by Unknown
‘I hope so.’
Mark comes over and gives me a kiss on the top of the head and I realise how lucky I am to have such a lovely husband. I haven’t spent nearly enough time with him lately.
‘Are you going to be all right to come tomorrow night, or do you think you’ll be late home from work again?’
Tomorrow night. I’d almost forgotten that. The thought that Mark might realise I’ve lied about Nick turns my stomach.
‘Yes, I’m sure it will be fine.’ Hoping against hope that it will.
chapter twelve
princess-on-a-shoestring top tips:
Food Glorious Food
The first rule of wedding catering is that you will probably never please everyone. There’s always going to be someone who only eats green beans or fish fingers. If your venue offers food choices like a hot or cold buffet, then that’s a great way of catering to different tastes. Likewise, a hog roast with different vegetable and salad options often goes down well. No matter what you have, people will judge you on your food choices so don’t worry about it. As long as you and your fiancé like the food, then that should be good enough!
Tags: food, wedding breakfast, judgemental guests.
‘Hey, lovely. Wow, look at you all dressed up,’ I say gawping at my best friend who is tottering across the college car park in a little red dress and killer heels. You would never have guessed that she had a whopper of a baby last July. Flipping heck, in a line-up trying to work out who’s given birth, you’d pick my pot-belly first off.
I’m feeling slightly like the eighth and ninth dwarves who, in my head, are Frumpy and Dumpy. I got back from work late, again, and I didn’t have time to wash my hair or shower. So with hair that hadn’t been washed for two days slicked back into a severe bun (with generous helpings of dry shampoo), I slipped on a pair of skinny jeans, a lacy top and ballet pumps. Now I wish I’d made more of an effort.
‘Hiya, I’ve finally reached my goal weight, so thought I’d show it off.’
‘Well, you’d better be careful with Russell later, or you’ll be making another baby. Look at him, his tongue is practically hanging out,’ I say as I link arms with Lou and walk into the college, leaving the boys to catch up behind us.
‘There’s no chance of that. One baby in the household is plenty at the moment, thank you very much. Speaking of which, any luck with you?’ asks Lou.
I shake my head.
‘Don’t worry, Pen, there’s always next month.’
I bite my lip a little. If anyone else says that to me, I might actually punch them. Yes, there is always next month, but the agonising wait for that month between periods is awful. Spending four weeks hoping that you’re about to embark on the most special time of your life only to discover that, yet again, you’re not pregnant, well, it’s heartbreaking.
‘Yes, next month,’ I say, hoping that will be the end of the conversation. ‘So, I’m excited about you meeting Henri, she’s really lovely.’
‘From what you’ve told me about her already, I’m surprised that you’re not introducing her to Jane, it sounds like they’d get on like a house on fire.’
‘I know. Mark did text Phil to see if they wanted to come, but apparently she’s not going out of a fifteen-mile radius of her doctor, and we’re just too far out here!’
‘Oh, the horror!’ says Lou, laughing. ‘She’s only, what? Six months’ pregnant?’
‘Seven months, so she’s worried that the baby could come prematurely.’
‘But even if she did go into labour this early she’d have loads of time before she needed to see her doctor. She could go to Birmingham and back!’
‘I know that, Mark knows that and Phil knows that, but we all know what Jane is like.’
Neurotic and a complete snob. I’m sure she’d have fainted if Phil had suggested she visit the local hospital here in an emergency.
‘I guess that’s true,’ agrees Lou.
‘There’s Henri.’
I spot her a mile off in the lobby and now I really feel underdressed. She’s dressed in a little blue lace dress that wouldn’t look out of place if she was going for dinner somewhere fancy in London.
My stomach’s starting to tie itself up in knots as this is the moment that I’ve been dreading: Mark and Nick meeting.
‘Ah, Penny,’ says Henri doing a delicate feminine hand-wave. It’s the kind of handwave people do when they go to the opera or they’re trying to be discreet. It’s the polar opposite of the handwave I’m doing that makes me look like I’m an over-excited toddler who is in danger of wetting her pants after having spotted Peppa Pig across the room.
‘Henri,’ I say as we get close enough to air kiss.
I ignore the fact she gives Mark a massive hug, and she pauses in front of Lou and Russell for an introduction, which I give.
‘Nick’s just gone out to make a work call,’ says Henri. ‘He said to go on up to the table and he’ll meet us there.’
I’d sort of hoped we’d have Mark doing the ‘don’t I know you’ sketch before we got to the restaurant, just in case there was a scene, but that is just my luck.
‘Great,’ I say.
‘So I can’t believe it, we’re going to be eating dinner with a famous writer,’ says Henri.
‘I’d hardly call myself famous,’ I say.
‘What’s that?’ says Lou looking at me, her brow furrowing.
‘Penny’s been approached by Bridal Dreams to write an article.’
‘Oh my god, Pen, that’s huge!’ says Lou.
‘That’s news to me,’ says Mark, looking straight at me.
‘It only happened this afternoon, and I was emailing Henri at the time so I slipped it in. What with the rush to get here after work, it slipped my mind.’
‘Isn’t it amazing though, my wedding planner writing for Bridal Dreams.’
‘It’s a one-off, nothing to get too excited about.’
Actually, inside I’m doing a happy dance. Bridal Dreams, the third bestselling bridal magazine in the UK want me, Penny Robinson, to write an article.
‘Nonsense. We’ll have to toast you when we get drinks,’ says Henri.
We walk into the restaurant and I see my friends’ eyes light up. The ambience of the restaurant was nice when I was here for lunch, but now the candlelight makes it feel warm and inviting.
‘I thought you were wearing a dress?’ says Henri as we sit down.
‘Really?’
‘Yes, I asked you last night, and I said that it would be a nice outing for your new Kurt Geiger shoes.’
‘You’ve got new Kurt Geiger shoes?’ asks Lou.
I widen my eyes in a don’t-speak-so-loud voice, as Mark is sat right next to me. I’m just hoping that whatever rugby/football/cricket team the men are talking about now is so engrossing that Mark’s ears didn’t prick up at the mention of new shoes.
‘Yes,’ I whisper across the table. ‘But they’re TK Maxx, so they were dead cheap.’
‘Well, now that I can fit into my little dresses again maybe we could go for a night out, heels and everything,’ says Lou.
‘Sounds good to me, perhaps when work calms down a bit.’
‘Uh, work. It always gets in the way, doesn’t it?’ says Lou. ‘And to think I go back full time next month.’
‘What do you do, Lou?’ asks Henri.
‘I’m a civil servant, I work for the MOD.’
‘That must be nice, all those men in uniform trotting about,’ says Henri.
‘Actually, I work in an office mostly with other civvies, so I rarely see the boys in gre—’
I look up at Lou, whose mouth is wide open. I follow her gaze and I see Nick walking across the restaurant to us.
I look between Lou and Nick and the penny drops. In all my worrying about whether Mark would recognise Nick, I didn’t for one minute think that Lou would recognise him. Not only did Lou see the video, but I’d completely forgotten that Lou met him while we were filming the thing.
I try and use my best-friend psychic-ness to tell Lou not to say anything.
‘Ah, honey,’ says Henri spinning round. She’s obviously noticed Lou’s jaw drop and sensed his arrival. ‘Come and meet everyone.’
‘Hiya,’ says Nick, giving a friendly little wave.
‘You’ve already met Penny, of course, and this is her husband Mark, and these are their friends Russell and Lou.’
Nick shakes the hands of both of the men as they stand to meet him. I get kisses on both cheeks and when he goes to kiss Lou, I can’t help but see a flicker of recognition in his eyes. His relaxed stance disappears and instead he looks just a little twitchy.
I’m wondering if Lou’s going to say anything, but she’s busy adjusting her cutlery to make sure it’s all perfectly in line. It seems that Lou has realised who Nick is, and she isn’t going to make a big thing of it.
‘Good evening, everyone, my name is Billy and I’ll be your waiter for this evening. Can I start by giving you the menus.’
He hands them to us and at least it gives Lou something else to stare intently at.
‘So, Nick, Russell and I were just talking about the Lions tour. Are you a rugby man?’ asks Mark.
‘Certainly am, I went to see the Lions in South Africa a few years ago.’
Mark and Russell look like I did when I saw Henri’s current season Miu Mius on her feet. I see the beginning of a bromance here.
‘Penny, this menu is so impressive! It all sounds delicious. I’m going to have the pear and walnut salad to start. I’m so excited about talking to Brett now. Do you think we have to wait until we’ve had the food?’ asks Henri.
‘Yes, I expect he’s busy supervising in the kitchen, plus you’ll have more to talk to him about. And you may not even like it.’
Whilst Henri starts to talk about the wedding favours she now wants, which are personalised wine corks that, quite frankly, she’s never going to be able to afford, I’m vaguely aware that my phone is buzzing in my bag. I’d usually ignore it, as it’s normally only my mum or Mark’s, but I’m conscious that I told Beth that she could call whenever she’s tempted to gamble. Although it’s unlikely she’d turn to me, I can’t let her down.
I sneakily pull it out of my bag only to see it’s a message from Lou. I look up at her in surprise but she still looks engrossed in her menu. She must have her phone positioned underneath it.
As I glance down at my phone, my left ear is focused on Henri talking about place mats and matching napkins and, to my right, I could have sworn I heard Nick suggesting that Mark and Russell join him in the Caribbean to watch cricket. Clearly Nick is just as out of touch with the reality of how much everything costs in the real world as his soon-to-be wife.
HELP!!! I’ve snogged Nick before…
I drop my mobile in surprise and it clatters noisily to the ground. I swoop down to grab it and say a mental prayer that it isn’t smashed to smithereens like it was the last time I dropped it. I breathe a sigh of relief as the screen looks intact and scratch-free and then I bang my head on the table as I get back up.
‘Ow,’ I say, rubbing my head.
‘Everything all right?’ asks Henri. Everyone at the table is looking at me. Aside, of course, from Lou who is leaning on her elbow and shielding her face with her hand.
‘Yes, everything is fine,’ I say, remembering what the text message had said. When exactly has Lou snogged Nick? She’s only met him once before and she was six months’ pregnant. Not to mention I was with her. It may have been a time in my life when I was suffering emotional distress, but I’m sure even then I might have noticed if my best friend had her tongue down someone other than her husband’s throat.
‘Penny, I can’t believe that you’re actually on your phone at dinner, after all the stick that you give me if I even glance at mine,’ says Mark, laughing.
‘That’s because you’re surgically attached to your mobile with your sports monitoring. I’m sorry but delaying by half an hour the score to some random sports game is not an unreasonable request.’
‘Oh, you get that too? I get that all the time,’ says Nick in a manner that reminds me of Beth.
‘I just don’t understand why you need to know right that second,’ I say.
‘But it’s a live game,’ says Nick as if he’s giving the definitive answer.
‘You’re on to a loser,’ says Mark, ‘Penny doesn’t get sports.’
Contrary to popular belief, I do ‘get’ sports. I know my offside rule from my LBW and I know more than I would care to admit about stats, players and sporting grounds. What I don’t get is why men care so much about this stuff. Mark, of course says the same thing to me about why I buy gossip magazines, but at least celebrity lives are real life.
Before World War Three erupts, Billy, who’s clearly sensed that there appears to be a split between the blue and pink personnel at the table, wisely comes over to distract us.
‘Can I get you any drinks to start off with?’ he asks.
‘We haven’t even discussed the wine list,’ says Henri, ‘Who wants what?’
‘Red wine, I want red wine,’ calls out Lou from behind her menu. ‘A bottle of Shiraz, please, for me.’
‘Just for you?’ says Russell laughing nervously. ‘I’ll share that with you then.’
‘I’ll have red as well,’ I say.
In the end we settle on one red and one white, and then we order the food. Given how fidgety Lou is now that the safety net of the menu has been removed, I’m guessing we’ll be ordering another bottle of red wine before we know it.
The sports versus women argument seems to have faded away and it’s been replaced by Russell recounting the latest development in Harry’s little life, which is that he’s pulling himself up on the sofa to stand. Both Henri and I might have had little uterus-skipping moments, and even Nick and Mark cracked a smile. But that might have been more to do with Russell’s comic delivery.
By the time the wine appears, Lou is seriously on edge. She practically downs the whole glass of wine in front of the waiter, and she asks for another bottle then and there.
I notice the look between Henri and Nick and I can just imagine what they’re thinking. Something along the lines of alcoholic.
‘Making the most of your night of freedom, hey, Lou?’ says Mark. ‘See I told you, Penny, it isn’t a picnic having kids.’
‘How many kids do you want?’ asks Henri, smiling at me.
One would be a start. ‘I’d love a whole football team, but I’m guessing two or three’s a nice number.’
‘Could you imagine two or three of Harry?’ says Russell raising an eyebrow at Lou.
Lou smiles weakly and drains the half glass of wine she’d just poured from the now-empty bottle.
‘He’s not that bad.’ Most of the time, I add in my head.
‘He’s pretty good,’ says Russell, ‘It’s just occasionally that he’s a terror. But, I wouldn’t have it any other way, I love him to bits.’
I smile at Russell as I think how far they’ve come from the little ‘accident’ that led them to be parents earlier than planned. But just as I knew they would, the two of them took to parenthood like ducks to water.
Henri asks Russell about his one day a week at home with Harry, and I take my chance to lean over to Lou.
‘What’s going on?’ I ask.
‘I need the toilet,’ says Lou standing up and almost announcing it to the entire restaurant. I’m guessing the red wine has gone to her head at lightning speed, given that it’s on an empty stomach.
She stands up and gives me a look which suggests that I’m to join her in the bathroom and I realise that she’s not going to leave the table until I get up to go with her.
‘I might nip to the loo, too,’ I say, standing up to follow her.
‘Ooh, girls’ trip to the toilet. Don’t leave me out,’ chirps Henri, standing up and following us.
We’re reminded that we’re not in a fancy restaurant when we get into th
e toilets which are six cubicles in a line, with far too many strip lights and lots of white plastic. Henri goes over to the mirror and gets out her make-up from her clutch bag.
Lou and I each go into a cubicle. As Henri starts talking about the boys and how well they’re getting on, I go to get my phone out of my bag, and I realise that I haven’t got it; I obviously left it on the table after the whole debacle with dropping it on the floor. I do, however, have a receipt and a pen.
When did you snog Nick? I write.
I wave it under the toilet cubicle whilst trying desperately to pee. I’m not good at going under pressure, but I don’t want Henri to think something weird is going on.
I feel the pen and paper being snatched away from me.
‘And then I said to Nick, if you want to take me to St Lucia for a honeymoon, then that’s fine, but don’t expect me to go to some cricket match,’ continues Henri.
As I play noisily with the toilet roll dispenser, I wait for the receipt to appear.
Dunno, before Russell. Looks dead familiar. HELP!
It takes me a couple of reads to realise what’s happened; Lou hasn’t snogged Nick at all. She merely recognises him. Thank goodness for that. I go to write on the receipt for her not to worry, but before I get a chance to hand it over I hear her door open and she and Henri start talking by the sinks. Why hasn’t she waited for my response?
‘Have you been with Nick long?’ asks Lou.
I walk out and try and make eye contact with Lou, but she’s not paying attention; her eyes are wild and glazed over from too much wine. In fact, it’s that look of danger that flashes over someone’s eyes when they’re well on their way to being trollied. I don’t think Lou has really recovered after giving up drinking during pregnancy and breastfeeding.
‘About seven years,’ says Henri.
‘Blimey, that’s a long time. And you’ve been together all that time, you know, no gaps?’
‘Lou!’ I say loudly. ‘Sorry, Henri.’
‘It’s fine, Pen. Yes, we’ve pretty much been together all that time, bar a few weeks a couple of years ago. I know what you’re thinking.’
Believe me, Henri, you have no idea what Lou’s drunken mind is thinking.
