Always the Bridesmaid

by Lindsey Kelk

  6

  Sunday May 17th, evening

  Today I feel: Full.

  Today I am thankful for: Food.

  ‘Bloody hell.’

  When Lauren had sent out the e-vites for her engagement party at her dad’s house, we figured we were looking at a lovely Sunday afternoon of handmade sandwiches in the living room with a glass of Pimm’s in the garden if we were lucky.

  It was ten years since we’d been to Lauren’s dad’s house. Lauren’s dad had moved.

  ‘How is this somewhere people actually live?’ Sarah asked, handing her coat to one of the two people clamouring over it at the front door. ‘Are they his servants? Does he have servants?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ I whispered, taking a glass of champagne from another bow-tied helper. ‘When did he get this rich?’

  We knew Lauren was From Money, but the last time I checked it wasn’t Scrooge McDuck money. I half expected to open a cupboard and have bags of gold coins fall out and smother me.

  ‘Maybe he won the lottery and she didn’t tell us,’ Sarah suggested as we were shown through the house and out into a marquee in the back garden. ‘Maybe she thought we’d feel weird about it.’

  ‘She would be right,’ I replied. ‘This is insane.’

  A string quartet played in the corner of the marquee and fairy lights were strung all across the ceiling, fighting the dismal British weather to create a happy atmosphere. In the middle of it all stood Lauren, happily clutching Michael her Swiffer-loving fiancé’s arm.

  ‘Hey!’ She broke away the moment she saw us and rushed over as fast as her four-inch heels would carry her. ‘You’re here!’

  ‘Nice shoes,’ I said, accepting a hug and a kiss on the cheek.

  ‘Thanks,’ she said, kicking up a heel as she hugged Sarah. ‘I was thinking about these for your bridesmaid shoes, actually.’

  ‘All the better to break an ankle in,’ I replied. ‘So, um, when did your dad become the head of an international drug cartel? Because that’s the only person I can imagine would live in this house.’

  ‘Oh, haha,’ she replied, taking a glass of champagne from another waiter.

  Sarah grabbed a second, her first almost finished. ‘What?’ She shrugged.

  ‘He’s an estate agent,’ Lauren said, waving at more people as they arrived. ‘He gets good deals on houses.’

  ‘Especially when he has the previous owners killed,’ Sarah added. ‘I’ve always got a Mafia vibe off your dad. Is that how he ended up in America? Is that how he met your mum?’

  ‘He’s not in the Mafia and he doesn’t run a drug cartel,’ she replied. ‘He’s just having a good year. And since my mom got remarried, he doesn’t have to pay her alimony any more. That probably helps.’

  ‘Is your mum here?’ Sarah asked, checking the marquee with fear in her eyes. ‘Please tell me she couldn’t make it.’

  ‘She couldn’t make it,’ Lauren said, entirely unimpressed. ‘It’s a long way for her. She sent flowers. She’ll come for the wedding, obviously. I don’t know why you’re so afraid of her.’

  ‘Lauren, your mother is the only woman on earth who has ever knocked me out,’ Sarah replied, rubbing her jaw to nurse a ten-year-old injury. ‘And she’s thirty years older than me.’

  ‘You did hit on my dad,’ she pointed out. ‘It wasn’t totally undeserved.’

  ‘I didn’t know he was your dad,’ Sarah sulked, rubbing her jaw as though the punch had happened yesterday. ‘And looking at this place, I wish I’d tried harder.’

  ‘You could have been mother of the bride,’ I said, patting her on the back. ‘It would have been beautiful.’

  ‘If you’re going to invite drunk nineteen-year-olds to you dad’s company Christmas party, you should provide some sort of handout to tell them who they may and may not kiss under the mistletoe,’ she said. ‘Totally innocent mistake.’

  ‘You had your tongue so far down his throat, I nearly threw up,’ Lauren replied. ‘You’re lucky I ever spoke to you again.’

  ‘This is a beautiful party,’ I said loudly, watching as tray after tray after tray of food was brought out and passed around. ‘That is my official and professional opinion. Who did you use?’

  ‘For the party?’ Lauren asked. ‘No one. My step-mom put it together.’

  I stared blankly. ‘In two days? She did all this in two days?’

  She nodded.

  ‘God, maybe Colton-Bryers should hire her,’ I muttered. ‘At least you’ve got good help for the wedding then.’

  ‘But you’re going to help me with the wedding too, right?’ she said, sipping her champagne. ‘I don’t want to be an asshole since they’re throwing me this party and everything, but I don’t want my stepmother planning my wedding. Besides, you’re an actual wedding planner. And it would be way more fun if the three of us planned it together.’

  Yes, I thought, saying nothing. It would be way more fun. Planning a wedding with bridezilla, a divorcée and a spinster. Sob. It seemed pointless trying to remind her I was an events organizer and not just a wedding planner so I didn’t. I just sulked about it silently, alone.

  ‘So where are you at?’ Sarah followed Lauren over to a plush white sofa set up in one corner of the marquee and sat down. ‘Is the whole thing planned and booked and paid for already?’

  ‘Oh I wish,’ she said, giving another new arrival a wave. ‘I don’t know how you do this every day, Maddie. Every time I think I’ve decided on something, there are another ten things to work out.’

  ‘That’s why it’s a job,’ I said. ‘It’s more work than you realize.’

  ‘Thank God I have you to help me,’ she beamed across the table. ‘My own personal wedding planner.’

  ‘Yeah, of course.’ I returned her smile, barely. One more time, not a wedding planner. ‘Have you decided on a date yet?’

  ‘I wanted to talk to you guys about that,’ Lauren said, looking slightly shifty and curling the ends of her blonde ponytail around her index finger. ‘So, it’s like this. Michael’s grandma is over there.’

  She pointed at an elderly lady in a wheelchair who was wearing the most spectacular hat I had ever seen.

  ‘She’s really sick,’ Lauren whispered.

  ‘She looks all right to me,’ Sarah replied. ‘What’s that she’s drinking?’

  ‘Whisky,’ Lauren said. ‘I kept having to top her up so I just gave her the bottle.’

  ‘And now she’s drinking out of it with a straw?’ I asked.

  ‘Whatever, she’s sick,’ Lauren said. ‘So we’re definitely going to have to get something figured out sooner rather than later if we want her there.’

  ‘I think you’re going to have to do it this afternoon if you want her there,’ Sarah said with a frown, unable to take her eyes off the woman. Really, it was the most amazing hat.

  ‘How soon is soon?’ I asked. ‘New Year’s maybe? Next spring?’

  ‘Like, August?’ Lauren pulled up her shoulders in a faux wince.

  ‘That’s not that soon,’ I said, calculating on my fingers. ‘That’s fifteen months, totally standard.’

  Lauren smiled with all of her teeth and an apology in her eyes. ‘Like, this August?’

  ‘This August?’ I asked. ‘As in three months from now?’

  ‘The first, actually,’ she confirmed, looking to me for support, but I had nothing. ‘It’ll be OK, right? Maddie?’

  I stared blankly across the table. Two and a half months.

  ‘My dad said he’d pay for the actual wedding, and my mom is going it pay for my dress,’ she said, flipping her eyes between the two of us. ‘And I’m not doing some crazed pre-wedding diet that’s going to take six months, so that’s not a thing.’

  ‘People don’t plan their weddings so far in advance just so they can lose a few pounds,’ I said, deliberately not catching Sarah’s eye. We all remembered her pre-wedding diet. They were dark days. Dark, Slim-Fast-filled days. ‘It takes time to make the dress. The ones you try on ar
e samples. Most designers make every dress from scratch when you order it.’

  ‘But you’ll be able to help me, right?’ she said with pleading eyes. ‘I just want it to be perfect.’

  ‘Of course I will,’ I replied automatically. ‘But if you want to organize a wedding in three months, you’re going to have to make compromises.’

  Why did I suddenly feel like I was at work? Oh, that’s right, because my best friend had just hired me to pull together her wedding in three months and she was planning on paying mates’ rates, i.e. nothing.

  ‘It’s going to be fine. It’ll be awesome,’ she said. And she was smiling again, clearly having stopped listening to me halfway through. ‘I just know you’re going to help me have the perfect wedding. I‘ve done some research to help you. Do you think we could get the carriage they used at the royal wedding? They can’t be using it now, right?’

  Before I could say anything, she reached underneath the sofa, pulled a giant powder-blue ring binder out of her tote bag and dropped it onto the table in front of me with a thud.

  ‘This is where I’m at so far,’ she said, brushing her hair over her shoulder, all business. ‘Do you want to go through it now or do you want to take it with you and get back to me later?’

  ‘I think I might take it with me,’ I said slowly, leafing through the pages. Vintage Rolls-Royces for the bridal party, Routemaster bus to take the guests to the reception, Monique Lhuillier, Vera Wang, Jenny Packham, fireworks displays, swans, doves, swing bands, pick-and-mix counter for the reception, chocolate fountain, champagne fountain, sherbet fountains … it was my all worst nightmares wrapped up in a best-friend bow. I wanted to help Lauren, but I couldn’t help feeling a bit sick. ‘You know, I might not be able to get all this for August.’

  ‘Of course you will,’ she said confidently. ‘You’re amazing.’

  ‘I mean, yes, I am,’ I agreed. ‘But putting this together this quickly is going to be a full-time job, and at last count I already have one of those.’

  ‘Can I get you anything at all?’ A waitress appeared at my elbow, pad at the ready.

  ‘Three champagnes please,’ Sarah said quickly. ‘Do you two need anything?’

  Against all the odds, the party was fun. I made a deal with Lauren to keep Sarah away from her dad, and Sarah made a deal with me to keep a glass of champagne in her hand at all times. Thank goodness I’m used to managing conflict on a daily basis.

  ‘He is fit, though,’ Sarah said, leering at the aforementioned father from our new perch outside the marquee. ‘For an older man, I mean.’

  ‘He’s Lauren’s dad,’ I said as I looked over at the sixty-something-year-old man clutching the arse of his thirty-something-year-old second wife and gipped. ‘I just don’t get it.’

  ‘He’s a silver fox,’ she said, actually swooning as he flicked a hand over his far-too-luxuriant-for-my-liking grey locks. ‘Imagine all the things he could teach you.’

  ‘Like the current value of a shilling and what things were like “when he was a lad”?’

  ‘Piss off.’ Sarah slid her finger inside the top button of her silk blouse and pulled it away from her neck. ‘I bet he knows his way around a bed.’

  I stuffed a piece of puff pastry into my mouth. ‘I think I’m going to be sick.’

  ‘Ladies, I’ve been thinking.’ Before Sarah made me actually vomit, Lauren dropped into the third chair around our little iron table and all sexual theorizing about our best friend’s father ended abruptly. ‘I’m so sorry about you and Steve. I feel as though messing around with all my wedding stuff is going to be difficult, given everything that’s going on, so if you don’t want to be “involved”, I completely understand.’

  Sarah, half-cut and half awake, gave a loud sniff.

  ‘If I’d known, I never would have done that dumb dinner announcement thing.’ Lauren continued, crumpling her pretty face in a frown, and I knew she meant it − she was the most considerate person I knew. ‘I got carried away.’

  Sarah smiled awkwardly and shook her head. ‘And you should be getting carried away − you’re getting married,’ she said, reaching out for Lauren’s hand. ‘Things are weird, yeah, but I want to be a help. I’m sorry if I’ve been weird.’

  ‘You haven’t been weird at all!’ Lauren said, dashing round the table to give Sarah a hug. ‘You’re going through something so awful, and this is shitty timing. If I could change it, I would, but with Michael’s grandma and all …’

  I glanced over at the little old lady in the spectacular hat. The bottle of whisky in her lap was empty now, but the bottle of gin she’d moved on to looked fairly full so I assumed she was all right. And my own personal hero.

  ‘It’ll be fine,’ Sarah promised. ‘It’ll be better than fine. I’ll be fine and the wedding will be fantastic. Give me something to do − I’m always happiest when I’m busy.’

  ‘I hate to interrupt …’ Michael, never Mike, leaned over his new fiancée’s shoulder and squeezed her shoulder. ‘But my mum and dad are leaving.’

  ‘Congratulations, Michael,’ I said, beaming at the groom. ‘Now remember, if you break her heart, I’ll have to kill you.’

  He stepped back and stared at me.

  ‘Why would you say that?’ he asked with big brown Bambi eyes. ‘And at our engagement party?’

  No one could accuse Michael of being sharp enough to cut anything. He was very nice and clearly loved the shit out of my friend but I would never forget the time he was discussing films with Sarah and told us all he thought the sequel to Dumb and Dumber was the most underrated film of all time.

  ‘It was a joke,’ I said, looking to Sarah and Lauren for support and finding none. ‘I was just kidding.’

  ‘That’s a terrible thing to say,’ he said, gripping Lauren’s hand tightly in his and pulling her away from the table to stand by his side. ‘And you’re supposed to be planning our wedding?’

  ‘Technically, I’m a bridesmaid,’ I replied. ‘I’m helping to plan the wedding. But I didn’t mean to offend you.’

  ‘Such an awful thing to say,’ he said to Lauren. ‘You know I would never hurt you. Why would she say that?’

  ‘I know.’ Lauren narrowed her eyes at me and shook her head. ‘Don’t worry about Maddie, she thinks she’s funny.’

  ‘I am funny, aren’t I?’ I hissed at Sarah, who shrugged in response.

  ‘Not as funny as he is,’ she replied. ‘But I don’t think he’s making me laugh on purpose.’

  ‘I’ll be over in a moment, honey,’ Lauren told her still horrified fiancé. ‘Don’t let them leave until I’ve said goodbye.’

  He nodded dutifully and trotted back across the room long legs lolloping, with the look of someone who had just been told his puppy was terminal.

  ‘Sorry,’ I said, hanging my head in uncertain shame. ‘Sensitive, isn’t he?’

  ‘What about the bachelorette?’ Lauren suggested, ignoring me completely. ‘We haven’t been anywhere together in forever. We should do something just us girls.’

  ‘That could be fun,’ Sarah said, looking to me for confirmation. I nodded blankly, slyly checking my phone for a message from Will. Perhaps something along the lines of ‘top shag, will you marry me?’ but alas, nothing. ‘When do you want to go?’

  ‘Next month?’

  ‘Perfect. Maddie, what weekends are you working next month?’

  ‘Huh?’ I said, putting my phone away. ‘What weekends what?’

  ‘It’s not her fault she’s being stupid,’ Sarah said, batting me in the head with her clutch bag. ‘She’s all shagged out.’

  ‘Oh!’ Lauren blinked and clapped loudly. ‘Oh my God I forgot to ask you!’

  ‘Yes,’ I said, not wanting to make too big a deal out of my shagtacular night in front of Sarah. I had given her the briefest of details in an attempt to distract her from goosing Lauren’s dad at the buffet table earlier, but I had a feeling the soon-to-be divorced didn’t want to hear too much about their friend’s amaz
ing one-night-stand at their other friend’s engagement party.

  ‘And?’

  They both stared at me with expectation and it felt weird.

  All I’d brought to the table for the last two years, relationship-wise, was how much I missed Seb, and now, out of nowhere, I was the centre of attention. Sarah was getting divorced, Lauren was getting married, I was the only one with shagging stories. Even though they were my best friends, I got the impression that they felt sorry for me sometimes. Having someone new, something promising to talk about, felt like a relief.

  ‘He’s … I don’t know,’ I said, confused and oddly shy. ‘I like him.’

  ‘Ooooh, you like him!’ Lauren did a little dance in her seat. ‘Are you bringing him to the wedding?’

  ‘I think it’s a bit early to be thinking about that,’ I scoffed.

  It wasn’t too early. I had thought about it endlessly, ever since he’d left that morning.

  Sarah stuffed a whole tomato and goat’s cheese bruschetta into her mouth as a waiter with a shocked face reeled from the drive-by food-snatching. ‘Tell us everything.’

  ‘His name is Will,’ I started.

  ‘Will what?’ Lauren asked.

  ‘Oh,’ I replied, cringing. ‘I don’t actually know.’

  ‘How old is he?’

  ‘Don’t know.’

  ‘What does he do?’

  ‘He’s a lawyer!’

  ‘Oh.’ Lauren frowned. ‘Not another one.’

  ‘How do you know Will isn’t some amazing lawyer who works for a charity or saves children from sweatshops or stops make-up companies from testing lipsticks on rabbits?’ I asked.

  ‘Is he?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ I admitted. ‘I know he’s a lawyer, I know he was Ian McCallan’s best man at the wedding yesterday, I know he likes to sleep on his left side and I know he likes to walk around my flat starkers in the morning.’

  ‘What does he look like?’ Lauren asked, tapping away at her phone while Sarah rolled her eyes.

  Rude.