by Anne Brooke
The worst doesn’t take long to arrive. What Olivia sees in the mirror is not the vision of sophistication and beauty she is desperately hoping for. Oh no. Instead she sees an old bag stuffed unceremoniously into a shiny dress made for a shiny – and far thinner – younger woman. The top makes her bosom look non-existent and the train makes her bottom look huge. She opens her mouth to express protest at this nightmarish sight but just then the shop assistant thrusts a posy of silk flowers into her hands.
“There you go!” she says. “That’s the finishing touch for you.”
It certainly is. With the false flowers in her hands, Olivia looks more like the Wicked Witch of the West dressing up for a party than a Blushing Bride of the (South-) East. She can’t help it. She starts to laugh again. A moment later, her mother joins in. The family laugh has always been a raucous joyful noise as far away from a genteel titter as can be imagined. The shop assistant turns crimson and begins to protest.
This only makes the two women laugh all the more.
“I’m sorry,” Olivia says when she’s stopped laughing and has wiped the tears from her eyes. “I’m sorry, but this dress is truly horrid and I wouldn’t buy it if it was the last dress on the planet. And these flowers are even worse. Who wants plastic flowers at a wedding? I’m not going to carry flowers anyway – they’re so last year, don’t you know.”
Olivia has no idea if this is true or not, but she’s never let the facts get in the way of a good story ending, and she isn’t about to start now. The assistant harrumphs – yes, she really does! – and stomps away. Olivia finds she doesn’t care about that either. Goodness me, but choosing a wedding dress can be stressful, and not very successful either.
“Come on, Mum,” she says. “I’ll take this pesky thing off and we can go get a coffee. What do you think?”
“Now that sounds like perfection,” her mother replies.
And it is.
A couple of days later, however, and Olivia is no further forward in her search for a dress. She tries to explain to Kieran, but the moment the word ‘dress’ is mentioned, she can see his brain shutting down. It’s disappointing how she’s gone through a whole town and found nothing that suits her and everything that doesn’t – not to mention standoffish assistants, but Olivia isn’t the time of woman to give up so easily at the first hurdle. Besides, she can’t go down the aisle naked.
So she decides to try Guildford instead – when she and Kieran are married and properly living together, it will be their nearest town and, even better, will be a whole new centre to explore. All those shops! Surely there will be something there that would suit her? There ought to be.
Guildford, she decides, won’t let her down.
In the end, however, it very nearly does. This time, Olivia decides to go alone. This is probably a mistake as shopping for anything, even a wedding dress, isn’t an activity she enjoys. As a result, she becomes bored more quickly on her own, and begins to get rather slapdash in discounting the rows of dresses she encounters. Much to the confusion of one or two assorted assistants.
Being a practical woman, she starts at the bottom of the High Street and works her way up through every single possible shop until she is nearing the top of the street. Olivia discovers several facts during that time: yes, she can keep going on coffee alone; the High Street is more of a hill than she’d thought; cobbles aren’t the best surface to walk on – she nearly slips twice and it’s nowhere near winter; and it would have been far less tiring if she’d started at the top of the street and aimed down the hill to the bottom.
The one thing she doesn’t discover is a dress. That said, she does now have several criteria for her perfect dress fixed for all time in her head. It is this mantra she repeats to herself as she approaches the final wedding shop in town: a small independent nestled at the curve of the road which goes by the bizarre name of ‘Talassio’.
Olivia thinks it sounds Italian but has no idea what it means – she’s no linguist. The shop won’t have anything suitable anyway, but she’ll be damned if she gives up without trying every single option. So, taking a deep breath, she opens the door and gives Guildford one last faint throw of the dice.
As she steps inside, the woman at the far end of the narrow but sunlit room lined with wedding dresses on all walls turns towards her and smiles. Not just a polite smile to a customer, but a smile as if she’s only been waiting for Olivia’s arrival and is thrilled she’s finally made it.
“Good afternoon!” the woman says, as she walked towards Olivia, hand outstretched. “What can I do for you?”
And then, as if by magic, it is as if Olivia has known the answer to her wedding dress problems all along and she’s only needed this welcome to unlock it.
“Actually,” she says, “What I’d really like is a three-quarter length dupion silk wedding dress in ivory with a simple waistline and decent sleeves, please. I hate my arms, you see.”
The sales assistant nods and gives Olivia a searching gaze. Then she takes one of the dresses from the nearest rack and holds it up in front of her. “Then this is the one you want,” she says. “It’s a bridesmaid’s dress but fits your requirements perfectly. It’s not ivory, but that doesn’t matter. The colour is irrelevant right now. Try this on and see if you like it. If you do, we can order it in the colour you like.”
Olivia blinks. Admittedly, the dress is a soft pink colour – which isn’t her style at all – but apart from that it perfectly embodies all the items she’s asked for. She also likes the assistant’s calm, direct but kind-hearted approach. She doesn’t feel like a second-class bride here.
She reaches for the dress. “Thank you. I’ll give it a go,” she says.
In the changing room, Olivia hangs the dress up for a few moments and looks at it. She likes what she sees. It feels like an adult dress for an adult wedding, which is the effect she wants. It doesn’t take long to get the dress on either as she doesn’t have to deal with yards of unnecessary lace or frills, so a plus point there.
Once she’s smoothed out the material over her bottom and adjusted the shoulders, she steps out into the salon to get a better view in the mirror. The assistant is waiting for her and nods as if she’d been proved right at something.
“Very good,” she says. “Very good indeed, in my opinion. But the main thing is: what do you think, madam?”
“Please,” Olivia says, “call me Olivia. Everyone else does.”
“Thank you, mad… I mean Olivia. So what do you think?”
Olivia smiles and gazes at her reflection in the enormous mirror. Funny how big the mirror actually is – so much so that when she first came in, she’d imagined the salon to be much larger. The room is in fact quite small, but light and bright and very calming – all the things Annabel has hoped to associate with her wedding dress search but hasn’t so far experienced.
Well, she’s experiencing it now.
Okay, the dress is the wrong colour for her – though bizarrely not by much – but it’s a simple and elegant dress for a real woman. It skims her waist in a reassuringly slimming manner and makes the most of what the Good Lord has chosen to give Olivia in the chest department. Which isn’t as much as she personally would have liked, but she’s never been one to complain.
“I like it,” she says at last. “It’s almost perfect, except for the colour. You did say this style came in ivory, didn’t you? Have you got something similar I could try, for the shade?”
The woman nodded. “Good idea. The same designer makes a wedding dress that’s an identical ivory. Why don’t you try it on, though the dress itself won’t be what you’re after.”
Olivia does just that. The dress is this time totally unsuitable but the colour is a revelation. It gives a glow to her skin and makes her look younger, she’s sure of it. Not that she’s obsessed with being an ‘older bride’ – she’s only 29 for heaven’s sake – but giving nature a helping hand is always a good idea.
“Yes,” she says in answer to the unsp
oken question. “Yes, if I can get the bridesmaid’s dress of before in the colour of this one, I think I’m done. And the price is a so much cheaper, isn’t it?”
The woman laughs. “Very true! In my opinion, more brides should opt for a bridesmaid’s dress as it gives them far more money left over to spend on something else, like the honeymoon, for example. Though I suppose, being in the business, that’s not something I should be recommending too often!”
And Olivia laughs with her, though she herself has an idea she’ll probably be spending more money on the cake than on the honeymoon. Anyway, Kieran has promised he’ll pay for the holiday and she’s decided to accept his kind offer gracefully. Start as you mean to go on is her motto.
Just over six weeks later, she’s back at Talassio’s, ready to try on the actual dress she’s ordered.
She imagines it will be simple. She has a lot to do in town, including a facial she’s managed to squeeze in – so good for the skin! So Olivia imagines she’ll pop in to Talassio’s, grab the dress, pay the rest of the outstanding balance and then she’ll be out onto her next task.
Odd then that when she opens the door and steps inside the salon, her face begins to tingle and she feels a sneeze developing. Always a sign of stress.
Oh heavens, this had better be right. For the first time, Olivia realises just how much of a chance she’s taken in buying something before actually trying it on properly. What if the colour is wrong after all? What if she doesn’t like it quite as much as she had before? What if she hates it?
Before Olivia’s disastrous questions can go any further, the manageress tip-taps from a room at the back, and stretches out her arms in welcome. “Good afternoon to you! It’s always lovely to see a bride come to collect her dress, which I must say is very beautiful indeed. Would you like a cup of coffee, or would you like to try on the dress first?”
“No, thank you,” she replies. “I’ll just try on the dress if that’s okay.”
“Of course.”
In no time, Olivia is in the changing room with The Dress. Putting it on feels like taking a Massive Step Forward in her relationship with Kieran. Which is exactly what she wants to do, so it feels right. Still, as she finally does up the zip at the back, she looks into the mirror and takes a step back, as far as the changing room will allow. She gulps. And gulps again.
She looks beautiful. This isn’t a word Olivia normally applies to herself, but it’s the first word that pops into her head as she gazes at her image. She looks like a grown-up woman about to embark on the adventure of a lifetime, and looking forward to every single damn moment of it.
Gosh.
Unexpectedly, her eyes fill with tears and she has to brush them away. Tears aren’t her thing.
“Can I help you, madam, I mean Olivia?” the manageress’ voice from outside the changing room brings Olivia back to herself.
“No, thank you! I’m fine here. The dress looks amazing.”
“I’m happy to hear it. You’ll get a much nicer view in the salon mirror. The light is better.”
“Okay. I’ll just come out,” Olivia replies.
She shakes herself, gives her reflection a great big smile, pulls back the curtain and walks out into the salon.
The manageress gasps and claps her hands. Olivia has never realised people actually do that, so she swings round with a grateful smile before gazing at her reflection in the bigger mirror.
“You look wonderful, just as I thought you would!” the manageress says. “Absolutely perfect!”
At the same time, the other customer in the shop who must have entered when Olivia was in the changing room gives a whoop of approval. “Goodness! I hope I look as good in my dress as you do in yours,” she says.
Olivia nods her thanks and, really, can’t help but agree. For once in her life, she looks like a woman who is made for wearing a dress. Except even more so. The colour exactly suits her skin in a way she couldn’t have anticipated if she’d shopped for a thousand dresses. It clings to her shoulders, waist and hips in a manner that makes her shape more slim and seductive, and the sleeves skim her elbows with a delicate rose pattern that adds just the right amount of decoration.
She feels like a woman on the way to getting married.
“Thank you,” she says to no-one and to everyone. “This is so definitely the one.”
Chapter Six: Hair and Beauty
Olivia isn’t confident with make-up. Whatever she puts on her skin ends up making her something other than herself and she doesn’t like it. It always astonishes her how skilful other women are with make-up. During her commuting years (and the less said about that particular horror the better …), she’d once watched a young woman on the train put on all her make-up from scratch on the journey into London. She’d done a brilliant job too, in spite of the train’s constant rocking, and looked like a million dollars when she stepped on to the platform at Charing Cross. Olivia had wanted to give a round of admiring applause but thought it would probably be too much for the English sensibilities.
She’s never forgotten it. So what Olivia needs now is a make-up artist who can transform her into her own version of that million dollars for her wedding day without breaking the budget, and she’ll be more than happy.
She doesn’t want to look orange, and she doesn’t want her make-up to be so heavy that Kieran fails to recognise her at all. That would be truly horrific! He’d be entitled to ask for his money back or return her to the Fiancée Shop, or wherever ex-fiancées go, and this is the last thing she wants. Kieran probably has a view though – it’s his wedding too and she’s determined to ask him.
The opportunity comes after a trip to the cinema the following night. Olivia isn’t paying much attention to what they’re watching – it’s some war film Kieran is mad keen on and she’s lost any sense of plot after the first two battles. She therefore spends her time seeing how many men she can count on screen with moustaches. As the film is set during the American civil war, this is actually quite a lot and she keeps losing her tally. She’s never been very good at numbers, or indeed war films. She thinks it may have ended up being about forty moustaches, but some of those could well have been attached to the same man. It’s hard to tell.
In any case, she’s told Kieran she enjoyed the film but then ruins it by wishing out loud there’d been more romance in it. At least she makes him laugh – their tastes in films have always been different.
At home, Olivia switches on the kettle and waves the coffee jar at Kieran. “The usual?”
“Please,” he says. “Might grab a yogurt too. Unless you actually have biscuits…?”
She rolls her eyes at him. He knows perfectly well she’s trying not to put on any weight before their Big Day and so biscuits – and, even worse, chocolates – are off the menu. If she buys any of either, she will end up eating them herself and having to do an extra five minutes on the exercise bike. Such a thought is terrible. The fifteen minutes she already struggles through on the bike in the mornings before work are bad enough.
Once they’re in the living room with two coffees and one yoghurt pot – strawberry as Olivia isn’t too keen on those and Kieran doesn’t mind – Olivia smiles brightly at her fiancé.
“Ah,” he says, putting the pot and spoon down on the table. “You have a question …”
“How do you know? I could just be smiling.”
“Oh yes, you could be, but it’s the type of smile which means you’ve got something to ask me. So go ahead, but if it’s anything too girly, I reserve the right to flee the room in a manly fashion.”
“Ha! I’d best bar the door then,” Olivia replies. “I’m in the process of thinking about wedding hair and make-up, and I wondered if you had any particular opinions. I’m planning to get my hair done. I’d like to add a few curls in so I need to try a new hairdresser. I don’t have one I always use at the moment as it is, so I’ve got free rein. And in terms of wedding make-up, I’d much rather go natural rather than be over-the-top. What
do you think, about both of them, I mean?”
Kieran’s eyes contain a look of existential terror. “Um. You’re beautiful, whatever you decide, so I don’t mind.”
Olivia gives him a quick hug. She always loves a compliment. Who doesn’t? Still, she wants to make absolutely sure. “Okay, I’ll try for a few soft curls for a hairdo then. But, really, what’s your opinion on make-up? Is natural the way forward or should I be a glam queen?”
Kieran, by now primed for pre-marital battle, rises to the occasion like the trooper he is. “You’re always a glam queen, to my eyes. But you like the natural look and it suits you, so I think it would be nice. Just don’t ask me to give any more beauty opinions, please. I love you how you are!”
He holds up his hands as if fearful of a further grilling but Olivia decides enough is enough. “I promise that’s all I’ll ask,” she says as she kisses him. “Natural it is then.”
By the end of the following day, Olivia has an appointment with a local beautician whose website advertises wedding make-up and shows a variety of pictures which give her hope that some kind of miracle can be performed on the day. It’s the only one of the websites Olivia has surfed through that actually mentions the ‘natural look’ and so she’s put it at the top of her list at once.
One week later and Olivia is at a village near her mother’s home, relaxing with a soothing hot chocolate in the front room of a freelance beautician whose name is Debbie. A hot chocolate is not very good for the skin but Olivia thinks she deserves it just this once. Only the one sin can’t alter her waistline too much, can it?
While Olivia sips, Debbie is studying her face as if she is an interesting sculpture she has plans for. Olivia doesn’t mind this, as Debbie isn’t scarily beautiful so therefore not too terrifying. There’s nothing worse than having to deal with blonde women with perfect skin, perfect figures and a generous dose of smugness – which as a rule they nearly always have. Debbie on the other hand is petite, plump and with wild curly hair and freckles. Her skin is suitably creamy but not overpoweringly so and she obviously knows her make-up. But all this only gives Olivia an essential feeling of reassurance so she doesn’t flinch while Debbie continues to gaze at the various aspects of her appearance. Finally the beautician steps back.