“What’s on Saturday?”
I swear I’ve told him this three times already. “Samantha is coming round.”
“Samantha …?”
“The social worker. Remember, Jamie? I told you earlier? The woman coming to talk about the adoption?”
“Oh, Samantha. Well, I remember that, babe.” He leans down and kisses the top of my head. It’s such a long way down for him that I’m surprised he doesn’t put his back out doing it. “Obviously I remember it! I know how important it is to you.”
“To us.”
“Of course! To us.” He tilts my chin up so he can place a kiss on my lips. And very nice it is, too. He’s a truly excellent kisser. A full, soft mouth, he’s got—a thing I find knee-tremblingly attractive. Probably because it’s the opposite of my Evil Ex, Christian, who, amongst his other crimes, had the kind of lips that looked as though they’d been vacuum-packed.
“And there’s more where that came from!” he says proudly when he comes up for air and the two of us start heading for the hallway. “I’ll wait up for you, babe, to get back from the airport.”
“Oh, there’s no need for that.” Flattered though I am, I’d kind of been hoping for an early night. Not much chance of that, though, when Jamie’s in the mood for lurve. “I have to be up early in the morning—I’ve invoices to be doing, and I’ve got to start getting the flat shipshape for Samantha’s visit, and there are about a million calls I have to make about wedding stuff once I’ve finally made Polly make a few basic decisions …”
“Christ, I’d forgotten about the wedding.” Jamie’s face falls. Like most men, he’s not a fan of weddings at the best of times. And thanks to the fact that this one is going to be taking place on New Year’s Eve—one of Jamie’s high holy days because of the opportunity (nay, the necessity) of hanging out with The Boys and drinking his body weight in lager—it’s causing him even more distress. “No chance Polly might change her mind about the date, then?”
“After all the work I’ve been doing? I tell you something, Jamie. Polly makes changes to her wedding over my dead body.”
Jamie pulls on his hooded top and gives me a salute. “Aye, aye, Big Sister.”
Polly is my half sister, actually, not my full sister, but neither of us has ever bothered much with the distinction. It was the kind of thing we’d occasionally use, as children, to attack each other with—You ruined my Nirvana T-shirt, and you’re not even my real sister!—but the reality was, and is, that the “half” part has never mattered. The “sister” part is all that’s ever counted. And even though she has been driving me around the bend recently, with her footloose and fancy-free approach to organizing a wedding for a hundred and thirty, even though her footloose and fancy-free approach to life itself has driven me around the bend ever since I can remember … God, I can’t wait to have her back. I’ve missed her.
When I get to Heathrow Terminal Five a little before eight thirty this evening, I can already see that Mum and Brian have beaten me to it.
Well, I can see that Mum has beaten me to it. She’s loitering on the fringes of the duty-free shop, spritzing herself with perfumes at the Lancôme counter and, as far as I can tell from a quick glance at her face, trying on most of the makeup available with a JCB. There’s no sign of Brian, my stepdad, but he must have been dispatched on some Mum-centric errand. This is the way things work on Planet Atkins.
“Is Brian here?” I ask as soon as I reach her. “You haven’t left him in the car park, have you?”
“Darling, don’t be ridiculous.”
Mum’s darlings are always the theatrical kind, the kind Laurence Olivier must have doled out backstage at the Old Vic when he couldn’t remember the spear carriers’ names. But then, my mother is pretty theatrical herself. People often think she’s an actress, an impression she cultivates even though she’s really just the manageress of a jewelry boutique in Devizes. She’s still beautiful, even in her sixties, with the impressive height and olive coloring that Polly (but alas, not I) inherited, and she has a tendency to dress for the occasion. Today she’s stylish in navy cigarette pants, a neat beige raincoat, and a little black beret over her (dyed) jet-black hair. It’s her Greeting-People-at-the-Airport outfit, inspired by Brief Encounter and Ingrid Bergman in Casablanca.
She kisses me, on both cheeks. “We had a long drive up, you know, and we’re both in need of refreshment. He’s gone off with Dev, to find some decent coffee.”
Dev is Polly’s fiancé, and I’m really excited to see him. This is only partly because I’m hoping to pin him down about which of my large-scale catering contacts he wants to try out to do the food at the wedding. Mostly it’s just because I adore Dev. We all do. Not only is he kind, and sweet, and head-over-heels in love with my sister, but he’s also a hotshot plastic surgeon who’s forever jetting off to some disaster-ravaged country with one of the many charities he works for, to treat burn victims or earthquake-hit orphans.
No, I’m not kidding. He’s pretty much Mr. Perfect. Sorry—even better—Dr. Perfect.
I don’t really like to have Jamie spend too much time with him at family events. Because let’s face it, anyone would look lazy and shiftless—actually, just a bit crap—in comparison.
“And Grace? Has she come?”
“No, she couldn’t get a babysitter.” Mum sighs. “Such a shame. It would have been so nice to have her here. She’s such an asset. Lovely Grace.” She casts an eye over my own, non-lovely appearance, and clearly finds it wanting. “Did you have a look at those diet sheets I emailed you?” she asks, none too subtly.
Look, it’s not that I’m actually fat, OK? Well, not if your definition of fat is, like mine, restricted to people who actually, visibly wobble when they walk. People with stomachs like mounds of jelly and bottoms like overstuffed chesterfields. I’m what my mother has always called, with ambiguous intent, “stocky.” It’s just that with the combination of my foodie job, my dwarfish stature, and the fact that my metabolism has seemed to go into reverse ever since I passed thirty-two (and rapidly haring around the bend toward thirty-three), I’m “stockier” than ever.
“No. I didn’t. I don’t diet, Mum. Diets are bad for you.”
She gives a little laugh, as if I’ve just said oxygen is bad for you, or that the moon is made of Dolcelatte. “Not the diets I do, Bella. The Zone, for example. I’ve lost eight pounds since last month on that!”
If she’s lost eight pounds since last month, it’s because she’s a functioning anorexic with a mortal terror of carbohydrates. But I don’t point out the obvious.
“And you’ll want to look trim in your bridesmaid’s dress, won’t you? Especially as you’ll be standing next to Grace.”
“Don’t worry, Mum. I can always put a paper bag over my head.”
Mum tuts at me in the way she does when our limited tolerance of each other has passed its tipping point. “Look, why don’t you go and help Brian and Dev bring the coffee? I’m sure Dev will want to chat to you about the wedding. And you can tell Brian he can come back down here and buy me one of these perfumes.” She reaches for a bottle of Hypnose and spritzes a toxic cloud of it in my direction. “Gorgeous, isn’t it? Very elegant. Very Mother of the Bride.”
I locate Brian and Dev only a few moments later, on their way out of Costa Coffee. Brian is juggling a paper Costa Coffee bag, a giant and rather sinister teddy bear with a bloodred love-heart on its tummy (certainly Mum’s doing; she’s a cuddly-toy nut, and almost no occasion is deemed unsuitable to be blighted by the appearance of one of the wretched things), and a huge bunch of shiny pink and silver helium balloons. Beneath them, Brian’s face is rather pink and shiny itself. In fact, he’s always been pretty balloon-like from head to toe, and he’s expanding even further with age.
Beside him, Dev is carrying the polystyrene tray of coffees. He’s nice looking, rather than good looking, a million miles from the himbos Polly used to have a tendency to date. He’s not as big or as tall as Jamie, but he’s a g
ood solid six feet and rather Clark Kent–like behind his glasses. He’s obviously come straight from the hospital, because he’s in a midgray suit and blue shirt that work well with his coloring. (He’s only thirty-six, but he’s already going just the smallest bit gray at the temples, probably because of all the hours he works. But it’s a good look on him.)
“Bells!” Brian’s already broad face broadens still further into a smile. He speeds up to reach me so he can give me a hug.
I hug him back and try to disentangle him from his cargo. “What are the balloons for?”
“They were your mother’s idea. Look—they spell out Welcome Home Polly.”
They don’t, actually. What they spell at the moment is HOELOYMLOPLMEWEC.
“How are you, Bells?” Dev leans down to give me a kiss on the cheek. He’s looking slightly more gray at the temples than usual; the stress of moving back to Britain, probably, and buying a house, and all the other crap that comes with relocating.
“I’m fine. Though I could murder a coffee myself.”
“And you must be starving!” Brian shoves the Costa Coffee bag at me. “Have one of these muffins, please, Bells. Your mother will be cross that I bought them anyway, and the chocolate one is really rather good …”
It’s no wonder people always assume Brian is my real dad and not my stepdad. Even if it weren’t for our slightly unfortunate physical resemblance, there are other critical things we share in common. Our mutual love of—OK, obsession with—food being the most important of them. Brian runs his own teeny-tiny independent publishing company, with a staff of two (and a half, if Mrs. Clegg from over the road remembers to come to work on Tuesday and Wednesday), producing the kind of little gifty cookery books you find in National Trust shops. Jams, Jellies, and Pies. Wonderful Ways With Wood Pigeon. That kind of thing.
“Brian, why don’t I take Bella off to get a coffee while you take Marilyn’s cappuccino down to her?” Dev suggests. “I’m sure she’s gasping.”
“And she wants you to buy her some perfume,” I warn Brian, who shoots off at the double at the thought of Mum waiting for him, in need of refreshment and gifts, leaving me and Dev to head back in the direction of Costa Coffee.
“Right,” I say as we sit down at a free table a few moments later, with a latte for me. “There’s nowhere to run now. You absolutely have to decide whether you want the sit-down dinner or the luxury buffet.”
He blinks at me from behind his glasses. “I thought we were just sharing this muffin.”
“For your wedding, Dev! I have two of my caterer friends on hold, waiting for your answer! And New Year’s Eve is an incredibly busy time, you know. You and Polly can’t take forever to make every single decision.”
“Oh. Sorry, yes. Of course.” He breaks off a bit of the muffin and chews it. For a moment he looks so serious that he reminds me of Elvis, our long-deceased Labrador, the only dog in the known universe to suffer an existential crisis every time you threw him a stick. “Actually, Bella, I wanted to have a bit of a word with you about that.”
“About the caterers?”
“No, about the wedding. In general.”
“Oh?” This doesn’t sound good.
“Well, you don’t think …” He clears his throat. “You don’t think Polly is getting cold feet, do you?”
“Why would I think that?”
“Because I’ve been thinking it. Well, I’ve been wondering. I mean, it’s nothing she’s said, so much as … I don’t know. She’s been so iffy about buying a house. Would hardly even look at any of the details I emailed her, let alone take a weekend to fly over here and look at any of them. I know she’s been driving you bananas about not committing to any of the wedding plans. She turned down Grace’s offer to come over to New York and help her shop for a wedding dress a few weeks ago …”
Irrelevantly—irrationally—I feel a familiar stab of jealousy that Grace was the one who might have ended up helping Polly find her dress, rather than me.
“… and every time I’ve tried to talk about anything that might happen after the wedding—you know,” he adds, with the smallest hint of embarrassment, “starting a family, or anything like that—she doesn’t seem to want to talk about it. I mean, I’m probably just being totally ridiculous …”
Actually, he’s not being totally ridiculous. Polly has always had the capacity for dithering where her personal life is concerned. What about her long-term teenage sweetheart, Olly, dropped like a hot brick the morning of her eighteenth birthday party? Or that intense Swedish boyfriend she had for a while at university—Erik? Yorick?—with whom she was supposed to have been traveling around the Far East at the end of her second year? Poor Erik/Yorick, abandoned literally three hours before their flight to Jakarta, on the Piccadilly line to Heathrow. And seeing as Polly’s men seem never to get over being dumped by her, he might still be there, for all I know. Shuttling back and forth for all eternity in self-imposed purgatory between Hammersmith and Hounslow Central.
But this is Dev we’re talking about. Dev. A man most women would chop off their right arms for. (The fact that Dev would probably be able to reattach the arm, with a minimum of scarring, is an unexpected bonus.) A man who worships the ground Polly walks on. A man she worships right back.
“Dev.” I reach over the muffin crumbs and pat his hand. “Honestly. There’s nothing for you to worry about. You know what Polly’s like—planning anything just freaks her out. That’s why I offered to take on most of the burden of sorting the wedding out for her.” Well, that, and the fact that, as I’ve already mentioned, I’m an uptight control freak. “It’s not cold feet, or second thoughts, or anything like that.”
Dev considers this for a moment, head on one side, in his most doctorly manner. “Well, you do know her better than anyone.”
“Exactly.” I glance down at my watch. “And I know her flight has just landed, too. We’d better go and wait with Mum and Brian. God forbid there’s no one there to witness Mum’s performance when Polly comes through the arrivals gate.”
We head for duty free, where Mum has stopped poking around at the Lancôme counter and irritating the staff. She’s poking around at the Givenchy counter and irritating the staff there instead. Once she’s got the perfume she wants, we all head for the arrivals gate and set ourselves up like some kind of battalion of anti-nuclear protestors, pressed up against the barrier with the balloons and the sinister teddy bear.
This is where we are when the passengers of BA0178 from Newark to London start disgorging themselves through the swing doors.
And this is where we still are, almost an hour later, when we finally accept that one particular passenger of BA0178 from Newark to London—namely, my sister, Polly—was never on the plane after all.
By the time I pull up the van outside my flat, it’s long past midnight. There’s been a lot of noisy hysteria (Mum), quite a lot more growing anxiety (me, Dev, and Brian), and a frankly rather dismissive attitude from Terminal Five’s police force, whose main advice—seriously—was to keep trying Polly’s mobile. As if we hadn’t just spent the last hour doing exactly this, and hearing it go straight to voice mail.
I tried a couple of Polly’s friends over in New York, who assured me that she’d been alive and apparently well when they’d met her for farewell drinks last night. Dev tried a couple of neighbors in their apartment building, and they assured him that they’d seen her getting into a cab with her suitcase, still alive and apparently well, very early this morning. Which of course sent Mum into a fresh paroxysm of hysteria that the cab driver could have raped and murdered her, or that one of these very neighbors could have raped and murdered her, and been trying to establish themselves a false alibi.
What with all these hysterics, both Dev and I finally decided it was best to take the second piece of advice from the police and all go back to our respective homes to see if Polly had just made a mistake about where we were meeting her and headed straight there.
I have to say,
I had my doubts. And even though I didn’t hold any truck with Mum’s hysteria, the chilling rape-and-murder scenario did keep creeping into my head on the drive back into London. Even more so after I’d taken Dev all the way to the new house in Wimbledon (no sign of Polly waiting there) and driven the lonely few miles back to Shepherd’s Bush by myself.
Which is why the last person I expect to see, huddled against the cold as she sits on my doorstep, is Polly.
I get out of the van, slam the door with surprising vigor, seeing as my hands have suddenly started to shake with relief, and stride across the pavement toward her.
“Polly Abigail Atkins! Have you any idea …?”
But then I stop. She’s getting up to greet me. And she looks terrible.
Let me just assure you that Polly is, under normal circumstances, a knockout. Tall, unlike me, with abundant va-va-voom curves that land her just on the cuddly side of slim enough. Her skin is dusky, her hair falls in enviably shiny waves past her shoulders, and she has the kind of features, irregular and just a little bit too big for her face, that shouldn’t make her anywhere near as attractive as they in fact do. She may not have the perfect figure or the cool, serene beauty of her best friend (Gorgeous) Grace, but almost every man I’ve ever known has gone absolutely gaga about Polly. Throw in her penchant for sexy clothing—bum-hugging jeans, little skirts, off-the-shoulder sweaters—and, well, you can just take my word for it. A total knockout.
But right now, she’s not so much knockout as washout. Her hair is pulled back in a scruffy ponytail, she’s wearing the kind of rumpled chinos that are beloved of a certain kind of American traveler, with a baggy gray hoodie and Converses, and even in the streetlight I can see that she’s pale, with bags under her eyes.
“I changed my flight,” she’s saying. “I landed at Terminal Three. I’m so sorry, Bella, if you were worried.”
“We were worried sick. But that’s not the point.” I stare at her. I would give her a hug, but I’m too angry. “Why did you get a different flight? Why didn’t you let anyone know? Me, or Dev.”
There Goes the Bride Page 2