Page 11 of The Woman Who Said Yes

‘Yeah. C’mon, this is Eva. When has she ever expressed any interest in getting married?’

‘Never,’ I say. ‘So you think it’s just one of her wild ideas? Like buying that cocktail cabinet?’

Sam laughs dryly. ‘A bit like that, yeah.’

‘Hmm. So Dom’s a shiny new thing she’s entranced with⁠—’

‘—And she’s still floating on that holiday cloud,’ he suggests. ‘But I do think she’ll come to her senses.’

‘But she said they’re making an appointment with the registry office,’ I remind him, ‘to book a date.’

‘I’m sure that’s cancellable.’

‘Yeah, of course,’ I murmur, considering whether he could be right. We both know how impetuous Eva can be – and determined to do things her way. She’ll scour London for an irresistible velvet gown or the perfect gold block-heeled sandals for her star client who won’t acknowledge that she has a stylist at all. Hadley Morgan prefers to create her look herself, I read recently, mixing indie designer brands with vintage finds for a cool, nonchalant style that’s entirely her own. According to Eva, Hadley could barely locate clean knickers without help. Once, she popped round with a selection of outfits to Hadley’s penthouse and found her trying to make cheese on toast in the microwave. But then, nothing fazes Eva and she won’t allow anything to get in the way of the perfect production. For magazine shoots she’ll persuade her editor that what’s needed is a merry-go-round, a jauntily painted caravan or a fire engine with full crew.

Eva’s projects tend to spiral wildly out of control. And what’s a wedding if not a project? I can see it being put back and back, because she hasn’t quite managed to pull all the threads together – to the point at which the heat has gone out of it and it’s something she and Dom might do ‘one day’. Like me with my baking accoutrements that fill an entire shelf of a cupboard. All those specialist tins and silicone moulds for madeleines, friands and Bundt cakes, when I have never managed to bake a cake that anyone would want to eat. So much hope invested as I grabbed at these items in Lakeland. As if, in merely owning them, I’d be a better mum, a better person.

‘So, when can we look forward to some delicious home-baking?’ Phil would ask with a smirk.

‘One day,’ I’d trill.

‘It should be made a national holiday.’ My husband snorted disparagingly, and I fought off my urge to kick him up the bundt.

That’s it, I figure as Sam and I finish the call. Eva’s wedding is like my mythical madeleines: wild ideas both, and destined never to happen. The one time I got it together to contribute to the office Bake-Off Day, my manager nibbled at one of my white chocolate blondies and pulled a face. ‘This is… different,’ she mused, adding, ‘although I imagine they’ll be all right dunked in tea.’

‘Anything’s all right dunked in tea,’ sniggered Simon, the training guy.

Having let myself into my flat, I make myself a strong brew. Just as I’m wishing that I did in fact have something to dunk into it – even one of my ‘different’ blondies! – my phone dings. It’s a message from Eva on the group chat.

So, my darlings, we’ve been to the registry office today and booked our wedding date for Saturday May 9. So it’s happening! I’m going to be a bride! Can you believe it?

No, actually, I can’t! Quickly, I calculate that this is a mere seven weeks away. And they’ve known each other for less than a month! Is it Dom who’s in a tearing hurry over this, or Eva? I can’t figure it out. It’s as if my dear friend’s brain was somehow rewired on that ship, and I hate myself for not being totally delighted for her. She goes on:

Don’t tell me you’re busy washing your hair that day! As I said, we want you both as our witnesses. I’d also love your help with loads of the planning etc as obviously it’s all such a hurry.

I reread that part, itching to call her this minute. ‘So, don’t hurry!’ I want to tell her. ‘Remember that time we did karaoke with Sam in that Brighton pub? What did we sing? “Fools Rush In!”’ I want to call her right now and belt it to her down the phone. Or, at least, suggest she treats this wedding business like signing up for a new phone contract, with a cooling-off period. But then, how can I possibly puncture her joy?

Her message continues:

…Dom is amazing in all kinds of ways, but I don’t think pulling a wedding together is his kind of thing. Anyway, I’m so excited. Please tell Jake, Kian, Marnie and Theo to save the date too as obviously we want the young and gorgeous ones there to offset our extreme vintage! Love you both so very much xxx.

7

WEDDING COUNTDOWN: 49 DAYS

I’ve nipped out for milk when a parcel arrives. The courier has sent me a picture of it lobbed in the vicinity of my front door. How shabby my entrance area always looks in these photos: scuffed grey laminate flooring, paint chipped off my door, magnolia wall looking as if someone has rubbed themselves against it in a grubby coat.

Was that me in my coat? Did I make that stain? It’s like when you see your looming face on accidental selfie mode (am I really this corpse-like?). These delivery guys must choose the most unflattering angle. But never mind that because, once home, I discover that the parcel contains my recent Vinted purchase of a new set of pyjamas. Before now, all I’ve owned from the emporium of impeccable taste is a pack of highlighter pens. Now I own Muji sleepwear and will spend entire lazy weekend mornings padding about in them, serenely.

I hold up them up and my spirits slump. Yes, they are a ‘medium’, which is my size. Only it appears that they are not for a medium woman but a medium-sized tower block – or at the very least, a medium-sized statue in a city square, the kind that was being ‘toppled’ a few years back and slung into rivers. I strip off and pull them on, deciding that the vibe is less ‘urban weekend lounging’ and more ‘oversized prison wear.’

‘Why don’t you ever return stuff?’ Marnie often asks. Shame is the answer. The nagging feeling that it was my fault. I chose badly, and/or didn’t read the item description or study the photos closely enough (witness zigzag-edged polo neck). ‘Resell them then?’ she’s suggested. Here’s the generational difference. Gen Z-er happily photographs, lists, packages and dispatches item with supreme efficiency. Gen X-er glares at the offending garment like it’s a disappointing husband. Having married him, she is stuck with him now. She can’t send him back.

I mooch about with excess fabric flapping over my hands and feet, wanting to message Sam but not quite knowing what to say. The fact that there’s been nothing further from him makes me decide to leave it. As lunchtime approaches, I pull off the PJs and toss them into the bottom of my wardrobe, in the hope that somehow – like Eva’s save-the-date message – they’ll simply disappear into the ether, never to be spoken of again.

It feels extremely disloyal to be having these thoughts as I set off to her place on this rather humid and heavy-feeling Saturday afternoon. Because today has been nominated Wedding Ideas Day. I’ve already asked whether Dom will be there (in a neutral tone, I hope). ‘No,’ she replied, ‘but he’s coming over later and I promised we’d have loads of ideas by then. So we’ve got a ton of planning to do!’

What’s the best way to say, ‘How about planning to not do it?’ I go over and over it on the bus journey from Hackney to Bethnal Green, aware that I’m not exactly qualified to dole out relationship advice. I mean, I am hardly a wise old sage on such matters. By the time Sam and Bibi moved in together in their mid-twenties, I’d had no more than a flurry of short-lived relationships. Flings, really. ‘Adventures’ as Eva liked to term them, to offer them a breezy edge. There was the guy from the fitness studio that Eva and I had joined in order to humiliate ourselves at Dancercise classes, with whom I was inexplicably besotted. Then the suave pool player from the pub that we’d hauled along to a party. There was the occasional person from various offices I worked in, when crushes ignited over plastic cups of tepid Chardonnay on Friday afternoons. Mainly, though, I was single and this was fine – until it dawned on me that some kind of shift was happening.