Page 42 of Always the Bridesmaid

The friends who did stick with me, ironically, were men. Drew, despite being Danny’s best friend, hadn’t abandoned me under a banner of ‘too difficult’. Brooks and Jake still invited me places.

And now, I have the ladies in this bridal suite to count amongst my best friends. There’s no way that I could lose them that isn’t beyond my control. And I will do just about anything to keep in my life the people I love.

I am the one to call upon as Matron of Honor. I’ll be the one who buys the best and most inappropriate gifts that my godchildren will love. I’ll be the one to call if they ever need to hide a body.

My peak of loss has been reached and I am not willing to lose anyone else important to me.

Thankfully, the morning passes in a blur of me topping up mimosas and orange juice, handing out pastries when people can’t get up from their seats because they are being arranged by a hair stylist or beautician, finding hair grips, lost shoe boxes and mislaid items of clothing.

There isn’t time for me to dwell on the past, or recent history, like yesterday and why on earth that lump of… lump of stupid man avoided me all day.

Does he think I am just as dumb as him? Feigning being asleep? Come on! As if I’d fall for that. As if I didn’t try that trick on my mother a million times as a child.

My mind does defy me and briefly wanders to these thoughts about Charlie. When I come back to the room, standing behind Izzy and holding a box of hair grips as the stylist perfects her up-do, Izzy is looking at my reflection in the mirror.

‘Penny for ’em?’ she asks.

I smile. ‘I’m not sure where I went there.’

More quietly, Izzy asks, ‘Are you okay?’

Still smiling, I lie. ‘Absolutely. I think I might be a little dehydrated. I can’t remember when I last had a drink of something that wasn’t a mimosa. Would you like water?’

Just like that, I busy myself with another job.

By the time the other bridesmaids and Jess are complete with make-up and hair, though still in the matching silk robes that I ordered and had personalized for the occasion, we are running massively behind schedule.

‘Just do whatever you have time for, I’ll be happy with anything,’ I tell the hair stylist, who has agreed to work around the beautician, who is applying a limited range of products to my face, both due to time constraints and because I never feel comfortable wearing a heavy coverage.

The stylist has partially pinned up my hair and curled the ends of the rest with heated irons. The beautician has applied soft-pink color to my lips and cheeks, and nude shades everywhere else.

Just as I am proclaimed complete, the wedding photographer knocks on the suite door. Jess wanted the morning, before now, to be natural and just us girls. It has meant that we could talk freely and, I suspect, delayed the element of the day Jess is least looking forward to – being surrounded by people she doesn’t consider to be her nearest and dearest.

‘Can I get the Matron of Honor helping Jess into her dress?’ the photographer asks after she has taken pictures of Jess’s dress hanging on the antique wardrobe and her bridal shoes standing on the windowsill, the outdoor wedding set-up in the background.

We can see guests arriving and filling the rows of white iron chairs that have been decorated with bows and wildflowers. At this stage, the archway, similarly decorated, which will act as the altar, is empty. Jake and the groomsmen aren’t outside yet.

I have a feeling that Jess’s increasingly nervous energy would be calmed if she could see Jake. For now, I will have to be his lesser replacement.

Once the photographer has positioned Jess in front of the free-standing, floor-length mirror, I start fastening the dress. There are twenty-four buttons on the back and as I take each one in turn, my eyes begin to sting. The pace in the room has slowed and the emotion of the morning is threatening to spill out of me.

When I’ve finished the buttons, I look up to the mirror and the reflected image of Jess, secured into her dress. Elegant. Mesmerizing.

My tears fill my eyes now because her beauty is the straw that finally breaks the dam.

The photographer asks for the headband of wildflowers. For the purposes of photography only, I place the headband on Jess’s head and once the photographer is satisfied, I step aside to allow the hairstylist to take over, forcing the fingers of the band into Jess’s hair, accentuating the flawlessly relaxed look.

The photographer hands each of us a tissue and though we all genuinely wipe our eyes and noses, the photographer makes impromptu snaps of what I think will be the funniest picture of all – four grown women, all dressed-up, blowing their noses.

If Charlie had been in the room, I am sure he would have come up with a hilarious caption, taking the emotion out of the situation. As I smile for more pictures, I ponder how much of his use of humor is a product of him papering over a troubled youth. Not for the first time, I think: is comedy his defense mechanism?

Almost at the same time, guilt pulls my heart deep down into my abdomen.

Why am I thinking about Charlie now? Why isn’t the first person I am thinking about in the circumstances Danny and what he would say on seeing me brim-full of emotion?

Thankfully, the venue’s wedding coordinator, Ashley, knocks on the door at that moment. We have clawed back some time, thanks to me having shorter slots with the beautifying team and Jess calling time on photographs sooner than the photographer would have liked. We are as close as any bride can be expected to be to the planned schedule.

‘Are you ready, Jess? It’s time,’ Ashley says. He is tall and slender, wearing a plain black three-piece suit, as opposed to period dress like the other staff at the hotel, and his hair has been slicked in a way that reminds me of Joe Elvis. ‘You look a million dollars.’

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