by Lucy Hepburn
“Good luck with that,” Molly couldn’t help saying. “We’re closer to Venice. May as well keep going, don’t you think?”
Pascal ducked under the bonnet. Molly was sure she heard him mutter something about ‘Bologna’ to himself but dismissed it. Perhaps he was simply out of his depth anywhere apart from the elegant boulevards of Paris; the rest of Europe was probably all a blur…
“Want me to help?” she called over to Simon. “I’m good at following instructions.”
“Non,” came his voice from deep under the hood. “I should manage. Let’s just hope the thing moves after all this, eh?”
Just then, Molly’s phone rang. She looked at the screen and saw it was her mother.
“Mum!” she cried, “you won’t believe the time we’re having!”
“Hello darling, is everything okay?”
“You sound dreadful!” Molly chided. “Have you just woken up?”
There was a silence at the other end of the line for a moment. “I’m okay, thanks. Been a bit eventful.”
“You too, huh? Well, so far we’ve traveled by plane, skidoo, post van, and now we’re just about to get in the ricketiest old car you’ve ever seen—if we can get it to start. We’re in Domodossola! Unbelievable!”
“Domodossola?” her mother repeated. “I’m in Milan! You’re not so far from me—”
She was where? Her mother was supposed to be with Caitlin days ago. “Milan? What on earth are you doing there?”
“Well…I had…one or two things to sort out.”
Molly rolled her eyes. “So close to the wedding? What was so urgent that you had to go to Milan? Mum?”
“Oh…nothing, really,” she said. “But it’s all done now, and I’m a bit exhausted.”
“You sound dreadful.” Molly knew how she felt. This high-profile wedding was the most stressful thing she’d ever done. “Don’t tell me—has Caitlin been giving you grief?”
“No…” Her mum trailed off. Then said, “I don’t suppose you could swing by and pick me up, could you?”
“Are you kidding?” Molly spluttered. “You should see this thing! There’s barely room for the three of us and the dress!”
“Ah.” Another long pause. “Well, don’t worry. I’ll sort something else out.”
Molly softened. “Sounds like you’re having a time of it as well, Mum. Needing company?”
“Definitely.” She could hear the smile in her mum’s voice.
Molly sighed and looked across at the tiny little car. “Well, it’ll be a real squash, is that okay? You’ll have your knees up under your chin.”
“That’s okay,” she said, sounding happier by the minute. “Why is it so squashed? Who’s with you?”
“Delametri’s assistant, Pascal,” Molly said.
“Bonjour!” Pascal shouted, making Molly smile.
“And Simon…”
“Who’s Simon?”
There was no time for this. “And the dress.”
“And Reggie.”
There was definitely no time for that. Molly changed tack. “I can’t wait to tell you all about our journey so far—you won’t believe it, I promise you. Where will we pick you up?”
“There’s a big car park—have you got a pen? I’ll give you the address. Does your car have sat-nav?”
“Are you serious? We’re lucky it’s got a steering wheel…oh!”
A roar from the tiny engine, a cheer from Simon and Pascal, and the little Cinquecento roared into life, shuddering proudly in the middle of the field.
“We’re in business! Hurray! Right, the address?”
Molly quickly wrote down the address, hung up, and bounded back over to the car.
“There’s even half a tank of fuel in here!” Simon exclaimed, his face alight with triumph. “Shall we see if it actually goes?”
They managed to cram all of their bags into the boot, and then after removing the dress from the cardboard box, folded it across the back seat. It was still snugly wrapped in the mud splattered dress cover from the atelier of Delametri Chevalier, a place which now seemed to Molly like it existed in another world.
Molly clambered in beside the dress; the two men got into the front seats, and with Simon at the wheel and another cheer, they set off.
“Erm, guys?” Molly ventured as the car bumped its way out of the field and onto the road, “I don’t suppose you’d mind if we took a tiny detour, would you?”
“A detour?” Simon replied, folded into the driver’s seat and concentrating hard on the potholed road ahead. “Have you gone mad?”
“No, I actually mean it. Sorry, but something’s come up. Look, it’s totally on the way…ish. Should only take an extra twenty minutes. Please?”
Simon glanced over his shoulder at her. “This better be good. Okay, where to?”
“Milan.”
Molly ignored Simon’s exaggerated sigh, and they set off.
They drove in silence. Molly, curled up beside the dress, regarded the two men who, only two days ago, she had never even met. Pascal had barely uttered a word since they had left little Gabriella’s house, apart from offering his input on fixing the car. He seemed altered this afternoon, preoccupied, every now and again checking his phone, or surreptitiously sending text messages, then snapping his phone shut and sighing.
But then, he hadn’t wanted to come on this trip, Molly reminded herself. He’d said he had other things to do, but his boss had insisted. Molly knew that she would have done anything for the great Delametri Chevalier, but even she had to admit that this mission had turned into a quite extraordinary escapade.
She imagined that Pascal must be anxious about his other clients, glamorous women with long lists of demands and limitless budgets to spend on the perfection that the House of Chevalier produced. It must be strange for him to be away from his work for so long for one dress.
It seemed almost unbelievable that her sister, petite, pretty, homemade-mud-packs-in-the-bathroom Caitlin, should merit such individual care from one of the greatest couture houses on the planet! Molly was pleased for her but also a little bemused. Probably because she knew perfectly well that the only reason such attention was because of her fiancé—the oh-so-powerful Francesco Marino. The thought made her feel a little uncomfortable, and she tried to brush it aside. She couldn’t imagine many Chevalier dresses reached their wearers in the back of an elderly, rusting Fiat.
“You okay, Pascal?” she ventured.
“Oui,” he snapped without looking round.
Molly decided she wasn’t equipped to bring him out of his mood. Nor did she particularly want to try. Instead, she turned her attention to Simon, who was expertly driving the little car along the terrifying highway that led to the outskirts of Milan—Europe’s rival fashion capital to Paris.
But Simon, too, was preoccupied, though in his case it was understandable. He had a big movie premiere to go to in Venice, after all. She couldn’t imagine many big shot Hollywood directors reaching the film festival in the back of an elderly, rusting Fiat either. He coaxed the little car along the slow lane of the motorway while enormous, gas-guzzling vehicles screamed past them at breakneck speed.
There was a tiny freckle at the nape of his tanned neck. Molly wanted to reach out and touch it. He’d put sunglasses on to help with the glare of the late winter sunlight. Vintage aviators. Molly loved vintage aviators and wondered whether to tell him so.
Sod it. “I love your aviators,” she ventured.
“My whats?” Simon was negotiating a tricky junction off the main highway and into the sprawling Milan suburbs.
“Your aviators. Sunglasses?” And then she couldn’t resist: “I didn’t think you’d be one for such a fashion-forward choice.”
“Oh, these?” Simon glanced in the rear-view mirror. “Is that what they are? They do the job. They were a present.”
Molly couldn’t stop herself. “From Yvonne?”
He gl
anced at her in the rear-view mirror. “No.”
“Sorry.”
Molly gave up trying to make conversation with either man. Neither of them was in the mood, that much was clear. She stared out of the window as the city traffic grew heavier.
“Here,” Molly said, “take a right please.”
“You sure this is the address?” Simon asked as he switched on the indicator.
Molly checked her note. “Yep, that’s what she said.”
They were entering the grounds of a building. From the hugeness of the place, the ambulances, and the men in white coats, she could tell it was a hospital. And if that wasn’t clear enough, the ‘Ospedale’ sign was her final clue. Molly peered out of the window, confused, until all of a sudden she spotted a familiar figure, huddled in a coat on a bench, reading a book, an elegant suitcase on the ground at her feet.
“There!” she cried. “That’s my mum!”
Simon pulled up and got out of the car to haul the driver’s seat forward so that Molly could clamber out and throw herself upon her mother. Her face was a picture when she saw the tiny car and its three occupants.
“Mum!” Molly yelled, squeezing her tight. “Isn’t this mad?!”
“Hello, darling,” her mother replied, hugging her back. “Oh, it’s so good to see you.”
Molly pulled away in surprise and regarded her mother closely.
“You look different,” she said slowly. “Have you lost weight?”
“Well…”
“Looks amazing! I mean, you didn’t need to lose any, but wow, check out those cheekbones! Have you been on a pre-wedding detox?”
“Something like that,” her mother smiled.
Pascal, too, climbed out of the car, and Molly began her introductions. “This is Pascal Lafayette, assistant to the great Delametri Chevalier! Pascal, this is my mum, Vanessa Wright.”
Pascal stepped forward and gallantly kissed Molly’s mother’s hand. “Enchante,” he murmured, looking for all the world as though Vanessa Wright was the most exquisite creature he had ever laid eyes upon. “It is now clear to me where Molly and Caitlin get their beauty from, Madame.”
Molly’s mum accepted the compliment graciously. Molly understood that she had lived in Italy long enough to be accustomed to this sort of treatment from suave men.
“And this is Simon…Foss, isn’t it?” Molly was mortified to realize she wasn’t sure of Simon’s surname.
“Correct,” Simon smiled, shaking her mother’s hand. “Nice to meet you Mrs. Wright.”
“Vanessa, please,” she smiled, before indicating the car. “Are you a friend of Pascal’s?”
“I am now,” Simon smiled. “But no. We were sitting together on the plane and now they can’t seem to shake me off—I need to get to the Venice too.”
“Is that so?” Molly caught the curious look that her mother darted in her direction but pointedly ignored it.
“To the film festival. I am a director.”
“How exciting. Perhaps we will even be able to come? Walk down the red carpet and meet the stars?”
“You would be most welcome,” Simon said, “though I believe it clashes with a rather important date in your diary.”
“Such a shame,” said her mum.
“We’ll see it on DVD sometime,” Molly pointed out. “Hey, we can send Simon a DVD of the wedding in return—bet he’d love that! Speeches, bad dancing, super-rich Italians singing karaoke, the works!” She grinned as she watched Simon try his best to maintain his charming, best-behavior face.
Molly’s mother surveyed the car. “It looks as though we shall all be very well-acquainted by the time we get to Venice, doesn’t it? Shall we?”
It took a certain amount of expertise to fit another body and a further suitcase into the Cinquecento, but after two failed attempts, they finally made it, and with the women squashed close together in the back, the dress laid across their knees, and the extra suitcase crammed into the last spare morsel of space on the floor, they set off with Pascal driving this time.
Molly looked over her shoulder as they drove off. “Why are we picking you up at a hospital?” she asked.
“Don’t get all suspicious.” Her mother waved her hand dismissively. “I just knew it would be an easy place for you to find, coming from Domodossola,” she said. “Milan is a nightmare to navigate. And that place is so well signposted.”
“Brilliant idea, Mum,” Molly smiled.
“Tell me all about why on earth you are here—in this thing!”
It took Molly at least twenty minutes to recount the whole sorry tale of the past two days, by the end of which, rather than being agog with amazement, her mother seemed to be about to nod off. Her eyelids were drooping, and she seemed to be struggling to concentrate.
“Isn’t that funny?” Molly said. She’d expected a little more enthusiasm after hearing such a fantastical tale. “I mean, in retrospect.”
Her mother Hmm-ed a response.
Huh, if it had been Caitlin she would have paid far more attention.
“Sorry darling,” her mother admitted. “You’ve had quite a time of it, haven’t you?”
“Oh, that’s just half of it…”
Molly was aware of Simon listening. At one point she noticed him glance over his shoulder.
“…I’ll shut up now.”
She was annoyed when her mother offered no objection.
“You haven’t mentioned Reggie yet,” she said in a low voice.
Molly’s tummy lurched.
“Where is he?”
“Reggie?” she echoed, trying desperately to think what to say. Her mother was exhausted, the car was claustrophobic, and the last thing she wanted to do was embark upon the sorry tale of how she had just been dumped. Besides, she just realized that she had barely given Reggie a thought. Talk about the power of denial.
She decided upon a half-truth as a better option than an outright lie. “He’s on an assignment in Los Angeles. He won’t be at the wedding.”
She braced for an explosive reaction from her mother.
“I see,” she said. And then she closed her eyes and seemed to fall asleep.
“Mum?”
But just then her phone rang again. She looked at the caller display.
“Uh-oh, trouble.”
She took a deep breath and answered the call.
“Hello, Caitlin.”
“The Venice train’s got in ages ago,” Caitlin’s voice was high-pitched and already edged with fury. “And you never called. What the hell is going on?”
“Oh, Caitlin, it’s another long story, I’m afraid…”
“I do not have time for long stories!” her sister shrieked. “I am getting married tomorrow! Or maybe not, thanks to you! Where are you?”
“Well, we missed the train…”
“I knew it! How could you have been so stupid? Oh, don’t tell me, let me guess, you were attacked by a herd of marauding buffalo?”
“Actually…” Molly’s mind darted back to the cows in the barn. “Almost but not quite.” She was trying with some effort to keep her own voice under control. We are in a car driving toward Venice. We will be with you in about…” She wacked Simon on the arm to get his attention.
“Three and a half hours,” Simon supplied.
“Three and a half hours. Okay? I’ve got mum with me too, in case you’re interested.”
A deafening silence greeted her news, followed by a crisp: “How so?”
Molly explained, as briefly as she could, what had happened, managing to leave out the part concerning Gabriella and the chocolate cake.
“What happened to just getting a flight down here with my dress? Why do you have to make everything into a drama? It’s typical of you!”
“Typical of me?” Molly squeaked back. She longed to shout at her sister, but the Fiat was so tiny, she was afraid a raised voice might blow the bloody doors off. “I don’t think so! Y
ou’ve got no idea what I’ve been through to get this dress to you in time! Chill out! Go and…drink champagne, or whatever brides-to-be do the night before their wedding!”
“Most of them spend quite a lot of time admiring the dress they’re going to wear the next morning,” Caitlin shot back. “Is Pascal there?”
“He is. I haven’t managed to lose him. Yet.”
“Put him on.”
It wasn’t a request; it was an order. But Pascal was having none of it. “I am driving and cannot possibly speak,” Pascal muttered.
Molly looked at him. There was a sheen of sweat on his forehead, and his mouth was twitchy; he looked as though he’d need all of his concentration just to keep the car on the road.
“No can do, sis, he’s driving. But I’m sure he sends you big, big love.”
Pascal glanced over his shoulder at her and gave her a pained look.
“What about mum?”
“Asleep.”
“Molly, are you sure you’re not back home in Yorkshire spinning me a huge pack of lies?”
“D’you know, I actually wish I was. But no.” Molly looked out of the window at the motorway, which was mercifully clear. She searched for signs, hoping she’d see one for Venice, and that it was really close. “We are on the road between Milan and Venice and will be with you very soon. We have done everything in our power to get to you sooner and one day, after you’ve calmed down, maybe in about a hundred and fifty years’ time, I will tell you all about it.”
Another long silence. Molly drummed her fingers on her lap, fuming. But then she thought she heard a faint sniff on the other end of the line.
“You’re not…crying are you?”
“I can’t cry!” Caitlin sobbed. “I can’t have puffy eyes tomorrow—the world’s press will see me looking like crap!”
“Oh, honey,” Molly said. Caitlin’s voice suddenly sounded so frightened and alone, that Molly felt her heart going out to her. Even though it wasn’t her fault, Molly felt really guilty. She took a deep breath. “Calm down,” she said in her most soothing voice. “I know this isn’t ideal, but we’re nearly there. And Pascal will stay up all night making sure the dress is perfect if that’s what it takes. It’s right here, over our laps, all crisp and perfect and…”