Page 10 of The Wedding Forecast

Joel and Bianca head into their bedroom and shut the door behind them, which strikes me as a little bit odd. The only reason to shut the door is if they’re going to have sex or talk about me or have a fight. It’s definitely not sex, because Joel rearranged our whole bedroom three times because he was worried about the bed making noises that a neighbour might hear. Unless he and Bianca have a sex life so hot, they can’t keep their hands off each other, and all of Joel’s old neuroses and quirks have been overridden by his insatiable appetite for her.

No. They must be fighting about getting lost.

Mac and I walk out to the lounge room and sit on the couch and look at each other.

‘What do you think they’re doing in there?’ he whispers.

I shrug. I don’t want anyone to think I have any interest in what Joel does. But then I ruin it by being unable to resist the urge to gossip.

‘Fighting,’ I whisper back.

The front door opens, and Hayley and Luke walk in with a flurry of bags and noise.

‘We’re baaaaack!’ Hayley yells.

She and Luke fuss over Mac, hugging him and asking him about the flight. Hayley doesn’t like Mac much. She once emailed him about a surprise birthday she was organising for Luke, to invite him on the off-chance he’d be back in Australia, and he replied to her ‘sorry can’t make it’ without even a nice little preamble or a greeting or ‘thanks for the invite’. Not even a comma between sorry and can’t. The lack of effort was galling. And Hayley holds a grudge.

No one expected Mac to actually come to the wedding. Hayley was nervous about making him a groomsman because she was sure he would cancel at the last minute. There had been talk of trips home before that never eventuated. But he’s here this time.

Hayley might hold a grudge but she’s also an excellent host, and she knows how excited Luke is to have Mac here, so she’s putting the rude email aside to be her best hostess self.

‘Joel has arrived,’ I say to her. ‘And Bianca.’ I try to say ‘Bianca’ with as much neutralness as possible. Bianca. Bi-anca. Bian-ca! I should have practised.

‘They have? Where are they?’ Hayley asks.

‘They’re in their room with the door shut.’

‘Oh.’

‘That’s weird, right?’

‘It’s weird. What are they doing in there?’ Hayley whispers, and then she gets up and puts her ear to the door.

‘Hayls, no,’ Luke says, but she ignores him.

‘Silent,’ she mouths to us, listens a second longer, and then walks back.

‘Odd,’ I say.

‘Very odd,’ Hayley replies.

‘I hope they’re still alive,’ I say.

‘Do you?’ She grins at me.

‘I don’t wish death on them.’

‘Okay, good. That’s a positive step.’

‘Joel and I are ancient history at this point,’ I say, which is actually a line I prepared for this weekend. It doesn’t quite come out in the way I want it to, but, still, it feels good.

‘I wouldn’t say ancient,’ Hayley says. ‘Wasn’t it only a few weeks ago you said—’

Joel and Bianca open their bedroom door and come out, and thankfully they cut Hayley off from whatever deeply betraying comment she was about to make. What did I say a few weeks ago? Maybe that was my rant about how Joel was rebounding way too fast with Bianca and he would probably try to come crawling back to me. It could have been my rant about how the fact he was bringing Bianca is surely a sign that he is feeling insecure around me. Or my rant about how I didn’t think he and Bianca would even still be together by the time the wedding happened. There have been a lot of ill-advised rants—they’re all blurring into one at this point. If it wasn’t completely inappropriate, I would note in my bridesmaid speech how Hayley has indulged me to the point of absurdity.

‘Hey,’ Joel says.

Bianca smiles, but then she says ‘excuse me’ and walks quickly towards the nearest bathroom. We all watch her go without comment, and then moments later, there are sounds of retching.