Page 62 of Merrily Ever After
My hen party was under way in a Thai restaurant. Apparently, we’d been given their best table, although I did wonder whether the words ‘hen party’ had influenced their choice of location as we were well away from the other diners. Even so, we were attracting a lot of attention. Possibly something to do with the inflatable gold crown I’d been forced to wear, and the large, framed photo of Cole dressed in a very small pair of swimming trunks in the centre of the table.
Nell mimed zipping her lips shut. ‘So I should avoid telling everyone about when you stood behind the photographer at my wedding and flashed your knickers while the men were having a group shot?’
‘That sort of thing, yes,’ I said, shaking my head in resignation while everyone laughed.
We were on our second bottle of fizz and the starters hadn’t arrived yet. I was feeling on the nice side of tipsy already. I probably should have ordered something more substantial than salad to begin with, but I wasn’t hungry. Working long hours and being preoccupied with wedding stuff had led me to miss meals. On top of that, I was still carrying around that niggling worry about Freya’s Christmas wish. All this had had the effect of shrinking my appetite.
I was probably worrying unnecessarily, I told myself firmly. I vowed to work harder on my party mood and took a big sip of champagne.
‘And should I not mention how you upstaged the bride a second time when all us girls were having our picture taken?’ Nell continued.
Cesca gasped. ‘You flashed twice in one day?’
‘Technically, yes,’ I protested, ‘but only because I’d stood on an ant’s nest and they were running up my legs.’
Astrid let out a bark of laughter, ‘I’d forgotten that story.’
‘Hmm.’ Nell pursed her lips. ‘Fortunately for Merry, Olek’s two male cousins offered to help, dropped to their knees and stuck their heads up her dress to slap the ants off her while she danced on the spot squealing. Best wedding they’d ever been to, they said.’
I giggled at the memory. ‘The photographer did catch the whole thing on camera. But nothing could have upstaged you that day, you looked every inch the radiant bride.’
‘As will you on Christmas Eve. Merry, I’m so proud to be your best friend,’ Nell said, growing serious as she waved her glass in the air. ‘We’ve been through so much together. Cole is a lucky man and I know you’re going to make him a wonderful partner for life. I half expected that on your hen do I’d be secretly thinking that no manwould be good enough for you, but you’ve found yourself a diamond in Cole.’
‘Thank you. That means a lot.’ I felt tears prickle.
‘He’s not that bad, I suppose,’ said Hester grudgingly, although she had a sparkle in her eye. ‘And proposing to you is probably the best thing he’s done in a long time, so he gets my vote too.’
‘Whoop, whoop!’ Fliss chimed in.
‘To the future Mrs Robinson!’ Nell lifted her glass high, and the others joined in.
‘Cheers!’ I said, raising my own glass. ‘And thank you, Nell. For organising tonight and persuading me to have a hen party, you were right of course, and you’re the best friend a girl could wish for.’
‘Aww.’ She bent down and kissed my cheek, sloshing liquid down the front of my dress. ‘Oops, sorry.’
I brushed the drips away. ‘Don’t worry. It’s not a real hen party if you haven’t had a drink poured down your cleavage.’
‘Precisely,’ said Hester, topping up our glasses. ‘And at least champagne is classy. I was handcuffed to an ironing board on my hen night. It doesn’t get less aspirational than that.’
We cackled with laughter, almost frightening off the waitstaff who’d chosen that moment to bring over our starters. Conversation was briefly postponed while the right food found the right person and we all tucked in.
‘You may well laugh,’ Hester continued, between mouthfuls of noodle salad. ‘But flagging down a cab was an absolute nightmare.’
The image of the elegant and immaculately turned-out Hester trying to climb into a taxi while manhandling an ironing board had us in stitches.
‘And the taxi driver who did eventually pick me up fancied himself as a comedian and amused himself throughout the entire journey with terrible puns, like having to charge me a flat rate, and going full steam ahead because he was pressed for time and asking if I was “bored” yet.’
‘I hope someone was there to help you when you got home?’ Astrid asked. She gingerly picked off flakes of red chilli from the top of her crab cakes and cut into them.
Hester nodded. ‘Paul, luckily. Although after he’d watched an ironing board emerge from the back of a taxi, followed by his drunken fiancée, he was weak with laughter. And then while I waited for him to fetch bolt cutters from the garage, I began to feel sick. I only just made it to the downstairs loo.’ She paused and covered her face as we all laughed. ‘Imagine if you will, me on my knees bent over the loo, and Paul standing behind me, one hand keeping my hair back, the other holding the ironing board out horizontally to take the weight off my wrist.’
‘I don’t suppose you have any of this on camera, do you?’ I asked, wiping tears of laughter from my eyes.
‘No, thank goodness,’ she replied with a giggle. ‘But at least you know that whatever happens to you tonight won’t be as bad as that.’
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ I looked uneasily around the circle and my friends dropped their gazes to their glasses, except Nell, who widened her eyes innocently.
‘We’re teasing,’ said Astrid, taking pity on me. ‘This is your night, to have your way.’
