Don't Tell Penny

by Anna Bell

  Cover Page

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Prelims

  Don't Tell Penny

  Don't Tell the Groom

  Don’t Tell Penny

  Anna Bell

  First published in Great Britain in 2013 by Quercus

  Quercus Editions Ltd

  55 Baker Street

  7th Floor, South Block

  London

  W1U 8EW

  Copyright © 2013 by Anna Bell

  The moral right of Anna Bell to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

  Ebook ISBN 978 1 84866 618 4

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places and events are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  You can find this and many other great books at:

  www.quercusbooks.co.uk

  Also by Anna Bell

  Don’t Tell the Groom

  Don’t Tell Penny

  I can’t believe quite how late we’re going to be. I guess it shouldn’t come as a real shock, I seem to spend my whole life living half-an-hour behind everyone else. But still, I wish that sometimes I could actually get my arse in gear a little quicker and make it somewhere at the exact I time I said I’d be there. And tonight, of all nights! It’s a very important night indeed.

  ‘Are we nearly there yet?’ I ask, biting my nails in nervousness. I hope it won’t have happened before we arrive.

  ‘You sound like a kid, and yes, considering the hotel is ten minutes from our house, and we left five minutes ago, I guess we’re nearly there.’

  I roll my eyes at my smart-alec husband. He carries the lateness gene too, only whilst it turns me into a red-faced, panicking mess, he breezes through life as if he grew up in the Caribbean, rather than a south London suburb.

  ‘I just wanted to get there on time, before Pen’s big moment.’

  ‘I’m sure that Mark will wait until we get there and we’re not that late.’

  I look at my watch, twenty seven minutes and counting.

  By the time we pull into the car park of the hotel I’m a jittering mess, and in desperate need of whatever alcohol they have in this place.

  ‘Wow, Mark’s gone all out on this, hasn’t he?’ whistles Russell through his teeth.

  ‘He certainly has,’ I say as we climb the Guggenheim-esque staircase into the hotel lobby.

  ‘It’s a bit of a change from the Stag and Hounds.’

  It certainly is. We were supposed to be going for drinks in Penny and Mark’s local which – as local pubs go – is a pretty good night out. The beer’s cheap, the landlord’s not an arsehole and most importantly it’s escaped the gastro-pub makeover that’s attacked north Hampshire – so you actually feel like you’re in a pub. But during the week we were told of a change of venue to this fancy five-star wannabe hotel next to the airport.

  Apparently they’ve got a really funky bar upstairs and Mark thought it would be a better place to celebrate the end of his accountancy exams. Of course it started alarm bells ringing in his girlfriend Penny’s head. Or, more accurately, it started wedding bells ringing in her ears. Tonight, according to Penny, is the night where he’s going to pop the one and only question.

  We step into the lift and are transported up through the electronic clouds into the bar where we’re meeting everyone. As I look in the mirror in the lift I start to wonder if I should have made more of an effort.

  I scrunch my hair, hoping to perk up my curls a little as they seem to have fallen out in the taxi. My naturally wavy hair is as unpredictable as the British weather. One day I’ve got perfect surfer dude beach waves and the next day it’s limp, lifeless and frizzy. Tonight it’s on the fence, but I feel it’s leaning towards an attack of the frizz.

  ‘How much do you reckon a round’s going to set us back in here?’ whispers Russell in my ear as we enter the bar.

  ‘Probably more than we can afford,’ I say, wincing at the purple up-lighters and heavily polished wooden floors that scream luxury and expense.

  We’re not broke or anything. It’s just that at the ripe old age of almost thirty, we’ve started to notice a divide amongst our friends. Where once we all struggled to get on the mortgage ladder and eat more exotic food than we did as students, suddenly more and more of them are escaping their fledgling houses and buying proper family houses. Holidays that were once last minute weeks in Greece have become Indian-Ocean bound. Russell and I are still in our starter home and have our two weeks self-catering in Portugal. And we’re dead pleased with that, as my mum tells me all too often – at your age I was going on holiday to the Isle of Wight if I was lucky.

  Of course that comment would be closely followed by the jibe that she had three kids by the time she was my age. It’s so predictable. Just because Russell and I are married, does not mean to say we need to start on the baby making. I’m sure that is what my mid-thirties will be for. Our mid-thirties will be when we catch up with the rest of our friends in the money stakes and will then hopefully be able to actually afford to produce offspring.

  ‘There you are!’ I hear as we barely get over the threshold.

  I glance quickly down at my best friend’s hand, and sigh in relief that it is still ringless. Obviously I’d love for her to be engaged, but if it’s going to happen tonight then I want a front row seat for the action.

  ‘Hair’s looking pretty fancy, Pen,’ I say, giving her a wink. I know Penny, and there is no way she could make her hair have that much volume and swish to it. It’s flicky and bouncy and has all the tell-tale signs that she’s paid a visit to the hairdressers’.

  ‘Well, you would not believe the afternoon I had,’ she says, peeling me away from Russell and towards the bar.

  ‘What?’

  ‘I saw a reminder on Mark’s phone and it said, get this, “don’t forget ring”.’

  Penny’s face is a picture. She’s smiling like she’s got a coat-hanger stuck in her mouth.

  ‘Amazing – Stage Four!’

  ‘I know!’ screams Penny, in a way that makes me wonder how much she’s had to drink before we got here. ‘Stage Four.’

  Penny’s fiancé Mark is the opposite of my Russell. For starters, he’s divided his and Penny’s life into little chunks: getting a house, finishing his exams, getting engaged, getting married. I lose track of what the stages have been and what the future ones are. But the one I hear the most about from Pen is Stage Four (get engaged) and Stage Five (get married). I’m not saying she’s obsessed with weddings, but let’s just say when Mark finally puts a ring on her finger, we all better hope for a speedy wedding as there will be no other topic of conversation in the run up to it.

  ‘That definitely justifies an emergency trip to the hairdressers’.’

  ‘And to get my nails done. Look.’

  I gaze down at her hands, her fingertips ending in perfectly manicured gel nails with diamante hearts on. Blimey, she does mean business.

  ‘They’re amazing,’ I say, hiding my half-bitten ones behind my back. If my nails didn’t feel scabby and ashamed when they came into an establishment as fancy as this, they certainly do now.

  ‘I just didn’t want to have to take a picture of my engagement ring
to put on Facebook and for everyone just to be like, look at those skanky nails.’

  ‘Ha, you mean like mine were.’

  ‘You’re just lucky you got engaged so long ago that the only pictures you had to send were crappy little low res phone pics. Whereas now, with the zillion mega-pixels you get on the iPhone, you’d see all my poorly conditioned cuticles.’

  ‘Couldn’t have that.’

  ‘No. I’m determined that everything’s going to be perfect. Perfect hair, nails and outfit. And all we need now is the perfect proposal and we’ll be in business for the all important post-proposal photograph.’

  I smile as I think back to my post-proposal photo. Aside from my skanky nails, I had rosy red cheeks, probably no make-up and my greasy hair was hidden under a god-awful multi-coloured knitted beanie hat. I do have a massive smile on my face though, and to be honest that’s all I see when I look at that photo; that moment of supreme happiness, not the fact that I look like I’m wearing a tea-cosy on my head.

  ‘You’re just like Elle in Legally Blonde when she gets all dressed up at the beginning of the film.’ I laugh, thinking I should dig that DVD out. It would be a good to watch tomorrow with my inevitable hangover. But Penny’s not laughing. She’s started to breathe deeply and her look is one of upmost horror.

  ‘You mean where she get’s all dressed up and then gets DUMPED!’ she practically screams at me.

  Whoops. I forgot about that. Of course that’s how it starts. Oh bugger, how am I going to dig myself out of this hole? Tonight Penny’s more highly strung than a tensioned tennis racket. It’s not like her and it definitely doesn’t suit her.

  ‘Mark’s hardly going to dump you, is he? Not with all these people here. Of course it’s going to be a proposal, after all you said there was a text about the ring.’

  ‘That’s right,’ she says nodding slowly.

  Penny’s brow is no longer furrowed and hope and excitement has reappeared in her voice. I might have kept myself out of the doghouse.

  ‘So no clue as to how it’s going to go down then?’ I say, trying to negotiate the conversation back onto safer ground.

  She shakes her head.

  ‘I made sure we got here half an hour early, just in case he wanted to pop the question when we were on our own. You know, a little bit of privacy and then we could surprise everyone as they arrived. But despite a toast, and me talking about the future –paving the way for him to propose, he didn’t do it. And then his work colleague Alexander and his wife arrived early.’

  ‘How dare they!’ I say in a mock dramatic tone. Penny smiles. Over the years she’s always begged me to be early rather than late, especially when she’s cooking – or char-burning – dinner.

  ‘I know, and then, Mark introduces me as his girlfriend.’

  The word girlfriend hangs in the air and I look at her and back at her left hand again. I don’t quite get the insult. She is, and has been, Mark’s girlfriend for the last five years.

  ‘Um, wouldn’t you have been more offended if he’d not introduced you at all?’

  ‘Uck, you wouldn’t understand as you’re married, but do you have any idea how embarrassing it is being passed off as someone’s girlfriend? I mean, it makes me sound like Mark and I have been together a few weeks. His work colleague’s wife isn’t going to realise that we’ve lived together for five years and that I cut his toenails.’

  ‘You cut Mark’s toenails?’

  ‘Yeah, when I give him his pedicures. You know, get rid of the dead skin and make his feet as smooth as a baby’s bum.’

  I wrinkle my nose in disgust. This is far too much information. There are some things that you just don’t want to know about your best friend - and her boyfriend’s manky feet are definitely one of them.

  I’ve got to change the subject. Right now I’ve got a mental image of Penny painting Mark’s toenails bright pink.

  ‘Fiancée, Lou, now that has a better ring to it.’

  ‘So maybe he’ll just ask you later on.’

  ‘Exactly!’ she says, with far too much gusto. I’m wondering whether she actually needs any of the bottle of Prosecco that the barmen’s just placed on the bar for her.

  I wince as she pays and I follow her over to the table.

  ‘Maybe he’s just waiting for everyone to get here,’ I say.

  She’s looking round and I can see in her eyes she’s doing a mental headcount, trying to work out who’s missing and delaying her diamond appearance.

  As if on cue, Mark’s best friend Phil walks in with his wife Jane. I instantly gulp a little more Prosecco. It’s much easier to deal with Jane with a little bit of alcohol inside you. She’s nice enough, but she’s really posh and I feel like I have nothing in common with her.

  Poor Penny nearly has a fit whenever she’s around, worrying Jane’ll be judging her. But I don’t really care what she thinks. She’s happy enough to spend her money on stuff like Creme de la Mer moisturiser and Hermes scarves, and I’m happy enough with my Nivea and Next scarves. We sort of have an understanding about each other.

  ‘Penny and Louise, how fabulous to see you,’ she says, kissing us both. ‘Penny what have you done to your hair?’

  I see Penny’s hand fly up to her hair with a look that suggests that she’s fearing that it might have all fallen out since she last checked.

  ‘It looks fabulous,’ Jane purrs, and I see Penny visibly relax.

  ‘Thanks, Jane. You look lovely too. Love your dress.’

  ‘It’s just Ted Baker, nothing special. I had no idea this place would be so fancy. When Phil said we were going for drinks in Farnborough this wasn’t what I had in mind. And you’ll never guess what? Phil’s surprised me by booking us in for the night so we can both have a drink. Our room is super. Views over the airport and they even left us a bottle of bubbly.’

  ‘Amazing,’ says Penny. She’s actually starting to turn purple, and I’m sure her eyes are glowing green with jealousy.

  ‘And Louise, so nice to see you, how are you?’ she asks.

  I tuck my blow-dried-by-my-own-fair-hand hair behind my ear and place my hands on my non-designer dress. No compliments coming my way then. I thought she was complimenting me the first time I met her, when she said I could be a catwalk model. It transpired it was because I’m tall and lanky and have an imperfect smile, which is apparently the type of ‘odd look’ that the agencies often go for. Since then, I’ve not been too bothered when I don’t receive a compliment from her.

  ‘I’m fine thanks Jane. How are you?’

  I take more sips of my drink while being treated to a thorough re-cap of the latest building work they’re having done on their almost mansion. I just hope Mark proposes soon, and rescues me from boredom.

  ***

  ‘I didn’t know that you could even get married at St Paul’s,’ I say in awe. Mark’s work colleague recently tied the knot and his wife is telling us all about it.

  ‘My father got an OBE for research, so we were allowed to get married in one of the chapels.’

  ‘That’s amazing. I bet you felt like royalty,’ I say thinking it makes my registry office service seem a bit dull in comparison.

  ‘I’m getting married in a castle,’ says Penny.

  Up to this point in the conversation she’s been remarkably quiet, which is strange as weddings are usually her favourite topic.

  ‘A real life Scottish castle,’ she says.

  ‘Oh right,’ says the woman, ‘I didn’t know you and Mark were engaged. Congratulations! Let me see the ring.’

  I watch as Penny hides her hands behind her back.

  ‘Well, we’re not actually engaged yet . . . ’ she says, her voice tailing off. ‘But we’ve got the wedding planned out.’

  The woman smiles at Penny with a look I recognise as pity, and then mutters something about going to find her husband.

  ‘Oh god, Lou, that was so embarrassing. I couldn’t help it. All that talk about St Paul’s. I mean who gets married at St
Paul’s?’

  I put my arm round Penny to comfort her. I look over at Mark and he seems to be laughing happily with his friends, unaware of just what pain and madness he’s causing his girlfriend to go through. He better bloody well propose by the end of the night or else he and I are going to have serious words.

  ‘I’m sure she didn’t think it was weird,’ I say in soothing tones.

  ‘I thought it was bloody weird! What’s wrong with me? Why do I get so deranged when it comes to weddings? I’m sure once we’re engaged it will all be fine. I’ll be the vision of calm and tranquillity. I mean it’s hardly going to be stressful when I’ve planned the whole thing out already, is it?’

  I scrunch up my face. I want to say what I’m thinking; the fact that she’ll over plan it to death and be known throughout the greater Farnborough area as the Original Bridezilla, but instead I just smile sweetly and say, ‘Of course not.’

  Penny smiles, it seems I made the right choice of what to say. I look up at Mark and he’s heading in our direction. Maybe what he needs is a kickstart to get his mind focused on the task at hand. The sooner he puts a ring on it, the sooner I get my best friend back.

  ‘So, Mark, you’re a fully-fledged, all grown-up, accountant now then?’ I say, as casually as I can.

  ‘That’s right,’ he replies, grinning.

  ‘So nothing to stop you, you know, with Stage Four now.’

  ‘Plenty of time for that, isn’t there Mark?’ says Penny, giving me a look of death.

  What’s that about? I’m only trying to help and she’s telling him that she’s not interested. Talk about giving him mixed messages.

  ‘Absolutely. Right, who wants what to drink?’ he says, standing up.

  ‘We’ll have another bottle of this,’ says Penny, tapping the upside down bottle of Prosecco. ‘Why did you say that to him?’ she hisses to me as he leaves. ‘I don’t want him to know I know what’s coming. I don’t want him to change his mind if he thinks I’m expecting it.’

  ‘What? Come on, Pen, I just thought it might chivvy him along a bit. We’ve been here over two hours now.’