Page 3 of The Love Hack

‘But you don’t need?—‘

‘It’s not about needing. Come on, Luce. It’s just one day, and I’m chucking everything I’ve got at it because… well, because if I didn’t I’d look at the photos after and think, maybe if I’d put a bit more effort in, I could’ve looked better. And when something’s going to be up on your living room wall for the rest of your life you want to make damn sure it’s as right as it can be.’

‘I still think?—’

‘I tell you what though, it’s a bastarding faff,’ she carried on as if I hadn’t spoken. ‘The skincare, the Callanetics – apparently that used to be thing ages ago, did you know? And it’s back. It’s meant to make you all lean and toned like a dancer. The damn Invisalign retainers. I haven’t told Zack about them – once my teeth were straight I thought that would be it, but no, I have to wear those vile plastic trays every night forever. Except I can’t wear them at night – I mean, I’m getting married. Who goes on honeymoon with those? So I try and wear them for eight hours during the day, except I’m constantly spitting them out when I have meetings.’

‘Or need to eat.’

‘Or to eat. So I’ve been having protein shakes, mostly. They make me feel like I’m receiving palliative care and they taste like chocolate-flavoured chalk.’

She heaved a weary sigh and I poured wine into our glasses and handed her one, watching as she took a deep gulp and then another.

‘Did you sort out the thing with the flowers?’ I asked, remembering some crisis a week or so back, but unable to recall the details.

‘Mum did. We can’t have the original ones I wanted – the giant orange daisy things – because they’d have to be imported from China or something. But the florist showed Mum some alternative ones that we think will do. Honestly, I’m so done with it all now. I just want to be married to Zack. No one tells you when you get engaged that planning a wedding takes over your entire life and before it even happens you’re sick to death of it all and can’t wait for it to be over.’

‘Don’t be daft.’ Since Amelie’s engagement, I’d seen her giddy with joy when she finally found The One (dress, that is), in floods of tears when her dream venue got snapped up before she could book it, and on the verge of a toddler-worthy strop when the invitations got printed in a shade she declared was peach rather than apricot. But this weary resignation was a new one on me, and it worried me. ‘Look, you’ll have heard this before but I’m saying it anyway. It’s just one day. Of course you want everything to be perfect, but in the grand scheme of things?—‘

‘But that’s what I’m saying. It’s just one day. God! All this stress for one stupid day.’

‘So stop. Step away from the tuna omelettes. Ditch the skincare. Chill out a bit and just’ – I produced a pretty poor attempt at chanelling Elsa from Frozen – ‘Let it go.’

‘Yeah, right. If I did, you’d have to listen to me whinge on for years and years about how it could have all been perfect but it wasn’t. This way, at least you only have to put up with my drama for forty-four more days.’

‘Forty-five days. Trust me, I know. I’ve got one of those countdown things on my phone.’ I swiped the screen to life. ‘Actually, forty-five days, fourteen hours and eleven minutes until I get my sister back.’

Except I’d never get my sister back. Not really. In forty-five days and whatever else it was, she’d become Zack’s wife first and Lucy’s sister second, and that would never change back again. And immediately after the wedding, she and Zack were decamping to New York for six months for him to work on some lucrative secondment and her to be his trailing spouse.

‘Have I really been that bad? I’m so sorry, Luce.’

‘Utterly vile,’ I confirmed, smiling.

Amelie grinned back. ‘Well, if I can’t be utterly vile when I’m getting married, when can I? Honestly, I’m sorry. It’s just all so… It’s a lot. Sometimes I wish we’d just decided, “Fuck it,” and eloped to John O’Groats.’

‘You mean Gretna Green.’

‘Whatever.’ Amelie splashed Picpoul into our glasses and scooted round on the sofa so she was facing me, cross-legged. ‘Anyway. How are things with you?’

I took a breath, ready to tell her the whole story of the barely-read warning letter, my meeting with Marion, and the prospect of being able to keep my job – well, a job, at any rate – if I could only think of something valuable I could bring to the Radiant Media party. But before I could get a single word out, I heard myself give a massive gulp that turned into a sob, and suddenly I was crying as if I’d never stop.

‘Oh my God. Luce, what’s wrong? Has something bad happened? Is it Astro?’ My sister hauled me across the sofa and enfolded me in her white towelling arms, and held me tight while I sobbed, patting my back soothingly then passing me tissues when the flood of tears eventually slowed down.

Once I was able to speak again, I poured out the whole story.

‘So I won’t have a job, after next week. I’ll have some redundancy money but it won’t last long and I don’t know what to do,’ I finished self-pityingly. ‘I can’t believe this is happening to me again.’

‘It's nothing like last time,’ Amelie said firmly. ‘What bastards, though. And this Ross? Who is he, anyway? The fucker.’

‘It’s not really his fault,’ I said. ‘He’s been there longer than me. Last in, first out, they said. If only I could think of another job for me to do, but I can’t.’

‘You can.’ My sister looked at me with the same steely determination I’d seen in her face since she was a baby, determined to reach the vase of roses Mum had put out of her reach on the coffee table and bring the whole lot crashing to the floor. ‘We can. Together. We’ll think of something.’

‘I mean, I could offer to make coffee for everyone and reboot the server when it goes wrong. But it’s not like they’ll pay me a full-time wage for that.’

Amelie tutted. ‘Not that. Come on. You need to come up with something wow. You need to make them an offer they can’t refuse.’

‘Clean the bogs when the Beast of Cubicle Two’s done a massive shit in there and there’s a client due in five minutes?’

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