How Not to be a Bride

by Portia MacIntosh

  Leo laughs.

  ‘You look great – you always look great,’ he tells me in a way that makes it sound like a reminder, rather than a general compliment.

  ‘But you’re dressed up,’ I point out.

  His hair is perfectly blown back, he’s wearing a crisp white shirt and he smells delicious, like the Creed aftershave I bought him for Christmas that he usually reserves for special occasions.

  Leo smiles that devastating smile of his. I am weak for his dimples, even after all this time.

  ‘Come on, let’s go for a walk,’ he says, taking me by the hand.

  It’s a beautiful morning, like something fresh off a postcard. The beach is clear, the sea is calm and the weather is just right. It’s not too hot yet, although it’s set to be a scorcher later today. Were it not for my mum’s compulsory lunch, I could’ve got the tan my body so desperately needs.

  ‘It’s a shame we can’t stay longer,’ Leo says with a sigh. ‘You deserve a break. It might help with your stress.’

  ‘I know,’ I reply. ‘We’ll take a proper holiday soon, when all our money isn’t being spent on the house.’

  ‘I know it’s taking a lot of time and a lot of work,’ he starts, ‘but it’s going to be worth it.’

  ‘I know,’ I reply. I do know – it’s just taking so much time and money and effort, I kind of wish we’d carried on renting a little while longer.

  ‘I know work is stressing you out too.’ Leo stops and turns to face me, suddenly adopting a much more serious tone. ‘But you’re happy, aren’t you? With life and with me?’

  ‘Of course I am,’ I say, placing my hands on his gorgeous face. ‘Yes, the house is a mess. Yes, work is difficult at the moment. But none of that alters the fact that I love you so much.’

  ‘Good,’ he says thoughtfully. ‘That’s good.’

  ‘Good,’ I echo.

  Leo looks at me for a second, then he smiles. I wish I could tell what was going on in his head. He isn’t always the kind of guy to broadcast his feelings, so I’ll often resort to guessing what’s going on in there. Of course, being the anxious type, my brain always assumes things are much worse than they are.

  Suddenly, Leo crouches down on the floor.

  ‘What are you doing?’ I laugh.

  ‘Mia Valentina,’ he says, pausing to puff air from his cheeks.

  ‘Yes,’ I reply in a goofy voice.

  Everything clicks in my head a split second before he pulls a ring box from his pocket.

  ‘Whoa, what are you doing?’ I laugh.

  ‘Something I should have done a long time ago.’

  Leo, who it turns out is down on one knee and not just crouching on the sand, opens the ring box to reveal a silver and rose-gold engagement ring with a big, beautiful, colourful opal stone – my favourite. Is there anything that feels as wonderful as when you realise a man actually listens to you when you’re just babbling about things that aren’t important, like what your favourite stone is?

  ‘I’ve known I loved you since the second I laid eyes on you four years ago. You’re the most amazing, most interesting, most beautiful woman I’ve ever met, and I can’t believe I haven’t asked this sooner. Will you marry me?’

  ‘Yes!’ I squeak instantly, without even pausing for thought.

  An instant but cautious smile appears on his face.

  ‘Are you sure?’ he asks.

  ‘Of course I’m sure,’ I reply, pulling him up from the ground.

  Leo slips the ring on my finger before kissing me, grabbing me in his big, strong arms and twirling me around.

  Mia from four years ago might have thought marriage was stupid but Mia now just loves Leo so much. It had crossed my mind, just every now and then, what I’d say if he asked, but I never really gave it too much thought. We’d mentioned marriage, but I’d never been able to imagine him pulling the trigger. But now he’s popped the question and it’s the easiest question I’ve ever had to answer.

  ‘Your folks are going to be over the moon – that’s why your mum is making a special lunch, you know, to celebrate,’ he confesses.

  Thank God I didn’t make a scene over the fact we were being summoned for lunch today.

  ‘That’s very sweet of her,’ I say. ‘And confident.’

  ‘She knew you’d say yes,’ he tells me. ‘So did I.’

  ‘Is this why you were so quiet last night?’ I ask, suddenly feeling a lot better about the fact he didn’t want to have sex with me.

  ‘Yeah.’ He laughs awkwardly, running a hand through his hair. ‘Last-minute nerves.’

  I smile widely as I stare down at my ring.

  ‘This is just… incredible. I’ve never seen anything like it,’ I beam.

  ‘It’s an Ethiopian fire opal,’ he tells me. ‘It was handmade. There are real little diamonds in the band, but I remember you telling me that opals were your favourite.’

  ‘I did,’ I say with a smile. I can’t believe he listened and remembered. ‘I just wish you’d given me some warning. I would have made sure I looked less… like a tramp.’

  ‘Mia, you look great. I’ve never seen you look anything less than great. Even when we’re 80, I’ll still see you as my blonde, bikini-dropping bombshell.’

  ‘When we’re 80, neither of us will be able to pick up dropped bikinis,’ I reply.

  ‘Good,’ he replies cheekily.

  As we approach the beach house back door, I let go of Leo’s hand.

  ‘Listen, I’m going to go and smarten up and repaint my nails because if any photos are taken to remember this special day, I don’t want to be looking like this in them,’ I say, pointing down.

  ‘OK,’ Leo replies, grabbing me for one last kiss. ‘You go get changed and then we’ll tell everyone the good news together.’

  ‘OK,’ I reply. ‘Won’t be long.’

  ‘OK, fiancée,’ he calls after me jokily.

  I can’t help but grin, like the Cheshire Cat that got the cream.

  I reach the top of the stairs and slowly make my way towards our bedroom. Thankfully, although I didn’t have time to paint my nails before we left, I did have the foresight to chuck a bottle of deep-purple varnish into my make-up bag, with the intention of hopefully painting over the chipped blue stuff at some point. This is a move I often pull, to save time. In fact, under the chipped blue polish is chipped red polish that I covered with blue. The blue will cover with this dark purple shade but after that the only colour that will save the day is black, and when that looks messy I’ll have to finally make time to strip off the six months’ worth of polish that has built up. LA Mia always had perfectly manicured nails but Mia now doesn’t have the time or the money for that.

  ‘Hey,’ Mike calls out as he leaves his room.

  ‘Hey,’ I reply.

  As I reach out to open the door, the light bounces off my beautiful ring, catching Mike’s eye.

  ‘You said yes?’ he asks, sounding surprised.

  I nod.

  ‘Oh, man. I owe Leo ten pounds,’ he tells me. I hope he’s kidding.

  ‘So everyone knew?’ I ask him.

  ‘Yeah,’ he replies. ‘But I didn’t think you were the marrying kind.’

  ‘I could say the same thing about you,’ I point out.

  Mike is a tall and skinny guy. He’s had spiked, dyed-black hair for as long as I’ve known him, and with the exception of his wedding suit on Belle and Dan’s big day (which didn’t really look quite right on him), he’s always wearing scruffy clothing. He’s kind of stylish with it, though, so I assume it’s intentional. He has a very unkempt beard now, which makes me think he’s moving with the trends, not that I think he’d ever admit it. Mike likes to act like he doesn’t care about things, but I’m sure he does or he wouldn’t be getting married.

  ‘Yeah, well, we all fall eventually, right?’

  Mike’s use of the word fall reminds me of a conversation Leo and I had before we got together. It was just before Belle’s wedding, when I thought I
was heading back to LA in a few days and was doing everything in my power not to fall in love with Leo, because we lived so far apart, and because it had been so long since I’d had a proper relationship I was scared I wouldn’t know how to be in one at all – least of all with someone who lived on a different continent to me. Back then I was writing romantic movies for a living – despite not being very romantically inclined myself – so, after I tried to cool things off with Leo, he countered my decision with some of my own words about love, taken from one of my films. I told him love wasn’t really like walking on air, that it was like jumping off a building, and that it didn’t matter how long you were falling for, it was always only a matter of time before you hit the ground and got really hurt. After bickering for a few minutes Leo finally agreed with me, that falling in love was like jumping off a building, because it was scary and because it took your breath away, but that real love was the person on the ground, waiting to catch you. It’s been four years since he said those words to me, but I recall them all the time because Leo is the person who always catches me. So, even if Mike is right, and I’m ‘falling’ like we all do eventually, I know there’s an amazing man waiting to catch me in his big, fireman arms. I’m not falling, I’m jumping.

  I just smile at him. There’s no point trying to explain it.

  ‘See you at lunch,’ I tell him, disappearing into my room to try and smarten myself up. I’ve got an engagement to celebrate – but what do I wear?

  I blast my hair with dry shampoo before applying my make-up and quickly applying a fresh coat of nail polish over my current severely chipped coat – it’s the best I can do at short notice.

  I grab a few outfits from my case and try them on in front of the full-length mirror. As I examine my body, I can’t help but sigh. The girl looking back at me is not the girl who looked in this mirror four years ago. Sure, I’ve changed a lot in many good ways, but I’ve put on a little bit of weight, and it’s all in places that show under certain outfits. I used to wear whatever I wanted, but now I have to think about what doesn’t show off the parts I’m self-conscious about. I was a fat teenager, bullied by Belle and her friends for being quiet and a bit weird, which is why I felt so empowered and confident when I moved to LA and transformed myself into someone it felt good to be. Still, everyone goes on a diet before their wedding to look their best in their dress, right? So I might as well start getting in shape now. Actually, I think I’ll start tomorrow. After all, my mum is making a special lunch today, and my life won’t be worth living if I don’t eat it.

  Chapter Five

  I gently tap my fingers against the keys of my MacBook – not because I’m typing, because I’m stressed. I have just two chapters left to write and then I can send this book to my editor, and I really can’t wait to see the back of it.

  When I was living in LA I was part of a team of screenwriters responsible for all the big romcom hits of our generation, but leaving LA meant leaving my job too, and back here in Kent there’s not much call for big-screen romcom writers. I looked into other writing jobs, but writing romantic comedies is what I’m good at, so I transitioned from writing movies to writing novels. Working with a team of screenwriters, I’d be in a sunny city, in a big, fancy office, with a well-stocked table of fresh food put out every morning. I could grab a Starbucks on my way to work, do my job with ease, flirt with my boss’s latest handsome assistant and plan the night’s social events with whichever movie stars were hanging around the office that day. Writing novels is not as social as writing movies. It’s October, so Kent is pretty cold, and instead of being in an office I am in my living room. I’m wearing a onesie because I’m freezing, I’m all alone because, other than emailing my editor or my agent, I work entirely by myself, and I don’t really eat properly, I just grab things when I can.

  It’s been three months since Leo proposed, which means it’s been three months since I made the decision to get back to my LA diet and exercise regime, and I’ve snapped right back into shape. I’m happy to admit that LA Mia was maybe a bit too skinny, but thanks to all my hard work I’ve lost that stubborn stone everyone warned me I’d put on when I got a boyfriend – although I think the weight gain was more to do with the fact that I was eating too much junk while I was working. I’m really happy with the way I look again – I’ve even been taking these vitamins and using special conditioning treatments to try and encourage my hair to grow back again, because now I’ve got my body back, I want my hair back too.

  It’s Saturday night and the street outside is abuzz with students. Leo is at work and I’m here alone, trying to work, but I’m getting so easily distracted.

  I walk over to the living-room window to see what’s going on outside. There’s what I’d guess is a nineteen-year-old man, holding a traffic cone to his crotch as he chases near-naked young girls across the street, prodding them in the butt with his plastic appendage. Our house sits in the middle of a long road that leads from the university right into the centre of town, which is why there are so many students around. Our house is also situated right in the middle of the Merry Mile, a famous pub crawl that runs from the uni into the centre, in which participants dress up and have a drink in each pub along the way. I study the students, trying to work out who they’re all supposed to be. There’s one guy dressed up as a Minion and another one dressed as a sanitary towel (you’d be surprised how popular that one is among men, and my inner feminist isn’t sure whether it’s empowering or just insulting), and the girls are all just random things (a cavewoman, a cat, a nurse) that don’t involve much clothing, which is unfathomable to me because it’s freezing out there. It suddenly occurs to me that I’m 14 years older than these kids and I feel like an old lady, spending my Saturday night in my pyjamas.

  When I think about my life back in LA, it feels like something that happened in a dream a long time ago. I might have got myself back into a shape I’m happy with, but Mia from four years ago wouldn’t have been caught dead in a onesie – least of all a tea-stained one – spending a Saturday night at home while everyone else was out having fun. I would’ve been out having cocktails, bumping into Margot Robbie, begging her to introduce to me Leonardo DiCaprio so I could be his latest blonde squeeze, not here, putting off doing my work by watching a Minion with a traffic cone for a dick.

  I head into the still-unfinished kitchen and put the kettle on. We haven’t got much done with the house over the past three months. Leo has been working a lot and I’ve been working on my book. Leo has been taking all the overtime he can get because it turned out the house had some major electrical problems that needed fixing before we could get on with anything. Now that’s done and finally all of the rooms are painted white, ready for us to make each one our own. I am hoping and praying we start with the kitchen because it’s really hard to keep up the healthy eating when it’s almost impossible to cook in there. I’m sure it will feel easier to eat healthier when this book is done too, because it’s too easy to just keep writing and eat an entire tube of Pringles for dinner, rather than cooking, only pausing momentarily to wonder if Pringles tubes are getting smaller or your hands are getting bigger. Well, that’s what I’d have been doing this time last year, anyway. These days I have to waste time I don’t really have making healthy snacks I don’t really want.

  Armed with my cup of tea I sit back down on the sofa, grab my laptop and try to get back on with my work. The sooner I get this book done, the sooner I can send it off and get to work on the next one. It’s hard to function as an adult when you write books for a living because you have no real guaranteed income. By the time your publishers and your agent take their cut you are left with what you’re left with, and you have to survive from quarter to quarter without a top-up. You never really know how much you’re going to be paid from one quarter to the next, so it’s hard to make plans. Were I not lucky enough to live with Leo, and were it not for the fact he has a good job, I’m not sure I’d feel financially comfortable doing this for a living.

/>   I am just about to start typing when I hear a loud bang on the door. It’s a bit late for knock-on-the-door, just-stopping-by visitors, but not so late I’m scared to see who it is.

  ‘Hello, boys,’ I say, seeing my friends Rory and Iwan on the doorstep.

  ‘Mamma Mia,’ Rory bellows after swigging from a bottle of bourbon, passing it to Iwan before giving me a hug.

  ‘Hi,’ I laugh. ‘You boys seem like you’ve had a good night.’

  ‘We’re just heading into town now,’ Iwan slurs, his thick Welsh accent sounding even stronger thanks to all the alcohol. ‘We thought we’d see if you and Leo fancied it?’

  ‘Leo is working,’ I tell them. ‘So am I, to be honest.’

  ‘Come on, come out with us,’ Rory whines. ‘Come on.’

  I can’t help but laugh at his drunk tantrum.

  Rory and Iwan share a flat in the house next door. While the houses are aimed at students, they’re also marketed to young professionals as a cheaper alternative to the swanky apartments in the more favourable parts of town. They both work together at a digital agency, Rory as a project manager and Iwan as a web developer. Iwan definitely looks as you’d expect him to, with his handsome good looks, his trendy beard and his geek-chic hipster clothing. Rory, on the other hand, seems to only take style inspiration from James Bay, with his long, messy hair always covered with a wide-brimmed hat and his stick-thin legs encased in the skinniest of skinny jeans. Leo and I have been friends with Rory and Iwan for years now. In fact, it was them who let us know about this house going up for sale.

  ‘I really need to get this book finished,’ I tell them, ‘but then we’ll go out to celebrate – next weekend maybe?’

  ‘Boo,’ Rory, clearly the drunker of the two, heckles me.

  ‘You want a drink before we go?’ Iwan asks.

  ‘Just made a cuppa,’ I tell him.

  I close the door and plonk myself down on the sofa, sighing deeply. I would love to go out, but I need to be responsible. Just a few more chapters and then I can send this off, and finally start having some fun.