Taking a Chance on Love

by Erin Green

  ‘Mummy needs to go, sweetie. Look, Grandpops is waiting for you.’ I point towards the back door.

  Luke had lifted his head, his tears suspended, and stared through the open kitchen door towards my dad beckoning him into the garden.

  ‘That big robin is back,’ Dad called.

  ‘Robin!’ cried Luke, releasing my leg and clambering from the carpet to dash towards the garden.

  ‘Go, go, go!’ ushered my mum, hastily kissing my cheek. ‘He’ll be fine, you know he always is. We’ll watch his elephant DVD, that always settles him.’

  ‘Thanks.’ The front door was quickly fastened before I’d stepped from their doorstep.

  I drove off feeling dreadful; a wedding fayre was the last thing I wanted to attend – this wasn’t how I’d imagined today would start.

  But now here I am, amongst the throng of other wedding industry suppliers, and I need to up my game if I’m to secure some floristry bookings. I’ve already spied another florist, who I believe owns the largest shop in the town, amidst the stationers, the photographers, limousine hire and talented milliners. Thankfully, my prices reflect my low overheads and self-employed status, so I’m fair competition for any commercial florist. I’ve no doubt we’re both talented in our chosen profession, but for some couples the price is the bottom line.

  I carry the large flower box to my assigned stall space, drop it and immediately return to my car. I believe we have just one hour for the vendors’ vehicles to park near the hotel steps before they want the entrance cleared and the red carpet rolled out ready for the arrival of potential wedding couples and their excited families. I start unloading the interior, which is as crammed full as the boot was.

  ‘Hi, Dana!’ calls a male voice. I quickly turn to see Kevin Knightley, the wedding car specialist, passing by dressed smartly in his chauffeur’s outfit.

  ‘Hi, Kevin you’re looking very smart today,’ I call back, straightening from my crouched position.

  ‘You never know what bookings you’ll take at these affairs, do you?’ he replies, striding towards his highly polished Bentley. ‘Let’s hope it’s busy if nothing else.’

  He’s got a point. You prepare as much as you can, bring as many sample materials as you can and a gallery of photographs showing what you can’t physically bring, and yet a potential wedding booking will still outwit you by saying, ‘You’re not quite what we’re looking for.’ I’ve attended so many wedding fayres; some are worth it but others are a total waste of time, where no one is booking, everyone wants a freebie and the time you’ve spent standing and smiling at the passing parade could have been spent with your child at home.

  Thankfully, I’ve been stationed in the hotel’s main function room, without a competing florist in sight. Every couple and their family have to walk past me in order to get to the cake decorators and the wedding photographer. Therefore, I’ve been rushed off my feet answering questions, suggesting flower combinations symbolising specific meanings and have secured three bookings for May, June and a massive wedding in August. All deposits paid in full!

  ‘Can we have navy blue flowers?’ asks a young woman, staring at the large fresh bridal bouquet of white lilies which I created on Friday evening.

  ‘You can have whatever colour you wish. I can dye the flowers to match a piece of fabric from your wedding colours,’ I explain, instantly flipping my gallery of photographs looking for a Cadbury’s purple bouquet I once dyed flowers especially for.

  ‘And it doesn’t rub off on to your dress?’ she asks, eagerly glancing between her bored fiancé and me.

  ‘No. The technique works really well, giving a rich colour, which is sustained if the bouquet is later dried and displayed as a picture.’

  ‘Any colour?’

  ‘Yep.’ I point to my Cadbury’s purple bouquet and the bride-to-be squeals in delight.

  ‘That’s exactly what I wanted. Look, Danny, look!’

  The fiancé looks but fails to show any interest.

  ‘I want . . . a large teardrop bouquet, with a mass of trailing foliage that touches the floor as I walk . . . like the royal family have,’ she says, her hands wildly gesturing shape and size.

  ‘Mmmm, can I suggest that your wedding bouquet doesn’t quite touch the floor? My great-grandmother always blamed the failure of her marriage on that small detail. Could I suggest’ – I flip through my gallery of images to a beautiful bridal bouquet with delicate tendrils and variegated ivy which almost touches the floor, stopping an inch or so above the bridal gown’s hemline – ‘something like this?’

  ‘Yes, that! Oh, I love that idea!’

  Sold. Another floristry booking secured: one large bridal bouquet plus six bridesmaids’ posies for August, and a deposit paid.

  I’m on a roll today!

  Polly

  I run around the dining room, folding fabric napkins and rearranging hard-backed chairs, nudging them sideways to squeeze in two garden chairs for my nieces, avoiding the legs of our dining-room table, which will ruin their enjoyment of the Sunday lunch.

  ‘Fraser, I don’t know why I offer to cook for everyone – we haven’t the room, the cutlery or the patience for such big family occasions, and yet . . .’ I say, bounding back into the kitchen to grab the condiments.

  ‘You do it every other month in the name of sisterly love. I’ve said it before: she never invites us to their house in return,’ says Fraser, uncorking two bottles of red wine in preparation. ‘Everything goes in her favour; she gives very little to you, Polly. Helen cares about Helen and her own.’

  ‘Fraser, please don’t.’

  ‘Mark my words . . . I can predict the entire conversation from the moment they arrive until the moment we wave them goodbye from the doorstep.’

  ‘Oh, Fraser, she’s my sister. If you were tighter with your brothers, we’d be inviting them over.’

  ‘But still . . . she should appreciate you a little more than she does. Anyway, if either of my brothers could maintain a relationship for longer than a week or so, we could invite them and their plus ones – but they don’t so, we can’t.’

  ‘Much to your poor mother’s disgust,’ I mutter, as I buzz about preparing the table, dashing back and forth from kitchen to dining room. ‘Though she continues to pray for a wedding for either of them.’

  Fraser’s right; I can admit it without feeling disloyal to Helen. I know he’s always got my back where she’s concerned. He’s pointed out so many things over the years, but it boils down to the simple fact that she is my sister, and I only have one. Unlike Fraser, whose two younger siblings we see very little; it seems like his relentless act of big brother, with the comfortable home life and child, isn’t always what younger siblings wish to see. They’ll be settled one day, and maybe we’ll see more of them then.

  I replay Friday’s phone call to my sister in my head. I know Helen would prefer to go on a mini break with Marc than be at Cody’s party; worse still, she’d probably prefer me to be at home babysitting her two girls than be at Cody’s party – but we all have our flaws.

  I pull myself up sharp – look how rude I was to Lola. By the time she’d reached the end of the High Street, no doubt striding past the bathroom showroom and craning her neck to see our Cody in his suit, I felt mean. Mean for mentioning the flowers. Mean for flexing my maternal instincts on a slip of a girl who simply had eyes for a specific male. Hadn’t I been that girl once? How would I feel if a grown woman had treated me that way?

  I stop in my stride. Yep, Olive was . . . is cold, but she’s never verbally mean towards me.

  And Malcolm’s always been approachable, but men don’t do that sort of thing, do they?

  ‘What?’ asks Fraser, dragging me from my thoughts. ‘You look like you’re mithering away inside your head.’

  ‘Nothing. Could you find suitable background music whilst we eat dinner? And no Pink Flo
yd,’ I say, to pre-empt his questioning.

  It’s one thing to admit to myself what I’d done to Lola, but quite another to confess it to Fraser. Fraser would never have let anything as trivial get under his skin like that. He’d have maintained a dignified persona, but no, not me.

  ‘I think Marc would appreciate a bit of the Floyd,’ mumbles Fraser, disappearing through to the lounge to flick through his collection.

  ‘That may well be . . . but the rest of us will have indigestion before dessert arrives. Oh shit!’ I exclaim, scrambling to the freezer, remembering that I hadn’t taken out the pavlova to defrost last night as I’d planned.

  ‘You haven’t defrosted the dessert, have you?’ calls Fraser, his voice muffled with his head buried in his music collection.

  ‘Nope, but you knew that!’ I drag the strawberry pavlova from the freezer drawer and check that the mint Viennetta remains intact as a feasible substitute.

  Why I do this to myself every other month I do not know. Fraser has a point: Helen never invites us to hers. In fact, Helen never invites anyone to hers, including our parents, though they do need inviting on different days in order to keep the peace. I invite each one alternately to join bi-monthly; today’s my mother turn to join the happy throng, though if she brings up the subject of Wednesday’s tantric session in front of her grandchildren, I will be stepping in to silence her.

  I glance at the clock: half twelve.

  ‘Fraser, will you give Cody a call, please? He needs to be up, washed and dressed before they arrive at one o’clock.’

  I hear Fraser’s muffled cry up the staircase and hope Cody’s forgiven me for mentioning the Valentine flowers to Lola.

  Dana

  ‘Have you got a pen to jot down some details?’ Tamzin’s voice sounds even zanier and more frantic on my mobile handsfree.

  ‘Sure,’ I say, grabbing a pen from my pocket, struggling to hear amidst the wedding fayre chaos.

  ‘So, we’re looking at the following: Monday, Wednesday and Friday afternoon for a date with each male A, B and C which allows us early evening for editing. Tuesday and Thursday lunchtime until about four o’clockish to record your feedback to the previous day’s date. Though Friday’s feedback will be recorded straight after the date – you’ll understand why when you see the timings. We’ll need you for most of Saturday given it’s the live finale, and you’ll need to travel to London for your big date. The production team have secured an early evening TV slot to show Friday’s feedback – it’ll help to pull in the audience for the live finale later that night. We’ve a highlights programme booked for Sunday night – but we don’t need you. We’ll condense the best bits into a one hour slot. How does that sound?’

  I am flabbergasted. I didn’t expect such a full timetable.

  ‘It sounds very busy,’ I say dubiously. ‘I didn’t realise the finale would be a live broadcast.’

  ‘Oh, it is, it is. Each afternoon we’ll be cutting and creating from that day’s footage to create a one-hour programme and, come Saturday night, we’ll be airing the double episode and hopefully announce some fantastic news about your new relationship. The Sunday programme simply gives the TV audience a second chance to swoon if they missed the whole week.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘Dana . . . this was all explained yesterday, right?’

  ‘I can’t really say, Tamzin . . . there seemed to be so much asked of me yesterday that I have no idea if these details washed over me or not, to be frank.’

  ‘OK, well, shout any time you have questions. We’ve booked out a suite of rooms at the Red Lion for you to use each day to get yourself ready. It goes without saying we have a hair stylist and make-up artist so that you’ll be camera-ready, and we have a selection of outfits for you to choose from. All transport has been organised and, of course, all expenses for each date will be taken care of by the production team.’

  ‘Make-up artist and hairdresser?’ I mutter, slowly realising the scale of this arrangement.

  ‘Oh yeah! Of course, if you’d prefer to do your own . . . but the team thought you’d enjoy a bit of pampering throughout the dating experience.’

  ‘It all sounds wonderful, Tamzin.’

  ‘Anything else?’

  ‘Can I ask any details about the male candidates?’

  ‘You’ll be given a brief outline before each date. They all live within or close to your county so, should anything develop during the course of the week, it’ll be feasible to continue to see each other after the documentary has aired.’

  I have nothing else to ask Tamzin.

  My only question is for my parents: are they busy next week and could they babysit Luke?

  Polly

  ‘As I was saying,’ continues my mother, her arm draped awkwardly around my youngest niece, squashing Erica to her aged bosom, ‘live and let live – that’s my motto.’

  I grab my second glass of Merlot and take a deep swig; there is no point arguing over the irony of her remark.

  ‘Then surely you need to start living by that motto, Pauline?’ says Fraser, pushing his empty plate aside. ‘You’ve hardly been dignified in your attitude towards Jeff in the past – well, not since I’ve been around.’

  I glance at my sister, who is bristling at the very mention of my mother’s social/love life. I wonder if she even knows about the tantric session with Derek. Helen’s pursed mouth is working hard to refrain from speaking. My brother-in-law, Marc, glances at her, maintains his quiet composure and simply listens. I imagine that Helen’s fingers, interwoven with Marc’s beneath the table, are flexing in annoyance, which prompted him to check her expression. Decades together and still they hold hands at every possibility. I was tempted to sit them apart, placing their daughters in between, but who knows what friction that might have caused. In stark contrast, I’d removed our pair of Valentine’s cards from the mantelpiece this morning, to prevent my blood relations taking the mickey as much as our son had. I stashed them inside my memory box, kept at the bottom of the lounge bookcase.

  ‘Fraser, live and let live has always been my motto – it may have fallen by the wayside once or twice in the last twenty-three years but I swear that is what I live by.’

  ‘Gran, what about the time you slashed Granddad’s tyres for—’

  ‘That’s enough, Cody,’ interjects Fraser, knowing full well the story would quite clearly prove the point that Grandma is lying.

  ‘But she . . .’ interjects Cody, eyes wide, pleading to be heard.

  ‘I know. We all know . . . just give it a rest, will you?’ I add, appreciating Fraser’s tact. I change the subject clumsily. ‘Helen, you’ve hardly touched your roast potatoes.’

  ‘Too much for me, Polly. I’m trying to cut down a little.’ I notice she pushes the plate aside as I speak.

  ‘But you’ve left beef and vegetables too – that’s not like you.’

  ‘I know,’ says Helen, her widening eyes signalling for me to shut up. Is she OK? Or is she still smarting because of Cody’s party invite?

  ‘I’ll have your beef if it’s going begging,’ says Cody, his fork primed to pinch it from my sister’s plate.

  ‘Here.’ Helen nudges her plate a little closer as Cody launches his attack. Evie and Erica, my two young nieces, sit and stare demurely as their big boy cousin devours yet more food, having already polished off his own substantial portion. They glance at one another, possibly grateful they don’t share a house with such a gannet.

  ‘Marc, can I fetch you any more roast potatoes, more beef?’ I ask, viewing his empty plate, scraped clean of every morsel.

  ‘No, thanks, Polly that was fine, just enough – I assume there’s pudding?’

  ‘Of course, though only if it’s defrosted in time, Marc,’ offers Fraser, standing to help me clear the dirty dishes. ‘Someone forgot to take it from the freezer last night. Otherwise
we’ll be fighting over the Viennetta.’

  ‘And who didn’t remind me?’ I shout over my shoulder, balancing a pile of plates and heading for the adjoining kitchen. ‘I’d planned to bake my own pavlova but I ran out of time.’

  ‘I knew I’d get the blame. But we’ll let you off, my love – you have been incredibly busy this week. These lovelies keep us on our toes, don’t they, Marc?’

  ‘Certainly, you should be grateful you’ve only got one to contend with. Me, I’ve got three,’ moans Marc, glancing around the table at his wife and two daughters.

  ‘Fair point, though this one has his moments too, I can assure you. Look at him, scoffing for England. Cody must have cost me a thousand pound a square inch in food to achieve his height and size,’ says Fraser, following my path towards the kitchen.

  I shove the dishes near the sink and turn my thoughts to dessert, grabbing dishes, spoons and an almost-defrosted pavlova from the microwave turntable where I’d carefully stashed it.

  ‘Given the ice crystals still decorating the raspberry pavlova, I suggest ice cream and double cream all round,’ jokes Fraser, returning to the dining room. ‘Polly’s homemade pavlova would have won hands down – her meringue is to die for.’

  I hear a polite titter amongst our diners. He’s right, I do have a talent for whipping meringues. I haven’t a talent for juggling time, though a few less tasks might help.

  I wanted pavlova, be it homemade or shop-bought.

  I want pavlova.

  ‘Anyone joining me?’ I ask, delivering the plated pavlova to the table. Helen and my mother lean forward, peer at it and sit back.

  ‘Viennetta for me, please, Fraser,’ says my mother, swiftly followed by Helen.

  ‘OK, anyone else?’ I glance around the table as everyone stares at Fraser, who is holding a brick of mint ice cream to share amongst the group, a modern version of feeding the five thousand. ‘Bugger you, then.’

  As my cake knife swiftly delves into the meringue, I don’t lift my eyes, but stare at my dessert.