VIP area of the town’s only club with champagne on tap. Lindsay had acted like she really was a VIP (Very Ignorant Piss-taker, judging by the way she clicked her fingers to grab people’s attention as she lorded it about the place). She told everyone who would listen about her famous rugby-playing fiancé – and even those who wouldn’t. Erin had found herself stuck with Whitney, the youngest bridesmaid. At sixteen, she shouldn’t even have been in the club, and Erin was one Harry Styles anecdote away from shopping her to the bouncers just to give her ears a rest.

  Lindsay and her friends spent the night necking champagne and dancing provocatively with each other while Erin hid in dark corners to avoid Whitney. Erin enjoyed a good night out as much as anybody else, but right then she’d much rather have been at home with Richard and the kids watching Frozen with a huge bowl of popcorn wedged between them, which was a sobering thought. What was happening to the fun-loving girl she used to be? In an act of revolt, Erin had decided to outdo the others with the champagne consumption and was now paying for it dearly.

  ‘Erin!’

  ‘All right, all right.’ Erin forced herself from the bed, whimpering as her stomach sloshed with the movement. ‘I’m coming. No need to bloody shout.’

  Erin made it across the hotel room without spewing on the plush carpet and opened the door to find Lindsay standing in the hall, hands planted firmly on her hips. She was plastered in make-up, which Erin guessed was to mask the fact that she felt as crap as she did.

  ‘I don’t care about breakfast.’ Erin would have appreciated an hour longer snoozing more than a plate of bacon and eggs. Her stomach gurgled just thinking about food.

  ‘You need to eat,’ Lindsay told her. ‘You’ll need the fuel for this morning’s activity.’

  Erin wasn’t fond of horses. They were okay at a distance – like on the telly – but up-close they were smelly and mean-looking. Erin especially didn’t like riding on them – if she was going to sit astride something, it would be a man, thank you very much.

  ‘That was so much fun!’ Becca, Whitney’s slightly older sister, bounded from the stables with flushed cheeks. ‘Wasn’t that the best?’

  No, Erin thought as she hobbled back towards the hotel. That hadn’t been fun at all. The girls had spent the morning having a horse riding lesson at a nearby stable, which was possibly the worst activity to endure when there was a vineyard’s worth of champagne swishing around your stomach. As well as a thumping head, Erin could now add burning arse and thigh muscles to the mix.

  And Becca thought that was fun?

  ‘Come on, guys.’ Lindsay marched on ahead, sucking in the so-called fresh air (what was fresh about air clogged with the smell of horse shit?) as she swung her arms jauntily. ‘Let’s get back to the hotel. You should have just enough time to shower before we meet in the orangery for lunch.’

  After her shower, Erin’s appetite had – surprisingly – returned and she wolfed down the leek and potato soup served with warm, crusty bread followed by lemon posset and summer fruits. She would have quite happily eaten a second helping, but Lindsay’s itinerary didn’t allow such luxuries. Luckily, the next activity was a much more pleasant one and wouldn’t involve any farmyard friends. Had Erin known about the after-effects of horse riding beforehand, she probably would have opted for an arse-cheek massage for her first treatment of the weekend, but they’d booked their treatments weeks in advance, when she had been blissfully unaware of the other planned activities. Still, the Indian head massage was heavenly and more than welcome, and she was glad of the block of ‘free time’ afterwards. Hobbling back up to her room, she sank into a hot bubble bath and settled herself in for a long soak. Afterwards, her wrinkled body nestled in a fluffy robe, Erin curled up on the bed and phoned Richard for a catch-up. He didn’t answer, which probably meant he was out somewhere with the kids. They’d probably gone to the park with the kite and a football. Erin had once thought kite-flying was the most dull and pointless activity known to man, but that was before Richard and the kids showed her how much fun it actually was. They could spend hours at the park on a good kite-flying day, and they’d warm up afterwards with hot chocolates in the café.

  Simply because she had nothing better to do, Erin forced herself out of the robe – which would definitely be making the trip back to Woodgate in her suitcase – and pulled on a pair of jeans and a T-shirt. She tried Richard again, but there was still no answer. Throwing her phone on the bed, Erin marched from the room. She would go down to the bar for a drink or two before dinner. She could survive without Richard. It would be easy.

  ‘So I said to Megan – you know Megan, don’t you? She’s staying next door with Annie? – I said, “You can’t draw a moustache on Lillian while she’s pissed up. She will kill you. Actually kill you dead.” So do you know what Megan did?’

  Erin should have packed a pair of earplugs. She wondered whether it was worth calling down to reception to ask if they had any.

  ‘Did she draw a moustache on Lillian, by any chance?’

  Rita giggled to herself, keeping a cheesy grin on her face as she ever so slowly applied her lip gloss. She thought she was being such a tease, making Erin wait for her answer. The trouble was, Erin didn’t give a badger’s arsehole what Megan and Lillian had got up to last night. She didn’t give a badger’s A-hole about any of this hen weekend.

  ‘Nope. She did not draw a moustache on Lillian.’ Rita pouted at her reflection in the dressing table’s mirror, still tittering to herself. ‘She drew a penis on Lillian’s cheek. A penis! Can you believe it?’

  Erin stifled a yawn. She was missing seeing LuLu and Ralph to spend the weekend with a bunch of women whose idea of fun was drawing willies on their friends’ faces with a Sharpie pen?

  ‘Lillian was not impressed. Not. At. All.’

  ‘But I saw Lillian this morning.’ At least Erin thought it had been Lillian. She hadn’t really made an effort to get to know the other bridesmaids so it could have been any of them, really. ‘At the horse thing. She didn’t have a knob on her face.’

  ‘That’s because she washed it off.’ Rita gave Erin a look that suggested she wasn’t quite the full shilling. ‘Who would walk around with a you-know-what drawn on their face?’

  ‘She washed it off? How?’

  Rita gave a shrug and returned to pouting in the mirror. ‘I think she uses those cleansing wipes with grape extract.’

  Erin grabbed the pillow from her bed. She wanted to scream into it. Or smother herself. ‘No, I mean how did it come off? I thought Sharpie pens were permanent.’

  Rita twisted around and gave Erin the look again. ‘It wasn’t a Sharpie pen. It was an eyebrow pencil.’

  Erin hugged the pillow to her chest, trying her hardest not to give in and cut off her oxygen supply. ‘Megan drew on Lillian with an eyebrow pencil?’

  What was the bloody point in that? If you’re going to behave in a puerile manner, at least do it properly!

  ‘Yes. Isn’t she hilarious?’ Rita giggled to herself as she twisted back towards the mirror, checking her complexion for any imperfections.

  Erin dumped the pillow back on the bed and headed for the door. ‘I need a drink. I’ll meet you downstairs.’

  Erin had spent the remaind
er of the afternoon in the hotel’s bar and had only popped upstairs to change before the evening’s activities, but had been stuck listening to Rita for the past forty-five minutes. She had ten minutes until she was scheduled to meet the others in reception, which was plenty of time to top up her alcohol level in preparation for dinner and whatever plans maid-of-honour Helen had up her sleeve. The itinerary simply said ‘The Show’.

  ‘Come on, Erin. We’re all waiting.’ Lindsay beckoned to her from the entrance to the bar. Erin hadn’t even managed to perch herself on a stool, never mind order a drink. She had ten minutes until the designated meeting time, and Erin thought she was entitled to spend those ten minutes with a drink in her hand.

  ‘Erin. Come on.’

  Erin caught the barman’s eye but decided it was best to follow Lindsay’s instructions. It didn’t seem worth facing the bride’s wrath over a vodka and coke.

  ‘All right, all right.’ Erin lumbered after Lindsay, joining the others crowding the reception area. Rita waved to catch Erin’s attention before pointing at Lillian and mouthing ‘no penis’ and giving two thumbs-up. Erin really, really needed that extra vodka and coke.

  A parade of taxis transported the girls into town, where they had a pleasant enough meal with plenty of wine, which was more than welcome. The whistles had thankfully retreated since the coach trip, but they made a return as the party piled out of the restaurant.

  ‘Are we ready, ladies?’ Helen distributed the whistles and began striding along the pavement, eager to reach their destination. She gave a hearty toot, which was, of course, returned at high volume.

  Lindsay linked her arm through Erin’s as they ambled along after Helen. ‘Don’t worry, I won’t tell Richard if you don’t tell Frank.’

  ‘Tell them what?’ Erin asked, but there was no need to answer. The group had stopped in front of a building with blinding neon lights promising male flesh. And lots of it.

  ‘Strippers?’ Erin asked. Her mouth watered at the thought of a room full of hot, sweaty men with rippling abs and bulging G-strings. Now this – finally – was an activity Erin could get on board with.