Prior Engagements

by Sarah Goodwin

  By the time Opal kissed Not-as-hot-as-Dorian, I was way past bored and into ‘Doctors surgery waiting room’ levels of mental inactivity.

  The bride and groom swept down the aisle together, the choir singing angelically somewhere near the front of the church. Three billion violins sawing away in harmony. We followed them en masse, politely smiling and throwing confetti from the sachets handed to us by the uniformed ushers.

  I watched Dorian as he smiled at the few people who acknowledged us. He looked strained. I didn’t blame him. All that anxiety, all the effort to get me here, to show up at all, and Opal hadn’t even seemed to be looking for him.

  “That was horrible,” he said, white faced, as we stood to one side of the Abbey, watching a photographer snap pictures of Opal and her bridesmaids.

  “Well at least it’s over n...”

  “Can we get all the guests in for this one?” called the photographer.

  Dorian looked ready to run for it, but we trooped forwards and took our place at the edge of the swath of people. The photographer took the picture, and that’s when I noticed Opal looking over at us.

  “She’s looking,” I said out of the corner of my mouth.

  Dorian’s eyes went wide. “Really?”

  “Yes,” I glanced back at Opal, who was still looking at us. “What do you want to do?”

  Dorian was frozen like a rabbit about to be mown down by a (really gorgeous) car.

  I took matters into my own hands, slid my arm through his and reached up to kiss the side of his mouth. While he was still blinking at me I led him quickly away from the wedding party and around the corner into a side street.

  “That was horrible,” Dorian muttered, once we were well away from the wedding party.

  “At least you got through it.”

  He looked at me, pale and pinched and miserable.

  “Let’s go get a coffee, OK?” I said, pretending he was Yvonne on another one of her ‘how could he give me crabs and run off with my jewellery?’ crying jags. “I’ll pay.”

  Of course, in Bath, the home of Starbucks, Café Nero and independent, four-pounds-per-tiny-tourist-loving-cup cafés, the only place I could afford to go was right back to Burger King.

  I parked Dorian on a red vinyl chair in the downstairs seating place, subterranean, where no one would see him through the window. I hitched up my fabulous blue skirt and climbed the greasy stairs all the way back to the counter, where I ordered two coffees (sans fancy names) and a paper packet of mini pancakes.

  What? Weddings make me hungry. And it wasn’t like I was going to get any cake.

  I took the lot downstairs on a tray and watched Dorian empty nine and a half sugar packets into his coffee.

  “She looked...stunning,” he said, stirring the brew half-heartedly.

  “She is gorgeous,” I offered him a pancake, and he declined, “but...the groom? Nowhere near as hot as you.”

  Dorian looked at me, a small smile teasing the corner of his mouth.

  “Is it OK if that makes me feel better?”

  I nodded.

  “I just...I never thought she’d go through with it...I was very much under the impression that it was a sort of...cry for attention.”

  “That she broke it off with you, for that guy?”

  “It’s how she got me to propose,” Dorian admitted.

  My expression must have betrayed my disgust in her, and my disbelief at him, because Dorian covered his eyes with one hand and groaned.

  “I’ve been an utter idiot, haven’t I?”

  “They probably won’t be letting you into MENSA anytime soon, but...” I found myself wanting to be something other than sarcastic and marginally supportive, just this once. “...you really loved her, and sometimes we act like idiots for the people we fall for.”

  Dorian sighed.

  I ate a pancake.

  This inspirational, comforting thing wasn’t going all that well.

  “Tell me about how you met her,” I said, after a prolonged silence in which Dorian had sipped his coffee, then put it down and glared at it.

  “Opal?”

  “Well, start with her, we can do fiancée number two later, if we have time.”

  That raised another smile.

  “Opal’s family owns an airline, and her father is friends with my second cousin, Amelia...we met at a coming out party in New York, and I knew right then that I wanted to marry her. So I proposed a year into our relationship, on a visit to the south of France... ”

  “I’m getting the feeling that your cup rather runneth over with posh.”

  “Yes, I suppose it does. Or did anyway. I declined to go into the same line of work as my father, and my three brothers, and since then I haven’t really been the family favourite.”

  “What’s the family business?”

  “Mainly stock trading, though my brother recently branched out into small business ownership.”

  I snored loudly.

  “I agree, and anyway, I’ve always liked art more than having a lot of money.”

  “I’m sensing that this is where Opal got cold feet?”

  “At the prospect of me making an almost negligible living as an artist, and inheriting very little from my disappointed parents...she called off the wedding.”

  “But you look like you’re doing OK, money-wise.”

  “I’m a very very lucky artist. And after a while my parents realised that I was doing well, and came to terms with my career choice.”

  I grinned. “Beats working in a shop for minimum wage...still, my fiancé left me at the altar before I got the job. So at least I know it wasn’t that that tipped him over the edge.”

  Dorian winced. “You were...jilted?”

  “To the extreme,” I sighed, “Stephen-the-indecisive. Proposed, insisted we rush the wedding, then didn’t even show. Five years ago.”

  “And since then you haven’t tried again?”

  “Clearly you’re more hopeful than me,” I said, stirring my coffee and looking at it rather than at him, “I think I’d have to trust someone a hell of a lot to go through with that long, long walk again. Or, I’d just have to...not care, about whether or not we made it. Hardly excellent reasons to tie the knot.”

  “The first one was.”

  “I trusted Stephen,” I pointed out, “and here I sit, broke, in a dress someone else paid for, pretending to be the fiancée of a man I barely know.”

  “So what you’re saying is...it all worked out fine, and you adore my company?”

  “Cute.”

  “I try.”

  “So, what do you have planned for the evening, post-wedding?” I asked.

  “I was thinking I’d go back to my hotel, crack open the awful novel I bought at the airport, and have complimentary coffee for dinner.”

  “That sounds...unbearably sad.”

  “Sad is the running theme of today.”

  “No, I refuse to accept that.” I sat back and crossed my arms. “You are going to have a good time tonight if it kills me.”

  “...hurrah?”

  “I’m serious. You’re all dressed up...I can show you a nice restaurant and you can at least have a good dinner, maybe see a little of Bath?”

  “We.”

  “I’m sorry?”

  “We, can have a nice dinner,” Dorian said shyly. “You deserve it after braving the wedding.”

  “I couldn’t...I mean, I don’t have the money for a nice place...I barely have the money for a nasty place.”

  “I’ll pay.”

  “But...”

  He raised a hand. “You paid for the coffee, it’s only fair.”

  I narrowed my eyes. “You are just too bloody charming.”

  “Or, I’m just charming enough.”

  “I’ll work it out at dinner,” I said.

  Chapter Two

  For dinner, I took Dorian to the WestGate pub, a place that I knew from good experience did an excellent steak, and an exquisite key lime martini. We
sat at a table in the back, in comfy, well-beaten old armchairs, and shared a bowl of nibbles before dinner.

  As well as a bottle of wine.

  OK, I know, ‘Alcohol is not the solution to all life’s problems’, but sometimes, if the question is ‘What would make me feel less terrible right now’ it is kind of the answer to one of life’s many questions. So Dorian ordered a bottle of Barolo Lazzarito and we made steady inroads into it until the food arrived. Over our steaks we finished off the bottle, and Dorian ordered another when our smiling student/waitress came over. We were probably nearing the danger point of alcohol saturation whilst operating under the effects of misery, but instead of dessert we both opted for a brandy. Which kind of pushed things over the edge, to the point that our conversation slipped from ‘friendly’ to ‘overly sharey’.

  “I mean...I loved him,” I said, as I gestured with my brandy glass, “I’d never loved anyone before, and then Stephen turns up with his smile, and his nose wrinkle, and his...perfect, perfect arse...and I just...I lost my mind.”

  Dorian looked morosely into his own glass. “Opal had a nice arse.”

  “I saw it,” I said, remembering my envy at the wedding, “it was excellent.” I sniffed. “No one appreciates my arse.”

  “I’m sure that’s not true.”

  “It is,” I could feel my mouth wavering, “the only person who even looks at me is Will, and he doesn’t even like me – he just can’t turn it off.”

  “Turn what off?”

  “His flirt-brain. He just flirts with anything in a skirt that happens to come into the café.”

  “He sounds...enigmatic.”

  “You don’t have to be nice, I met him at uni – you’ve seen someone at their worst when you’ve seen them in hemp trousers.” I giggled to myself. Dorian let out a huff of laughter.

  The waitress returned, and we ordered more brandy.

  And, three glasses later...

  “What I don’t understand...” Dorian put forth, like a bishop in a Dickensian novel.

  “Is women?” I chimed helpfully.

  “Is women,” Dorian agreed. “Why say yes? Why get engaged, if you’re just going to throw it all in and go off with some...banker.”

  I couldn’t help myself, I laughed. He just looked so disgusted.

  “I’ve asked two women, that’s twice I’ve been engaged. Have I ever been married? No. So what am I doing wrong?” he asked of me, wine glass in hand.

  “Maybe you’re just picking the wrong women,” I said, “or, maybe you’re being engaged too long. Do the sneak attack – ask them, ‘do you want to get married?’ and when they say ‘yes’ you say ‘oh good’, and then throw open a door to a secret wedding-room. Boom. One wedding, no waiting.”

  “That,” Dorian said, “is an excellent idea.”

  “I know,” I’m actually quite pleased with it, “if I’d done that with Stephen, he would have married me right then – he wouldn’t have had time to get nervous.”

  “A brilliant idea, but far too late,” Dorian said mournfully.

  I looked down at my hand, wrapped around the wine glass. No ring. If only I’d seen it sooner, that Stephen just wasn’t ready. I glanced at my watch.

  “Oh...arse.”

  “What?”

  “I’ve just missed my train to Bristol.”

  “What do you do in Bristol?”

  “I live there, genius...ohhh, now I have to get a taxi.”

  “On your own?” Dorian looked scandalised.

  “Well, yes.”

  “But it’s gone eleven.”

  “I know that.”

  “But it might not be safe,” he pointed out.

  “It’s perfectly safe. I take taxis all the time and it’s fine,” I said, though, secretly I was a little worried. I’m not paranoid or anything, I just prefer not to travel alone at night, especially if I have to walk past all the clubs to get to the mini-cab office. You can never tell when there are drunk idiots about, just how many you’ll be tempted to murder with your shoes.

  “I’ll go with you,” Dorian said, “you’re drunk, you shouldn’t go on your own.”

  For some reason, this seemed perfectly logical to me.

  “OK,” I said, and we walked together to the bar so that Dorian could pay, before leaving and heading towards the taxi office.

  Sitting together in the back of a mini-cab, heading to Bristol and my dark, cold one-bedroom flat, Dorian looked out of the window and sighed.

  “It’s been ages since I’ve seen Bath like this.”

  “You lived here, before?”

  “Yes. I only moved once things with Opal...didn’t work out.” He looked out at the scrolling view of Georgian buildings. “I found it too painful.”

  “Where do you live now?”

  “I move a lot,” he shrugged, “I always end up needing more room after a couple of months in any one place.”

  I was prepared to question this, but a crowd of pink tutu wearing rugby players distracted me. Dorian and I watched them prance along the pavement, probably heading out to one of the student nights at a club. Yvonne was most likely out somewhere too. The number of times I’d heard her confess, tired eyed and hung-over in the break room, that she’d gone home with some student or other. The sheer number of rugby players, musicians, wrestlers and artists that she had lured back to her flat...well, she probably had more students go through her than the UCAS website and the dole office combined.

  By the time I’d stopped dwelling on Yvonne and how she was probably having far more fun than me on any given night, we’d reached the outskirts of Bristol.

  Dorian glanced out of the window and caught sight of a road sign, pointing the way to the airport. He laughed to himself quietly.

  “What?”

  “I was just thinking, about your sneak attack theory.”

  It took me longer than it should have, but I remembered what I’d said back at the pub.

  “What about it?”

  “Just that, someday I should try and propose at the airport, then whisk my new fiancée abroad to get married before she can change her mind.”

  “Elope with the intent to avoid disaster.”

  “Exactly,” he slumped into his seat, “but...I’m not exactly the most spontaneous man alive. I wouldn’t be able to get on a plane without re-packing my bag six times and buying auxiliary flight socks.”

  I snorted, “today’s been pretty spontaneous.”

  “There’s a difference between desperation and adventure.”

  “Still, you shouldn’t be so hard on yourself, seriously, the most spontaneous thing I’ve ever done was go to that wedding with you. Usually I restrict my ‘adventures’ to ‘which ready-meal am I going to cook tonight?’”

  “I don’t even have that,” Dorian confided. “I have a meal plan.”

  “A what-now?”

  “It’s a list that tells me what I should eat, every day. So I get my five-a-day and plenty of cruciferous vegetables.”

  I whistled. “Yeah...that is pretty sad.”

  We sat in silence for a while.

  “We’ve been a good influence on each other though,” I said, “what with you getting me to ditch work, and me spiriting you off to dinner and Bristol.”

  “True...tonight hasn’t gone anything like I thought it would.”

  I frowned at him.

  “That’s a good thing,” he assured me, “I thought I’d spend the night being miserable...but actually, I think I’m having fun.”

  “Me too...promise me you won’t go and be miserable once you’ve dropped me off.”

  “I might try and catch an early flight actually.”

  “Oh no, you should see some of Bath, if you haven’t been for a while.”

  He made a noncommittal noise.

  “Or, get one of those last minute flights to...Bali or somewhere. That’s adventurous, and I bet you’d have fun. You’re already packed and everything.”

  “I can’t imagine it would b
e much fun,” he sighed.

  I huffed. “At least you’ve got the money to do it.”

  “True,” he said, then seemed to sense that he’d done something inconsiderate. “Sorry, I suppose I must seem like an ungrateful git.”

  “Little bit.”

  “It’s just...I’d still be on my own, and sometimes it’s like I don’t even know how to have fun. I ask myself what I want to do...and I just can’t think of anything. Really I’d just end up reading the Times, in my suit, on a beach somewhere.”

  “You could have a cocktail too,” I point out, “go for a swim, have some local food, hunt for new species of lizard, commit yourself to a monastic tribe, the possibilities are endless.”

  “See, you’re the one with all the great ideas.”

  “I daydream a lot about what it would be like, being able to run off to Barcelona or Russia at the drop of a hat.”

  “You should come with me.”

  I blinked at him, brain fuzzy with wine. “What?”

  “You should come with me, show me what you’d do to have fun.”

  “Just, go to the airport, and leave, tonight?”

  “Why not? It could be like a dry run of my sneak attack proposal.”

  He blinked, and it was then, right then, that my life changed forever.

  “Or not,” he said.

  “OK, if you don’t want me to...”

  “No, I mean...not a dry run...the run – the only one.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “We should get married,” he said.

  “I’m sorry...experiencing some hysterical deafness here. Try me again.”

  “We should fly somewhere, tonight, and get married. Before anything goes wrong, before we even know enough to think that something could go wrong. We should get married and figure it out afterwards.”

  “Like one of those arranged marriages?”

  “Exactly, only...arranged by fate...or luck, something like that.”

  Now, if Dorian hadn’t had quite a bit of wine, and a very hard day, he might never have suggested this plan.

  And if I hadn’t been reminded so much of Stephen-the-indecisive throughout the day, and if I’d had a little less wine...I probably wouldn’t have said...