Always the Bridesmaid Page 3

  ‘It might,’ she said, pulling my hair. ‘But I think I’d rather have another gin.’

  ‘Good because I don’t have any kale.’ I grabbed the bottle off the coffee table and topped her up. ‘Let me get the tonic out of the fridge.’

  ‘Don’t bother,’ she said, taking a glug then holding up her glass. ‘To fresh starts, Maddie. Cheers.’

  ‘Cheers,’ I echoed, wondering whether or not there ever was such a thing as a fresh start, or whether you just picked up a new set of problems.

  I can’t believe Sarah is getting divorced. It’s bizarre: I’ve known her for two-thirds of my life, and for the first time ever, I have no idea what to say to her.

  Divorce. She’s getting a divorce. I don’t know anyone who got married and isn’t married any more other than Lauren’s parents, and I don’t really know them. It’s so weird. When you’re single you don’t think about that bit, even though in this day and age you’re fully aware of that bit. Getting the ring on your finger is the goal: the white dress, the John Lewis wedding-present list, worry about the rest of it afterwards. Getting married means you’ve won, and I hate thinking like that, I do, but let’s be honest, that’s just how it is. In our super progressive, equal rights, modern society, it’s the one thing no one wants to say but everyone is thinking, however messed-up it is.

  Until you’re married, you’re a loser, no matter how great you are at everything else. But what does that make someone who gets divorced?

  Divorce is something that happens to my parents’ generation, not my friends. Like in year nine, when everyone’s mum and dad suddenly split up and no one talked about it until Jane couldn’t come to your ice-skating birthday party because she ‘had to see her dad on Saturdays’.

  Shit, who will get their cat? They both love that cat. Won’t somebody think of the children?

  3

  Saturday May 16th

  Today I feel: Sore.

  Today I am thankful for: Shaving my legs this morning when I couldn’t really be bothered.

  I am so confused as to what happened today. All I do know is that it has ended with a strange man in my bed who I cannot ask to leave because it’s impolite, but who I really wish would leave because I’m starving and want to eat some biscuits, and if I don’t, I’m worried I might very well eat his arm in the night.

  It started out as a normal day. Well, normal apart from the wedding/divorce debacle of Thursday night and then the depressing divorce-and-gin fest of Friday night, obviously. I got up, I texted my friends, they didn’t reply, and I went to work. The only difference was that my text to Lauren was all about her wedding, rather than last night’s telly, and my text to Sarah just said ‘Are you OK?’ She’d left at ten o’clock last night, teary with mother’s ruin but refusing the offer to stay over with a curled lip at my shabby sofa and the mountains of washing covering the spare bed. Fair play, really.

  Ahhh, work. The McCallan wedding.

  One of the fun things about working for an events planner is you never know exactly what you’re going to be doing from one day to the next, other than working yourself into a blind, desperate pit of no return seven days a week, obviously. Thanks to ten years in the trade, I am now a passable florist, competent seamstress and an excellent mixologist. Nevertheless, I wasn’t too happy when I got to the reception venue to find out two of the waitresses couldn’t be arsed to get out of bed and come to work, meaning I had to save the day by putting on a pinny and serving a room full of drunk people an absurdly expensive chicken dinner.

  It’s amazing how terribly people treat wait staff sometimes. I ask you, how hard is it to say please and thank you? I’d say their mothers would be appalled but most of their mothers were there and quite frankly, in a lot of instances, the mothers were the worst. After spending a year planning every last moment of the McCallan’s big day, running around on the actual day of the wedding, fetching and carrying dirty dishes, while every single assembled guest refused to look me in the eye didn’t half test my moral fibre.

  And then I saw him.

  He was easy on the eyes, there was no getting around it. His eyes were brown, but a light brown − sort of gold, when you looked at them − and his black hair was shaved close to his head, giving him an air of an Action Man; but somehow, it worked. He had gorgeous full lips, and when he smiled at me I wanted to burn every pair of knickers I owned because I would never, ever be needing them again. He looked solid but smiley, like he’d always have a joke to tell you, and even while he was charming the pants off your parents he’d have his hand on your arse, and at the end of the night, when you’d had one too many, he’d feel you up a bit in the taxi.

  ‘Hello, everyone.’

  Action Man was actually the best man. When it was his turn to give a toast, he didn’t even need to clink his glass. As soon as he stood up, everyone turned around and sat up straight. Without even asking myself why, I tightened my ponytail and bit some colour into my lips. Be still my beating heart.

  ‘As most of you already know, I’m Will, the best man,’ he said. ‘Or at least I’m the best one that was free today and had his own suit.’

  I leaned against the wall, cupping my elbow in one hand, and pressed a fist against my mouth. He wasn’t so tall but he was tall enough, and his jacket hung perfectly from his shoulders, the result either of excellent tailoring or of excellent shoulders, it was hard to tell, but his easy stance and the way he looked around the room, totally comfortable in a situation that others found unbearable, gave me the biggest ladyboner.

  Here’s the thing. I’ve always loved weddings. When I was little, I would run around the house wrapped up in a bed sheet screaming ‘I do!’ at the next-door neighbour, and when I was seven and my aunt got married, I didn’t take my bridesmaid’s dress off for two weeks. And that was only because I had the measles and threw up on it. Since then, I’ve been a bridesmaid five times and I would do it five more times if someone asked. How is it not fun? The dress shopping, the hen night, the penis headbands, I love all of it. And then there’s the actual wedding: you get a new frock, you get a free feed, you get to drink from the crack of dawn right through to the next day and not even your parents can complain about it. Weddings are the best.

  But after hearing Sarah and Lauren’s news on Thursday, for the first time ever I was beginning to feel the onset of matrimonial fatigue. All of a sudden, everything that had once made me clap with delight had me rolling my eyes instead. Oh, you’re pretending to run away from a dinosaur in your pictures? How original. Choreographed first dance to the song from Dirty Dancing? You guys! It was horrible. Even the thought of stealing macarons from the dessert table didn’t help. I was over macarons. And when a woman declares herself over macarons, you know something is wrong. By the time the speeches had begun, it would be all I could do not to launch myself at the bride and groom and start screaming, ‘This is a sham! True love is an illusion! We’re all going to die alone!’

  And for an assistant wedding planner, that was less than ideal.

  And so the undeniable hotness of the best man made for a very welcome distraction on an incredibly shitty day.

  ‘I’ve known Em and Ian for donkeys,’ Will went on. Addressing the room, making eye contact, not using notes. All very impressive. ‘And between you and me, I couldn’t have been happier when he told me they were getting married. In fact, when he told me he was going to ask her, I cried. And then, when he sent me a text to say she said yes, I cried again.’

  All the mums began to sniff and coo in unison, while all the single women pulled out lipsticks and powder compacts as they readied themselves to go to war.

  Will was doing a good job.

  ‘You see, it’s hard to meet someone these days.’ He gave a little shrug and looked over at the happy couple. ‘These two met at a wedding, if you can believe it − my little sister’s wedding, actually − and I know it’s a cliché, but I knew they were going the distance as soon as they started going out. Actually, let me cla
rify that first bit again. It’s not hard to meet someone. It’s hard to meet someone special.’ He cleared his throat and let his voice crack a little, and I may or may not have let out a little squeak.

  ‘When Ian started seeing Emma, he changed, and I don’t mean that in a bad way. Whenever we saw each other, he couldn’t stop saying her name. He brought her to the football and let her wear the scarf that his dad bought him when he was six, and then, when he changed his Facebook status and his profile photo, I knew it was only a matter of time.

  ‘I think, when you meet someone who you love so much that you’re happy to tell Mark Zuckerberg and the world that they’re yours, you ought to lock it down. There was never any doubt for him. As soon as they met, no one else even existed to Ian. That’s why I’m not going to stand here and make jokes about his suit and his haircut. Although I clearly could.’

  Cue genuine laughter. Cue me flushing from head to toe as Best Man Will picked up the Libbey Embassy champagne coupe that I’d had to order in especially because the bride wanted coupes and not flutes and raised it high in the air.

  He was staring right at me.

  Not at the little redheaded bridesmaid who was trying to squeeze her arms together to make her demure lilac gown show a bit more cleavage, or at the hot blonde guest who had been crossing and uncrossing her legs throughout the entire speech.

  He kept looking at me.

  Flushed in the face from running in and out of the kitchen, hair yanked back in a utilitarian ponytail, mascara all over my face after a champagne-opening incident that left me and three other people smelling like a piss-up in a very fancy brewery.

  And I had checked − my shirt wasn’t unbuttoned or anything.

  ‘So if you would all join me and raise your glasses. To the bride and groom.’

  As everyone shuffled out of their seats, the women struggling to stand in their too-high heels that would soon be kicked off and replaced with flip-flops, I blinked, breaking the connection. When I looked back, he was smiling at the bride and groom, the moment gone.

  Breathing more heavily than is healthy, I slipped back into the kitchen looking for a drink of my own.

  ‘Sorry to bother you, but have you got a light?’

  Hours later, when the buffet had been reduced to nothing more than a few stray cherry tomatoes and the odd splodge of tartar sauce, I was hiding at the back of the venue, holding a Marlboro Light, tearing up at the picture of Lauren’s engagement ring on Facebook and trying to work out how to ask Sarah if she was OK again without saying ‘Are you OK?’, because clearly she wasn’t. When I looked up, a man in a suit (strangely enough) was holding out a cigarette of his own. I blinked a couple of times, my eyes adjusting from the bright white light of the iPhone screen to the semi-darkness of my hidey-hole.

  ‘Oh, um, I haven’t actually got one,’ I said, squinting. It was one of the ushers. The one whose trousers were an inch too short. You tend to notice strange things when you work two weddings a week for three-quarters of the year. ‘Sorry.’

  ‘No worries,’ he said, putting the cigarette back in the pack of ten in his inside pocket. He was awfully tall; I supposed that explained the trousers. ‘I’m supposed to have quit anyway.’

  ‘Probably best then.’ I shuffled from foot to sensibly shod foot, flicking my unlit cigarette between my fingers and tucking my phone back into the waistband of my skirt.

  He nodded, pressed his lips together and stuck his hands in his pockets.

  ‘Did you lose your lighter?’ he asked.

  Oh good, awkward conversation. I loved those. Why couldn’t he leave me alone so I could bunk off and text my friend in peace?

  ‘Oh no,’ I replied, preparing myself. ‘I don’t smoke.’

  The very tall usher looked at me strangely.

  ‘You don’t smoke?’ he asked.

  ‘No.’

  ‘But you’re standing outside holding a cigarette?’

  ‘Yes.’

  He took in a short breath that sounded like he was going to say something, then shook his head and stopped himself. Then did it again and didn’t stop himself. More’s the pity.

  ‘I’m sure I’m going to regret it, but can I ask why you’re standing outside holding a cigarette without a lighter if you don’t smoke?’

  It was a fair question; I just didn’t want to answer it. I wanted to read some showbiz gossip on my phone, text Sarah, call Lauren and pretend I hadn’t just pissed away an entire Saturday at someone else’s special day. It didn’t matter if you were wearing Jimmy Choos or a pair of Clarks − if you were on your feet for nigh on twelve hours, you were in pain.

  ‘My boss smokes,’ I said, shaking a full box of Marlboros at him. ‘And she takes cigarette breaks all the time, so she can’t stop me from taking them. So, you know, as far as she’s concerned, I’ve got a very healthy two packs a day habit. Or unhealthy, as the case may be.’

  He looked at me. ‘You’re not serious?’

  I looked back at him.

  ‘Oh my God, you are.’

  ‘She thinks smoking is better than eating,’ I replied. ‘Fewer carbs.’

  ‘But smoking will kill you,’ he said, looking at his own pack with a regularly repeated lecture playing over in his head. ‘She does know that, doesn’t she?’

  ‘We get private health insurance,’ I said. ‘So it all works out.’

  ‘Fair enough.’ The usher put his cigarettes away and scrunched up his face for a moment, staring at me. ‘I hate weddings,’ he said.

  ‘Really?’ Who went around saying they hated weddings while they were at a wedding. ‘Why?’

  ‘There’s so much standing around,’ he said wearily, pushing wavy brown hair off his forehead. Earlier it had been all slicked back and crunchy-looking, but by this point in the proceedings his locks had let loose. He needed a good shot of Elnett; he had to be single. ‘And there’s never anywhere to go. I just want to sod off somewhere and have a sit-down.’

  ‘Once I did a wedding that had a mini cinema,’ I said, nodding in agreement, ‘but the bride got angry because everyone sat in there all night instead of dancing to the band she’d paid a bloody fortune for. In the end she made us turn the film off and shouted at everybody.’

  ‘What film was it?’ he asked.

  ‘Ghostbusters. The groom picked all the films from when they’d been dating but he did too good a job.’

  ‘I’d give my right arm to sit in the dark and watch Ghostbusters right now,’ he said, sighing. His skin was quite pale and his eyes were quite dark and he really was awfully tall. At least a foot and a half taller than me. Teetering around too tall territory. Just the right height if you wanted something down from the loft, but a nightmare to sit next to if you were flying economy.

  ‘They had ice cream and beer as well,’ I added, trying not to look at his visible ankles.

  ‘I might never have left.’ He paused for a moment and then smiled.

  He was nice looking when he smiled, a bit less gawky and angular, a realization that only made me feel all the more uncomfortable. I felt myself breathe in slightly and brushed a few stray strands of hair behind my ear.

  ‘Maybe my fiancée will let me have one at my wedding.’

  Stray strands of hair be damned and belly be bloated.

  ‘And these bloody penguin suits,’ he said, ignoring me and pulling at his stiff collar. ‘If I took my tie off, I’d look like one of you.’

  ‘One of you?’ I asked. What the cocking cock was that supposed to mean?

  ‘Oh. Oh!’ he said, hands stuck midair as though he were showing me he had caught a fish thiiiiis big. ‘I didn’t mean anything by it. Just that, you know, I’m dressed like a waiter.’

  As soon as he’d said it, I could tell he wanted to take it back. Unfortunately for him, I was not in the mood to let anyone off with anything.

  ‘And what’s wrong with being a waiter?’ I asked.

  He looked even paler than he had two minutes before. ‘Nothing. But I’m a
lawyer.’

  He couldn’t have been anything else in the world, could he? He had to be a lawyer.

  ‘And you think being a lawyer is better than being a waiter?’

  ‘I was just trying to say how funny it is that we’re both wearing black and white, when I’m at the wedding and you’re just a waitress,’ he said.

  And there it was. The shovel hit the soil and suddenly he was tit-deep in a hole he couldn’t possibly dig himself out of. Just a waitress? Just a waitress?

  ‘Not that I think being a lawyer is better than being a waitress,’ he said, the panic setting in. ‘I think it’s brilliant that you’re a waitress.’

  I was so angry, I was very nearly ready to be slightly rude.

  ‘Is it?’

  No one had ever made those two syllables sound like such a threat.

  He was flustered. I was angry. It was a perfect British combination. I think we both knew it was time for him to give up and walk away, but I knew he wasn’t going to: lawyers never could.

  ‘Absolutely. I look like a penguin.’ The usher pressed his arms against his side and kicked his legs out. He looked so ridiculous that I almost softened. ‘I think you’re more of a panda.’

  And then I stopped almost smiling.

  ‘How come you’re a penguin and I’m a panda?’ I asked, breathing in again. Had he just called me fat? ‘Because I’m a woman?’

  ‘Pandas are good!’ he replied, exasperated. ‘Pandas are better than penguins!’

  ‘Maddie?’ Shona’s voice cut through the darkness.

  ‘Christ.’ I pulled my cigarette back out, broke off the filter and ground it against the wall before Shona could bust me. ‘Whatever.’

  ‘Pandas are better than penguins,’ he said in a sulky voice. ‘So much better. Everyone knows that.’

  I shook my head and turned on my heel, striding back towards the kitchen as quickly as my ugly practical shoes would carry me.

  Wanker.

  4

  ‘MADDIE!’

  ‘I’m here!’ I picked up pace and ran into the kitchen, to find my boss waiting for me. ‘What’s wrong?’