by Jane Green
Jesus Christ! What will Nick say? I’d like him to be happy for me, but I’d also like him to be just a little bit jealous. I want him to have a few regrets, to help my ego, I suppose.
I sat for a while thinking of all the people I’d want to know, and then I decided to make a bit of an engagement party list, except I couldn’t find any paper and I was getting kind of sleepy by then anyway, so eventually I went back up and climbed into bed beside Ed, and finally, at 5:45 A.M., just as the birds were singing, I drifted off to sleep with a smile still on my face.
“I couldn’t do it!” says Jules, when I ring her the next morning. “Paul came back here for coffee, and it was awful, Libby. It was so weird, sitting here drinking it and knowing that he was going to make a pass, and I was completely dreading it, so I kept getting up for biscuits, and sugar, and things, and it was awful.”
“Well? Did you do it?”
“No!” she practically screams. “He tried to kiss me and I panicked! I started blabbing about how I hadn’t been separated for very long and I wasn’t sure I was ready and I couldn’t do this. Oh, Libby. I feel such a total failure.”
“What did he say?”
“What could he say? He was really sweet, and kissed me on the cheek and said he’d call me again but that he understood and he wasn’t in any hurry.”
“Do you still think that you’ll be sleeping with him to get back at Jamie?”
“Oh shit. I don’t know. I know that last night I couldn’t, but now, this morning, I just don’t know.”
“Jules, do you really think it’s going to help, getting back at Jamie?”
“At least we’ll be equal, but I don’t know if I can go through with it.”
“So are you going to see Paul again?”
“He probably won’t phone me now anyway. What do you think? Do you think he’ll call?”
“Of course he will, and by the way I’m getting married.”
“But what should I do when he calls?”
“Jules? Did you hear what I just said?”
“No. What?”
“I’m getting married!”
There’s a long silence.
“Jules?”
“Oh my God!”
“I know! Can you believe it? Ed proposed when we got home last night.”
“And you didn’t call me? You cow! Why didn’t you call me?”
“I wanted to tell you when I was alone. So. Aren’t you going to congratulate me?”
“I can’t believe it,” she says. “When? When are you actually going to do it?”
“We never got round to talking about it. But don’t worry, I do want to be engaged for about a year.”
“Promise?”
“Promise. Jules, aren’t you happy for me?”
“God, Libby. I’m over the moon. Are you with Ed tonight?”
“Nah. I’m having a night off. Just want to chill out on my own tonight.”
“You mean I can’t tempt you with a Marks & Sparks dinner and a selection of bridal magazines from which to choose your dress?”
“You’ve kept your bridal magazines?”
“Libby, I keep everything. I’ve got stacks and stacks of them, plus loads of info on hotels for the reception and everything.”
“You’ve got me. I’m coming. Shall I come straight from work?”
“Yup. I’ll get the champagne on ice. Damn. I wish Jamie were here.”
Thank God. That’s the first time she’s given any indication that she misses him. “I know,” I say. “Me too.”
By lunchtime I think I’ve told the world, and though personal calls are normally frowned upon at work (not that you’d know it, the number of times I speak to Jules), Joe said it was fine to make a few this morning, and he sent Jo out to buy champagne so we could have a mini office celebration.
That’s what I love about this job: everyone here is so laid-back that they’ll jump on any excuse to have a knees-up. Joe is genuinely delighted for me, although, and I know this is paranoia striking, I hope it’s not because he wants to get rid of me.
“Will we be saying goodbye to you?” he says, pouring some more champagne into my glass.
“You can’t get rid of me that easily,” I laugh. “I’ll be here for at least another year.”
“We’ll be doing your PR next,” he says, grinning. “Setting up features on the glamorous charity-supporting wife of Ed McMann.”
I laugh. Although it’s not a bad idea. And charity work would be a good thing to do, because other than shop, meet friends for lunch and eventually look after our children, how will I fill my days?
What bliss. I mean, I may well carry on working for a bit, maybe until I have children, but it won’t be serious slogging work for peanut money. Maybe I’ll work here part time, say, two days a week, and maybe I’ll join some snazzy charity committee and organize fashion lunches and things. God. I’m almost tempted to leave now.
Everyone at work keeps congratulating me, and the champagne’s going straight to my head, when Jo—who’s been rushing back and forth to pick up the phone in between swigging champagne and chatting away shouts, “Libby, Nick’s on the phone. D’you want to call him back?”
“No, I’ll take it.” I run to my desk, away from the hubbub, and pick up the phone.
“Hi, Nick!”
“Congratulations. Sal just told me.”
Is it my imagination or does, ha ha, his voice sound just a teensy bit flat? Not that it bothers me anymore, talking to Nick, not now that I’ve got Ed.
“I know. Thanks. Can you believe it, me, getting married?”
“Well, no. Not really. It seems like only yesterday that we were going out.”
Oh. I see. Now, all of a sudden, we were “going out.” Before, we were just sort of seeing each other.
“As my mother always says, when it’s right, it’s right.”
“And he’s right?”
“Yup.”
“I’m really happy for you, Libby. I hope he knows how lucky he is.”
“Oh, he does,” I laugh, because it’s clear that Nick does have at least some regrets, which is always nice to hear when you were the one that was, to put it unceremoniously, dumped.
“Good. Listen, I can’t stay on. I just wanted to say congratulations. I really hope you’ll be happy, Libby. You deserve to be.”
“Nick! This isn’t like you. What’s all this stuff about how lucky Ed is and how I deserve to be happy?” I can’t help it. The champagne seems to have loosened my tongue.
Nick laughs. “I’m sorry. I’ve been thinking about you recently, and I suppose part of me kind of regrets things not working out.”
“Aha!” I say. “I’ll always be the one that got away.”
“Yes,” he says seriously. “I suspect you will. Anyway, I really must go, but we should get together soon. Maybe you and I could celebrate, for old times’ sake.”
“As long as you promise not to make a pass.”
“That’s going to be a hard one,” he says, and I can hear from his voice that he’s smiling. “But I can promise I won’t make more than one.”
“Perfect,” I say. “One pass will do wonders for the ego,” as indeed will this entire conversation, although naturally I keep that thought to myself. “I’ll call you when things have settled down a bit, how’s that?”
“That would be lovely. Oh, and give my love to Jules and Jamie.”
Yet another one who doesn’t know about Jamie. I put down the phone, thinking it was a shame it didn’t work out with Nick. He seemed to fit in so well, so much better than Ed in some ways, and God knows there was certainly passion there. But Nick could never have given me the life I wanted, and anyway it’s not lust that’s important. It’s not even whether someone fits in with my friends that matters. It’s whether someone fits in with me, and Ed does.
I know Jules has loads of magazines, but I can’t help myself. I have to sneak out midafternoon and buy three more, because Jules got married ages ago and fas
hions change, even in wedding dresses, and I want to know exactly what’s in now.
And although I make all the calls I have to make and speak to all the people I have to speak to, those magazines perch in a plastic bag on the corner of my desk just whispering my name all afternoon. In the end I take them into the loo and sit on the closed seat, leafing through quickly, but dying to study every page, every dress.
And when I come back from the loo I idly doodle a few designs on my pad, dreaming about walking down the aisle while all my friends gasp at my incredible beauty and tiny waist, because in my fantasies I will have lost fourteen pounds by my wedding day, and I will of course be the most beautiful bride they’ve ever seen.
And then I think about engagement rings, and I go round the office to all the women who are married or engaged, and insist upon trying on their rings to see what sort suits my hand. Deborah has a beautiful antique emerald-cut emerald surrounded by tiny pavé diamonds, which looks incredible except I wouldn’t have an emerald, I’d have to have a huge fuck-off diamond, and those pavé diamonds surrounding it are far too small, and, as I joke to Deborah while I inspect the ring on the third finger of my left hand, I can still move my hand around far too easily.
Becs has a pear-shaped diamond, which is more like it, and I quite like it being pear-shaped, although maybe I’d have one pear-shaped and two round ones on either side.
“Where are you thinking of getting it?” Becs says, laughing at me as I parade around the office with my hand splayed in front of me.
“Give me a chance!” I laugh. “I only got engaged a few hours ago! Isn’t there some sort of rule on how much a man should spend on an engagement ring? Isn’t it something like six months’ salary or something?”
“Six months!” she shrieks. “In your dreams, love! It’s one month, which still means your ring will cost a bloody fortune, given that you’re marrying Ed McMann.”
Jesus. I’m marrying Ed McMann! It hits me again and I whoop round the office telling everyone again that I’m marrying Ed McMann, until they’re all completely sick of me and Joe tells me to shut up or go home, and I would have gone home, except I think I’ve been going home early a bit too often lately, so I skulk back to my desk and do a few more weddingy doodles until it actually is time to leave.
Jules staggers down the stairs under the weight of two cardboard boxes.
“They’re in there,” she announces as she drops them on the floor in the kitchen. “But first—” and she beckons me toward the door with her finger and grabs my hand.
“Where are we going?”
She’s pulling me upstairs, and we end up in the spare room, where she clambers on a chair and opens a cabinet at the top, pulling out a large white box.
I gasp. “It’s your wedding dress, isn’t it?”
“Yup,” she says, lifting off the lid and carefully unwrapping the layers of tissue paper. “I thought you might like to try it on.”
“Are you sure?”
“Go on. Let’s see what kind of a bride you’ll make.”
I whip off my clothes and Jules helps me into the dress. It’s not exactly a perfect fit—in fact, we don’t even bother attempting to do up the tiny row of buttons at the back—but it gives me the bride effect, and we both stand there giggling as she shows me how to do those tiny measured steps down the aisle.
“Let me practice the stairs,” I say, walking regally on to the landing, shoulders back, head held high, staring at myself in awe as I pass the mirror.
And eventually we kick off our shoes (don’t worry, the wedding dress has been safely packed away again) and curl up on the sofas to work our way through the magazines.
“You can’t have that one,” Jules says in horror, as I show her this fairy-tale meringue dress with layers and layers of stiff tulle shooting out from a tiny boned waist. “You’ll look like a huge cream puff.”
“Oh, thanks a lot. Are you trying to tell me I’m fat?”
“Yeah, really.” She raises her eyes to the ceiling. “You? Fat? Hardly. I’m just saying that those dresses are really unflattering. I think you should go for something much more simple. Remember my motto—”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah. Less is more.”
“Exactly. I can see you in something really elegant and sophisticated. Here. What about something like this?” She slides her magazine over to my lap and points to a stunning ivory sheath.
“Mmm,” I say, trying to imagine my head superimposed on to the model’s. “That is gorgeous.”
“Very sophis,” she says.
“Mmm. But what about bridesmaids?”
“You could do something similar but on a smaller scale. Maybe knee length or something, in a different color.”
“Oh God. Colors. What color?”
Two hours later we’re groaning after a major pig-out, and at our feet are piles of pages I’ve torn out for ideas.
“You really are going to marry him, aren’t you?” Jules says suddenly.
“What? Did you think this was all a joke?”
“Not a joke, but I just . . .”
“Jules, I really am going to marry him.”
“Okay, but let me ask you one question. Are you in love with him?”
I pause. “Yes. Well. I love him.”
“That’s not what I asked,” she says. “Are you in love with him?
“Jules,” I say slowly, as if I’m talking to a child because I really want her to understand what I’m about to say. “You were incredibly lucky with Jamie, or at least, we all thought so at the time. You seemed to have found someone who was gorgeous, bright, funny, who adored you, who was your best friend and whom you completely fancied. You thought you’d found the perfect man, and it didn’t work out.”
“Thanks,” she says bitterly. “Rub it in, why don’t you.”
“I didn’t mean it like that,” I say. “All I’m trying to say is that you thought you’d found the recipe for a lifetime of happiness, and it still didn’t work out. Maybe what I have with Ed would work out. And maybe the fact that it isn’t the same as it was with you and Jamie isn’t such a bad thing, because at least I’m going into this with my eyes open.”
“You mean you’re having to compromise.”
“Well, yes, but I do sort of think you have to compromise. Not on everything, but I think the most important thing is to look for a good man. A man who will look after you, who will be a good husband, a good father to your children. Someone who can be your best friend, who will see you through the ups and downs.”
“But you have to fancy them.”
“Of course you have to fancy them,” I say. “But that’s not nearly as important as the other things, because the fancying thing, the lust thing, always goes, and once it does you’re left with nothing. But if you’ve chosen someone you’re really compatible with, then you’ll always be friends, and friendship is the most important thing.”
“So you don’t fancy Ed, but you like him as a friend?”
I sigh. “No. That’s not what I’m saying. I do fancy Ed, but it’s not that out-of-control feeling of frenzied lust that I felt about, say, Jon. Even with Nick I started to feel out of control toward the end . . .”
“That was because you really fell for him.”
“But don’t you see that this is really what I want? That I prefer being in control? That I’ve found someone who will always adore me, and whom I will always be friends with. And although I fancy him, the sex isn’t the most important thing.”
“That’s because it’s crap.”
“It bloody is not crap.”
“That’s what you said.”
“That was at the beginning,” I grumble. “It’s much better now.”
“But it’s not as good as Nick.”
“But that’s my whole point,” I sigh in exasperation. “Nick wasn’t for me. Sex isn’t everything, and yes, the sex with Nick was amazing, but nothing else was.”
“Yes it was. You got on fantastically.”
“Well, okay, we did. But why are we talking about Nick? This isn’t about Nick, it’s got nothing to do with him. This is about what we look for in a partner.”
“I’m just worried that you might be compromising a little too much, and I could understand it if you were thirty-seven or something, but you’re twenty-seven, and it just seems a bit young to be making these sorts of compromises.”
“Jules, I do love him, and I know he’s very good for me, and it doesn’t feel like a compromise to me. I can see how you’d think that, but I promise you, it’s not. He’s everything I’ve ever wanted.”
“In terms of wealth,” she says with a sniff.
“No. Not only that. I can really see us together.”
“I’m sorry, I just don’t want to see you making a big mistake. Marriage is such a huge step, you have to be completely sure.”
“I am completely sure. I know that, because being involved with men I’m completely crazy about has only ever made me miserable.”
“You’ll never know now, will you?”
“Know what?”
“Whether you’d find someone whom you could fall completely in love with without being miserable; someone who’d feel the same way about you. This is it, Libby. No more men. No more adventures. No more getting excited over dates with someone you really like.”
“Yes, and no more tears. No more feeling like a piece of shit when you’ve been dumped yet again. No more sitting at home crying while you’re waiting for the phone to ring. No more being on that bloody awful dating scene. Jules, I promise you this is right. Ed is exactly what I’ve always looked for and I know I’ll be happy. Anyway, I can’t see why you’re getting so uptight. It’s not like we’re walking down the aisle next week. I’ve already told you that we’re going to be engaged for about a year.”
“Okay, okay. I’m sorry. I really am happy for you, Libby, I simply want to be absolutely sure that you know what you’re doing. You’re going to be spending the rest of your life with Ed.”
“I know,” I say happily. “Let’s get back to the wedding. So what colors do you think the bridesmaids’ dresses should be?”