Twelve years ago
‘Do you think I should get my nose pierced, Callie?’
‘No way! Your mum would kill you.’
‘My mum is not the boss of me.’
‘She is when you’re fourteen years old and you have to sit opposite her at the dinner table every night as she tuts and rolls her eyes at you and generally despairs about what teenagers call fashionable nowadays. Or worse, she could bang on about all those infections people get from body jewellery that she comes across every day on the wards. Gross.’
‘Killjoy. Hey, turn the radio up – I love this song!’
‘Boring! Robbie Williams is old enough to be your dad! What is he, like, forty?’
‘Thirty. So what, if he’s gorgeous?’
Callie spun from her stomach into a sitting-up position – no mean feat when she had just finished painting both her fingernails and toenails in a delectable shade of fuchsia – and cast her eyes over the posters plastered across every spare inch of Nessa’s bedroom walls. She even had a Robbie Williams pillow, for God’s sake. Crushfest or what?
Nessa finished her off-key rendition of ‘Millennium’ on a high note. With a theatrical swoon, she dropped down from her bed onto the sheepskin rug next to Callie, her bare feet swinging in the air behind her, her chin cupped in her palms as she studied Callie’s pencil sketch.
‘Wow, that’s stunning, Callie. I’m definitely booking you to design my wedding dress.’
‘For when you marry Robbie, right?’
‘Yep. Look.’
Nessa reached underneath her bed and hauled out a large square box decorated with a collage of wedding scenes she’d cut from sheets of wrapping paper. On the lid Nessa had glued a glossy photo of her idol.
‘So you’ve relegated Seb to second place, have you?’
‘Your cousin is gorgeous, Callie, but, well, this is Robbie Williams we’re talking about!’
Callie giggled. These Sunday afternoons at Nessa’s house were what she looked forward to all week. They’d established a routine whereby each week they’d add something new to their wedding scrap boxes. This week it was veils and headpieces and that morning she’d found a heavenly tiara in one of the Sunday supplements. She passed the cutting over for Nessa’s valued opinion.
‘What do you think?’
‘Exquisite taste as usual, Callie-Louise, fashion designer to the stars. And I see Theo is still in residence.’ Nessa pointed to the picture sellotaped to the lid of Callie’s own wedding scrap box. ‘There are loads of other guys to choose from, you know.’
‘But I’m dating Theo. And I’m going to marry him!’
‘No one meets their soulmate when they’re fourteen, Callie.’
‘I’ve known Theo since I was ten, Nessa. He’s been Seb’s best friend and partner in crime since the day they liberated Gordon the gerbil from his home in Miss Porter’s reception class.’
‘But you’ve got to spread your wings, try a few more before you buy.’
Callie tossed a fluffy cushion at her best friend. ‘Hey, stop dissing my boyfriend. Anyhow, you’re just jealous!’
‘You got me there. It’s true – he’s hot!’
Nessa collected her imaginary microphone, flung her auburn curls over her shoulder, and struck a pose on top of her duvet, her recently applied emerald nail polish glittering in the afternoon light that bleached through her bedroom window.
‘Listen up all you music fans out there! Mr Theo Dalton Drake, seventeen-year-old heartthrob and lead singer in up-and-coming teenage rock band The Razorclaws, is taken! Yes, you heard right! The hunk with hair the colour of sand washed in warm summer sunshine, the cutest chin this side of Leeds and a body to die for has fallen for his childhood sweetheart, Callie-Louise Henshaw.
‘When asked to comment, Miss Henshaw clasped her chest and informed the braying paparazzi, ‘Oh my, I just knew we were destined to be together when – aged only ten – our eyes met across the headteacher’s office after we’d been found snogging in the bushes. Stay tuned, Peeps, for details of our helpline number!’
Callie rolled her eyes at her BFF, but her smile was as wide as an actress’s in a toothpaste commercial.
‘Callie? Earth to Callie?’ smirked Flora, dragging a gargantuan cardboard wardrobe into the design studio, a bangle of brown tape around her wrist and a coffee cup balanced precariously in her hand. ‘Are we ready to pack this glitzy creation of silk and pearls into its protective shell? The courier will be here any minute and you know what they’re like – won’t be kept waiting for anything. You don’t want to miss the deadline, do you? Can I help?’
‘No!’ Callie raised her head from where she had been snoozing at her desk. An unpleasant waft of stale pizza assaulted her nostrils and a crumpled post-it had attached itself to her cheek. She held up her palm to Flora’s face. ‘Step away from the dress! I mean it, Flora. If you even come one step closer with that skinny latte, I’ll be forced to shoot you with my staple gun. What’s possessed you to bring coffee in here, anyway?’
Her response sounded like the snap of an irate dragon, a mother protecting its young, and so it was to Callie. The gestation of the Callie-Louise entry into the wedding gown competition of the decade had been a full nine months and was now, save for a few final tweaks, ready for its delivery into the outside world – well, to the Audley Suite at The Dorchester where the judging would take place the next day.
‘Sorry, Flora, don’t take any notice of me. I’m just exhausted. Thanks, though. Only these last few seed pearls and I’m done. But you could do me a huge favour by asking Scarlet to come down here?’
‘Sure.’ Flora meandered from the room, humming to herself. She was not the sharpest pair of scissors in a tailor’s armoury, but her sweet temperament and her willingness to skip down the street for their regular infusions of espresso, latte and cappuccino made her a popular and essential member of the Callie-Louise Bridal Couture team.
Callie rethreaded her needle, knelt down at the hem of the gown and, with her bottom pointing to the ceiling, resumed the intricate task of squinting at the exquisite ivory silk that had formed the backdrop to her dreams for the last six months. The nationwide competition to design the wedding dress the celebrity actress Lilac Verbois would wear for her forthcoming marriage to Finn