in front of her to poke them between the railings of the balcony, which must have looked pretty odd to anyone sitting in the garden beneath them. ‘They’ve been practising since I got home from work,’ Becca said. ‘It’s been great, like having a mini concert in our living room. I’m going to miss this.’
Eve knew when she’d moved in that it wasn’t a long-term arrangement as Becca’s wedding to military man Jack was wedding number four of the summer and Jack had been faithfully promised a family house on the base after the wedding. Whenever the thought of Becca moving out popped into her head, Eve batted it away. She and Becca had lived together all the way through university, sharing a tiny semi in one of Brighton’s less salubrious back streets with Tanya, and another friend, Ben. Even though eight years lay between them sharing that semi and this flat, Eve and Becca had slotted straight back into being flatmates.
‘Have you sorted your costume for Rob’s wedding on Saturday?’ Eve asked, trying not to wince at the word costume rather than outfit. She really didn’t understand why some couples insisted on their guests joining in their theme by donning superhero capes or flapper dresses; what was wrong with a nice wrap dress?
‘I’m raiding the school drama department’s store cupboard tomorrow.’
‘If you see something for me, can you pick it up?
Perhaps now, Eve thought, with the chilled wine in hand and the soft jazz rising from the bar below, Becca would be open to talking about the logistics of her own wedding. Considering that she’d been engaged for nearly three years you’d have thought she’d have been further along in the planning process. Eve remembered back to when Becca had broken the news of her engagement, calling her across the Atlantic, as she did most evenings. Their calls were Eve’s favourite part of the day, which she had admitted to no one but Becca, because after all, living in New York was supposed to be fun. If you were to ask any single thirty-year old whether New York was a fun place you’d have to cover your ears with the deafening volume of the resounding yeses, which would be promptly followed by the clink of ice into gin martinis. If you were in media in New York it meant you’d made it. Hit the big time. Written your own success story. You were playing in the major league. Everyone knew that. It was only Becca who knew this wasn’t really the case for Eve.
That night, almost three years ago, Eve had just carried her dinner across the tiny hallway to her windowless bedroom in a dodgy part of Brooklyn, when she had felt her phone vibrating in her back pocket. She had set the hot bowl of microwaved soup down on a pile of coffee table books that doubled up as her dining table, desk and nightstand and answered the nightly call from her best friend.
‘Evening lovely, how’s your day been?’
‘Exhausting, soul-destroying, murderous,’ Eve had replied.
‘Murderous. That’s a new one.’
‘I think that one has staying power. Today, I’ve interviewed a man who lived his life dressed as a baby, a woman whose plastic surgery on her bottom went so wrong it was impossible to sit down, a couple who raised pot-bellied pigs in their house instead of children, and I wrote a feature with the headline “My boyfriend has a Spiderman mask tattooed on his face.”’ Back in the beginning, when Eve had fought off hundreds of other journalists and got the job as Features Editor for What a Life! in the Big Apple, she was horrified at the people knocking on the magazine’s doors to share their stories for the set fifty-dollar fee. There was no way this type of magazine could ever be sustainable, Eve had thought, surely the weirdness would dry up? There must be a finite number of bizarre people around the world? It turned out there wasn’t. And thanks to the page at the front of the magazine listing all the staff members and their contact details, every single weirdo had Eve’s email address.
‘Ask me how my day’s been,’ Becca had demanded.
‘Becca, how has your day been?’
‘Absobloodylutely fabulous. Jack and I got engaged!’
Eve’s face had burst into a spontaneous smile. ‘That’s amazing news! I’m so happy for you, honestly that’s made my day. My week! Heck, you know what? That’s the best news I’ve heard all year. And it’s the middle of December, so the year is almost up.’
‘Jack was such a sweetheart. We went down to Devon to visit Mum and Dad and he took my dad for a pint and asked him, then he took me for a walk through the woods and proposed to me at exactly 3.33pm, my favourite time.’
Eve mumbled through the spoonful of tinned minestrone she’d just scooped into her mouth: ‘You have a favourite time?’
‘Of course I do! Doesn’t everyone? Anyway, stop talking. I wanted to ask you something important. You’re so amazing at planning stuff, and such an organisational fiend, and you’re my best friend, so will you be my chief bridesmaid and also help me plan the wedding?’
‘Yes and yes! Oh my goodness, this is so exciting! What are you thinking? A city do in a posh hotel, or a manor house in the country, or a… oh Becca, we could do it abroad!’
‘I want a really low-key thing in my parent’s cow field.’
Eve stopped chewing.
‘Eve? Are you still there?’
‘I’m sorry, for a moment I thought I heard you say that you wanted to get married in a cow field.’
‘Well, not actually married, we’ll do that at the local church, but I want to have the reception in the field behind my folks’ farm.’
‘Won’t the cows mind the intrusion?’
‘We’ll move them silly. But I love the idea of a festival feel, with bunting and barrels and picnic baskets. Do you think we could pull it off?’
‘If that’s what you want, that’s what you’ll get. I’ll start my research tomorrow. This is so exciting, and just the thing I need to take my mind off how shitty my life is.’
‘You don’t have to stay in New York you know, you could just come back,’ Becca had reminded her, not for the first time.
Eve had pretended not to hear her, just like she did every time Becca had said it. Going back to London wasn’t an option. ‘So what time of year are you thinking? If it’s going to be outside, I’m guessing summer?’
‘Yes, not the next one though, that’s too soon. Maybe the one after that. Or the one after that.’ It was typical Becca, laid-back to the point of comatose. The vague date did little to quell Eve’s enthusiasm for planning though, and Becca’s engagement had resulted in a new job for Eve too. The following day she’d quickly realised that there was no better antidote to the gritty seediness she usually spent her day delving into than the swirly pink and turquoise fonts of online wedding magazines that had headlines like Super-pretty princess dresses and Best day ever! Every website Eve looked at had little hearts doodled into their company logos. Each photo of couples staring adoringly at each other had a soft-focus finish that made their love seem even more magical. How could you ever be miserable writing about romance every day?
Scrolling down the page past a link to an article on bouquets called Everything’s rosy and one on honeymoon destinations entitled Paradise found, Eve’s eyes had rested on a little pink box on the right of the page. Above the editor’s email address, were two words that had made Eve’s eyes widen: We’re hiring.
Without giving herself any time to change her mind, Eve had quickly typed out an email, attached her CV and pressed send. And Eve-the-wedding-guru was born.
She’d stayed with the American wedding magazine for a year before reluctantly moving back to London to work for its English edition when her dad had died. It had been as though the universe had aligned everything to slot into place: the job opening in London, Becca’s former flatmate moving out; call it coincidence, fate, luck – whatever it was, it meant Eve’s transition back into London life wasn’t as awful as she had thought it might be. It didn’t stop the ghosts taunting her around every corner though.
A