‘Shaftesbury Avenue’s twenty minutes away!’ It was now quarter to three. Sweat prickled under my armpits.
‘Freda, what kind of shoes are you wearing?’ Helen asked urgently. ‘Sensible ones. Of course you are. Can you run in them? Well, can you … trot?’
We all stared at her, twitchy with nerves.
‘Can you walk a bit quicker?’ said Helen in a very coaxing voice. ‘I know, plantar fasciitis is awful. Poor you. It’s just that we have about fourteen Hollywood stars here, and three of them have got helicopters on a parking meter at City airport and … Oh, lovely. Well, we’ll get some ice in a big bowl ready for afterwards. Good girl!’
She snapped the phone down. ‘She’s on her way.’
I checked my watch and glanced up to the fountain, where Benedict and Magnus were already in their seats, along with family, friends and several high-profile shapeshifters.
I had to get back upstairs fast. Emily would be almost ready to leave now. In fact, if she was following the checklist, she would be getting into the lift.
Helen grabbed my arm. ‘Stop,’ she said. ‘Breathe. It’ll be fine. If someone needs to do a song and dance to distract the crowd for a while, you’ve got professionals here. You can’t control everything.’
I gazed up at her, crisp and elegant in her special pale-blue events suit. When I’d told Helen I’d given in my notice, we’d had a cry. In fact, that was the only moment I’d wondered if I’d made a mistake. I would miss working with my best mate, in so many ways. But she’d told me I needed to go, and had given me another version of her ‘let life happen to you’ speech.
‘I want this to be my best wedding,’ I said. ‘I want to go out on a high.’
‘I know.’ She gripped my hand. ‘But that won’t happen if you have cardiac arrest, will it? The registrars will be here when they’re here. These things happen. It’s not like the bride and groom haven’t turned up, is it?’
I flinched. Then I took a deep breath. She was right.
‘We’ll just have to delay Emily somehow,’ I said, but as I did, I heard Gemma squeak, and I knew what had happened.
Slowly the three of us turned, and there, partially hidden inside the door to the hotel foyer on her father’s morning-suited arm, was Emily in her cream ballerina-length wedding dress, a thick circlet of blood-red roses balanced on her head like a crown, and a euphoric expression lighting up her heart-shaped face. The funny thing was, most regular brides looked like film stars when the make-up artist had finished. Emily the film star looked like the most beautiful girl-next-door in the world. Albeit in a ten-thousand-pound Vivienne Westwood dress.
Chloë stood behind her, still doing deep yoga breaths through alternate nostrils, and casting death looks down the aisle to Magnus; the two flower girls were fidgeting with their baskets of petals; and behind the group was Nevin, taking photographs.
I hurried over as nonchalantly as I could, so as not to give anything away to the guests. Five minutes late, fine. Ten minutes, muttering. Fifteen minutes and Twitter would be alive, even though Gemma had personally organized the phone amnesty in reception, on Missy’s specific instructions.
‘Emily, you look like an angel,’ I said. How had I ever imagined Joe could get over this? She was a once-in-a-lifetime girl.
She beamed. ‘Sorry! I know I’m early! I just couldn’t wait! I had to come down!’
‘I’m more nervous than she is,’ admitted her father. He was from Birmingham. ‘That photographer! And someone’s powdered my head. I don’t know how she does it, all these folk watching. My heart’s racing.’
‘In that case, let’s not rush.’ Thank you, universe. ‘Why don’t you …’ I steered them firmly back towards the calm green anteroom ‘… have a quick glass of champagne in here to steady your nerves? We’ve got five minutes. The harpist is still playing.’
Emily glanced out at the garden.
‘Don’t worry, Ben’s there! Everything’s fine!’ I signalled to the waiters to bring champagne and the tiniest, least greasy canapés. ‘You take a second, relax, be in the moment, I’ll be right back …’
I marched back out again, but even Helen was looking anxious. ‘Still nothing.’
‘Where’s Joe?’
‘I don’t know.’
Why did that make me feel so panicky? I realized, with a sinking sensation, that I needed Joe here. I needed him to say something calming, something sensible, something … really irritating so at least I’d know what to do.
Helen touched my arm, ‘Rosie, you’ll have to say something. Tell them there’s a short delay because of the registrars.’
‘I can’t! It’s not my hotel. Where’s Laurence?’
‘Being sick.’
We spun around. Joe had appeared from nowhere. He’d changed into a linen suit, which made him look just as much of a movie star as the real ones. More so. My heart thudded in my chest. A lot more so. His blond hair, darker than when he’d arrived straight from the beach last year, was brushed back, and his white shirt was open at the neck, revealing the soft hollow at the base of his throat. He looked more London now, and yet even further out of my league.
He and Emily – I could see it now. I could see exactly why they’d had that wonderful romance. They were both so beautiful.
I swallowed, and tried to focus on the moment. ‘Oh dear. Is he all right?’
Joe pulled a face. ‘Not really. Well, come on – it has to be bad if he’s not out here hobnobbing with Meryl Streep.’
‘It’s not Meryl Streep,’ said Gemma. ‘It’s—’
‘Gemma, you know I don’t care who these people are,’ he said.
‘Joe, there’s a problem, the registrars are late. You’ll have to say something,’ said Helen. ‘You’re second in command, after Laurence.’
Second in command? What did that make me? Third? After all the work I’d done?
That did it.
‘No, if anyone’s second in command, it’s me,’ I said, and marched towards the front. I thought I heard Helen mutter something about that being the way to spring me into action, but I didn’t care. I wasn’t going to risk Joe getting up there and … I put the thought out of my mind, and concentrated on walking without falling over in my new higher-heeled shoes.
That was all well and good until I got to the front, and about the first five faces I saw I recognized from the sides of buses and Heat magazine. Forget what they say about celebs being airbrushed and styled. They look like that in real life, too. It’s really unnerving.
‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ I began in a croaky voice, then cleared my throat. ‘Sorry, ladies and gentlemen, I’m afraid we have a slight delay in proceedings, due to a technical problem with …’
I saw several people slip their phones out of their pockets. My heart sank. I’d told Gemma to persuade people to put their phones in the special baskets. Emily didn’t want back-of-row-12 photos appearing on the internet.
‘A technical problem with …’
Someone took a photo of me, and I flinched. Funny how my worst wedding nightmare had always been the one where Anthony didn’t turn up. It had just been overtaken – by a country mile – by this one, where I was centre of attention all over again.
My throat went dry, and my tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth as every face in the crowd turned my way, expectantly. Oh God. My whole head had gone blank. All I could hear was a buzzing in my ears that had nothing to do with my fascinator.
To my horror, Joe was walking up the aisle. But he was walking in a completely different way: loose-limbed, professional, in charge. Towards me.
He smiled as he joined me at the front, and then I felt a hand on my arm. A hand that patted me, then firmly moved me bodily to one side.
‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ said Joe, with the same confidence that both Caroline and Laurence had at their fingertips. ‘I know it’s traditional for the bride to keep everyone waiting at ceremonies of this sort, but today I have to apologize profusely on behalf of the ho
tel. We’re currently missing a pair of registrars. What can I say? I’m sure you’ve all seen enough Richard Curtis films to know that London transport likes to play a part in Hollywood weddings!’
I slid my eyes sideways in horror. Ironically, very much the same way that Emily had slid her eyes sideways in the big mirror when Contessa Vittoria shapeshifted up behind her in the last film.
‘So, anyway, while we’re waiting.’ He’d actually started to sound like Hugh Grant now. Or Colin Firth. I looked around the assembled guests, now openly staring at the pair of us, as if we were about to break into a song and dance version of ‘Love and Marriage’. ‘There’s something I would like to say – to the bride and groom.’
And then I knew that this day could not get any more out of my control, so I gave up.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
The entire congregation fell silent, and unexpectedly, I suddenly felt very light, as if I was observing all this from three rows back in the congregation. I could almost see my own horrified face.
This was it. Not only was Joe Bentley Douglas about to torpedo my chic and sophisticated wedding ceremony with some half-baked universe-based guff, he was probably going to tell beautiful, famous Emily that he was still in love with her. Maybe not on purpose, but it would be so obvious to everyone from his body language that he might as well strip off and throw himself at her feet.
Some higher instinct seized me. St Ramada, goddess of the hospitality industry, maybe. I had to stop him. I just had to stall until Freda arrived.
‘Um, no, it’s fine.’ I coughed. ‘I’ve, er, I’ve thought of what I was going to say.’
I looked up, and at the back of the garden, Helen covered her face with her hands, unable to watch. So I stared at the windows of the hotel out of everyone’s sightline. ‘Before we begin, I wanted to say a few words about love.’
Joe looked at me sideways. ‘So did I.’
‘Well, my … thing about love is … better!’
I would tell you I was dying inside, but the weird force seemed to be holding me up. The congregation tittered. It probably looked as if we’d been practicing this tedious stand-up routine on purpose, just to give Emily and Ben’s wedding a ‘worst Oscars ever’ touch.
Joe was opening his mouth to argue; I had to get on with it. With luck the registrars would arrive before I had to get too far into anything more complicated than ‘Marriage is like a packet of Hobnobs,’ or whatever it was that vicars normally came out with before the main event.
But what to say? What was marriage like? Apart from Hobnobs.
I gripped my clipboard, and had a sudden brainwave.
‘I’m a wedding planner,’ I began, ‘and I’ve got a checklist of everything I need to do to make the wedding perfect. The seating plan, the RSVPs. The groom’s here – check. Rings here – check. And, er, the bride is here, by the way, just in case anyone was wondering …’
There was a murmur of amusement, which I gratefully acknowledged while I glanced at the door. Still no sign of Freda and/or Jan.
‘I might have hit a snag on my checklist with the registrars,’ I said desperately, ‘but Emily and Benedict have ticked every box on theirs. Emily was telling me only yesterday that her wedding gift from Benedict was a season ticket to Lord’s Cricket Ground. Now, if a woman’s prepared to sit through an entire five-day test, she’s obviously ticking patience, understanding and the very highest form of love!’
It was corny, but the congregation laughed. I was going to move on to something about bowling maidens over when I felt Joe shift me to one side.
‘However,’ he said, ‘the point I was going to make is that despite Rosie’s laudable efforts to make everything perfect for Emily and Ben, today isn’t perfect, and that’s a good thing.’
‘I – what?’
‘I’ve met a lot of brides in my short but colourful career as a wedding planner,’ he informed the crowd, conversationally, ‘and they’re all dead-set on one thing – having the perfect day. Much to my colleague’s horror, I’ve tried to talk them out of that, with varied success. Because, being a bloke, I’ve always been a big believer in human imperfection. It makes us interesting, and it makes us open to growth.’
I closed my eyes and tried to stay calm, while racking my brain for something funny to say. We were two breaths away from the universe and/or some terrible John Lennon quote, but at least this didn’t sound like an attempted coup on the groom. So far.
‘I definitely didn’t think the perfect woman existed,’ he went on. ‘But then, like Benedict, I met a woman who is everything I’d ever imagined a woman could be, and it blew me away. Funny, clever, thoughtful, smart, and movie-star beautiful.’ As he said it, I wanted to crawl away and die. But I couldn’t. I was trapped on a stage in front of two hundred people, and I had to keep smiling like a demented newsreader while Joe described Emily again, with that hypnotized expression I remembered from Valentine’s Day. The she’s perfect one.
No one had ever said that about me.
‘She’s not perfect in a boring way,’ Joe explained, as if anyone cared. ‘She’s got her hang-ups and bad habits. She drinks way too much coffee, for a start. And she won’t surf because she thinks she might get slammed in the face with the board and lose all her teeth.’
The congregation laughed. I didn’t. I thought that was totally reasonable. Sensible, even, for a movie star. It was why I’d never surfed, and I only needed my teeth for eating, not flashing in Vogue shoots. Emily and I had so much in common. We could have been friends if we’d met at school.
‘If anything, this incredible, intelligent, indescribable woman is so obsessed with everything being perfect that she completely misses how great she is already, imperfections and all. The only thing that could make her even more amazing than she is now would be if she’d only let someone into her life to mess it up a bit.’ Joe ruffled his hair sheepishly, and despite the leadenness of my heart, I felt a lurch of desire. I would miss him.
‘Apparently that’s what boyfriends are for,’ he added, and everyone laughed. ‘Husbands, even more so.’
Joe was really winning the crowd over, I thought, looking around. Some couples had slipped their hand into each other’s; a few were leaning their heads on their husbands’ shoulders, fancy hats permitting.
I’d never felt so single in my life.
He coughed, and I guessed he was getting to the point at last. ‘So when I look at Emily and Ben today, even though they’re famous and successful, and from the outside everyone will imagine their life is perfect, I hope that they’ll each have the little imperfections that, when put together, will make their relationship last a lifetime. Like the lumps on jigsaw pieces, or the patterns on tyres that help them stay on the road. Imperfections are what help us stick together. To give us room to breathe, to heat up and cool down. To grow.’
He stopped and looked at me, and I glared back, thinking, Why are you looking at me with that dozy expression like I’m supposed to say, yes, go for it, run off with her like in The Graduate.
‘I just hope this perfect woman I know will let someone in to do the same for her,’ he said.
Someone in the crowd went, ‘Aaaah.’ And then a few more did.
Joe smiled tentatively, and did a sort of prompting nod, as if he’d expected a reaction from me by now.
‘What?’ I hissed, a bit ungraciously, I will admit.
‘I mean you,’ he muttered under his breath. ‘You daft cow.’
He meant me. Joe was talking about me.
I opened my mouth, but nothing came out. (Thank God.)
Joe nodded gently, his gaze never leaving my face. ‘Definitely you.’
And my heart filled with a sudden rush of happiness, then seemed to burst out of me, rising into the air like a helium balloon, or a Chinese lantern, or a white dove. Up, and up, and up, past the tree, past the windows, up past the honeymoon suite balcony. I felt so light, looking into Joe’s eyes, that I could have floated right away.
I felt I’d come home.
The registrars arrived at the moment he took my hands and led me off the little platform, but apparently no one even noticed.
*
‘That was very bad form,’ I said, once the service was under way and the crowd was listening to a top soprano from the Royal Opera House sing ‘My Heart Will Go On’. It was awful, but I didn’t mind. It was Emily’s mother’s favourite song. ‘Hijacking someone else’s wedding like that.’
Joe didn’t seem unduly bothered. ‘Oh, they love it, actor types,’ he said. ‘Bit of drama. Someone will be commissioning a screenplay about it, just watch.’
‘I hope they get someone glamorous to play me,’ I said.
‘No, they’ll get a sitcom actress doing her first film,’ said Joe affectionately, picking a stray petal off my hair. ‘One that scrubs up well, though.’
We were sitting under the tree, in a corner of the garden where no one could see us but where I could keep an eye on any major disaster that might unfold. Not that I cared about that either. I didn’t care about anything, apart from Joe’s hand holding mine. He’d been holding it for ten minutes now, and our skin was getting a bit clammy, but again, it didn’t even register. A happy serenity had come over me.
‘I should probably have told you I was going to say something,’ he went on thoughtfully, ‘but I didn’t plan it. It just seemed like the right thing to do at the time.’
‘You don’t think Emily minded you stealing the limelight at her wedding?’
‘To be honest …’ Joe screwed up his face. ‘It’s her own fault. I got this letter from her while I was at Mum’s – she basically said everything you’d said—’
‘Which was everything you’d said to me.’
‘But she said it in a kinder way? That everyone needs a fling like the one we had in their past, to show them how incredible a strong everyday love is.’ He reached into his pocket, as if he was going to show me the letter, and I made no no no no gestures. ‘What she actually said was that having a Ferrari for a fortnight on set made her appreciate how much she liked driving her regular car that always started and fit her real life.’