Always the Bridesmaid

by Lindsey Kelk

  ‘It will not be nice,’ she choked. ‘Mom wants to get together with you tomorrow and go over everything we’ve planned so far.’

  I caught a glimpse of my reflection in an oversized mirror and blanched.

  ‘I’m very busy tomorrow,’ I whispered. ‘And the day after that and the day after that.’

  ‘Every day until my wedding?’

  ‘Pretty much.’

  Mrs Hobbs-Miller had never been my favourite person. There was a reason Lauren chose to live in the UK with her dad when they got divorced, and the last thing we needed while trying to pull together a last-minute wedding, was her mum looming over us and picking everything apart. She made my mother look like a saint.

  ‘She came over for dinner last night to meet Michael,’ she said, her breath still raspy and uneven. ‘She was not keen.’

  Hmm. Maybe he had told her about the Swiffer.

  ‘I showed her some dresses I liked and she hated them, I showed her the flowers I want and she said no. I’m freaking out, Mads.’

  ‘I don’t care what your mum wants,’ I replied, trying to keep the quaking terror out of my voice. ‘It’s your wedding not hers.’

  Lauren whimpered down the phone.

  ‘Will you speak to her?’ she asked. ‘Will you call her and tell her?’

  Fuck no, I thought.

  ‘I will sort it out,’ I promised. ‘I will.’

  ‘You’ll call her?’

  ‘I will sort it out.’

  Clearly I was not going to call her. I would be sending a well-crafted and very polite email and hiding from this particular sixty-year-old American woman from now until the end of eternity.

  ‘It’s going to be fine,’ I said. ‘Just out of interest, what did she say about Michael?’

  ‘It wasn’t so much what she said as what she did,’ she explained. ‘He tried to hug her and, well, let’s say it didn’t go well.’

  Lauren’s mother was not a hugger.

  ‘I’ve got to go, Laur,’ I said, trying to sound soothing. ‘I’m in the middle of a meeting, but I’ll call you back later.’

  ‘Yeah,’ she said weakly. ‘I’m going online to look at some more wedding dresses.’

  ‘If I don’t have one chosen by the end of the week, you’re going down the aisle in Primark,’ I threatened. ‘I’ll call you tonight.’

  ‘Um, one more thing,’ Lauren said quickly. ‘I gave her your number. And she might call. Talk later! Bye!’

  She hung up before I could scream down the phone and deafen her forever. Why? Why would she do that? I felt a shiver run down my back. Lauren’s mother was in town. I should have known − the temperature had dropped nearly ten degrees last night. The ice queen cometh.

  ‘So.’ I walked back into the living room beaming and sat back down on the sofa. ‘How’s it going?’

  The beautiful living room was silent, every carefully placed throw cushion, ornamental bowl and gay husband judging me. Sharaline sat beside me in silence.

  ‘We don’t love the flowers,’ Christopher announced. ‘Or the performers. Or the venue.’

  There had to be a way to get this back. If anyone was going to cock this job up, it was going to be me. I could fuck it up all on my own; I didn’t need anyone else’s help, thank you very much.

  ‘All of that can be sorted out,’ I said. ‘Shall we have a look at some unicorns?’

  ‘Lets,’ Andrew said crisply. ‘Did you manage to sort everything out on your call?’

  ‘I think so,’ I nodded. ‘Lots going on at the moment − wedding season is in full swing, you know?’

  ‘Oh, it must be a nightmare. I understand,’ his tone of his voice inferring quite the opposite. ‘It must be such a stressful job.’

  And that’s when my ear-piercingly shrill phone rang one more time. And that’s when I threw my cup of tea up into the air. And that’s when I threw myself underneath it, as though it were a Tetley’s tea bomb, to protect the troops.

  ‘That’s really fucking hot,’ I screeched, collapsing onto the hardwood floor with boiling liquid seeping through my blue silk blouse and burning my chest. ‘Is the settee OK? Did I get tea on the settee?’

  ‘No, but …’ Andrew reached into the depths of the decorative cushions to retrieve my phone. And my pen. My pen that had leaked blue ink all over the pristine white sofa cushions. Andrew handed me both, bottom lip quivering. ‘This is probably worse than tea.’

  He stepped away. I looked at the screen – unknown number with an American dialling code.

  The ice queen ringeth.

  ‘I probably don’t need to answer it,’ I answered in a mouse voice, still in a heap on the floor, shirt stained, skin slowly melting away from my body. ‘But thanks.’

  I rejected the call, brushed my hair out of my face and looked over at the fathers to be.

  ‘Of course, there’s always the option to hire me as a clown,’ I suggested. ‘That would cut back some of the budget.’

  Things were going better than I could have ever imagined.

  Are you excited? It’s time for the bachelorette party! Did you know that, before we adopted the term ‘bachelorette’, this pre-wedding ritual was called a hen party? In 1897, the Deseret News said there was ‘a time-honoured idea that tea and chit-chats, gossip and smart hats constitute the necessary adjuncts to these particular gatherings’.

  Today’s bachelorette parties are a little different, right? Use this space to remember your bride’s big night, before her big day!

  The bachelorette party took place: In Bath.

  The invitees were: Me, Sarah and Lauren’s mum.

  Our party favours were: Sleeping pills from Lauren’s mum.

  The games we played: Seething family resentment and Cluedo.

  Most memorable moment: getting hammered in the dodgy nightclub, Sarah getting off with a nineteen-year-old and Lauren telling me she didn’t want to get married.

  We can’t tell the groom about: getting hammered in the dodgy nightclub, Sarah getting off with a nineteen-year-old and Lauren telling me she didn’t want to get married.

  16

  Friday June 26th

  Today I feel:

  Today I am thankful for:

  Saturday June 27th

  Today I feel:

  Today I am thankful for:

  Sunday June 28th

  Today I feel:

  Today I am thankful for:

  Monday June 29th

  Today I feel:

  Today I am thankful for: Oh, just fuck off.

  I am home from the hen weekend from hell.

  And let us never speak of it again.

  Actually, no, let us speak of it because if we don’t speak of it, no one will ever, ever in a million years believe that it happened.

  ‘This place is so nice,’ Lauren marvelled after we had been shown to our hotel suite. ‘Look at the bathroom.’

  ‘And the view,’ Sarah yelled, throwing open the curtains.

  ‘And the beds,’ I said, dropping my suitcase in the bedroom. ‘Of which there are only two. When we are in fact three.’

  ‘I have to spend the entire rest of my life sharing a bed with the same dude, so I think I should get my own,’ Lauren said, throwing her handbag across the room like a thousand-dollar missile and still missing the other bed completely. ‘There’s a big couch?’

  ‘It’s hardly the first time we’ve bunked down together,’ Sarah said, clambering up onto the giant bed and stretching out. ‘And look, it’s so big you’ll hardly know I’m in it.’

  I didn’t want to cause an argument and I didn’t want to sleep on the settee, so instead, I opened up my suitcase and began hanging my clothes in the wardrobe. After much deliberation, Lauren had decided she didn’t want a traditional hen do. All she wanted was ‘a quiet weekend away with her two best girlfriends’, and so, after work on Friday night, we all squeezed into Sarah’s mini and headed west. After four hours, three very wrong turns, two bathroom stops and a dirty McDonald’s en r
oute, we finally arrived at the hotel, deep in the heart of the Somerset countryside.

  ‘I’m knackered,’ Sarah announced. ‘And we’ve got a busy day tomorrow. Bagsy first go in the shower and then I’m going to bed.’

  Lauren, busy hanging up outfits that might have been better suited to a weekend in Vegas, waved her into the bathroom, ignoring the overexcited swears that followed Sarah’s discovery of the roll-top tub.

  ‘So.’ I sat on the edge of my bed and tried to tread carefully. ‘How are you doing?’

  ‘Awesome,’ Lauren replied without looking at me. ‘Everything’s perfect.’

  Hmm. I wasn’t sure that was entirely true.

  ‘Everything’s going all right with your mum?’

  ‘She wanted to know if I had invited the Obamas.’ Lauren pressed her hand to her forehead. ‘Not because she thought they would come, but because she thought it was disrespectful not to.’

  ‘And that’s why I’m not involving your mum in the wedding plans,’ I replied. ‘This week has been ridiculous enough without those kinds of suggestions.’

  ‘Oh, Maddie,’ Lauren smiled and laughed. ‘You’re so wound up all the time. Anyone would think you were the one getting married. You need to learn how to relax − it’s only a job.’

  ‘You’re such a good friend,’ I said, trying to convince myself of this as much as her. ‘Thanks for the advice.’

  ‘Sure thing,’ she replied, missing the irony completely. ‘Any time, honey.’

  So, yes, things got off to a brilliant start.

  ‘That meal was amazing,’ Sarah announced, pushing her plate away. ‘I’m so full I think I might die.’

  ‘So great,’ Lauren agreed. ‘You two are the best.’

  Sarah and I exchanged a look. It was true, we were. It had been a successful day, full of food and drinks and naps. Well, I had a nap. Sarah and Lauren went for mani-pedis but sleep was far more important to me than the state of my trotters.

  Lauren clapped her hands and grinned. ‘And where are we going now?’

  Sarah and I exchanged a look. Huh?

  ‘What do you mean where are we going now?’ Sarah asked. ‘Bed?’

  ‘We’re going out, right?’ Lauren picked up her wine glass and emptied it in one gulp. ‘Like, to a club or a bar or something?’

  Neither of us said anything. Which said everything.

  ‘We’re not going anywhere?’ she asked. ‘It’s just dinner?’

  ‘You said you didn’t want to go out,’ I reminded her gently. ‘You said you wanted a relaxing weekend away.’

  ‘But it’s my hen party,’ Lauren whined. ‘This is it?’

  ‘Because an amazing day at one of the fanciest and most exclusive spas in the country and dinner at their equally fancy and even more exclusive restaurant isn’t exactly what you asked for?’ Sarah asked. ‘Are you serious?’

  Her little face fell and I could hardly stand it. ‘So we’re not going out out?’ She looked at me like she might cry.

  ‘Of course we are,’ I said, whacking my hands on the table and making Sarah jump. ‘We’re teasing. Go upstairs and get changed. We’ll meet you back down here in fifteen minutes.’

  ‘I might need twenty,’ she said, jumping to her feet.

  ‘Even better!’ I replied. ‘Go on!’

  ‘Now who’s gone mad,’ Sarah hissed across the table. ‘We haven’t planned anything. She said she wanted a quiet night in. What are we going to do?’

  ‘You’re going to go and tell the concierge that it’s our friend’s hen night and that something tragic has happened to the person who was supposed to be bringing all the hen-night accessories,’ I ordered. Sarah looked sceptical. ‘I don’t care what you tell them − traffic accident, dead dog, traffic accident caused by dead dog. Just see what they can do.’

  ‘I don’t think they’re going to have any penis straws or bride-to-be sashes,’ she said, balling up her napkin and throwing it onto the table. ‘You’re not really going to make me do this, are you?’

  ‘Or you can sit here and call every cab company, cocktail bar and nightclub in a fifty-mile radius and try to pull a fabulous hen party out of your arse.’ I suggested. ‘Totally up to you.’

  Scowling, she stood up. ‘I’ll be back,’ she said, heading out of the restaurant.

  An hour later, we were sprawled out across the benches of a shady-looking pink limo with half a dozen mini bottles of Bollinger, a selection of promotional sex toys and enough gummy sweets in a plastic bag to bring on diabetes.

  ‘I can’t believe they had a screening of that bloody film last week,’ Sarah whispered, pawing through the handcuffs, whips and riding crops. ‘They couldn’t get rid of these fast enough.’

  ‘Fifty Shades of Yay,’ I said. ‘The party gods are on our side.’

  ‘I don’t really have to wear the tiara, do I?’ Lauren asked. ‘It’s going to mess up my hair.’

  ‘Yes,’ I replied, another fifty quid short after buying it from an eight-year-old girl celebrating her birthday with her too-rich parents in our hotel. ‘You do have to wear it. Possibly forever.’

  ‘I know it’s dumb,’ Lauren said as Sarah popped the first bottle of bubbly, ‘but I kind of wish we’d done the matching T-shirts now. This is super fun. I knew you guys wouldn’t let me down.’

  ‘Banana,’ Sarah whispered. ‘Maddie, banana.’

  ‘You’re banned from saying that for the rest of the night,’ I said. ‘Normal service resumes tomorrow.’

  ‘I intend to get so drunk, I don’t see tomorrow,’ she replied, handing me a bottle and a straw. ‘Cheers.’

  ‘We’re here.’ Todd the driver lowered the screen he had put up the instant we asked him to put on the Dirty Dancing soundtrack. ‘What time do you want me back?’

  ‘Midnight?’ Sarah suggested.

  ‘Four!’ Lauren shouted, looking at her phone. ‘They’re open until four!’

  ‘In half an hour?’ Sarah said, revising her offer.

  ‘Can we say two, and if it’s any later, we’ll pay you double-time?’ I asked as Lauren hurled herself onto the street.

  ‘We can,’ Todd the driver said. ‘Good luck.’

  I nodded grimly and followed my friends out into the night.

  It had to be at least three and a half years since I had set foot inside an actual nightclub. Not a nice bar with a bit of a dance floor or an East London hipster thing where a DJ with a giant box full of vinyl played songs from his phone, but an honest-to-God nightclub. That streak had ended at Tramps in Bristol city centre on this Saturday night in June, and I was afraid.

  ‘Hello,’ I shouted over the music to the woman manning the coat-check booth. ‘I called about an hour ago − we’re here for my friend’s hen night and the person on the phone said he could reserve us a booth? I think I spoke to a Gareth?’

  She clacked her gum and stared.

  ‘Is Gareth here?’ I asked.

  She shrugged.

  ‘I’ll go and find Gareth, shall I?’

  I wasn’t nearly drunk enough for this. Unlike Sarah and Lauren, who had already taken to the light-up dance floor and were spanking each other with black plastic riding crops in the middle of a bus load of Welsh teenagers.

  ‘Hi!’ I hurled myself at the bar, smiling politely at the first bartender I could find. ‘Do you happen to know if there’s a Gareth working tonight?’

  ‘That would be me,’ he replied, straightening his clip-on tie. ‘What can I do you for?’

  ‘My name’s Maddie.’ I stuck out my hand, only for Gareth to take it in his and kiss it. Eurgh. ‘We spoke on the phone, about my friend’s hen do.’

  I wiped my hand on the arse of my jeans and tried to keep smiling.

  ‘Oh yes!’ He ducked under the bar and gave a flourish. ‘Welcome!’

  I glanced over my shoulder. Fifty or so sweaty teenagers in next to nothing were vibrating madly to a song I’d never heard under three disco balls and a selection of epilepsy-inducing flashing lights.
It was everything I’d ever dreamed of.

  ‘Let me show you to the VIP suite.’

  Gareth took four steps and stopped in front of a red vinyl booth at the side of the bar.

  ‘This is the VIP suite.’

  I crossed my arms in front of me and gave him a look he’d probably last got from his mother when he failed his GCSEs.

  ‘Let me send over a round of shots, my treat,’ he said as I threw my jacket and handbag down, squeaking against the sticky plastic as I utched myself round the table. ‘How many of you are there?’

  ‘Thr— seven,’ I replied. ‘There are seven of us.’

  ‘Seven shots on the way,’ Gareth promised. ‘You’re going to have such a fun night.’

  Maybe, I thought, after I’ve downed half those shots.

  ‘And I said to him, Steve, I said, you’re not being fair. This is hard enough without you trying to take the telly as well as the settee.’ Sarah’s head lolled back against the vinyl booth. ‘And he didn’t reply. I mean, he can afford a new TV − he makes more than I do. It’s not fair, is it? Maddie, are you listening, Maddie?’

  ‘I am,’ I said, patting Sarah absently on the knee while I watched Lauren force her way into a dance circle with half a dozen eighteen-year-old girls and out-twerk every one of them. ‘It isn’t fair.’

  ‘Take a selfie with me.’ Sarah fumbled for her phone and held it at arm’s length. ‘Look sexy.’

  ‘How’s this?’ I asked, pressing my face against her and pouting.

  ‘You’re not doing it properly,’ she said, squinting into the camera and fussing with her hair. ‘Do it properly.’

  Gareth’s shots were about as strong as a premature kitten, and an hour later I was still stone-cold sober. Probably because I’d eaten three courses for dinner and was so full of steak I could barely move, so the idea of drinking on top of all that food made me feel quite sick enough, thank you very much. Sarah and Lauren were fighting their food-forced sobriety the sensible way. By mixing their drinks and consuming every alcoholic beverage known to man.