The Last Day of Winter

by Shari Low

  ‘Caro…’ Cammy was saying now, as he gazed into his bride’s eyes. ‘I have loved you since the first day I met you. You’re my heart, my soul and my best friend. I can’t wait to see what life brings us, and no matter what it is, all I care about is that I’ll be by your side.’

  Aw, for feck’s sake. This was going to end her, it really was. They hadn’t shared their vows with her in the run-up to the ceremony, because they both said they were going to wing it on the day. Even if Cammy Jones had spent a month preparing them, he couldn’t have said anything more perfect. She sniffed again, causing another glance of note to travel between Michael and Avril.

  ‘Cammy, from the first night I met you, I knew you were everything. You’ve shown me a kind of happiness that I never knew existed and I can’t wait to go through this life beside you, because that’s the only place I’ll ever want to be.’

  Only the very churlish would point out that she wasn’t feeling that way this morning when she did a runner. Josie made a mental note to tease her about that later. Churlish had always been her specialty.

  They were repeating all the ‘honour and cherish, in sickness and health’ stuff now, both of them grinning from ear to ear. Almost done. Then the buffet would come out and they could all go and eat, drink and dance until midnight, and then she could go to bed, knowing that her job was done. She’d somehow, despite curve balls no one could have anticipated, managed to pull off this wonderful celebration of Cammy and Caro’s love.

  ‘I always dread this bit,’ Mr Naismith was joking now. ‘So I’ll say it quickly and get it out of the way.’ He cleared his throat and then spoke like a vinyl record that had been speeded up a notch. ‘If anyone knows of any reason why these two people should not be joined in marriage, please speak now or forever hold your peace.’ There was a moment’s hesitation, before his face broke into a smile, and he began, ‘Excellent. Therefore—’

  It was the screeching of a chair moving along the floor that Josie heard first. Then the rustling of a person moving, of clothes rearranging as the wearer went from sitting to standing. Then the voice, weak at first, gaining strength as it went on.

  ‘I do,’ it said. ‘Cammy shouldn’t be marrying her, it should be me.’

  Thirty-Two

  Stacey

  The bride had turned up. The minute that guy had interrupted Cammy’s announcement, Stacey’s heart had seized, because she’d just known what was about to happen. Sure enough, the music started and the next thing, Cammy was back in position and Caro was waltzing up the aisle, and the two of them were grinning at each other, all that drama over the bride’s no-show suddenly washed away and Stacey’s hopes of being with him drowned in the wake.

  Stacey had thought about slipping out but had decided to see it through. She’d sat next to Jared and Todd, directly behind Josie (a deliberate choice so that she’d be out of Josie’s inquisitive eyeline) and across the aisle from her mum, who kept glancing in her direction, with an expression that Stacey knew was somewhere between concern, sympathy and fear that Stacey would make a show of herself.

  Stacey kept her eyes front and centre, resigned to enduring the pain of every word. Her mother and Josie would be furious if she sneaked out, and if she left, Cammy might guess what had been right there in front of him all day – she was in love with him. He was just too dazzled by Caro to see it.

  Caro. It was impossible to dislike her. She was beautiful, in a natural, understated way, and if her dress was anything to go by, she didn’t need drama and glitz. Although, the footwear was an interesting choice.

  The buzz of her phone cut through her thoughts, and for a second she thought about surreptitiously fishing in her bag for the device and checking out who was contacting her. In the end, she decided against it. It was probably Jax, and he would just be doling out more pleas for her to contact him. She was dreading their next conversation, with his inevitable demands for explanations, so she was up for avoiding it for as long as possible.

  Cammy was saying his vows now, and Stacey closed her eyes, imagining he was saying them to her. ‘In sickness and in health, until death do us part.’

  She’d have taken that deal. Still would.

  She zoned back into what was happening at the front of the room as the celebrant continued to speak. ‘If anyone knows of any reason why these two people should not be joined in marriage, please speak now or forever hold your peace.’

  Stacey closed her eyes, heart thudding, objections firing around her mind, screaming to be heard.

  Suddenly another voice rang out loud and clear. ‘I do,’ it was saying. ‘Cammy shouldn’t be marrying her, it should be me.’

  Stacey snapped her head up so fast she almost gave herself whiplash, her stomach clenching in fear. Had she said that out loud? Had she? Oh, holy fuck, her mum would kill her. But, hang on, nobody was looking at her. Even Josie, sitting in the seat directly in front of her, was now swivelling her head from side to side like a submarine periscope searching for a lethal enemy. If it were Stacey who’d blurted out the objection, Josie would have instantly whipped round and given her the stare of doom, undoubtedly followed by some kind of threat involving a staple gun and a gag.

  No, she wasn’t the culprit here.

  Her eyes went to Cammy’s face, and she saw that both the bride and groom had turned to look back down the aisle, in the direction of the entrance, and they were locked in a stare-out with a woman that Stacey recognised from photos that were taken a long time ago.

  Cammy’s photos. The ones that used to be plastered all over his Instagram account, about six months after he returned from LA. In fact, Stacey had followed this person on Instagram too, and tortured herself by looking at the endless daily snaps of her with Cammy, first thing in the morning, last thing at night, all glammed up and out partying, dressed in a power suit at work, walking the dog, putting on her make-up, blowing kisses to her followers. She was one of the most prolific social media users that Stacey had ever known, portraying a perfect, glamorous, gifted life… right up until it was no longer perfect.

  This was…

  Stacey looked at Caro for confirmation and saw recognition etched on the bride’s expression as she stared at the interloper.

  This was Lila. Caro’s sister. Half-sister actually. Cammy’s ex-girlfriend, the one who’d cheated on him and then dumped him and run off with a football player from the French national team on the night that Cammy and Caro met.

  Stacey could see why Lila had managed to bag a high-profile famous face. The woman was truly stunning. Not in the same understated way as Caro, but in a sexy, vampy, pouty, I-know-I’m-gorgeous style that oozed confidence and entitlement.

  Stacey racked her brain for some kind of explanation as to what was going on here. In all the calls and emails she’d shared with Cammy over the last couple of years, she couldn’t remember him mentioning Lila at all since he’d met Caro, other than to say that Lila and Caro shared a dad but couldn’t be more different. That aside, he’d completely moved on.

  Obviously, Lila hadn’t moved on quite so quickly.

  You could hear a pin drop in the room, every single person now wide-eyed and stunned as they watched the drama unfold.

  ‘Lila, what are you doing here?’ Caro asked, and Stacey had to give her credit – there was no malice or fury there, just a calm, reasoned question.

  ‘You know what I’m doing here,’ Lila bit back. ‘He only went with you because he thought I was no longer interested, but he was wrong.’

  Cammy was having none of it. ‘Lila, that’s not why I’m with Caro. Look, please, you’ve made your point… there’s nothing else to say, other than it’s you who’s got all this wrong. I want to be with Caro.’

  ‘You know that’s not true,’ she fired at him.

  Oh, bollocks, this wasn’t going to end well. Stacey wasn’t sure if she felt sorry for Lila or not. On the one hand, she could understand those feelings and the loss that Lila must be carrying inside now that she’d realised
she’d made a mistake in letting Cammy go. It was like looking in a mirror. But, on the other hand… she’d had the strength and the decency not to storm his bloody wedding and humiliate herself by fighting for his love. Lila, it would seem, had no such restraint.

  In the seat in front of Stacey, Josie was getting to her feet now, obviously deciding that as chief wedding planner, this was another glitch to be ironed out. But she hadn’t even reached a standing position, when Stacey shot up. There was no way she was letting Aunt Josie deal with this and equally no way she would allow this idiot to ruin Cammy’s wedding. If Stacey couldn’t have him, there was no bloody way that Lila was swooping in. Not that either of them stood a chance over the beautiful bride standing at the end of the aisle holding her soon-to-be-husband’s hand.

  Stacey climbed over Jared, then Todd, both of them transfixed by the drama, and reached Lila in just a few seconds.

  ‘Lila, can I have a word outside?’ she asked, taking her lead from Caro’s calm handling of the situation.

  Lila stared into her face with completely undisguised contempt. ‘Why?’ she spat, peering at Stacey’s face. A flicker of recognition clearly registered, because she went on, ‘You’re Stacey! I remember you.’

  Stacey nodded, trying to stay neutral and keep the situation under control. When Cammy and Lila had been together, she’d chatted to her a few times when she was on FaceTime to Cammy. Stacey had always found her distant and offhand, but she’d assumed something was just getting lost in cyberspace. Now she could see that it was because Lila was a whole bag of self-centred narcissism.

  ‘I remember you too,’ Stacey said, still calm, feeling the eyes of everyone in the room burning into her back.

  ‘Stace, are you okay?’ Cammy shouted.

  Stacey didn’t even turn around, just raised her hand in confirmation. ‘Yep, I’ve got this. Just talk among yourselves.’

  Lila was looking her up and down now. ‘You know, I used to worry that he had a thing for you, but I guess not. He obviously prefers plain.’

  ‘Okay, that’s it. Come on,’ Stacey challenged her, before grabbing her hand, spinning her around and marching her right out of the wedding area.

  As they went, she saw Lila reach over and grab a mobile phone that had been sitting on a tall plinth just behind them. As Lila picked it up, Stacey could see that the screen was illuminated. What the hell was going on here?

  Out in the foyer, Stacey closed the door behind them, so that it was just her and Lila in the room.

  Suddenly, it opened again, and Josie popped her head out.

  ‘You all right, Stacey?’

  ‘I am, Aunt Josie. Don’t worry. Go back in and tell them to carry on.’

  Josie switched her gaze to the other woman. ‘You know, Lila, I never did like you and tonight you just showed everyone why. Caro is so much more than you’ll ever be.’

  Lila’s face cracked into a slow, calculating grin of malice. ‘Yeah, I never liked you much either.’

  ‘I’d be offended if you did,’ Josie retorted with pitch-perfect superiority and Stacey was reminded – not that she needed to be – of just what a class act Josie was and had always been.

  Another head appeared in the doorway now, and Stacey reacted to that one too. ‘It’s okay, Ma – everything’s fine.’

  ‘Need some back-up there, darling?’ Senga asked.

  ‘Nope, I’ve got this.’ Stacey assured her. ‘Carry on with the wedding. I’ll come back in once I’ve put the trash out.’

  Senga and Josie were still grinning when the door closed behind them. ‘She’ll be fine,’ she heard her mum tell Josie. ‘Ten bloody years I took her to those Taekwondo classes.’

  Stacey zeroed back in on Lila. She expected the other woman to be hysterical, frantic, emotional, crying, but she was none of those things. Instead, she was now tapping the screen on her mobile phone, completely disconnected from Stacey’s presence.

  And that’s when it dawned.

  Stacey grabbed the phone and, for the first time, Lila looked panicked.

  ‘You are fricking unbelievable,’ Stacey yelled, as she stared at the screen and saw a frozen image of herself, reaching over to grab the phone just a second ago. That must have been the point that Lila pressed ‘stop’. ‘You were recording all of this?’ Stacey exclaimed, hearing a clinking sound in her head as more nuggets of realisation dropped in. ‘Holy shit, this wasn’t about Cammy at all. This was some kind of messed up publicity stunt?’

  Lila had the cheek, the absolute audacity, to look pleased with herself as she snatched her phone back. It took every single ounce of restraint and discipline Stacey possessed not to slap her.

  Lila went on the offensive. ‘Don’t you fucking dare judge me. Have you any idea what I’ve been through? I was humiliated, dumped, completely ruined by that cheating fucking footballer. I became a laughing stock. All those “likes”, all the attention, it all turned to shit. Do you know what it’s like to have all those people turn on you, make fun of you?’

  Stacey remembered seeing news of it at the time. It had caused a bit of an internet sensation – the gorgeous blonde who’d run off with Jean Pascal, the captain of the French national squad, star striker for Paris St Germain, Gallic equivalent of David Beckham, only to be dumped by him a month later when he took off with a Victoria’s Secret Angel with forty-four inch legs. Stacey remembered details like that. ‘So you do this? I don’t get it.’

  Lila shrugged. ‘For two years I’ve been nobody. Tonight, I’m everywhere…’ she checked her phone. ‘Over ten thousand people were watching that live. It helps that I’d been teasing it all day, putting my plans on loads of forums, whipping up some interest and hype. And when it gets retweeted and shared it’ll go viral.’

  ‘So you’d rather be famous for being a tit than be nobody?’ Stacey asked. In LA, she’d known so many young women – and men – like this. They’d do anything for exposure, whether it was immoral, illegal or just plain embarrassing. To them, all that mattered was the attention, the profile, the controversy. Their egos fed off it, and it became like the oxygen they needed to survive. The sad thing was, that in this time of inane worship for the zero-talented, there were people who got the reality shows, the fame and the adulation they craved. Lila couldn’t care less about Cammy. All she wanted was the fame.

  And ten thousand viewers was a pretty solid start.

  ‘You really are a sad cow, you realise that, don’t you?’

  Lila shrugged, a self-satisfied grin on her face. The device in her hand was beeping like a Morse Code signal now. ‘Yep, but one whose phone is ringing off the hook.’

  Stacey gestured to the door. ‘Well, you’d better piss off and answer your public.’

  With a toss of her hair extensions, Lila strutted towards the exit, her Louboutins carrying her to a whole new life of notoriety. What. A. Horror.

  Stacey felt a vibration against her body and wondered if she was having a heart attack, but no. It was coming from the bag that had been clenched under her arm the whole time. Sighing, she decided to check it. May as well see what Jax had to say to her and get it over with.

  Still buzzing. More buzzing. Damn, he must be on a total rant now. Finally locating the phone, she pulled it out and glanced at the screen, taking a moment to understand what she saw there. Yes, there were a couple of notifications of messages from Jax over the last hour or so, but that wasn’t what was causing the frenzy of activity now.

  Beep. Beep. Beep. The notifications from Twitter and Instagram were firing up on the screen at one second intervals. Stacey clicked on her Twitter app and saw the explanation right there. A video clip, the still image showing that it had obviously been taken from Lila’s live recording, had been retweeted by someone who had tagged her in it and now it had… Holy crap, 4408 likes, 4410, 4422… The number was increasing faster than she could read it. The comments and the shares were growing too. What the hell…?

  Heart pounding, she clicked on the video.

&nbs
p; There she was, standing with one hand on her hip, clutch bag under the other arm, her body language screaming defiance and strength as she said to some unseen person in the background. ‘Nope, I’ve got this. Carry on with the wedding. I’ll come back in once I’ve put the trash out.’

  More tweets. More comments. Every one of them with the hashtag #putthetrashout.

  The phone buzzed again, an incoming call this time. Jax. It was time to stop putting this off. She pressed accept and put the phone to her ear.

  ‘Hi.’

  There was a very slight delay as the international phone line connected, before she heard Jax’s voice, urgent, hyper, gushing. ‘Stacey, I’m sorry, babe.’

  Damn. Something was clearly wrong. What had happened now? As she listened, she walked through the foyer area to the exit and stood in the doorway, embracing the blast of cold air that assaulted her.

  ‘It wasn’t what it looked like. I’ve got no idea who she is. I’d never met her before. She’s nobody.’ The words came out in a tumbled rush that Stacey struggled to understand.

  ‘Who’s nobody?’

  ‘That chick, babe. It was a set-up.’

  Two things registered. One, he was sounding very like a man who had messed up and was desperately trying to cover it up. And two, Jax was way too experienced and media-savvy to get caught in a set-up. If he’d done something wrong, it was through choice or bad judgement.

  Stacey felt every synapse of her brain shutting down. She had no time for this. None. She’d had enough drama today to last a lifetime and, right now, she had no appetite for any more. She pressed the red button to end the call. Whatever it was, she’d deal with it. But right now she had her best friend’s wedding to attend.