Page 55 of Once Bitten, Twice Fried
“He’s probably still on the plane or something.” Yasmine sighed. She looked up and noticed Zoe and Julie.
“I don’t know what to say, Yas.” Julie’s voice was almost breaking.
“You don’t have to say anything.” Yasmine stood up. “I’m so sorry, you planned everything so perfectly and put in so much work and now everything is going down the drain because of this stupid documentary.” Tears sprang into Yasmine’s eyes.
“I’m so sorry for you. This was your big day. We worked so hard for this.” Julie grabbed Yasmine in a tight hug. They stayed like that for a moment.
Zoe couldn’t take their eyes off her two friends. It was moments like this which reminded her that she’d been away for ten years. There was more that was said between Yasmine and Julie in a simple gesture than she could ever do. The sorrow she felt for Yasmine was met with a wave of regret. Regrets of not being there. Regrets of not catching up, of losing track of what was important.
Her gaze met Yasmine’s. “I’m so s-” Zoe mouthed before interrupting herself as Yasmine was waving for her to come join the hug.
Zoe slowly approached her friends and wrapped her arms around both Yasmine and Julie. She felt tears come up but wasn’t sure if it was because she was feeling bad for Yasmine, because she was tired or because she was happy to be there. She’d missed a lot, but not everything was lost.
Julie broke the hug after a few seconds. “What do we do now?”
“I’m trying to call Adam.” Yasmine wiped the bottom of her eyelid with her finger. “And then I’ll figure it out from there. I’m sure it’ll be fine in the end and that they’ll be able to work around what we have planned. At least, I hope.”
“Yeah… He wouldn’t do anything too crazy, right?” Julie asked. Zoe wasn’t sure if she wanted to reassure Yasmine or herself.
“No, you’re right… He likes things to be perfect as well. I just wish he had told me beforehand. I’ll try to call him again and get to the bottom of this.” Yasmine smiled kindly. “It’s late, you don’t need to be worrying about this tonight. You all should be going to sleep. Or drinking wine or something.”
Julie smiled back, slightly nodding.
“You sure? If you need anything, let us know.” Zoe could tell that Yasmine didn’t want to worry them. At the same time, there was nothing else to be done than wait for Adam to tell her whatthis was all about. It was no use for all of the bridesmaids to panic for an entire evening.
“Thanks, Zoe, I will. Having all of you here is already helping lots.”
“Well,” Julie yawned, “I think I’m going to call it an early night then. I’d rather be well-rested for whatever is going to happen tomorrow.” She stretched her arms. “Good night everyone.” Julie lingered for a minute longer, looking a little uncertain if she really wanted to leave or not. She eventually gave everyone a wave, popped out in the garden to say goodnight to the other bridesmaids, then headed upstairs.
“I think I’m going to go too.” Zoe felt the stress of the day hit her all at once. Being curled up in bed didn’t sound like a bad thing at all.
“You’re sure you don’t want a last glass of wine in the garden?” Marion asked. Zoe had almost forgotten that she was there.
“I’m tempted, but I know it would be a bad idea.” Zoe smiled. “By the way, you can just leave everything outside when you go to bed. The catering team will be back tomorrow morning and they’ll clean everything.”
“You’re very nice, but we can manage to bring a few glasses in if that can make the job easier.”
“They’ll appreciate it.”
Chapter 24
After some swift goodbyes - both in the living room and out in the garden - Zoe headed upstairs and followed the corridor to her room. A small part of her wished she could run into Julie - who might have forgotten something downstairs or wanted a glass of water from the kitchen - but nothing happened. She slowed down in front of Julie’s closed door and held her breath, but couldn’t hear anything inside. Zoe was half-relieved. She was hoping for some resolution, but she was also exhausted. After a moment she moved on to the next door, which led to her own room.
She walked in and flicked on the light, then frowned. Earlier the room had been stuffy, so she’d left her balcony door open to air the place out during the day. It wasn’t stuffy any longer, but the smell of cigarettes seemed to be wafting in. She heard a cough, and went out to the balcony to investigate.
Julie’s bedroom window was just next to Zoe’s balcony. The window was open, and Julie was leaning out of it, smoking.
“Julie?” She craned her neck to get in Julie’s field of vision.
“Huh?” Julie started as she noticed Zoe, and coughed again.
“I didn’t know you smoked.” Zoe scraped her memory to remember a time she’d ever seen Julie with a cigarette, but came up blank. In part because her brain wouldn’t shut up about how effortlessly cool and cute Julie looked with her cigarette in the dark. It was like being sixteen all over again.
“Well, I usually don’t. As you can tell.” Julie coughed again. “I borrowed one from Leila who said that it was good stress relief.”
“And so you thought that starting smoking in your thirties was a good idea?” Zoe chuckled.
“I could do worse, I could start doing heroin or something,” Julie answered. She looked at the burning light at the tip of her fingers, hesitated for a second then turned to Zoe. “I don’t think I can finish it alone. Do you wanna share?”
