Scripted, page 23
‘Right, that’s you done, chicken.’ Eve slapped Jade on the back again as she rose from the make-up chair.
‘Thanks.’ Jade moved to the bathroom tentatively. Once the door was shut firmly behind her, she peered at her face in the mirror. Large dark-rimmed eyes stared back. Brown streaks formed cheekbones that Jade didn’t have, and her lips looked almost twice the size. Jade shook her head at her own reflection.
Grabbing a roll of toilet paper, she wiped her cheeks to remove the bronzer, but the eye make-up wouldn’t budge. Bending down, she opened the cupboard under the sink to see if there was any moisturiser or bath products that could help her dial it down. Her hands fumbled past rolls of toilet paper and a hairdryer in a cloth bag. It was right at the back of the shelf under the sink that her fingertips touched the sharp edges of a pile of paper. Her hand froze before her brain had time to catch up with her senses. Pulling her hands away quickly, she shook them out like they were wet and breathed in deeply. Peering into the dim shelves, she reached to the back for a second time. Gently pulling the script from its hiding place, she braced herself for who or what was printed on its pages.
34
‘You going to be long in there, bathroom hogger?’ A loud Irish voice boomed through the heavy bathroom door. Sinead, Lily’s friend since secondary school and always a little too loud and a little too blunt, thumped on the door.
‘Yup, OK.’ Jade stood up sharply and folded the script in half without a chance to scan its contents. ‘Coming. Sorry.’ Jade felt like a child again having her sister’s friends around. She needed to tap into the mature confidence she had felt the last couple of weeks. She unlocked the door.
‘Sinead.’ Jade nodded towards her. Sinead smiled broadly, lips glistening with a layer of gloss and her face framed by long tendrils of coiled brunette hair.
‘I just want to check my make-up in the mirror, Birdy. I told her to go full Kardashian on me.’
Jade smiled, her eyes involuntarily widening at the large flicks of black above Sinead’s eyelashes, the heavy lipliner that sat atop the bow of her lip and the dark brown contoured cheeks in her round face.
‘I’m sweating in this dressing gown. Can you pop a window open in there?’
‘Yup. You look … lovely, Sinead.’ Jade swallowed and moved away swiftly, keeping the script held tightly to her waist. Stuffing it in her bag, she wondered how and when she would safely be able to look at it properly. Catching a glimpse of herself in the dressing-table mirror, she flinched, seeing the eye make-up she had failed to remove.
‘Right, come on, ladies. Let’s crack open a bottle.’ Sarita was waving a large bottle of champagne in the air with her right hand. Her delicate wrist looked like it might snap under the weight.
‘Shouldn’t we check on Lily first?’ said Cathy, whose skin was gleaming with perspiration, strands of blonde hair stuck to her forehead. The stress and nerves of attending to Lily were starting to show.
‘Nah, she won’t want us all fussing around her. She’ll be wanting to get in the zone peacefully.’ Sarita put the bottle between her thighs and pulled at the cork. It exploded from the bottle at the same time as the door of the hotel suite burst open. The combination of sounds made Jade jolt.
‘For fuck’s sake. I have one shoe. ONE.’ Lily was standing in the doorway, both hands pressed into its frame. ‘Who was in charge of bringing my dress and shoes from the house?’ Her face tightened with anger as if her skin were being stretched.
‘Er, you were, I think, Lils,’ Cathy said with trepidation.
Lily ignored Cathy. ‘One shoe. One! What the hell am I supposed to do with one shoe.’
‘Where do you think it is, Lils?’ Cathy said with care, her voice cracking with fear.
‘I don’t know, Cathy, otherwise I would have it.’ Lily’s usual coquettish mannerisms slipped quickly.
‘Could someone go back to the house and look for it?’ Cathy asked cautiously.
‘Yes, Cathy. You can. Off you pop. The ceremony starts in just over two hours, so you’d better get a bloody move on.’ She waved Cathy out of the room, taking on the persona of the Queen of Hearts.
‘Off with their heads,’ Jade whispered to herself.
‘What, Birdy? What did you say?’ Lily’s head whipped to her.
‘Nothing. Hope you find the shoe, Cathy,’ Jade bellowed out to the hallway as Cathy put her raincoat over the top of her dressing gown and marched with purpose down the hotel hallway. Lily swivelled out and slammed the door behind her.
‘Flippin’ heck,’ Sarita mouthed. ‘Right, anyway, let’s crack on.’ She poured a generous glass of champagne for herself then nodded to Sinead for her glass.
Jade discreetly picked up her bag and slowly walked sideways to the door, her exit completely unnoticed. Tiptoeing past her sister’s hotel room, she could hear muffled yet audible shouting from inside – her sister reprimanding the hairdresser for making her curls too big. Jade could hear the edges of Lily’s authoritative voice which she brought out when she wasn’t getting her own way.
Jade kept her head down and tiptoed across the hallway. Ducking into a laundry cupboard by the lifts, she took the script out of her bag.
[Grounds of the Wellington Hotel, outside a marquee.]
LUCA
Luca? Who was Luca? ‘Luca, Luca.’ Jade let the word roll around her mouth. It felt nice to say out loud.
LUCA
Nice dress.
JADE
It’s brown.
LUCA
I know.
JADE
I like … your jacket.
LUCA
Ha. Thanks. I’m Luca, by the way.
That was it. The rest of the page was blank. Jade thought back to her morning of pinning silk roses and the stranger in the catering tent. Could he be Luca? Please could he be Luca, Jade thought. She stuffed the script back in her bag and returned to the bridesmaids’ suite.
Just as she was passing Lily’s room, the door swung open. ‘Birdy!’ Lily boomed as the door crashed against the wall. Jade jumped back. ‘What are you doing? Shouldn’t you be creating my floral archway?’ Lily’s lips stretched into an insincere smile.
Jade felt her nervous system switch to high alert. ‘I’ve done that already,’ she snapped back.
‘Well, shouldn’t you be helping … someone … do … something?’
‘Nope.’ Jade had assumed her sister would bring up the rehearsal dinner but instead Lily was acting as if nothing had happened. This was an occasional tactic Jade was more than used to: feigned ignorance that expressed Lily’s savage disinterest in anything Jade did or said.
‘Sorry to interrupt …’
A low voice startled them both. A man in navy trousers and a matching waistcoat over a white shirt stood in the hallway, smiling politely.
‘Oh, Casper. This is my sister, Jade.’ Lily’s voice returned to a performative tone as her thunderous face switched instantly to a broad smile.
Jade stuck out her hand and he shook it and briefly looked her way. Jade glanced at his badge, which said ‘Manager’.
‘I was just wondering if I or any of the other staff members could assist you further this morning? Did your champagne arrive?’ He spoke formally as if he were pandering to royalty.
‘Oh yes, it did. Thank you, Casper.’
Jade noticed Lily had her flirty voice on. The one which was higher than usual and slightly squeaky on certain syllables. Jade looked on in fascination.
‘Oh good.’ Casper lingered in the silence. He was definitely Lily’s type, Jade thought – sandy hair, lean, slightly posh-sounding.
‘Oh, I wonder if you could make the rain stop,’ Lily drawled, then laughed manically.
‘Of course. We’re on to it.’
‘Actually, though, could I get some almonds? Unsalted. No raisins. Just almonds. Thank you, Casper.’ Lily let her hair fall over one eye.
Jade grimaced. ‘Well,’ she sighed, ‘I’m going to get out of here. Bridesmaid’s duties.’ She smiled an exaggerated grin towards her sister. ‘Nice to meet you, Casper.’
‘Jade!’ Lily called down the corridor after her: ‘Nails.’
Jade didn’t look back.
35
An obnoxious, unexpected thunderclap bellowed overhead. Jade, Sinead and Sarita turned to the window, where raindrops swam down the glass as soot-coloured clouds brewed overhead.
‘Shit. Another champs, ladies?’ Sarita held her empty glass out.
‘Any sign of Cathy? I’ve texted but not heard back yet.’ Sinead looked down at her phone. ‘Chelsea and back on a Saturday is a push. Poor Cath.’
‘Nope.’ Sarita shook her head while sipping on her new drink.
‘We need to all head out to the marquee in twenty minutes, so it’s going to be tight,’ Sinead lamented. ‘I’m going to put my frock on.’ She grabbed at the brown dress on the wardrobe.
Jade looked down at her own dress that felt taut across her hips, and pulled back her shoulders. She would not let this too-tight, shoulder-exposing dress steal her confidence.
The door burst open again, jolting Jade’s nervous system which already felt shot from the morning’s dramas. It was her mum, resplendent in blue.
‘Gosh, Lily is quite stressed out in there about the weather and the shoe,’ Sue said, dramatically mouthing ‘shoe’ as if Lily might hear. She shut the door behind her and puffed air out of her cheeks. Her plait had a blue scarf intertwined with her hair and she wore blue mascara to match the dress. Jade’s eyes traced her mum’s silhouette down to her feet, shod in blue chunky-heeled boots with David Bowie-style lightning bolts running up the sides.
‘Oh, can I have a champs? I’m gasping.’ Sue pointed to Sarita.
‘Mum, what did we talk about?’ Jade said quietly so the others wouldn’t hear.
‘If I can’t have a drink on my daughter’s very rainy, already slightly stressful wedding day, then when can I?’ Sue whispered back theatrically. She looked past Jade with a wide, forced smile and happily received a glass from Sarita.
‘Oh, ladies, you all look lovely.’ Sue scanned the sea of brown dresses, contoured cheekbones and over-styled hair. She looked at Jade. ‘Aren’t you going to have your make-up done, darling?’
‘I’ve had it done already, Mum,’ Jade replied.
‘Right, what are we going to do about this shoe situation? Lils is due down in the marquee any minute.’ Sue looked at her watch.
‘Sue, you’re going to have to break it to her that Cathy isn’t back and we can’t get hold of her. Can you suggest barefoot?’ Sarita said squeamishly.
‘You could say it’s hot in Vogue right now,’ Jade added with a large grin.
‘Oh gosh. OK, give us another glass of bubbles first, eh?’ Sue pushed her glass towards Sarita, then drank it in one. ‘Wish me luck.’
The three bridesmaids huddled in silence as loud, muffled voices seeped out from under the door of Lily’s suite. ‘Shit,’ they said in unison, eyes darting to meet each other’s.
Jade checked her phone in an attempt to avoid the tension. No new texts, so she opened Instagram on autopilot. Scrolling down, she saw that her sister had posted a photo only three minutes ago: a black and white shot of herself sitting in a silk robe with her back to the camera, her face in profile, dress hanging on a nearby wardrobe door. The caption read The big day. It already feels like pure magic. #L&Jgethitched. The usual staged pantomime that depicted Lily’s life as a fairy tale. Jade laughed, knowing that beneath that thin veneer of perfection sat a disgruntled and passive-aggressive bride with only one shoe.
Sue burst back through the door, her plaited hair swishing like a separate entity, cheeks red and blotchy. ‘The barefoot thing went down badly.’ Her stack of silver bangles crashed together as she swept her hair from her eyes.
Silence befell the room. No one moved, or even seemed to breathe.
Sue bit her lip. Time ticked.
‘Oh bloody hell. She can have mine. We’re the same size. I’ll wear my Uggs.’ Jade bent down and undid the straps around her ankles.
‘Well done, darling. It’s the right thing to do.’ Sue thrust her hands out to receive the shoes, still slightly out of breath.
Sarita and Sinead busied themselves looking at their own reflections, pouting and tweaking strands of hair and unruly eyebrows.
Suddenly needing air, Jade opened the large bay window and a cool breeze cut through the humidity of the room. Staring out at the marquee and the winding stream that ran along one side, she could see the tent was quickly filling up with guests. Through the open flap at the back she could see damp coats slung over chairs and make-up compacts clicking open as the masses attempted to salvage tendrils of sodden hair. Umbrellas were strewn haphazardly about the floor as the wedding guests hugged, and kissed the air between their faces. An undulating wave of indecipherable chatter was then broken by a booming voice on a microphone. Jade could just make out James’s best man, Michael, speaking to the crowd.
‘Ladies and gentlemen, please take your seats. The ceremony is about to begin.’
Hushing and shushing replaced the chatter as a guitar started gently playing a Bon Iver track in the background.
Jade and the other bridesmaids moved quickly from the room to the lift, each of them forensically checking their faces in the mirrored walls. Jade simply stared at her reflection, not recognising herself at all: not the dress hugging her hips, her exposed shoulders, the straps cutting into her armpits, nor the thick lashes curling upwards.
They congregated on the sweeping steps in the foyer, peering out at the dark charcoal sky.
‘Come on, girls.’ Sue was pulling Saffron and Jemima by the arms towards the door.
‘I hate this dress,’ Jemima wailed. ‘I don’t like dresses.’
‘Darling, you’re just going to have to grin and bear it for a few hours and then you can put your onesie back on.’ Sue looked flustered. She pushed her long plait over her shoulder and fiddled with the neckline of her blue chiffon dress.
‘Can I have my tablet, Granny? I want to play Roblox.’
‘Jammy, what did Granny say? When we get to lunch you can have it. Right now you need to walk down the aisle with Aunty Jade and Mummy in her princess dress.’
‘I don’t want to,’ Jemima moaned with a dramatic, wailing expression.
‘Saffy, you can’t have your thumb in your mouth. Come on, pop it out.’ Sue pulled on Saffron’s arm but the thumb didn’t budge. ‘Granny will give you a bag of sweets if you just go down the bloody aisle, OK?’ Sue smiled in the bridesmaids’ direction with a look of pain beneath her stretched-out smile.
Jade went over and took the girls’ hands. ‘Come on, you two monkeys. Let’s pretend we’re on a catwalk and strut down the aisle.’ Saffron laughed and pouted her lips, pulled her thumb out of her mouth, and put her hands on her hips.
A click of tiny heels on marble had all heads turning to the ivory staircase. Lily descended with her head bowed, inky hair falling perfectly over one half of her face. Her body moved slowly and carefully as she hitched up the white diaphanous skirt of her dress, her waist pulled in impossibly small; Jade wondered where her vital organs had been repositioned. Her shoulders moved mechanically, exposed to the chill in the air, her hair gleaming and barely moving as she descended the stairs.
‘Lils!’ screeched Sarita. ‘You look like an angel from actual heaven.’
‘Seriously, Lils, you look unreal,’ Sinead confirmed. Jade tried to keep her eyes on Sinead’s face but felt distracted by her boobs, which were spilling over the top and out the sides of her dress.
Lily paused on the bottom step. ‘Why are you wearing Uggs, Jade?’ Lily’s eyes were wide and horrified, her bottom jaw jutting out.
‘You have my shoes on.’
‘Yes, but you cannot wear those. For god’s sake, couldn’t you have gone and found something more suitable? It’s like you have two jacket potatoes on your feet.’ Lily smoothed down her dress and looked in the large gilt mirror by the main doors, momentarily distracted by her own beauty.
‘Well, there wasn’t much I could do in the twenty allotted minutes before proceedings, so no.’
Just then Cathy came rushing down the hallway, her hands still fumbling with the straps on her bridesmaid’s dress, cheeks puffing and pink, her forehead slick with sweat. ‘Didn’t. Get. The. Shoe. No. Time,’ she said, her words punctuated with huge, desperate gasps. ‘Traffic. Jam. OntheM3. Hadtoturnaround.’ The words tumbled out of her jittering mouth.
Lily turned, ignoring her breathless friend and instead looked out towards the marquee and the guests sitting patiently. Her audience awaited.
‘Where are the umbrellas? Please tell me they’re white, or at the very least brown.’ Lily directed this to the heavens rather than anyone nearby.
‘Er, there are these hotel golf umbrellas.’ Jade pointed to a large pot by the door.
‘They’re yellow. Bright yellow!’ Lily looked like a lion scanning for its next meal.
Jade shrugged. ‘It’s that or getting pissed on.’
Each bridesmaid held a luminous yellow umbrella around Lily, creating a tortoise shell of cover from the heavy rain.
‘I’m just not paying this weather any attention. I don’t want anyone to mention it again, OK?’ Lily ducked, keeping her hair from getting stuck in the spokes of the mass of umbrellas.
The bridesmaids gulped and nodded. Moving slowly, all eyes on Lily’s pace and stride, they set off.
36
Bottoms shuffled on seats and chair legs dragged on the floor as all heads spun to see Lily standing at the bottom of the aisle. Sarita, Sinead, Cathy and Jade stood behind her, with Jemima and Saffron in front, Jemima looking miserable, Saffron jumping up and down, ready to strut up the aisle.
Tony moved towards Lily, his eyes glistening with pride. ‘My angel. Look at you. Don’t worry about the weather …’ Tony’s chest was elevated to the sky in his immaculately tailored navy three-piece suit, gold rings on each finger glinting in the overhead lights. A cuddly gangster ready to hand over his daughter.
