call it a day at trying different shops. Salons. Whatever.’
‘I knew you’d try to sabotage today, I just knew it.’
Leila knew Lucy would be mortified if she realised that a little bit of snot was stuck to the outside of her nose and that her eyeliner had smudged on the left side. While this was immensely gratifying to see, and more than a little amusing, Leila knew that staying silent went against everything the new Leila stood for. So she passed Lucy a tissue and said, ‘Wipe your nose and your eyes and how about we both pretend you didn’t say that and I ring ahead to the next two appointments to see if they can do this dress any quicker?’
As luck would have it, there was a cancelled order at the next boutique in very similar measurements to Lucy’s. It was Lucy that cited this as ‘very lucky,’ Leila couldn’t help viewing it from the other side, thinking of the poor woman that drank the free champagne, paraded in her dream dress in front of her emotional mum and friends and then tearfully phoned to cancel a few months later. But for the purposes of familial harmony, Leila kept mute. Now was most certainly not the time to introduce the concept of perspective.
She must admit though, Lucy did seem to be extraordinarily fortunate. In the end Judy and Thomas hadn’t had to cancel the couple on the 1st July, they did that themselves. And Marcus had also bartered a great price for the original couple’s photographer who had already accepted a non-refundable deposit, which he knocked off Lucy and Marcus’s price. It crossed Leila’s mind fleetingly that this could possibly be that poor girl’s dress too, but that would be slightly too weird. If she was indulging her darker thoughts, Leila wouldn’t have put it past Lucy to try to break the other couple up just so she could glide into their day, but it was beyond spiteful of her to even think that. And in no way compatible with her new role of Champion of All Women.
‘So what’s next on the list then?’ They’d just dropped Stephanie off at the train station and decamped to a nearby wine bar to take stock of the day and plan the next few weeks. In the absence of a sister, female cousin or any of her friends at all, Leila and Tasha had been drafted in as bridesmaids. Not willingly. And Tasha was away at a yoga retreat in the Peak District, which was very conveniently timed to coincide with this shopping trip.
Her sister was still reeling from being told that her kids were not allowed at the wedding. ‘But they are your nieces and nephew!’ she’d railed at Marcus. But he was adamant that Lucy had vetoed all children, regardless of blood ties. So Tasha had booked her weekend away to deliberately coincide with dress shopping. Meaning that now it was all falling squarely to Leila. ‘It all’ being every damn detail of the wedding it seemed.
‘Ok, so table plans,’ Lucy said studiously, peering at the long list in front of her. ‘We have most of the RSVPs back now – Mum’s going to chase the rest – I can’t do that myself, it would be vulgar. And then we can start assigning table places. Leila, I’ve pinned some ideas onto Pinterest of what designs I want, so you can knock one up as you’re a designer.’
‘I design gardens Lucy, I’m not a graphic designer.’
Lucy looked at Leila blankly. ‘It’s all creative though, isn’t it? It’s literally just cutting out bits of card and mounting it on other bits of card, it’s not rocket science.’
If it’s not rocket science, Leila wanted to say, why aren’t you doing it yourself, now that you’ve given up your job purely to organise the wedding. She couldn’t believe it when Marcus told her that Lucy had resigned from her job as an event planner as she couldn’t manage the wedding and full-time work. ‘Poor lamb,’ he’d said, ‘the stress was really getting to her.’ But Leila knew that Judy was bearing the brunt of all the planning, ironic considering the nature of Lucy’s former career.
Judy had uncharacteristically let slip on the phone to her a few nights before that she was finding Lucy ‘rather difficult’ to deal with, and that in all her years of working with brides, ‘Lucy has taken it to another level.’ She even persuaded Judy to change the curtains in the dining room as they didn’t match her flowers. Judy was incredulous when she told Leila this, yet still did it anyway, which Leila thought was the most incredulous thing. Since then, she had little sympathy for her mother’s tales of wedding woe. Yet here she was, nodding along like a mechanical dog, saying, ‘Table plans, ok. Anything else?’
‘Yes, I don’t know whether Marcus has mentioned this, but you need to bring a date. All the tables are for eight, and we can’t have one of seven, it would look unbalanced and just wrong.’
‘Um, ok, I’ll ask Shelley. She loves weddings, always up for a bit of usher action.’
‘No, no, it has to be a man, it’s boy girl boy girl seating, we can’t have two people of the same sex together, that would screw everything up.’
‘You’re sounding remarkably Republican there Lucy.’
The jibe was lost on her. Leila carried on, ‘But I don’t have any single male friends to bring, and you know I’m not dating anyone for another ten months.’
‘Sorry, but I’m not having your silly vow of celibacy ruin my special day.’
Again Leila found herself biting her lip. ‘Fine. I’ll find someone.’
‘No dreadlocks.’
‘Got it.’
‘He has to wear top hat and tails.’
‘Done.’
‘If he has tattoos he has to cover them up.’
‘This advert is sounding stranger by the minute.’
Lucy’s eyes widened, ‘You’re not really going to advertise to bring someone to my wedding?’
Leila considered carrying on the joke just for her own amusement, but GSOH didn’t seem to be one of Lucy’s qualities. ‘Of course not. I have just the chap. He’s a colleague, Jamie. Nice guy, been pestering me to go out for ages, I’ll ask him, but I’ll have to lay down some ground rules first.’
The conversation with Jamie the next day went exactly the way Leila anticipated. There had been a moment, a fleeting blink-and-you-miss-it-moment at last year’s staff party when their eyes locked onto each other’s and Leila was tempted to accept Jamie’s ever so eager advances, but as she stood there deliberating whether to or not a leggy intern grabbed Jamie to dance and the moment passed. She waited until the office had thinned out at lunchtime and followed him into the small pantry where he was meticulously measuring out his protein shake powder into milk. ‘Hey Jamie.’
‘Lovely Leila, how are you?’
‘Look, I have a favour to ask you. You can absolutely say no, although I hope you don’t.’
‘Intriguing. Go on.’ He leant back against the countertop. His sleeves were rolled up to his elbows, which made his biceps bulge a little. But then, he knew that. Leila was also heartened to see a tattoo-free forearm, which was another tick in a box.
‘My brother is getting married, which in itself is a miracle, and I have to take a date and—’
‘Yes.’
‘I haven’t finished my sentence.’
‘Yes I’ll come with you.’
‘But you need to know, I’m two months into a year of celibacy, and so we’ll be going to this as colleagues, friends even. But absolutely not as dates. It’s in Dartmouth, at my parents’ place, so I’ll book you a room, but a different one to mine. I’m just lowering your expectations now, so you’re not expecting a bit of wedding night fun and frolics.’
‘Message received and understood.’
‘Really?’
‘Really. Would love to come. And you know, if the romance of the occasion, and the free-flowing champagne, means that your mind changes as the night wears on, then that’s fine with me too.’
‘It