Always the Bridesmaid

  ‘Are you serious?’ I asked. ‘Really? You would want to do that?’

  ‘I liked the idea of doing proper event planning full time,’ she explained. ‘But I don’t have your experience or your contacts. But I will have the money from my flat soon. We’re selling it.’

  ‘You can live with me!’ I shrieked, grabbing her forearms and jumping up and down again. ‘You can move into the spare room!’

  ‘Well, no, let’s not be silly,’ she said. I stopped jumping.

  ‘Are you serious?’ I asked. ‘You want us to work together?’

  ‘After the way you saved Lauren’s hen do?’ she replied. ‘And the baby party? And, I don’t know, planned an entire wedding in three months in your spare time? Are you kidding? I’d be an idiot not to.’

  ‘Well, yeah,’ I said. This was no time for false modesty. ‘As long as no one throws a fag into a tequila fountain, I am quite good.’

  ‘But we’ve made a lot of money on that place, and I’m not going to buy anywhere right away. Fuck it, Mads, why not give it a go?’

  ‘You’re not in any way put off by the fact that my last party ended in a near rabbit-slash-stork-slash-flaming tequila massacre?’ I asked.

  ‘If anything, I’m intrigued,’ she replied. I threw my arms around lovely, dry, funny Sarah and gave her a huge hug.

  ‘I don’t want to ask a silly question,’ Tom said, fidgeting with his keys at the bottom of the path, ‘but surely there’s a reason why you’re wearing matching dresses.’

  ‘And you are?’ Sarah broke the hug to give Tom the filthiest look known to man. ‘Oh, wait, aren’t you the usher?’

  ‘I’m Tom,’ he said, looking slightly perplexed. ‘We haven’t been introduced.’

  ‘He is very tall, isn’t he,’ she said to me, ignoring him. ‘Didn’t seem that tall in photos. It’s quite intimidating in person.’

  ‘When have you seen me in photos?’ Tom asked. ‘Who are you?’

  ‘I’m Sarah,’ she said, pushing me out of the way to shake his hand. ‘I’m Maddie’s best friend.’ She turned to me again. ‘Why is he here?’

  ‘I’m not entirely sure,’ I said. ‘But he was going to drive me over to yours.’

  Sarah turned back to Tom. ‘Why are you here?’

  ‘Um, well, all right then,’ he said, squeezing the back of his neck. ‘I came to tell Maddie that I was very sorry about what happened last week, that I couldn’t stop thinking about her, and that I very well might actually probably love her. A bit. Sort of.’

  ‘That’s the best you’ve got?’ Sarah asked, arms folded. ‘Seriously?’

  ‘You love me a bit?’ I asked, shoving her sideways to stand in front of him, leaning back to get a proper look at his face. ‘That’s ridiculous.’

  ‘At the very least, intense and irrational like,’ he said. ‘Which I think translates into love. Or somewhere thereabouts.’

  ‘But why?’ I asked, trying to think of anything I could have done to him that was the slightest bit lovable.

  ‘You actually want a list?’ he asked.

  I pinched my shoulders together in a small shrug. ‘Actually, yes.’

  ‘I don’t want to be rude, but are you autistic?’ Sarah asked. ‘No, really? Because I worked with this guy—’

  ‘Shut up, Sarah,’ I said, still staring at Tom. ‘Do you mean it?’

  ‘I’d be a bit of a dick if I didn’t,’ he replied, his face red and flustered.

  ‘Right then,’ I said.

  ‘Right then,’ he repeated.

  ‘I don’t want to get in the way of a moment,’ Sarah said, literally getting in the way of the moment, ‘but we’re not dressed like this because we’re auditioning for Britain’s Got Talent. Shouldn’t we get over to Lauren’s house?’

  ‘Lauren?’ Tom asked. ‘There’s a Lauren?’

  ‘Is that offer of a lift still open?’ I said, squeezing his wrist.

  Not quite his hand, but still, I was getting there.

  ‘She’s not here,’ I said, opening the passenger door to Tom’s stupid car. ‘I’ve knocked on all the doors, I’ve looked in all the windows, I explained to the neighbour that I wasn’t trying to break in and they said she hasn’t been home for a couple of days. She’s probably staying with her mum or her sister or something.’

  ‘She’s not answering her phone either.’ Sarah held up her own phone in defeat. ‘I’ve left a message. Should we go to the venue?’

  ‘There’s nowhere for her to be at the venue.’ I shook my head. ‘The church hasn’t got anywhere to wait, and the reception is miles away, that’s why we were supposed to get ready here.’

  ‘You can’t ambush her at the church,’ Tom reasoned. ‘You’ll have to wait until after the wedding.’

  ‘Guerrilla bridesmaids!’ Sarah exclaimed. ‘Why not?’

  ‘What, we just follow her up the aisle and force her to forgive us?’ I asked. ‘Actually, that’s not a bad idea.’

  ‘There are still a few hours,’ Sarah reasoned. ‘Let’s go back to yours, have a drink and see if she calls us back.’

  ‘I like how you slipped “have a drink” in there,’ I said, resignedly clambering back into the car. ‘Really, why do you need this?’ I asked. ‘It’s ridiculous.’

  ‘Because I’m six foot six and I’d look stupid in a Mini?’ he replied. ‘Now, where can I drive you to next, your majesty?’

  ‘Oh, Maddie,’ Sarah said, her seatbelt clunking closed. ‘I like him.’

  It took a while to find for a parking space big enough for Tom’s Wank Rover on my street but forty-five minutes after we left Lauren’s house and two hours before Lauren’s wedding, we traipsed up my front path to find the front door wide open.

  ‘Did you leave it open?’ I asked Sarah as we hovered outside.

  ‘I didn’t even unlock it,’ she replied, holding her clutch bag up in an attack position.

  ‘You left in a rush,’ Tom said. ‘Maybe you forgot to lock it,’ he said, running back towards the car. ‘Hang on a second. Don’t go in.’

  ‘I never forget to lock it,’ I said, pushing the door open cautiously. ‘I’m thirty-one, I live alone, and I watch loads of police procedurals. I never, ever forget to lock it.’

  Tom reappeared and edged in front of me, the steering lock he’d grabbed from his car in his hands, and stepped lightly onto the stairs.

  ‘And they say chivalry is dead,’ Sarah swooned.

  ‘Chivalry might not be, but he will be if there’s a murderer up there,’ I replied. ‘Idiot.’

  ‘Better him than you,’ she whispered. ‘No offence, but, you know, for me.’

  ‘No, totally fair,’ I agreed.

  But unless murderers had started screaming like terrified women and wearing ten grand’s worth of embellished Jenny Packham, there was no murderer in my flat, just Lauren.

  ‘Oh my God!’ she screamed. ‘Oh my God!’

  ‘Calm down,’ Tom said, still brandishing the steering lock. ‘It’s all right, calm down.’

  ‘Lauren!’ I rushed across the room to where she was sitting on my sofa, drowning in a puddle of tulle and gin. ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘I can’t do this,’ she said, shaking her head and crying fresh tears. Which followed the tracks of several rounds of sobbing that had come before. ‘I can’t.’

  ‘It’s OK,’ I said, grabbing both of her hands. ‘Tell me what’s wrong.’

  Sarah grabbed two mugs and a measuring jug from the cupboard and ran to Lauren’s side. The clever girl already had the gin and tonic ready on the coffee table.

  ‘I can’t get married,’ she said through a torrent of hiccups. ‘I can’t even organize a wedding without losing my best friends. How am I supposed to get married?’

  ‘Don’t be silly,’ Sarah said, pouring the gin while she spoke. Sarah was all about priorities. ‘We’re here, aren’t we? We’re all here together now?’

  ‘Where were you?’ she asked, blinking at our outfits. ‘You’re wearing your dr
esses.’

  ‘We were at your house.’ I smiled gently and held the gin to her mouth as though she was a toddler. An alcoholic toddler wearing a dress that cost more than six months’ rent. ‘We were looking for you. We came to say sorry, about everything.’

  ‘But it’s all my fault,’ she sighed before hiccupping again. ‘I was so hung up on making the wedding perfect, I treated the two of you like shit.’

  ‘You did,’ Sarah said. ‘But we forgive you.’

  I gave her a stern look, but she sipped her gin out of the measuring jug and ignored me.

  ‘I thought, if I could make the wedding perfect, make it my dream wedding, I would stop freaking out about it,’ she said, nodding slowly and accepting another mouthful of gin. ‘But it just made me more crazy. I’m so sorry, you guys. I was sitting at the rehearsal dinner last night and there were these two huge empty spaces that were driving me crazy, and I knew I couldn’t do it. I want to marry Michael, but I don’t want to do it if you guys aren’t there with me. I’d rather run off to Vegas and elope.’

  ‘Not after all the bloody work I’ve done,’ I said. ‘You’re having that sodding wedding.’

  ‘I’m trying to say none of that matters to me,’ she corrected herself. ‘Not that I don’t appreciate it. I super appreciate it. But the wedding doesn’t matter, does it? It’s the people that matter.’

  ‘Let’s not use that as a slogan for the new business,’ Sarah said.

  ‘What did I tell you when we were in the loos?’ I asked Lauren. ‘This is all about you. If you don’t want to go through with it, we don’t go through with it. No one else has a say in it − not your mum, not your sister, not even Michael. If you want to run off to Vegas, I’ll book the flights. But I’m going to need your credit card and your dad is still going to have to pay for today.’

  Lauren looked at me and then at Sarah.

  ‘Better to call it off today than ten years down the line,’ Sarah said. ‘Trust me.’

  ‘You really went to my house?’ Lauren asked.

  ‘I can vouch for them,’ Tom said, holding his steering lock aloft. ‘They went to your house.’

  ‘Who is that guy?’ she whispered. ‘He’s so tall.’

  ‘I wanted to say sorry,’ I said, giving her a squeeze. ‘About all of it.’

  ‘So did I,’ Sarah added, jumping onto the sofa and resting her head on Lauren’s bare shoulder. ‘To both of you. We’ve all been going through so much. Shall we promise to try one major life change at a time from now on?’

  ‘We can try,’ I said. ‘But you’re just tempting fate.’

  ‘Guys, I’m sorry,’ Lauren said, pulling me onto the settee and sliding her hand around my waist. ‘I am. I missed you so much. I love your dumb faces.’

  ‘Do you lot fall out often?’ Tom asked. ‘Is this normal?’

  ‘Yes,’ we all replied at once, with varying degrees of acceptance.

  ‘Duly noted,’ he said. ‘Maddie, your flat is a disgrace.’

  The best thing to do with that comment was ignore it.

  With Tom off at the supermarket to pick up emergency supplies, we settled in on the sofa to calm Lauren’s nerves.

  ‘I can’t believe you got fired,’ she said, giving me a sympathetic sniff. ‘That’s so shitty. Can you sue? It’s clearly unfair dismissal.’

  ‘I bet my lawyers have someone who could look into it,’ Sarah offered. ‘We could get a group deal?’

  ‘Are you doing OK?’ Lauren asked her. ‘I still can’t believe I said all those awful things to you at the bridal shower. It’s kept me awake all week.’

  Sarah squeezed her face into an expression that didn’t seem certain about anything. ‘I will be,’ she said with uncertainty. ‘It’s hard to stop loving someone because they’ve stopped loving you. But I’ll be OK. I have you two wankers.’

  ‘I’m back!’ The front door slammed just in time and Tom thundered up the stairs. ‘I didn’t know exactly what to bring so I brought everything.’

  He emptied three great big carrier bags onto the kitchen top. He was not lying. This man was a wonder.

  ‘So, about the wedding.’ I smiled at him and then turned back to Lauren. ‘What are we doing? Are we off to the church or is it four tickets to Vegas?’

  ‘I want to marry Michael,’ she said confidently. ‘But I’m so scared of my wedding.’

  ‘There’s nothing to be scared of,’ Sarah promised, taking her hand. ‘Maddie has everything under control, and we’re going to be there every second of it.’

  ‘I might have done some phoning around yesterday,’ I confessed. ‘Everything is going to be perfect. It’s going to be the most amazing wedding ever. Even brides with years to plan get nervous about something this incredible, and Lauren, it’s going to be incredible.’

  ‘It is?’ she asked, sniffing delicately and hiccupping one last time.

  ‘The most incredible wedding ever,’ I confirmed. ‘Which I think you kind of deserve because you have the most incredible bridesmaids ever.’

  ‘And I don’t know about Maddie, but I’m in,’ Sarah said, looking down at her frock. ‘I got dressed up and everything. We might as well do it.’

  ‘Me too,’ I said. ‘Although I need to do my hair.’

  ‘And your make-up,’ Lauren said. ‘Or not! Whatever you want.’

  The two of them heaved themselves out of my sunken sofa and began straightening each other’s dresses.

  ‘I don’t suppose you fancy going to a wedding?’ I said, leaning over the back of the settee to look at Tom.

  ‘Bit of an intense first date.’ He looked down at his black trousers and white shirt. ‘And people might think I’m a waiter.’

  ‘God forbid,’ I replied, giving him a small smile. ‘Can we at least get a lift?’

  ‘So that’s it, is it?’ he asked, as I clambered upright and stared up at him. ‘You just want me for a chauffeur.’

  ‘Well, that and I sort of irrationally, intensely like you,’ I said, punching him in the arm. ‘Now that I’ve come to think about it.’

  The wedding, of course, was a complete success. Michael and Lauren both showed up, the butterflies were released on time, and no one died of a peanut allergy. It was genuinely everything we could ever have asked for.

  The newly married couple were halfway through their first dance when the master of ceremonies invited the rest of the couples at the wedding to join them. Lauren’s mum took the arm of Michael’s dad, Michael’s brother took the arm of Lauren’s step-mum, and Sarah snapped up Lauren’s dad so fast, I was worried she was about to start World War Three. But Lauren was so busy staring into the eyes of her husband, she didn’t even notice. If I’d ever had my doubts about the two of them, they were gone in that moment.

  ‘What’s up with you, girl?’

  Michael’s ancient grandmother buzzed over to me on her electric wheelchair, a plaid blanket over her fuchsia skirt suit and a half-empty bottle of whisky that wasn’t from my bar in her hand.

  ‘No one to dance with?’

  ‘Nice to meet you, Mrs …’ I trailed off awkwardly, trying to avoid her bloodshot blue eyes. ‘Are you having a nice time?’

  ‘You don’t want to sit there mooning after them,’ she said, pointing to all the dancing couples. ‘You want to get yourself a fella. None of you are getting any younger.’

  ‘Thanks for the advice,’ I replied.

  ‘You’ll end up like me,’ she warned. ‘More than a hundred lovers but never a husband to my name.’

  ‘Oh, really.’ I looked at her with a newfound interest. ‘Doesn’t sound that bad to me.’

  ‘You want someone who’s going to take care of you,’ she warned, shaking the bottle of whisky in my general direction. ‘Not someone who’s going to knock your socks off in the bedroom.’

  ‘Luckily, she’s got both.’ A hand reached out towards me and Tom stood there smiling. ‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘I was having a whizz. Would you like to dance?’

  I looked doubt
fully at his outstretched hand.

  ‘I washed them,’ he said.

  ‘All right then,’ I said. ‘And yes, I will dance, but only because I know you’re good.’

  Michael’s grandmother nodded approvingly as Tom led me out to the dance floor.

  ‘No fancy waltzing tonight?’ I asked as he pulled me in close and we swayed lightly to the rhythm.

  ‘The waltz isn’t that fancy,’ he said. ‘You’ve been seriously deprived of dancing all these years.’

  ‘I do a mean “Birdy Song”,’ I replied, affronted. ‘You wait until that comes on − I’m going to blow your mind.’

  He smiled gently and I was quiet for a moment, not sure of what to say next. He had been amazing all day, from driving us to the wedding to helping out when little things went awry. And now here he was, dancing with me at my best friend’s wedding.

  ‘Did you mean what you said just then?’ I couldn’t look at him, it was all too much. ‘To Michael’s grandmother?’

  ‘About taking care of you or knocking your socks off?’ he asked.

  ‘Both?’ I whispered.

  ‘Both,’ he replied.

  Smiling, I pulled away from his chest and looked up. Standing in front of Tom, I brushed my own hair out of my own eyes and took his hand in mine. The girls weren’t wrong − he really was ridiculously tall. It took him so long to lean down and put his lips to mine, I thought I was going to pass out from holding my breath for so long, but it was worth it. He pulled me into him, his huge hand on the small of my back, my whole body close to his, and it felt like something I’d been missing for the longest time.

  ‘Question,’ I said, my voice breaking as we parted. ‘Did I ever get you to sign a contract for your mum’s birthday party? Because Sarah and I are going into business together, and I think we’d do a very good job of it.’

  ‘Will you please shut up, Maddie,’ he said, pulling me into another kiss.

  ‘My brother says I need to learn how to say no,’ I replied, pulling away.

  ‘He’s right,’ Tom said, pressing his lips firmly against mine. ‘Start tomorrow.’

  It wasn’t bad advice. I decided to take it.