Confessions of a Bad Bridesmaid

by Jennifer Rae

  Allegra would never have applied to Glitz in the first place if she had known that Stella had once mocked Flick’s choice of outfit for an awards ceremony. Flick, a formidably high-powered journalist, had not been amused.

  Still, Allegra wouldn’t allow herself to be downcast. She just needed to make her mark at Glitz and a good reference from Stella would make her CV stand out anywhere, whatever her mother might say. And then she would get a job that would really make Flick proud of her. Sadly, that would probably mean boning up on politics and economics rather than shoes and handbags, but she would worry about that when the time came. For now the important thing was to impress Stella.

  ‘Well, I think you’re mad,’ said Max. ‘It’s bad enough having to wear a suit to work every day.’

  Allegra eyed the striped polo shirt that Max changed into the moment he got home with disfavour. ‘Thank God they do make you wear a suit,’ she said. ‘Even you can’t go too far wrong with a suit and tie. The rest of the time, it’s like you’ve got an unerring sense of what will be least stylish.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Well, take that...that,’ she said, pointing at his top and Max looked down at his chest.

  ‘What’s wrong with it?’

  ‘It’s hideous!’

  ‘It’s comfortable,’ he said, unbothered. ‘I don’t care about style.’

  ‘You don’t say,’ said Allegra sarcastically.

  It was quite incredible how lively Libby had ended up with such a stuffy brother! Max didn’t have a clue about music, or clothes, or anything other than engineering, as far as Allegra could tell. He didn’t look too bad in a conventional suit, but his taste in casual wear made her wince every time.

  ‘I wouldn’t even use that thing you’re wearing as a duster,’ she said.

  ‘You wouldn’t use anything as a duster,’ Max countered. ‘You never do any housework.’

  ‘I do!’

  ‘Where does the dustpan and brush live?’

  There was a pause. ‘Under the sink?’

  He made a bleeping noise. ‘In the cupboard under the stairs.’

  ‘There’s a cupboard under the stairs?’

  ‘I rest my case.’ Max shook his head and returned his attention to the television.

  Gingerly, Allegra tested her feet and decided that she could manage a hobble to the kitchen to find something to eat. She was starving. Like the sitting room, the kitchen was so tidy nowadays she hardly recognized it.

  Max had moved in a couple of weeks earlier. Libby’s three-month placement in Paris had coincided with the break-up of her brother’s engagement, and she had offered him her room while she was away.

  ‘Would you mind?’ she had asked Allegra. ‘It’s only for a couple of months before he’ll get a chance to go out to Shofrar, so it’s hard for him to find somewhere temporary. And I’m worried about him. You know what Max is like; he’s not exactly big on talking about feelings, but I think he must be really gutted about Emma.’

  ‘Why did she break it off, do you know?’ Allegra had been shocked when she heard. She’d only met Emma a couple of times, but she’d seemed perfect for Max. An engineer like him, Emma had been pretty, nice...the word boring shimmered in Allegra’s head but it was too unkind so she pushed it away...practical, she decided instead. Exactly the kind of sensible girl Max would choose and the last person Allegra would have expected to have broken it all off six months before the wedding.

  ‘He hasn’t told me.’ Libby shook her head. ‘Just says it’s all for the best. But I know he was planning for them to go out to Shofrar together and now that’s all off...well, I’d feel better if you were around to cheer him up. As long as you really don’t mind.’

  ‘Of course I don’t mind,’ said Allegra. She’d been at school with Libby and had spent many holidays with her friend’s family while Flick was working. Max was the brother she had never had, and over the years she had bickered with him and relied on him almost as much as Libby did.

  ‘At least I know he’s not a serial killer or anything,’ she’d said cheerfully. ‘I’ll stop him missing Emma too much.’

  In fact, she didn’t see much of him. Max left for work early in the morning, and she was out most evenings. When they did coincide, like now, Max grumbled about her untidiness and Allegra criticised his clothes. They fought over the remote and shared the occasional takeaway. It was all perfectly comfortable.

  And why wouldn’t it be? Allegra asked herself as she opened the fridge and studied its contents without enthusiasm. This was Max, after all. Libby’s brother. Allegra was fond of him, when she wasn’t being irritated by his wardrobe and that way he had of making her feel like an idiot a lot of the time. Max wasn’t ugly, but he wasn’t exactly a hunk either. Certainly not a man to set your heart pattering.

  Apart from that one night, of course. Don’t forget that.

  Allegra sighed as she picked out a low-fat yoghurt. Did everyone have an irritating voice in their head that would pop up at the least convenient times to remind them of precisely the things they most wanted to forget?

  And it wasn’t a night, she felt compelled to argue with herself, rummaging for a teaspoon. It had been an odd little incident, that was all. Not even an incident, really. A moment. And so long ago, really she had almost forgotten it.

  Or she would have done if that pesky voice would let her.

  No, it was all very comfortable. It was fine. Allegra was glad Max wasn’t gorgeous or sexy. It made it easy to be relaxed with him. Which wasn’t to say he couldn’t make more of an effort on the clothes front. He didn’t seem to care what he looked like, Allegra thought critically. That shirt was appalling and he would fasten it almost to the neck, no matter how often she told him to undo another button. He had no idea at all. If he smartened himself up a bit...

  And that was when it hit her. Allegra froze with the teaspoon in her mouth.

  Max. He was perfect! Why on earth hadn’t she thought of him before?

  She’d pitched the ‘create a perfect boyfriend’ idea to Stella at an editorial meeting the previous week. It was the first of her ideas that she’d been given the go-ahead to follow up, and Allegra had been fired with enthusiasm at first. But she had begun to wonder if she could make it work without the right man.

  And now she had found him, lying in her own sitting room!

  Already Allegra’s mind was leaping forward, all her excitement about the project refuelled. She would write the best article ever. It would be fun, it would be interesting, it would tap into every woman’s fantasy of making her man perfect. It would win awards, be syndicated worldwide. Stella would gasp with admiration.

  At this point Allegra’s imagination, vivid as it was, faltered. Stella, gasping? But a little strategic tweaking and the fantasy still worked. All right, Stella would look as enigmatic as ever but her words would be sweet. Allegra, she would say, you’re our new star writer. Have a massive salary.

  I’d love to, Stella, Allegra imagined herself saying in reply, super casual. But the Financial Times has made me an offer I can’t refuse.

  Surely her mother would be impressed by the FT?

  Sucking yoghurt thoughtfully from her spoon, Allegra went to the kitchen doorway from where she could study Max without being observed.

  He was still on the sofa, still flicking through channels in search of the news or sport, which was all he ever watched. Definitely not the kind of guy you would check out in a bar. Brown hair, ordinary features, steady blue-grey eyes: there was nothing wrong with him, but nothing special either.

  Yep, he was perfect.

  Max played rugby so he was pretty fit, but he didn’t make anything of himself. Allegra mentally trimmed his hair and got rid of the polo shirt only to stop, unnerved, when she realised that the image of him lying on the sofa bare-chested was
quite...startling.

  Hastily, she put the shirt back on in her imagination. Whatever, the man was ripe for a makeover.

  All she had to do was get Max to agree. Scraping out the yoghurt pot, Allegra tossed it in the bin with a clatter and squared her shoulders. Only last week she’d written an article on the benefits of thinking positive and getting what you wanted. It was time to put all that useful research into practice.

  Back in the sitting room, she batted at Max’s knees until he shifted his legs and she could plonk herself down on the sofa next to him. ‘Max,’ she began carefully.

  ‘No.’ Max settled his legs back across her lap and crossed his ankles on the arm of the sofa, all without taking his eyes off the television.

  ‘What do you mean, no?’ Forgetting her determination to stay cool and focused, as per her own advice in the article, Allegra scowled at him. ‘You don’t know what I’m going to say yet!’

  ‘I know that wheedling tone of old,’ said Max. ‘You only use it when you want me to do something I’m not going to want to do.’

  ‘Like what?’ she said, affronted.

  ‘Like waste an entire hot bank holiday Monday sitting in traffic because you and Libby wanted to go to the sea.’

  ‘That was Libby’s idea, not mine.’

  ‘Same wheedle,’ said Max, still flicking channels. ‘And it was definitely your idea to have a New Year’s Eve party that time.’

  ‘It was a great party.’

  ‘And who had to help you clear up afterwards before my parents came home?’

  ‘You did, because you’re a really, really kind brother who likes to help his sister and his sister’s best mate out when they get into trouble.’

  Max lowered the remote and looked at Allegra in alarm.

  ‘Uh-oh. You’re being nice. That’s a bad sign.’

  ‘How can you say that? I’m often nice to you. Didn’t I make you a delicious curry last weekend?’

  ‘Only because you wanted some and didn’t want to admit that you’d broken your diet.’

  Sadly, too true.

  ‘And I said I’d go to that dinner and pretend to be your fiancée,’ she said. ‘How much nicer can I get?’

  Max pulled himself up to look at Allegra with suddenly narrowed eyes. ‘You’re not going to back out, are you? Is that what this is about? Now that Emma’s not around, I really need you.’

  ‘Aw, Max, that’s sweet!’

  ‘I’m serious, Legs. My career depends on this.’

  ‘I do think the whole thing is mad.’ Allegra wriggled into a more comfortable position, not entirely sorry to let the conversation drift while she worked out exactly how to persuade Max to agree to take part. ‘I mean, who cares nowadays if you’re married or not?’

  ‘Bob Laskovski does,’ said Max gloomily.

  At first he had welcomed the news that the specialist firm of consulting engineers he worked for was to be taken over by a large American company. An injection of capital, jobs secured, a new CEO with fantastic contacts with the Sultan of Shofrar and some major projects being developed there and elsewhere in the Middle East: it was all good news.

  The bad news was that the new CEO in question was a nut. Bob Laskovski allegedly had a bee in his bonnet about the steadying influence of women, of all things. If ever there was going to be unsettling going on, there was bound to be a female involved, in Max’s opinion. But Bob liked his project managers to be in settled relationships and, given the strict laws of Shofrar, that effectively meant that, male or female, they had to be married.

  ‘God knows what he thinks we’ll do if we don’t have a wife to come home to every night,’ Max had grumbled to Allegra. ‘Run amok and seduce local girls and offend the local customs, I suppose.’

  Allegra had just laughed. ‘I’d love to see you running amok,’ she’d said.

  Max had ignored that and ploughed on with his explanation. ‘If I don’t turn up with a likely-looking fiancée, Bob’s going to start humming and hawing about whether I’m suitable for the job or not.’

  It was ridiculous, he grumbled whenever given the opportunity. He had the skills, he had the experience, and he was unencumbered by ties. He should be the perfect candidate.

  There hadn’t been a problem when Bob had first said that he was coming over to London and wanted to meet the prospective project managers. That was another of Bob’s ‘things’, apparently: he liked to vet them personally over individual dinners. God knew how the man had had the time to build up a vast construction company.

  Max hadn’t thought about it too much when the invitation to dinner had arrived. He and Emma had been going to get married anyway, and she was bound to go down well with Bob. Max was all set for his big break.

  And then Emma had changed her mind.

  Max still couldn’t quite believe it. He might have lost his fiancée, but he was damned if he was going to lose the Shofrar job too. Still, at least Allegra had been quite willing to help when he broached the idea of her standing in for Emma. For all her silliness, she could be counted on when it mattered.

  ‘But just for an evening,’ she had warned. ‘I’m not going to marry you and go out to Shofrar just so you can be a project manager!’

  ‘Don’t worry, it won’t come to that,’ said Max, shuddering at the very thought of it.

  ‘There are plenty of examples of relationships busting up before and after engineers get out there, and once you’re actually doing the job and behaving yourself it’s not a problem. All I need to do is get Bob’s seal of approval. Everyone says it’s worth humouring him.

  ‘It’ll just be a dinner,’ he assured her. ‘All you need to do is smile and look pretty and pretend that you’re going to be the perfect engineer’s wife.’

  Of course, that was going to be the problem. He’d eyed Allegra critically. She’d been dressed in a short stretchy skirt that showed off her long legs, made even longer by precarious heels. ‘Maybe you’d better wear something a bit more...practical,’ he’d said. ‘You don’t really look like an engineer’s wife.’

  Allegra, of course, had taken that as a compliment.

  ‘I don’t mind going along to the dinner with you,’ she said now. ‘I may not be much of an actress, but I expect I can pretend to love you for an evening.’

  ‘Thanks, Legs,’ said Max. ‘It means a lot to me.’

  ‘But...’ she said, drawing out the word, and his eyes narrowed suspiciously; he never liked the sound of ‘but’. ‘...there is just one tiny thing you could do for me in return.’

  She smiled innocently at him and his wary look deepened. ‘What?’

  ‘No, your line is, Of course, Allegra, I’ll do whatever you want. Would you like to try it again?’

  ‘What?’ he repeated.

  Allegra sighed and squirmed round until she was facing him. She tucked her hair behind her ears, the way she did when she was trying to look serious, and fixed him with her big green eyes.

  ‘You know how hard it’s been for me to make my mark at Glitz?’

  Max did. He knew more than he wanted, in fact, about Allegra’s precarious foothold on the very lowest rung of the glossy magazine, where as far as he could make out, emotions ran at fever-pitch every day and huge dramas erupted over shoes or handbags or misplaced emery boards. Or something equally pointless.

  Allegra seemed to love it. She raced into the flat, all long legs and cheekbones and swingy, shiny hair, discarding scarves and shoes and earrings as she went, and whirled out again in an outfit that looked exactly the same, to Max’s untutored eye.

  She was always complaining, though, that no one at the magazine noticed her. Max thought that was extremely unlikely. Allegra might not be classically beautiful but she had a vivid face with dark hair, striking green eyes and a mobile expression. She wasn’t the kind of
girl people didn’t notice.

  He’d known her since Libby had first brought her home for the holidays. Max, callous like most boys his age, had dismissed her at first as neurotic, clumsy and overweight. For a long time she’d just been Libby’s gawky friend, but she’d shed the weight one summer and, while it was too much to say that she’d emerged a butterfly from her chrysalis, she had certainly gained confidence. Now she was really quite attractive, Max thought, his gaze resting on her face and drifting, quite without him realising, to her mouth.

  He jerked his eyes away. The last time he’d found himself looking at her mouth, it had nearly ended in disaster. It had been before he’d met Emma, a moment of madness one night when all at once things seemed to have changed. Max still didn’t know what had happened. One moment he and Allegra had been talking, and the next he’d been staring into her eyes, feeling as if he were teetering on the edge of a chasm. Scrabbling back, he’d dropped his gaze to her mouth instead, and that had been even worse.

  He’d nearly kissed Allegra.

  How weird would that have been? Luckily they’d both managed to look away at last, and they’d never referred to what had happened—or not happened—ever again. Max put it out of his mind. It was just one of those inexplicable moments that were best not analysed, and it was only occasionally, like now, when the memory hurtled back and caught him unawares, a sly punch under his ribs that interfered oddly with his breathing.

  Max forced his mind back to Allegra’s question. ‘So what’s changed?’ he asked her, and she drew a deep breath.

  ‘I’ve got my big break! I’ve got my own assignment.’

  ‘Well, great...good for you, Legs. What’s it going to be? A hard-hitting exposé of corruption in the world of shoes? Earth-shattering revelations on where the hemline is going to be next year?’

  ‘Like I’d need your help if it was either of those!’ said Allegra tartly. ‘The man who wouldn’t know fashion if it tied him up and slapped him around the face with a wet fish.’

  ‘So what do you need me for?’

  ‘Promise you’ll hear me out before you say anything?’