Helen gave me a withering look normally reserved for waiters who couldn’t manage more than three plates at a time. ‘What? No, of course it’s not that.’
‘It is.’
‘Oh, for God’s sake … of course it isn’t.’
‘Well, what is it then? Are you going to say it’s because I didn’t really love Dominic in the first place?’
So far, Helen hadn’t sunk to the usual depths of most smug fiancées when it came to extolling the joys of finding The One, but there was always a first time.
She looked at me for a long moment; then the green man appeared above the crossing. ‘If you don’t know,’ she said, ‘I’m not going to tell you. You’ll just have to work it out for yourself.’
‘What? What’s that supposed to mean?’ I stared at the back of her immaculate French pleat as she strode across the zebra crossing, but when I caught up with her, Helen changed the subject and insisted on talking about birdcage veils and whether it would be a classy Grace Kelly move to learn her vows in Welsh to surprise Wynn.
*
And so as March turned into April, the flowerbeds in our paved wedding garden burst into life, and the hats got smaller and the shoes got strappier as we headed towards the peak weekends of May and June.
The eager women I’d first met in the autumn were now blooming into fully fledged nutjobs as their big days hove into view: Jessie Callum had taken my suggestion to choreograph a dance so seriously that she and her fiance were now doing ballroom classes, and Daisy Wallace had gone on such a radical diet/makeover since our first meeting that it was a good job I had a photo of her on the Bridelizer, or else I wouldn’t have recognized her at the cake tasting. (I had to taste the cake for her and describe it.) Thanks to Ben and Emily’s Hollywood budget, and a few last-minute parties I squeezed into the events diary, I was still on track to make my target, just. I’d started to look for studio flats I could afford when I had my bonus in my hand, but it was a little half-hearted. To be honest, I wasn’t in a hurry to move out of the staff quarters.
Laurence, Joe and I had got into an easy flat-sharing routine, made even easier by Laurence’s frequent evenings out at either his friends’ clubs or his various medical treatments. I saw more of Joe, though his trips to the gym and my hours in the office meant that we tended to bump into each other quite late in the evenings, when he was working his way through seasons of various TV series that had passed him by while he was in the US. We piled the DVDs in a stack by the television, moving them up and down according to their rank in our Chart of Box Sets. I didn’t mind watching television with him, explaining key cultural details he’d missed during his years out of the UK while we ate pizza on the sofa. He didn’t seem to mind being around me either, and although we never mentioned my jilting or the Girl Who Broke His Heart again, the understanding between us grew, often when we both winced simultaneously at an on-screen dumping, or an awkward goodbye – and said nothing. Sometimes friendships are more about what you don’t say than what you do.
In short, life just felt easier. I couldn’t put my finger on why. It could have been the weather, which was mild for April and caused an outbreak of unseasonal shorts in Green Park. It could have been two different 2012 brides calling me to tell me they’d had babies and asking whether I could arrange christening parties at the Bonneville. (Of course I could! We offered discounts for that sort of thing.) It might even have been – and don’t laugh – down to the fact that I now automatically wished for good things every time I saw an air ambulance shoot across the London skyline when I was standing at the kitchen sink washing up. And God knows there are always plenty of those, thanks to the rich tapestry of London nightlife.
Whatever was causing this streak of sunshine in my life, it peaked at the end of April, when three things happened unexpectedly.
The first thing was a strange call Gemma took for me, from a bride who called herself Janet.
‘Janet?’ I frowned. ‘Really? I don’t think we’ve ever had a Janet …’
‘She sounded like she knew you, though,’ said Gemma. ‘Asked for you specially. She wants to meet you at the Wolseley, at a time that suits you tomorrow.’
‘Not here? Not in the hotel?’ This was weird.
‘That’s what she said. Call her back and arrange it.’
I did. But it turned out that Janet wasn’t a bride. She wasn’t even called Janet. She was called Mary Waters, and when I met her at a discreet corner table, I discovered she was the HR director of the hotel that had catastrophically double-booked Emily and Benedict’s wedding.
‘I know you’re a busy woman so I’ll get to the point, Ms McDonald,’ she said briskly, ordering a large black coffee, no sugar, eggs Florentine, no muffin, sauce on the side, no butter, all without looking at the waiter. ‘We’ve just had to say goodbye to our events manager, Loren Symons. Very sad, new pastures, fresh challenges, blah, blah.’
Sacked, in other words. Sacked from a great height. Plus, she actually said ‘blah, blah.’ That’s how furious Mary Waters was about her hotel losing the high-profile Quayle/Sharpe wedding – or ‘Benily’, as Gemma’s magazines referred to them.
‘I’m pleased to say that I’ve been tasked with finding a candidate who can kick our event portfolio up a gear,’ Mary went on, waving away the bread basket as if it contained used tissues. ‘Someone with a strong vision and ambition for our international profile going forward. I’ve long admired what you’ve been able to achieve at the Bonneville with a – don’t take this the wrong way – woefully limited resource set and second-division budget constraints. We’d be able to offer you a different class of hotel to play with, plus a larger dedicated hospitality team, a bigger salary, and, of course, a bonus incentive.’
I felt giddy with excitement. No one had ever headhunted me before. Also the coffee here was much stronger than at the Bonneville.
‘Would I be overseeing the whole events programme?’ I asked in a calm voice that didn’t sound much like mine. My mind whirled with the possibilities: I’d been to a wedding at this hotel with Dominic, and it was an amazing location, for any kind of event. Three ceremony rooms, a fully equipped conference suite with cinema, capacity for several hundred guests, a whole dedicated nursery for the hotel’s flower requirements, a Michelin-starred restaurant …
I saw Mary’s face, and faltered. ‘Or just weddings?’
‘You do seem to have a knack for delivering a particular kind of wedding,’ said Mary. ‘It’s all in the details. Obviously, we keep tabs on our competitors, and your details are absolutely pin-sharp. You really run events.’ She gave me a conspiratorial nod. ‘I’ve been talking to some of your very satisfied brides.’
‘Really?’ I just stopped myself asking, Which ones?
‘Of course. They’re the best referrers. I’m surprised your ears weren’t burning. In fact, more than one said how you made it feel as if she didn’t have to make a single decision.’ She nodded approvingly. ‘You’ve clearly got excellent client management skills. Nothing worse than a bride ruining a spectacular wedding by making emotional decisions.’
I smiled, but my buoyant mood was suddenly brought up short.
A bride ruining a spectacular wedding by making emotional decisions? What?
It sounded so controlling. And mean. And yet it was something I knew I’d said to Helen before now. I’d said it to Joe, too: it was better to guide the bride into the decision I could see was best for her, rather than have her make some sugar-deprived snap judgement. I’d been joking, obviously, but …
I started to feel a bit cold. Mary sounded so pleased with herself. Was that what I sounded like?
But Mary didn’t seem bothered at all. Her food arrived, and she began to dispatch it efficiently, still talking. ‘The directors would be very keen to have an informal chat with you about the possibility of your taking on this role within our organization,’ she said. ‘As you know, we have sister hotels in New York and Paris, so there’s the possibility of travel.’
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I shoved my misgivings to one side. For the time being. I’d changed my wedding style over the year. Well, not changed. Evolved.
‘And could I bring any of my team with me?’ I thought of Gemma and – yes – Helen and Joe, too. Even Delphine. They made the Bonneville weddings what they were. They understood my shorthand. They knew my discreet hand signals for ‘drunk bridesmaid’, ‘lost usher’, ‘bridal loo emergency’.
I had a flashback to the hysterical bride in the huge crinoline who’d overdone the champagne but couldn’t fit into the loo cubicle. Helen had had the brainwave of getting Ripley’s old potty from Laurence’s flat. The chief bridesmaid had volunteered to hold it in return for front-row positioning on the bouquet tossing. Thank God the bride had seen the funny side.
Mary’s voice snapped me back to the moment. ‘We do have specialists within the department,’ she said, and I heard a no. I also heard, hotel that probably wouldn’t have a Teletubbies potty to hand.
I sat back in my chair. ‘It’s a lot for me to take in,’ I admitted. I couldn’t be cool. This was too amazing. Headhunted!
‘I don’t expect a decision right now.’ Mary smiled at me, as if even an old hand would struggle to assimilate the scale of the opportunity on offer. ‘I just wanted to float it past you off the record. Have a think and get back to me. The opportunities are all here for you. As you know, openings like this don’t come along very often, and it’s vital for us that we get the right person. And I believe you, Rosie, are that person.’
‘Thank you,’ I said. I didn’t know what else to say.
*
As I strolled down the sunny side of Piccadilly on my way back to the hotel, I allowed myself to imagine a life as executive events director. I pictured myself in an upgraded suit, more like Helen’s stylish designer-wear than my normal high-street ones, constructing fabulous, big-budget weddings, delegating the tedious jobs like chair-counting and favour-positioning to assistants …
I frowned. Although, would I? In a funny way, those were the parts I enjoyed. Ticking off the details. And the budgets were never a factor; I liked to make every single penny work for my couples, no matter how much they had to spend – in fact, that was part of the challenge.
Mary Waters’ offer was flattering, and I was tempted, but as I turned the corner and saw the Bonneville’s elegant windows shining in the midday sun, the curving brass details glinting on the revolving door, Frank, our dignified doorman helping an elderly couple into a shiny black London taxi, I felt a tug of something more than just job satisfaction towards the old ‘second-division’ hotel.
I’d learned so much here. Everything, in fact. And now, finally, I was getting to a position where I might actually get the promotion I wanted, and I couldn’t throw that in Laurence’s face. If Mary Waters considered me management material, then surely Laurence could speed up his decision.
More than that, I didn’t want to leave the Bonneville. Not now. Not even for the fanciest hotel job in London.
*
I’d only been back in the hotel for about ten minutes when the next surprising but nice thing happened.
Joe had interrupted my Stage 3: Red Alert check of Daisy Wallace’s RSVPs to bring me some new sponge cake Delphine was testing; for some reason, he was one of the few people she would allow to take samples out of the pâtisserie room.
‘Come on,’ he cajoled, when I tried to tell him I was busy. ‘Take a break. You don’t want to know what I had to do to get this. She said most of your brides don’t even deserve her cakes, let alone the staff.’
Would I miss chilly Delphine and her hands of pastry genius? I thought, as Joe put his feet up on my desk and helped himself to pale-green genoise sponge, topped with ivory Italian buttercream, dropping crumbs on my interactive model of the courtyard.
Yes, I probably would, I thought.
‘I tried to find you this morning,’ Joe said through a mouthful of cake, ‘but you weren’t around. Where’d you get to? Were you refereeing that squabbling couple?’
‘Most of our couples squabble. They’re getting married. Narrow it down a bit for me.’
‘The big guy with the yellow socks and the uptight dark-haired girl. I only saw them from a distance. The couple you won’t let anyone talk to.’ He squinted at me. ‘I’ve been meaning to mention it, but I know I obviously messed things up with Flora, but—’
‘What? No, you didn’t! That wasn’t your fault.’
He shrugged and looked cross with himself. ‘Feels like I let you down somehow. I should have spotted it coming. But I feel like I was learning something, and I should get back on the horse.’ He looked hopeful. ‘Maybe I could help with this one? I’m good with squabbling couples. We make a good tag-team with squabblers.’
I stopped chewing the cake. He meant Chloë and Magnus. Or, rather, Benedict and Emily. The one couple I couldn’t let Joe – or anyone else – near, even though, to be honest, I could have used his help.
‘Um … they’re nearly done,’ I floundered. I was touched Joe wanted to make up for Flora. I did want to work on a wedding with him … just not this one. ‘Maybe, er, you could sit in on a meeting I’ve got this week, for December? They want a fifties Christmas theme.’
Joe gave me his X-ray specs look. The one that went right through me to whatever I was trying not to show.
‘Don’t you trust me?’ he asked simply. ‘I’m really trying.’
‘I know.’ I meant it. ‘And you’re great. And—’
My desk phone rang. I ignored it. ‘And I want to … I really want you – oh, for God’s sake.’
Joe lifted an eyebrow. ‘Pick it up. It’ll kill you not to.’
I did. It was Gemma, doing a shift in reception. ‘I’ve got a couple of familiar faces here for you,’ she said. ‘Shall I send them through?’
*
Stephanie Miller and Richard Henderson had called in at the hotel to see me and, surprisingly, to see the reason for their unexpected and socially awkward wedding cancellation, Joe ‘Don’t you want to swim naked in the sea? If not, why not?’ Bentley Douglas.
‘I’m so glad we’ve caught you both,’ Stephanie said, smiling at Joe, who had the grace to look a bit nervous.
‘Me? Are you sure?’ he said.
‘Absolutely. If it hadn’t been for that … lightbulb moment last year, I don’t think Rich and I would ever have had the conversations we ended up having. It completely changed our relationship. For the better.’ Stephanie touched Richard’s arm as she spoke, and he smiled in quiet agreement.
I noted they weren’t wearing matching golf sweaters any more, but there was a different sort of coordination about them. They seemed more relaxed. More in tune with each other.
She turned back to us, and her face glowed with contentment. ‘We want to fix another date for the wedding. What do you have free in November?’
‘You’re actually going to get married? That’s wonderful news!’ Did that sound too effusive? I wondered. Too surprised? ‘I mean, it’s exactly what I hoped you’d – no, that I knew you’d—’
‘Don’t apologize!’ Stephanie laughed. ‘It’s fine. We needed to step back. Things had gotten too intense; we were hung up on the little things and not talking about the big things. It mounted up, and we got overwhelmed.’
‘When you’ve called off a wedding, there’s nothing you can’t talk about,’ said Richard. ‘So we got talking. Had some time off. Had a bit of a think. I realized Steph was the best thing in my life. Made some changes. Got back together. Here we are.’
That was literally the most I’d ever heard him say in one go.
Stephanie squeezed his hand, but looked at me and Joe. ‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘You guys derailing our wedding was the best thing that ever happened to us.’
‘In that case,’ I said, feeling oddly pleased, ‘the least we can do is make sure you have the best-ever day this time around.’
‘And would you like to try some cake?’ suggested Joe.
*
Laurence sent champagne, and we toasted their re-engagement, but as Stephanie and Richard left the hotel hand in hand, an unexpected melancholy descended on me. I wasn’t proud of it, because it was selfish, but I couldn’t help thinking, They fixed things. Things had gone as wrong for Stephanie and Richard as they could possibly go, but somehow they’d turned it around and talked, been honest, and now they could face anything.
A little voice inside me whispered, What if …
I pushed it away, but the thought clung to my brain. What if …?
Not me and Dominic – that was done. I knew why we’d finished; it was because we’d never really started. Me and Anthony. My own wedding that never happened. Could that have been saved?
‘What’s that frown for?’ Joe asked. ‘Are you worried you’ve double-booked them?’
I shook my head and set off down the corridor towards my office, where I could make some lists and not think about this.
But Joe followed me, still bouncy from the meeting. ‘You are going to let me work on this wedding, aren’t you? I feel like I owe it to them. Or maybe it’s a service we could offer? A rigorous road-testing before the wedding!’
‘No!’ I stopped in front of an alcove filled with a tumbling arrangement of spring flowers. There were no fake flowers in the hotel, one of Caroline’s rules.
‘Tell me what you’re thinking,’ said Joe quietly, after a moment’s pause, and I knew he knew exactly what was going through my mind. He was one of the very few people in the world who did.
I didn’t turn around because I didn’t want him or anyone else to see my miserable expression. I pretended to be checking the flowers, and as I moved, Joe turned slightly so he was shielding me from anyone passing. It made me feel safe, just for a second.
‘Don’t bottle it up,’ he said. ‘Get it out.’
I swallowed hard. I didn’t want to cry but now I’d started thinking about all this stuff, after bottling it up for so long, it was making me weirdly tearful.