There Goes the Bride

by Holly McQueen

  “Sorry?”

  “Your shoes. They’re amazing.”

  “Well, they’re Louboutins,” she says, as if—and she’s not wrong, to be fair—this alone is enough to explain their amazing-ness.

  “I have a brand-new pair of Jimmy Choos myself.” I want to kick myself—with the utterly un-amazing Carvela boots I’m wearing—for sounding (at best) like a total country mouse and (more likely) like a total imbecile.

  “Oh, right.” She returns to her emailing. Actually, she never stopped her emailing. “Well, good for you.”

  “I didn’t know you came to these kind of things,” I carry on, too embarrassed to abandon the conversation now that I’ve made the mistake of starting it. “Committee meetings, I mean. I thought you were too busy dashing between school and your job at the art gallery …”

  Now she takes her eyes off the BlackBerry and looks at me. Well, I can hardly blame her for wanting to get a proper look at me. It’ll help in her description of me to the police when she reports me for stalking and takes out a restraining order.

  “If you work in an art gallery, that is,” I say hastily. “That’s just the impression I got. I mean, you look like that might be the kind of job you do. You don’t look like you’re usually involved in the fund-raising committee, that’s all.”

  “I’m not,” she says shortly. “Wild horses wouldn’t drag me to this kind of thing, normally. But my daughter has palled up with Miranda’s youngest, and I don’t want to jeopardize her popularity by refusing to join in the social side of the school every now and then. St. Martin’s girls can be quite vicious, you know, when they identify an outsider.”

  “Do you mean the girls or the mothers?” I joke. But I say it quietly, because Chief Miranda has arrived, taken her rightful place at the head of the cluster of tables, and is calling the meeting to order.

  “We start with some good news, for once,” she begins, as though the average fund-raising committee meeting is fraught with catastrophic announcements about the state of sterling, or the mobilizing of forces on the North Korean border. “Grace Costello … this is Grace, over here, for all those of you who don’t know her,” she adds, which makes me feel more of an outsider than ever, “has spent much of the past couple of weeks in bed with Saad Amar.”

  I choke on my sip of cappuccino. Half of it goes the wrong way down my esophagus. The other half goes all over the crisp white blouse of my new “friend,” Louboutin Lexie.

  “Metaphorically, of course!” Chief Miranda carries on, seconds too late, and to much jolly laughter from around the table. “Still, I’m sure it hasn’t been too much of a hardship for you, Grace!”

  I mutter a few words—even I couldn’t tell you exactly what—and dab ineffectually at Lexie’s blouse with an ancient Boots wet wipe I’ve found in my bag. She’s waving me away, irritably grabbing paper napkins from the table, but I’d much rather help if she’d let me. It would be good cover for my flaming cheeks.

  “Anyway, the end result is that our head of admissions called me over the weekend to tell me that the office has just received the Amar family’s application! This means we will be graced by the presence of little Adnan”—she shoots me a triumphant look—“next September. So congratulations, Grace Costello!”

  There’s a brief ripple of light applause and a couple of smiles, albeit chilly and suspicious ones, from the other Mirandas before Chief Miranda swiftly moves on to the rest of the fund-raising committee business. This mostly seems to center around the eleven million needed for the new classroom block and the various upcoming events that will be staged to help raise it, from the far-off—a couples’ tennis tournament in the summer term—to the fast-approaching, a silent auction to be held on the very last Friday of term, on the evening of the end-of-term carol concert.

  I’ve drifted off into a daydream (I won’t embarrass you with the details, but if I tell you it featured Saad, the Jimmy Choos, and a huge tub of Ben & Jerry’s Chunky Monkey, you’ll get the general picture), so I don’t notice everyone’s eyes are on me until Chief Miranda suddenly barks at me.

  “Earth to Grace! Is anyone receiving me?”

  “Sorry, Miranda …”

  “Are you all right?” she demands. “You look sweaty.”

  “Do I?”

  “Yes, all around your upper lip.” She’s obviously relishing pointing out my unattractiveness for a change. “Are you feeling sick? Lord, you’re not pregnant, are you?”

  “No!” At least, I hope to God not. The mind boggles about what Charlie’s reaction would be if I were to give birth, nine months from now, to a coffee-colored, dark-haired baby instead of the Celtic-pale blondies Robbie and Hector were. Mind you, given that Charlie and I haven’t had sex for months, he’d probably be pretty taken aback no matter what shade the baby was. Though there’s always a chance that he’d be too busy checking his emails to notice. “Sorry, Miranda, what were you asking me?”

  “I was asking what you’d like to donate for the silent auction,” she says with an eye-roll. “I do like my committee members to lead from the front, Grace, so generosity is very much welcomed. And of course, it is Christmas!”

  “Oh, right … of course … er … I’ve got a really nice, unworn terry-cloth dressing gown, and I’m sure I could find the original Bloomingdale’s bag it came in … or I could get my mother-in-law to send over a big boxful of Christmasy goodies from America—Hershey’s does really nice little tree decorations that I bought last time we spent the holidays over there …” I trail off. There are half a dozen faces staring at me in a hostile fashion. I suddenly panic that I’ve said quite the wrong thing.

  And that saying the wrong thing at one of these meetings is punishable by being beaten to death with a dozen Mulberry handbags.

  “Um, is that not the kind of donation you were after?”

  Chief Miranda points her Biro at the Miranda beside her. “Caroline, what did you just pledge?”

  “A week in our chalet in Verbiers,” says Caroline.

  I’ve no time to register this before Miranda points her Biro down the table at Louboutin Lexie.

  “Lexie, can you tell Grace what you’ve pledged?”

  “Three days’ salmon fishing and deer stalking at my in-laws’ estate in Perthshire,” says Lexie, not even bothering to glance up from her BlackBerry.

  “And Louisa, you’ve generously offered”—Miranda glances down at her Moleskine pad before turning to the Miranda on her right—“two weeks of wine making and tasting at your vineyard in Puglia, is that correct?”

  I can feel the blood rushing to my cheeks as Louisa confirms that this is, indeed, what she has generously offered.

  “So delightful as a nearly new terry-cloth dressing gown and a box of Christmas-themed American junk food would be,” Miranda is continuing, “I suggest that you have a bit more of a think, Grace, about what you’d like your donation to consist of.”

  While I’m mostly concentrating on not dying from embarrassment, there’s a small part of me that wants to announce to Miranda that I’m terribly sorry, but we don’t have a second home, so the best I can offer her is an overnight stay in a badly run household just around the corner, with claggy eggs Benedict for breakfast and a lice-ridden toddler announcing “A poo is coming!” while you’re trying to enjoy your morning coffee.

  But I don’t—of course I don’t. I agree that I’ll give the matter more thought and concentrate very, very hard, for the duration of the meeting, on not curling up and dying from embarrassment.

  Oh, and on the fact that after the meeting, my next stop is Saad’s.

  I may not be able to boast a family estate in Scotland, or a vineyard in the Italian countryside, but for the next three hours I will be ascending heights of pleasure that I never knew I could reach in a bedroom in Mayfair. There’s no amount of deer stalking or wine tasting in the world that could top that.

  Grace

  Friday, December 11

  You know, there are a lot of things a
bout spending time with Saad that have taken me by surprise.

  First, the fact that I’m nowhere near as shy in the bedroom as I thought I was. I mean, I’d never have thought that the Me who couldn’t even bring myself to imagine a slutty secretary fantasy ten days ago is the same Me who’d not only think up those sinful ideas about the shoes and the Chunky Monkey but be fully prepared to put them into action.

  A second utterly astonishing thing is that, despite his track record with a bevy of desirable-sounding women, Saad seems to think I’m just about the most desirable he’s ever had. Not to mention the fact that he seems to actually enjoy talking to me. After years with Charlie, the talking part is even more of a novelty than the incredible sex part. And, though the bar is set pretty high by the sex part, the talking part is even more enjoyable.

  But by far and away the most surprising thing is how very much I feel like myself again. How it feels as if the past seven and a half years of my life have simply fallen away. No shopping lists; no laundry basket; no nits or pending poos or eggs Benedict or disinterested, critical husband.

  I feel young again. Young, and free, and just like the Grace I used to be.

  And the fact that the Grace I used to be is, apparently, the type of woman who’ll sleep with her husband’s boss … well, I’m not thinking too closely about stuff like that just now.

  Anyway, all I want to think about now is the truly glorious reaction that wearing the new Jimmy Choos has afforded me. Honestly, I don’t think I’ve felt as desirable since Polly and I were the only girls invited to Jacob Mercer’s Cornwall beach house the summer after our GCSEs. (Half a dozen teenage boys, all hopped up on Scrumpy Jack and testosterone; no adults; and us.) Saad practically pounced on me the moment I came through the door wearing them, and now, half an hour of most pleasurable activity later, the shoes—plus a strategically placed (empty) Chunky Monkey carton—are all I’m wearing.

  I told you I wasn’t as shy in the bedroom as I thought.

  Though actually, Saad’s bedroom isn’t really a bedroom at all. It’s more like an entire hotel suite, and it takes up the whole first floor of the house. It’s formed of four separate rooms (actually, five, if you count the little lobby between the suite itself and the hallway outside, and you probably should count this because it’s fully furnished and bigger than most people’s bedrooms. Bigger than some people’s houses). Immediately as you walk in from this lobby, there’s a full-sized dressing room lined with sleek wooden wardrobes, where all Saad’s clothes are kept (by Thomas, of course) in almost obsessive-compulsively pristine condition; after this, there’s a sitting room with a huge wall-mounted plasma TV and slouchy sofas and armchairs; then there’s the actual bedroom with a super-king-size bed, a slightly smaller plasma TV, and some truly stunning original art deco furniture; and finally a colossal en suite bathroom, entirely made of marble, with a claw-foot bath and a walk-in shower, approximately the size of a squash court, that would impress even Charlie.

  Though obviously I don’t want to think too much about Charlie’s opinion of the shower. Or about Charlie himself, for that matter.

  Me and my Chunky Monkey carton are in the bedroom part of the suite right now, languishing postcoitally among the tangled sheets, while Saad is out in his dressing room putting on fresh clothes. And I do mean fresh clothes: he discarded his suit and shirt while we were still snogging like a couple of teenagers out in the suite’s lobby, which means that at some point after we disappeared into the bedroom, Thomas will have silently emerged, taken the crumpled suit off to be pressed and the shirt off to be laundered, and hung up something new for Saad to change back into. This isn’t just me making up something to sound like it’s right out of Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous, by the way. This is what’s happened every time I’ve come here. I have two conflicting theories about why this is: (1) that Thomas really is bordering on the obsessive-compulsive and can’t see a suit dropped in a heap on the floor without taking immediate practical action; (2) my old suspicion that Thomas is secretly in love with Saad and takes pleasure in finding an excuse to lurk nearby while his boss is taking some immediate practical action of his own.

  I’m getting more and more convinced that it’s the latter.

  Thing is, even though at first I thought that Thomas disliked me because he’s still haunted by the havoc I wrought on his pristine linen napkins, I can’t help thinking he’s just plain haunted by me. I know from what he told me, The Day the Nosebleed Came, that he was assuming I’d be here today, gone tomorrow, just like all the other women he was so keen to inform me about. But now that I’ve seen through ten whole “tomorrows,” maybe he’s getting resentful. I don’t think he likes the idea of Saad’s conveyor belt of meaningless women being replaced by a solitary, meaningful one.

  But that’s ridiculous. Because that would have to mean that Saad really was getting more serious about me than a mere fling would imply. And I know we’re having an amazing time together, but I can’t honestly believe—I can’t let myself believe—that it’s anything more than that.

  No. It probably is just the obsessive-compulsive thing after all. His desire to keep Saad’s clothes spick-and-span, I’m sure, outdoes whatever desire he may have for his handsome employer.

  I’m just trying to remember at what point my own clothes came off—blouse in the bedroom’s lobby, if I recall correctly, skirt in the dressing room, and God knows where my underwear landed—when Saad comes back in.

  He’s in a fresh shirt and a pair of suit trousers I’ve not seen before, and he sits down on the bed beside me.

  “Beautiful,” he says, with a longing groan. “You’re just beautiful, Grace. I knew those shoes would look great on you.”

  I intended to tell him that he absolutely mustn’t get such expensive presents for me again, not to mention the fact that he absolutely mustn’t get Thomas to deliver them, but somehow that all seems irrelevant now. This is the hypnotic effect that Saad has on me.

  “You know,” he carries on, “if I was an artist myself rather than just a collector, I’d paint you like this. Hey, or you could do a self-portrait! You’ve told me you’d like to go back to proper painting one day, haven’t you?”

  “Yes.” I’m surprised—and thrilled—that he remembers this conversation. Seeing as it’s one we had in bed the other day, while being distracted by other things. “But portraits, especially self-portraits, were never my forte.” I nod over at the Starbucks cow card that—I was astonished to notice the first time I came up to his bedroom—Saad keeps propped up (because it won’t stand up) against the clock on his bedside table. “That’s more my sort of level, really.”

  “I bet that’s not true. Anyway, you could expand your horizons. You could call your self-portrait …” He searches the air, as if for inspiration. “Femme nue avec carton de Chunky Monkey.”

  I laugh. “And you think it would sell?”

  “For millions. And I guarantee I’d see off the highest bidders.” He leans forward to pull on the (freshly polished, natch) shoes he’s carrying. “You don’t know how much I wish I could stay here all afternoon.”

  “You have to get back to …” I don’t like to say the office because it reminds me that Charlie is there. “… work. I know.”

  “Not today, actually. But I have got an appointment with someone.” He glances at his watch. (It’s a Patek Philippe; so not his watch, I suppose, but just one he’s taking care of for the next generation.) “Maroun Sawaya.”

  “Don’t be silly,” I say, because I assume this is an apology in Arabic. Saad often drops into Arabic when he’s especially relaxed. “No Maroun Sawaya necessary.”

  He grins. “Maroun Sawaya is a person, Grace. Haven’t you heard of him?”

  I blush, even though he’s not asked this in a patronizing way. Saad hasn’t—so far—patronized me once during the course of our brief relationship. “Ohhh, Maroun Sawaya. Of course.”

  His grin widens. “Well, as well as being a member of the House of Lor
ds and a close personal friend of the prime minister …”

  I nod, knowledgeably. And I’m grateful for the unspoken heads-up.

  “… he’s an old friend of my father. And of course, he’s an extremely serious art collector. He’s got a Braques and a couple of Cezanne still lifes that he’s looking to sell, and that my family is quite interested in acquiring. Not to mention the fact that he’s extremely interested in getting his hands on a couple of pieces of ours in exchange.”

  I nod. That’s another of the surprising things about spending time with Saad Amar. That after just a short time in his company, I can hear him talk about “acquiring” priceless artwork without so much as blinking an eyelid.

  “So do you mind if I abandon you now?” he goes on. “Only Thomas just told me that Maroun and his art buyer are already here, and I shouldn’t keep them waiting …”

  “No, of course. You go. I’ll get ready, and then I’ll be on my way myself.” I don’t want to add that actually, I really need to be getting on my way myself, to pick Hector up from nursery in forty minutes’ time.

  “Good. As soon as you’re ready, call Thomas and ask him to help you find a cab.”

  “I’ll just get one myself.”

  Saad puts a hand on my cheek. “You’re not scared of Thomas, are you?”

  “Scared? Me?” I give a little laugh. “Don’t be ridiculous!”

  “Because I know he can be a little bit … off-putting. He comes to trust new people in my life very slowly. But I’ll have a word with him, if he’s been at all difficult.”

  I feel the way I’m sure Robbie felt when, after an older boy called Sebastian emptied his lunchbox over his head on his second day of school, I briefly threatened to call the boy’s mother and tell her to stop her son bullying mine. “No! There’s no need, honestly. We get along just fine.”