So Lucky

by Dawn O'Porter

  I walk over to the window slowly, unsure why it matters where I stand. She raises the camera to her eye and points it at me, I quickly dart to the other side of the bed.

  ‘No, no, sorry. I don’t want to be in any photos if that’s alright.’

  ‘No one will see them, it’s just so I can check stuff.’

  ‘No. Sorry, I really don’t want to be in any pictures.’

  Rebecca looks annoyed. Tough shit. Nowhere in my contract does it state I have to be in any photographs. I don’t want to do it, she’ll have to find someone else.

  ‘OK. Then can you take the photo? I like to test with people in the shot. Would you at least do that?’ she asks, sarcastically. As if I have just personally offended her. I tell her I will of course take some photos. She goes to the window and poses awkwardly. I take a few pictures. She checks them on the camera, then asks me to take some more. She leans against a chair, sits on the bed. It is a very strange five minutes as we barely say a word; she really isn’t very easy to get along with. She takes her camera, checks the photos, makes a few adjustments and finally seems happy.

  ‘Are we done?’ I ask, wanting her to get out so I can enjoy my room.

  ‘If you need anything, there will be staff catering happening in about five minutes in a staff tent downstairs. Maybe you could grab something and bring it back up? The guests arrive at two so Lauren will be right in the throes of getting ready then, and I want to get the images to her quickly.’

  ‘OK, thank you,’ I say, wondering if she will leave now.

  ‘Great, well, you have my number if you need me. I’ll keep popping back with the cards, and I guess we just get on with it?’

  ‘Great,’ I say, opening the door to encourage her exit. I want to swan around this room and pretend it’s in my house. She hovers by the door. ‘Was there something else?’

  ‘I’d really appreciate you getting going, please don’t treat today like a spa break.’

  ‘Oh, yes. Of course,’ I say, getting my computer out of my bag and setting it up on a little desk near the window. It’s such a strange feeling to have someone talk to me that way. I really have no authority in my life and I respond to it quite negatively when faced with it. ‘I’ll get on much quicker if you leave me to it,’ I say, regaining some control. I don’t like being spoken to like someone’s employee. Finally, she leaves.

  I immediately lie down on the bed and stretch out my arms and legs. It’s gloriously comfortable. I love hotels, and occasionally splash out on one on a Saturday night while Liam has Bonnie. It’s been a while, I am due a mini-break.

  I get up and look out over the grounds from the window. It’s a stunning location and a gorgeous summer’s day. On the lawn there is an aisle created between two sections of about three hundred chairs. At the end is a flower arch, there are explosive arrangements everywhere. The flowers alone must have cost tens of thousands. Even with my cold heart, I have to admit it looks very pretty. This place is the dream location for a day such as today. It’s what you get, I suppose, when you sell your body for hundreds of thousands of pounds and marry one of the most successful businessmen in the country. Oh to be the future Lauren Riley.

  Realising Rebecca’s work might take some time, considering the effort needed for uploading all of the pictures of Lauren and her mother, I wonder if maybe I will take a walk down to the staff tent. I could fill up my water bottle, maybe get some extra crudités. I’m intrigued by this fantastic location, I want to know more about how much it will cost for me to come and spend a weekend here. I’d never leave the room. I’d sit by the window and read Brontë novels all day long.

  I walk through the kitchens and out into the gardens to the staff tent. Multiple waiting staff are lining up to receive their free lunches. I see a side table with some fruit and coffee. I take an apple, a satsuma and a black coffee. I know the pace of work is about to ramp up, but even these few minutes are a bonus I didn’t anticipate.

  Just as I’m walking up the beautiful staircase back to my room, Lauren Pearce appears at the top. It startles me … she is a real person. Of course I knew that, but here she is, skin and bones, right in front of me. It’s harder to dislike someone when you see them in the flesh. The reality of everything you created about them in your head now challenged as their eyes move, and their skin breathes, and they become actual people, instead of objects I have worked on. She has a nervous demeanour. She is delicate and pretty. She is wearing a white tracksuit, her hair tonged to perfection. I won’t have to do much to it today. I had always imagined her to be more bolshy, or loud, or overconfident, but she is gentle and timid. Her smile spreads across her face as she sees someone behind me. She runs quickly past.

  ‘Dad, you’re here,’ she says, as she throws her arms around him.

  I can’t believe what I am seeing as the man approaches, the coincidence hitting me like a cosmic message I know must mean something. I hurry back to my room. I don’t want him to see me.

  Beth

  ‘Double-check that the favours are to the left of the forks please. And that the leaves with the names are in the middle of the napkin. Oh, and then do the chairs. Five inches from the table, no less, no more. It’s what she wants.’

  I have everything in order, I think. I am waiting for the last-minute drama, there always is one.

  ‘Hey boss, so Tom the magician is ill, but he’s sending a replacement. I’ve forwarded the NDAs and I’m waiting for them to be emailed back to me. I made it clear no one is allowed on site until they have sent one through. Just letting you know,’ says Risky, reeking of efficiency. I’m very glad for it.

  ‘OK, that’s OK. If he’s weird or crap at magic, we just send him home. Simple. Shame about Tom, he’s good. Anything else?’

  ‘The florist just gave me the buttonholes for the groomsmen …’ She is holding a tray with them laid out. She stands looking at me as if waiting for approval. ‘Shall I go and give them to them, or do you want to?’

  Ah, she is asking me if she is allowed to go and see Gavin and his brother. ‘Give them to me, I’ll …’ There is a massive crash in the marquee. It sounds like glass. A lot of glass. ‘Shit!’ I say, running over to see what happened. ‘OK, go and give them to him. And then leave!’

  ‘Yes boss.’ I see a cheeky smirk on Risky’s face that she immediately tries to hide.

  In the marquee, one of the waiting staff has knocked over a perfectly compiled pyramid of coupé champagne glasses. She is sobbing in a chair with around three other members of staff trying to calm her down.

  ‘It’s OK,’ I tell her. ‘Why don’t you go to the staff area and have a cup of tea? I’ll have someone deal with this.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she says. ‘I’m having a terrible time at the moment, I’m not quite myself.’

  ‘Go to the staff tent and get yourself together, I need everyone to forget their problems today, and just get through it. You’re not in trouble, OK?’

  She nods and hurries away. All feelings must be cast aside today. The only emotion I want to see is pure joy from the wedding party. Everyone else, me included, needs to just deal.

  Every time I think about Michael I want to throw up in a flower arrangement. I keep trying not to think about Tommy, because when I do I become riddled with a guilt that makes it impossible for me to even pretend to want to celebrate the concept of love today. I just have to get through this wedding, then I can work on the state of my own marriage.

  I’m walking towards the groom’s quarters to find Risky, when she suddenly appears in front of me, running and crying. My first thought is that she has been attacked.

  ‘Risky, Risky, what happened?’ I ask, running towards her. ‘Are you OK? Did someone hurt you?’

  She can barely catch a breath.

  ‘Risky, pull yourself together. What happened? Was it Adam? Did he upset you?’

  ‘No. No. No … It’s Gavin, he’s …’

  ‘He’s what? What is Gavin doing?’

  ‘I can’t
. Boss, no. I need to unsee it. This can’t be happening, I just can’t take it.’ She is hysterical. I put a hand on each shoulder and tell her to breathe.

  ‘Risky, calm, calm, calm. OK, what did you see?’

  ‘Gavin.’

  ‘Yes, I gathered that. What is Gavin doing?’

  ‘I can’t say it. I can’t. That room down the corridor, the third on the right. Go look.’ I start to make my way down there, terrified of what I might see, Risky following close behind. I’m thinking the absolute worst. ‘Quietly boss, be really, really quiet.’

  I approach the door nervously and push it open. ‘Holy shit!’ I say, shutting the door quickly but quietly. ‘Oh my GOD.’ There is always a last-minute drama, but this takes it to a whole new level.

  ‘Did you see?’ Risky says, catching a breath at last.

  ‘Yes. Yes I did.’ I am now becoming hysterical myself.

  I take some long slow breaths.

  ‘Is that really happening?’ I say, not really asking. I saw it with my own eyes. It was absolutely happening. No doubt, not a single bit. Gavin is in that room a hundred per cent having sex with … oh my God!

  My nipples start to leak.

  ‘Quick, Risky, I need to pump. Where is it?’

  ‘Follow me,’ she says, as we race down the corridor.

  ‘So what are we going to do?’ Risky asks me, a blanket over her shoulders like she has just been rescued from a sinking ship. She is sipping water, holding the bottle with both hands. Shivering, despite it being quite warm. I am sitting opposite her in a small room, my breast pump on. We are working out our next move while the bottles fill up.

  ‘We have to tell Lauren,’ Risky says, every bit the woman’s woman she preaches to be.

  ‘What? No Risky, we can’t do that. We can’t do anything.’

  ‘He’s cheating on her. It’s so bad, and with her? It’s horrible. The worst. Lauren needs to know. All of those rumours, there are so many. They’re all true. If he can do that, he can do anything. She has no real friends. It’s down to us to save her.’

  Oh God, the crusade. Women supporting women can be really limiting when you need a wedding to happen.

  ‘Listen, Risky, no marriage is perfect. OK? Do we really believe Lauren has no idea who she’s marrying? She’s made her decision, this is what she wants. It isn’t up to us to crush her dreams.’

  ‘But he just … on their wedding day … with …’

  ‘I know, I saw. But seriously. It’s not down to us to fix this. We’re here to do a job, and I think we just have to do it.’

  ‘Beth, in the nicest possible way, you have the perfect marriage. Maybe you just can’t accept that love isn’t always a Disney movie.’

  I can’t handle this anymore.

  ‘For God’s sake Risky, no marriage is a Disney movie. I got shagged up the arse by a stranger the other day because my husband refuses to touch me. When are you going to understand that relationships are just shit?’

  Silence. To be fair, I just gave her a lot to process.

  ‘Michael refuses to touch you?’ she asks. I am glad she chose to focus on that part of my sentence.

  ‘Yes. It’s been really terrible for a long time. He has some weird sex phobia and it’s made me do something terrible and now I’m in such a mess and I don’t know what to do about it.’

  ‘Beth,’ she says gently, coming close to me. ‘Why didn’t you say?’

  ‘Because I am your boss and we have a wedding to get through. I don’t like to bring my personal life to work.’

  ‘You sit there with your tits out half the day. I watch your nipples being stretched like rubber bands, milk squirting out the end of them. You can tell me anything, OK?’

  She hugs me and it feels very strange to consider this very young girl my friend. But I do.

  ‘But wait, you got done up the arse by a stranger? Beth, that’s pretty full on.’

  ‘Inspired by you, Risky. Quit with the judgemental face.’

  ‘Hey, I’m not judging. I’m actually impressed – I thought you were a prude.’

  ‘I think I am a prude. Can we stop talking about it? It’s making me feel weird.’

  ‘OK, yes. For now we can. Also, we need to get back to Lauren and Gavin. Lauren needs to know what we saw. God, I hate rich white men.’

  ‘You’re right,’ I say, ‘but it isn’t our job to sort that out.’

  ‘But what about the sistership?’

  Bloody hell, she is so annoying. ‘What about the sistership, Risky?’

  ‘What’s the point of feminism if we don’t help women? How can we just watch her marry a cheat? Cheating is the worst thing you can do in a marriage. People who cheat should be punished.’

  ‘OK, OK Risky, remember what I just told you?’ I say, my guilt not needing a hammering.

  ‘Yes, but you had good reason.’

  ‘Maybe Gavin has good reason?’

  ‘To shag someone else on his wedding day? And her own—’

  ‘I know, I know.’

  ‘Look Beth, we could let this go, or we could exercise the power afforded to us by recent feminist movements and actually save a sister from a life of mental abuse at the hand of her cheating husband and her cruel, cruel … Oh God, I’m going to tell her.’

  She runs out of the room. I realise that entire exchange took place with my left boob hanging out. I reclip my nursing bra, do up my shirt and hurry after her. I catch her up as she is knocking on Lauren’s door.

  ‘Risky, please. Can we at least discuss how we do this, we can’t just barge in, this will be devastating for so many—’

  The door opens and a whole new nightmare stares me in the face.

  ‘Anal man!’ I screech clear as a bell, when I see my recent sexual conquest standing in front of me. His face doesn’t jog any memory of his real name.

  ‘Wow,’ he says, alarmed by such a graphic hello.

  ‘What? This guy?’ Risky asks.

  ‘No, another man,’ I say, trying to cover my tracks. ‘Look, it’s another man.’

  ‘Is Lauren in here?’ Risky asks him, moving on. She will deal with me later.

  ‘Yes, who shall I say it is …’

  But Risky bursts past him before I have a chance to answer.

  ‘Come in,’ Anal Man says sarcastically. We stand for a second staring at each other. ‘Well this is strange,’ he says.

  ‘It is. I, er …’

  He leans in and whispers, ‘You just called me Anal Man, is that my new name?’

  ‘No. Look, oh God sorry, can we catch up later, I really need to …’ I push past him too.

  ‘Sure, why not. Anyone else wanna come in?’ he jokingly shouts down the corridor, before shutting the door. When he turns around, Risky and Lauren are standing opposite each other. I am in a corner begging the ground to swallow me up. What is he doing here?

  ‘Are you OK, love?’ he asks Lauren protectively.

  ‘Yeah, I’m OK Dad. This is Risky and Beth, they’re my wedding planners.’

  Dad? Anal Man is Lauren’s dad? For fuck’s sake!

  ‘Lauren’s dad? Wow,’ says Risky. ‘The plot thickens …’

  ‘What’s wrong, Risky? Did the cake not show up or something?’ Lauren asks.

  ‘The cake showed up,’ Risky says, mentally preparing herself.

  ‘OK, well what is it then? Something is wrong, isn’t it? Oh God, is it the ice sculpture? Did it smash?’ Lauren is doing her best to guess while Risky prepares to blow up her life into a billion pieces.

  ‘The ice sculpture is fine. I … I … Oh I can’t do it, Beth, tell her.’

  ‘What? Why me?’

  ‘Because you’re the boss?’ Risky says, as if that makes any sense. Lauren turns to look at me. She is worried now, maybe starting to panic a little. Why would we burst in like this if it wasn’t serious? I have to tell her, but how?

  ‘What is it, Beth?’ Anal Man asks.

  The room is suddenly deathly still. I have no choice.
/>   ‘Lauren, Risky and I just saw something we wish we hadn’t seen.’

  ‘What?’ she asks nervously. ‘What did you see?’

  I take a deep breath and hang my head. I can’t look at her while I say this.

  ‘We saw Gavin having … he was having …’

  ‘Having what?’ Lauren asks, a little tear appearing.

  ‘Having sex with your—’

  Right on cue, in storms Mayra. ‘Right, let’s get this dress on, shall we darling?’ she says. ‘Oh Ross, you’re here!’

  ‘Ross!’ I yelp. ‘Ross, that’s it!’ Everyone looks at me strangely.

  ‘Having sex with who?’ Lauren says. And I realise she hasn’t moved an inch, or taken her eyes off me. Waiting for me to finish my sentence with her entire life depending on it.

  ‘With her,’ I say, pointing at Mayra. ‘Risky and I just saw Gavin having sex with your mother.’

  Lauren and Mayra lock eyes. Risky smiles at me, and mouths, ‘Well done.’ I feel like the worst person alive.

  ‘Mum?’ Lauren says, with so much pain in her voice that it hurts just to hear it. ‘Is that true?’

  ‘What? Of course it’s not true. These women are trying to get publicity for their business. It’s very obvious, darling. Now please, everyone out. It’s time for the bride to get dressed.’

  I start to leave. A part of me just wants this to pass over. I said it, it’s up to them now.

  ‘Come on Risky,’ I say, urging her to come with me, but she doesn’t move. She just stares at Lauren like she is a puppy in a shop window and needs to be saved.

  ‘I saw it though,’ she says, breathlessly. ‘You’re her mother, how could you?’

  ‘Oh, take your lies somewhere else you vicious little girl. Making up tales to sell to the press to make money for yourself. Disgusting,’ Mayra says. The venom in her voice is a bit startling. I step back and stand by Risky. I can’t have her spoken to like that.

  ‘Mayra, if you choose to lie to your daughter then so be it, but please don’t make accusations like that to me or my staff.’

  ‘Oh, I can’t make accusations, but you can, is that it?’