by Corri Lee
Shut up.
“Miss Tudor?” The assistant squeezed my shoulder and coaxed me away from fashion HQ. “This way, please.”
She directed me around to the dressing room I’d used before, and from the way she was humming with excitement, my dress had to be waiting inside. I knew I’d drawn a nightmare design full of fiddly and intricate details, so the reveal was going to be a big moment for everyone. It was going to be a true testament to Caroline’s skills—or lack thereof—and the single most important item of clothing I’d ever wear. I was one drawn curtain away from finding out if I’d look like a princess or a pauper on my wedding day.
Having only seen pictures of fabric swatches and various bits of shiny haberdashery wanting my approval, I was obviously nervous. If I’d only been given a wider time frame, I wouldn’t have been stood there feeling the damp patches of stress sweat growing larger under my arms and praying I was about to witness a miracle. It had to be spot on straight away. There was no time for a redesign. If it wasn’t right, my wedding was ruined.
“Come on!” Jeers goaded me from a waiting room just out of my view. I could just picture them, my mother, sister and so-called best friend, soaking up the hospitality and complimentary strawberries and champagne. It was going to be so easy for them to judge and pick out flaws. The pressure was on, and I wasn’t at all ready to face it when the assistant forced my hand.
The curtain fluttered back and—
“Oh my God.”
It was perfect. It was, by far, the most impressive wedding dress I’d ever seen with my own eyes.
And I didn’t deserve it. For me to stroll around in that dress pretending I belonged in it would have been a fallacy and insult. I’d played a huge part in creating something that was beyond my own worth.
I stood there, dumbstruck and dry-mouthed. Mounted in front of me was a direct replica of the dress I’d drawn from my mind, identical down to the silver embroidery across the bust. If Caroline hadn’t somehow crawled into my brain to see what I had in mind, there was no other feasible explanation for how well she’d recreated a scribble on paper. Had I gone into excruciating detail in my sketches? Yes. But this was unreal.
“Is there a problem, Emmeline?” She sneaked up behind me like Satan’s serpent, daring me to criticise her work.
I couldn’t. The cow had me by the balls.
“Emmeline?”
“No... No problem.” Nothing other than the fact that I couldn’t possibly imagine wearing it. There should have been a contingency plan for an event like this, but who ever ordered bridal wear just to feel like it was too good for them?
Caroline and her lackey took the initiative and the advantage while my ability to act was temporarily out of commission. The headmistress ushered me closer to the mannequin holding the confusing collaboration of my deepest and darkest dreams and nightmares infused, while the student closed the curtain behind us and stood guard.
I was undressed from the waist down and staring at a bare fabric torso before I was jolted from my daze. Oh, God. Nobody had seen me undressed for weeks—nobody new since that pompous American prick, Calloway Ryan, who’d been as emotionally disturbed as I was. The second Caroline moved even fractionally to remove my tattered and so-totally-not fresh on that morning t-shirt, my hands went to the hem to hold it down.
“Okay,” she said slowly, oozing impatience. “I’m sure I don’t need to tell you that you can’t wear that underneath the dress on the day.”
“I know,” I muttered, and because I knew I was being stupid and paranoid, repeated it several times to myself. Fat Emmy was raging inside me, screaming at me, screaming at her. My safest bet was to say nothing so I couldn’t echo or answer anything she said.
“So are you going to do this with my help, or are you going to dress yourself?”
I’ve got her back, whore.
“I don’t... Couldn’t you just... turn away?”
“Is this about those scars?”
My jaw hit the ground faster than a two tonne deadweight. How the hell did she know about the scars?
Having the decency to look awkward, Caroline shuffled back an inch and carefully smoothed a crease in her pristine silk shirt. “I’ve seen a lot in this line of work, Emmeline. I’ve dressed amputees, burn victims; I’ve seen it all. You can’t possibly shock me.”
I’d put money on you eating those words in about two and a half minutes.
“Honestly, I’m not here to judge.”
“Yeah right,” I snorted, surprised that she’d even try to pull off a comment like that. “You’ve been judging me since the moment you saw me.”
“I’m used to dealing with self-righteous upper class snobs,” she retorted quickly, folding her arms. “I expected you to be the same. You learn to give as good as you get when you’re constantly treated like a second class citizen.”
“You thought I was one of them?” I was almost insulted. The only thing that stopped me calling her a hypocrite was the glimpse of human I caught when she let her tough exterior crack a little. It took a serious minute of consideration to appreciate how she must have been looked down on by so many of those contemptuous kept housewives I so prayed to never become like. A superiority complex was essential to surviving on the same social level as them, fuck knows how much you had to big yourself up to earn their respect on a lower tier.
There was no reason to cause a fuss. She had to remain professional or it would cost her dearly. As shitty as it made me feel, I shed the t-shirt and squeezed my eyes shut while she pulled the dress up over my knees, thighs, hips, past the scars that still shone silvery on my left side, coming to rest over my bust.
The silence that followed was so tense I’d only felt the same kind of anxiety on the psychiatric unit right before a fellow patient was told they were still too sick to be discharged. Caroline called her assistant through. I felt her pause, assess and scrutinise before finally saying, “Are you positive these measurements were taken correctly?”
“Yes, ma’am. I double-checked them against those taken for Mr. Blaze’s order and gave you the smaller sizes.”
“Blaze is not ‘Mr. Blaze’,” Caroline snapped harshly. “But he’s going to be Mr. Pissed if he sees this coming at him in fifteen days.”
“It’ll be fine once it’s done up properly, ma’—”
“This is as tight as it goes.”
They continued to squabble behind me. It was just like all those times my family spoke about me like I wasn’t there, except this time those involved knew no better and I was clueless as to the problem.
I needed to know. Cautiously, I opened one eye and peeked downwards. There was a large gap between my skin and the reinforced bodice of the dress. Even with the corseted back at maximum tensity, it felt like it would drop down to my waist if I so much as breathed too deeply.
Fat Emmy always made sure I was conscious of my weight, so I knew I’d lost a little during my bout of stomach flu and the stress that had followed. But what the state of the dress told me was that I hadn’t just lost a few pounds. I had to have lost nearly a stone.
My lungs filled on a harsh, aching inhale, then on another when I’d barely breathed back out. My ears started to ring and my scalp prickled uncomfortably.
Yeah, you’re thinking along the right path. You’ve fucked it all up. Again. He’ll never marry you now. May as well just tell him what you did to his wife. I bet she never had this problem.
“I can fix this.” A hand settled on each of my shoulders, both from a different owner, I thought. “We’ll work tirelessly to have this sorted in a matter of days.”
“You can’t let them see like this,” I whispered, thinking of the three woman simply gagging to see what they were going to be following down the makeshift aisle in Connie Valentine’s garden. “Please, don’t let my mother see me like this.” She’d see it as so much worse than it really was.
Maybe it is as bad as she’ll see it.
Is it?
You tell me
, genius. Your wedding dress is hanging off you. You think dear old Caz got her stitches so wrong?
“Of course not. I have a daughter of my own. I understand.”
Still and shaken, I let the two women undress me again and pass me back my own clothes that had to be several sizes too large again. It was almost like I’d never met Blaze at all; never learned that my perception of my own body was completely off base. I was seeing myself as much larger again, slipping back into characteristic anorexic habits.
And I had nobody to blame but myself.
Esme, Ivy and Tallulah were the ideal demonstration of elation turned confusion turned spiteful disappointment when I walked out of the dressing room in my own clothes instead of in my ill-fitting bridal gown. As much as Caroline insisted that she’d figure out some way to make it fit like a glove, I felt less and less like it was meant for me.
A career in fashion design might have been an option for me one day, but wearing my own product was definitely out of the question. Secretly, I was weighing up the viability of ordering my damned eBay dress and flying out to collect it myself, and a very small part of me hoped Blaze would postpone or just all together cancel the wedding.
Ivy immediately questioned why I wasn’t showing them the dress. Caroline jumped out of the dressing room on my heels and announced that it was so wonderful that I wanted to keep it a surprise even from them until the big day arrived. Quick thinking, I thought. Obviously a situation she’d been in before, which begged the question of whether her calculations were habitually off the mark or if she generally tended to instil the fear of God, insignificance and obesity into her customers.
She quickly had us move on to the bridesmaid and maid of honour dresses in her usual unruffled, snarky way. Oddly, I enjoyed watching her look down her nose at people when it wasn’t directed at me.
Maybe you’re a massive bitch, too. Hell, scrap the maybe.
Esme shot off first, apparently more than eager to show me exactly what it was she’d be wearing.
It obviously wasn’t her first fitting. She and the assistant were more than a little friendly, giggling and snorting behind the curtain in the same way Tallulah would fifteen minutes later. If Blaze had indeed been the one to choose the dresses, I knew they’d at least be stylish and completely coordinated with our red and ivory scheme. After all, karma is a bitch and the girls knew where he slept.
I wasn’t wrong. Esme stepped out in a form fitting ruby gown with a low, scooping back. The hem of the skirt just grazed her ankles, showing off matching red pumps studded with off-white crystals. Nothing clashed with my stunning friend’s crest of red hair, not even the crimson netted veil she’d need for the ceremony. The ensemble was classic Esme.
Tallulah’s outfit was equally as impressive. Slightly more modest was her two-piece outfit; a wide collared red tunic that showed a little shoulder but skimmed over her fuller figure and a beautifully embellished floor-skimming skirt to match. Stood side by side, they looked like they’d walked right off a red carpet. If I imagined myself standing between them, I felt like I’d ruin the picture.
“Sublime. Simply sublime.” My mother gushed, hands clasped at her chest. If I could count on her for anything, it would always be that she’d ham up the theatrics and over-act. “You’ve done a wonderful job, Caroline.”
Caroline grinned smugly in response. “Of course. I never go into anything half-cocked, Mrs. Tudor.” Her chin lifted towards the silver tray of champagne flutes sitting on an ornate glass coffee table at Ivy’s toes. “How’s the Bollinger?”
“Oh, you know. Working too hard as ever. Oh!”
A shrill, sharp giggle later, Caroline was fussing over the frills and straps of the dresses, pinching in seams and snipping off stray threads she’d missed in production. She worked industriously, folding and nipping at an almost dangerous speed. Esme and Tallulah winced on occasion, narrowly missing unlucky encounters with a nasty looking pair of tiny silver scissors.
“Oh, yes,” Caroline breathed after a solid twenty minutes. “A few minor adjustments and the three of you will be aisle-ready. I must say, Blaze was much kinder to you than he was to that awful Patrice.”
That name, just the mere sound, of it got my hackles up. It had no place in my dress fitting, in my wedding, not even remotely near my life.
“Come again?”
“Oh, he had me set her up with a disgraceful beige prom dress I had to order in from a department store. Then he stuck that Natasha—God bless her soul—in an all-over lace dress with a high collar that showed no skin. You’re really very lucky that he let you pick your—”
I zoned out. My mind was pushed back to the first time I’d met Caroline, and those dresses she’d told me Blaze preferred above all. If I hadn’t designed my own during that trip away to Wales, would he have seriously picked one for me and expected me to wear it?
And how—for the love of all that’s unholy—could he send me to the same seamstress who’d made his ex-wife’s dress? It was in such poor taste, it was unreal.
“Goodness, are you all right?”
A warmness spread across my lip, one I’d started to recognise as the touch of blood from a nose bleed. Rejecting the five wadded up tissues thrown at me, I stanched the flow with the bottom of my t-shirt and warned them all away with a look.
“You made Natasha’s dress?”
“Yes...” Caroline edged back from me carefully, totally bewildered by the sight of me. “Blaze would have it no other way.”
“And he picked it.” She nodded once. “He picked... her fucking wedding dress.”
“He didn’t love her the way he loves you.” I was sure that was supposed to comfort me but it didn’t. “It was all planned very quickly and meticulously—over in a flash. The moment he found out about her illness, he gave her eight weeks to—”
In a laboured heartbeat, I was on my feet and making an unsteady sprint for the door. The parallels between Blaze’s two weddings were too glaringly obvious to ignore and I needed to get away from it. I needed to escape from the crushing feeling that I was just part of a trend, from the nagging doubt that I might just be another rich bride with an inheritance to snatched up and a best-before date stamped on me.
Who knows; maybe one day you’ll be the one topping yourself after a dinner date with his new bit of fluff.
“Emmeline! Stop!”
The blare of a London bus’ horn brought me back to my senses barely fast enough to take a breath before an impact from behind knocked me straight to the concrete. I recognised the weight of the body pinning me down to the road from days of recklessness past. If I hadn’t, the smell of black cherry tobacco and the voice screaming like a banshee down my ear would have done the trick.
“Are you out of your fucking mind?”
Yes.
Esme scrambled to her feet, grabbed my hand and hauled me up. No sooner had my back straightened, she drew a red-taloned hand back and struck me with a resounding back-handed slap. I’d feel the impact for hours afterwards and walk away with a red mark that glowed from eyebrow to jaw. “You can’t just run out in public like you’re—”
“Like what, Esme? Like a normal person with normal problems and normal peeves?”
“Sure. If you like.”
Rolling my eyes, I turned away from her and made to set off down the street. My face stung something mean, I could taste blood, and my leg felt like it was on fire. A quick glance down found my jeans torn open and scuffed, but it was the look back up that was truly horrifying.
The press had come out of hiding. In what seemed like their hundreds, the swarm was closing in, cameras and notepads at dawn. In a series of events that happened too fast to process, I somehow fought a path through them to the nearest main road, lifted my hand and produced the most unlikely, shrill, note perfect and once in a lifetime whistle to summon a cab. The how’s and why’s were lost to the painful accusing glare of my once best friend having her identity revealed to the public for the first time. Chanc
es were, that bridge was as blazed as my life in general.
I didn’t screw around with going to Daniel’s like I might have done during any other crisis. I’d been done a major injustice and I wanted blood for it—mostly Blaze’s, but I’d have ripped out the throat of anyone who tried to obstruct my path to him.
Where the hell did he get off treating me like the ex-wife he never loved? It was downright disrespectful and I was going to tell him so, right before I threw his engagement ring back at him and told him to shove his wedding up his rectal cavity.
That was the plan, anyway. During the taxi journey back to the hotel, I thought of every possible scenario that could sabotage it. On my list, the most likely option was that I’d arrive back to him sprawled out naked across the couch or freshly showered. Even finding him sat casually playing his guitar and singing quietly would make him totally irresistible and douse that angry flicker of ire burning inside me. In that instant, I’d be useless unless I was completely mentally prepared with annoyance and ambivalence.
Which I was, and it was all for nothing. I crept back into the suite feeling, for some reason, very uncomfortable in my own temporary home, and saw him standing in the doorway to the kitchenette talking quietly on his phone.
He either heard or simply sensed me. The door had barely closed behind me when he hung up and turned to face me. I took a breath to steel myself for battle, ready to debate his reprimand.
Blaze tucked the phone into his pocket and leaned back against the breakfast bar. “Your mother called. I spoke to Dr. Downes; she thinks the nosebleeds are due to stress related high hypertension. Are you okay?”