Page 102 of The Wedding Game

‘You’re OK?’ Victoria queries.

‘I mean I don’t need to add anyone to the guest list. I’m all good.’

‘So long as you’re sure.’

I smile reassuringly.

‘I’ll leave a couple of spaces in case you decide you want to add someone else later,’ she says. ‘We’ve got a one-hundred person package and there’s a few spaces left to fill.’

This is too much for me and a huge smile spreads across my face. I stand up as a distraction, move to the sink, fill aglass with water so that Victoria can’t see my face, and try desperately not to laugh. Is it inappropriate to draw up a bingo grid now? It probably is, given that I know everything awaiting me at this wedding.

‘What’s so funny?’ she asks.

‘Nothing,’ I say. A 100-person guest package and not enough friends to fill it. That’s kind of tragic.

And also very funny.

CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX

Lexie

Six months later: September

‘Here we go again,’ I say. ‘Another wedding. Lexie and Scarlet. Scarlet and Lexie. Until one of us dies.’

‘I wouldn’t have it any other way,’ she replies, as she hares through the country lanes. ‘Though I really thought these days were over.’

‘I’m pleased they’re not. It’s like the good old days.’

‘The good old days were only two and a half years ago, when we last did this at Grey’s wedding in Edinburgh. The one where I met Rory,’ Scarlet sighs with happiness.

I’ve driven the first half of the journey and she’s on the final leg. I’ve only just passed my test and I’m far too nervous to negotiate tight lanes. The motorway was frightening enough and, because I refused to go above seventy miles per hour, we’re even later than we normally are for these occasions. Scarlet’s a pro, though, whizzing through the tight spaces. She’s been driving since she was eighteen, unlikeme. We’re dressed in our wedding finery, although we really should have checked in with each other first, because we are both in pale pink.

‘Now wereallylook like a couple,’ Scarlet noted when I picked her up half an hour late in our little rental car. ‘It’s going to bejustlike before.’ This wedding is for Scarlet’s friends. And as this year’s wedding season is in full swing, Rory is on a stag-do, so I’m Scarlet’s plus-one.

‘All my friends are married now,’ I tell her. ‘And all your lot must be close to being married too? Surely next year we’ll get our summer weekends back.’

‘Probably,’ she agrees. ‘Although just when you think everyone’s finished, it’ll be divorces followed by second marriages, and the weddings will kick-start again. We really could be each other’s plus-ones until we die,’ she says.

‘Dear God, I hope not.’ I cough pointedly, as I would like her to put both hands on the wheel in the ten-to-two position, and not check her make-up in the rear-view mirror.

The GPS tells us we’ve got about ten minutes left on the journey, and Scarlet asks me to get the card out of her bag and write it.

‘What are their names?’ I ask as I rest the card on my knee.

‘Victoria and …’

‘And …?’ I query.

‘Bugger, can’t remember.’

‘Try and remember.’

‘Just putTo the Happy Couple.’

‘That’s such a shitty cop-out. And I’ve already written theword “Victoria”. I can’t cross it out and write something else now. Where’s the invite – it’ll be on there?’

‘I left it on the mantel, but I’ve written the time and the church address in my diary.’

---