Stevie resented her mother’s hamming up Jez’s family for comic effect, showing off in front of Sam. “They’re from Amersham, Mum, not San Francisco. Get over it.”
“Darling, I’m trying here. I’m trying not to be an embarrass- ment.”
“Yeah, right,” mumbled Neil, fork in one hand, new cell phone in the other, as he thumbed a text message beneath the table. “That’d be a first.”
“Tolerate your mother, children,” said Chris. “Lord knows she is trying.”
Sam put his hand over his mouth, trying to suppress a laugh. He loved this family.
“All Rita and Colin need are clean sheets and a vase of flowers and
no
New Age nonsense, Mum,” instructed Stevie, aware of Sam’s amusement, playing up herself now. “Rita won’t like the incense. Colin won’t like the homemade muesli.”
“Not unless he’s got the jaws of a rottweiler,” muttered her father. Patti ignored her husband. “Sam, have you met Jez’s folks?” “No.”
Stevie looked at the table. She’d felt weird introducing Jez to Sam for some reason. She’d sensed they might not end up best friends. She’d sensed right. They’d met two or three times, bris- tling encounters in which Jez had found opportunities to boast— about his job, the excessiveness of the last restaurant bill, and so on—in a fit of macho bravado. Sam made Jez nervous. Jez made Sam uneasy.
“Fucking uptight, the Lewises,” Neil mumbled through the cor- ner of his mouth, like a ventriloquist. “Make Jez and Stevie sleep in separate bedrooms.”
“Neil . . .” Stevie sighed. Was nothing sacred in this household? “Let’s hope he didn’t go home after the bachelor party last week- end. Colin would have loved that. Oh, man . . .” Neil let a chuckle
whistle between the gap in his two front teeth.
“What happened?” asked Sam, eyes widening. “Shut up, Neil.” Stevie shook her head. Poor Jez.
Neil, always keen to impress Sam—a real dude in his eyes, hav- ing a groovy and vague kind of non-job as a photographer— ignored his sister’s pleas for dignity. “We went out in Brighton, dosed Jez up on Viagra, man. He was walking around with this big . . .”
“Please, Neil. Totally tragic,” Stevie said, wondering why being in the company of her younger brother made her regress to her childhood vernacular. “Let’s not relive it.”
“Get him in training for the honeymoon!” Neil quipped. Stevie fired a withering look at her brother. “Oh, please.”
“Don’t overreact to, like, everything, Stevie. Aren’t you meant to be loved up or something? I keep forgetting. It’s like having a hor- monal pit bull in the house.” Neil picked out a cherry tomato from the salad with the yellow-stained index finger and thumb normally reserved for rolling joints. “Anyhow, I’m sure Rita—monster-in- law—didn’t figure it out.”
“
Neil!
Would you stop winding your sister up,” said Patti. “It’s a stressful enough time for Stevie. And let’s not be nasty about the Lewis family. It’s not . . . not cool.”
Stevie looked at her mother, surprised. Yes, she really was trying hard. She thought her mother still hadn’t gotten over the Christ- mas when the Lewises had come to stay, embracing the household like a bout of flu. Rita had complained that the turkey was under- cooked and that the music—Sinatra!—made her head hurt. Colin had taken refuge in a bottle of port and an ancient book on WWII warships, talking only to chastise Jez for his bad language or lack of success in becoming the next Tory prime minister, or at the very least, a doctor or lawyer.
“Jez is all right.” Patti put an arm over her daughter’s shoulder and squeezed. “Stevie’s chosen well.”
Chris put down his fork, rearing up a little as a mouthful of over- spiced stew settled in his stomach. “Jez better be more than all right,” he said, turning to Sam, green eyes twinkling. “This wed- ding is taking over our
lives
, Sam. It’s like a strange virus has en- tered the household, turning sensible people into jibbering buffoons and my wallet to mulch.”
Stevie felt a pang of guilt. For all the blustering and joking, she knew her parents were really feeling the pinch of this wedding. (“There goes our vacation fund,” she’d heard her mother say shortly after their engagement was announced.) She’d wanted to put money in the wedding pot herself, Jez and her salary combined being larger than that of her parents’. But her mother had refused and said she’d just take on more counseling work or add a bit to the mortgage. (Stevie knew that this refusal meant a no-frills wedding.)
Neil blew his bangs off his face. “It’s totally, like, unfair, Dad, being a boy. All Mum’s talk about equality, I don’t see me getting thrown, like, shitloads of money, for basically a
party
.”
Patti raised an eyebrow and smiled coyly. “If you like, sweetie, you can invite some of those nice boys from the squat.”
“No, he will not!” said Stevie. “Or a nice girl.”
Neil, who hadn’t had a girlfriend since college, glared at his mother.
“All I can say is that it’s going to be one fabulously groovy party.” Patti winked, sending an avalanche of green eye shadow onto her left cheekbone. “I’ll see to that.”
Stevie’s heart sank. What was her mother going to do—arrive on a white stallion à la Bianca Jagger?
Chris brushed a stray overcooked chunk of carrot off his tweed jacket. “It’s perverse that we’ve spent years conjuring up highly creative excuses to avoid all the relatives and then, suddenly, we’ve invited them—
en masse
—to this house. It’s going to be . . .”
Stevie was deflated. The chipped blue jug swam in front of her eyes. It felt like there was a flood of tears inside her ready to seep out of the nearest available orifice. Maybe she was premenstrual. Maybe it was hormones. Maybe she was overly emotional at seeing Sam again after all this time.
Sam touched her lightly on her pale, freckled forearm. “It’ll be great, Stevie.”
“
Ab-sol-u-ment!
” exclaimed Patti, thick silver Rajasthan bangles clattering like a parade of Hare Krishnas. “Anyway, folks,
no
going back now!”
FOUR
Æ
the green vw golf screeched to a halt on cowley
Road, leaving a scar of stinking black rubber across the tarmac. A man stuck a furious bald pink head out of the car window. “Fuck- ing look where you’re going, woman! You nearly got yourself killed!”
“Sorry, sorry.” Stevie walked shakily over the road, grateful as her foot—still attached to her leg—hit the curb. Since moving to Lon- don ten years ago, she treated all provincial roads like rustic bridle paths.
“Hey!” someone shouted.
Stevie jumped. What had she done now? But, no, thank God, it was Lara, smiling and waving, wearing a fitted black dress and red patent-leather wedges, incongruously glamorous in this part of Oxford student-land.
“Christ, Stevie. I saw that,” Lara said, wide-eyed with concern. “Are you okay?”
“A bit wobbly, but no radical changes to the wedding dress nec- essary.”
Lara kissed her on both cheeks. “You’ve got to look where you’re going, hon.”
“I know, I know. But I was checking out that cloud, the big gray stormy one up there.” Stevie craned her head back. “Isn’t it spectac- ular?”
“Girl, you almost joined it.” Lara shook her head. “Anyway, for- get the damn cloud!
This
is very, very exciting.” She banged out a drumroll with her hands. “Da da da! Are you ready for the final dress fitting?”
“As ready as I’ll ever be.”
“Let’s go then, missus.” Lara slinked her arm into Stevie’s, and the friends walked along Cowley Road until they got to James Street.
“Turn left. Dressmaker is this way,” said Stevie, her pace slow- ing, feeling a growing sense of trepidation. It all felt a bit final. “Yes, that’s Gina’s house, the one with the green door.”
As they rang the doorbell, Lara squeezed Stevie closer. “Don’t be nervous. You will look drop-dead gorgeous in that dress, I just know it.”
Gina, a dressmaking member of Patti’s book group, had agreed to alter a satin 1930s dress that Stevie had unearthed from the dusty basement of a vintage shop on Portobello Road. A neat needle-thin woman in her sixties, she showed them into the studio–cum–living room with long slim hands. “Girls, I’ll leave you to try them on. Lovely, lovely. Call me when you need adjusting.” She closed the door behind her with a click.
“You first,” said Stevie. “I insist because I’m the bride.”
Lara stripped down to her matching polka-dotted turquoise- and-pink underwear. “I am so grateful you aren’t making me wear a shapeless sheaf of lilac,” she said, stepping into a pale gray prom-
style mid-calf dress with a full fifties-style skirt, its silk layers rustling against each other like summer leaves. “It’s sadistic when brides do that. Zipper me up, love.”
Stevie gave the zipper a sharp tug. The dress’s bodice hugged her best friend’s petite hourglass figure like a violin case. She stood back and nodded approvingly. “Knockout.”
“Really?” Lara turned in front of a full-length mirror, twisting to get a glimpse of her backside. “A get-laid bridesmaid dress?”
Stevie laughed. “Definitely.”
“I fully expect to be sitting next to someone hot.” Lara camped up a Joan Collins voice. “I don’t do old relatives.”
“Don’t worry. You’ve been strategically placed next to Sam.” Ste- vie felt a prick of jealousy.
“Your old Oxford friend Sam? The photographer guy?” Lara in- haled sharply to decrease her waist measurement. “And, yes, before you say it, I know there are about two single heterosexual men in their thirties left in the whole of London, so I am honored. There’s so much competition for the single men at weddings these days. You need to be like that . . .” She crossed her fingers. “. . . with the bride to even stand a remote chance of being seated at a decent table.”
“Oh, I’m good to you, Lara.” Stevie laughed. “I will inflict freshly divorced Uncle Harry—all inquisitive hands and halitosis—on someone more deserving.”
Lara smiled and tugged at the fabric around her waist. “Gina should nip it in a bit more here, don’t you think?” She liked to show her figure off.
Stevie took a pin from between her teeth and pushed it into the seam. “Sam’s moving to New York, too, you know.” She adjusted Lara’s neckline, pleased about her friend’s prettiness in a dress she’d envisioned. “You’ll have stuff to talk about.”
“Is he? Cool.” Lara put one hand on the back of a chair to balance and slid one small tanned foot carefully into a strappy silver heel, then the other, and struck a pose. Content at her reflection, she smiled. “Your turn.”
Stevie picked up the pile of gray-white satin between forefinger and thumb. It was shiny and opaque, like the skin of a mushroom stalk, and seemed strangely insubstantial for its purpose. “Not much to it, is there? It’ll be like getting married in a nightgown.”
Lara laughed and nudged her friend. “It’s beautiful. Put it on.” “I must warn you now. I haven’t found the right underwear. It
just redistributes my back fat. I’ve got these, like, bulges.” “Curves, not bulges.”
“Yeah, yeah.” Stevie stepped out of her print wrap-dress and ar- rowed her arms above her head as Lara lowered the dress over with reverential solemnity. The satin felt heavy against her skin and took a second or two to settle to her contours. She ran her fingers over her collarbone, exposed by the scooped neckline. “Check out this rash, Lara. I noticed it this morning. It started on my chest and now it’s creeping up my neck.”
Lara traced the rash gently with her fingers. “Yeah, I can just feel it. But don’t fret. It’ll go. Probably stress. Now let me have a good look at you.” She stepped back. “God, you look . . . absolutely stunning.
Look
at yourself.” Lara held Stevie’s shoulders with cool hands and turned her around to face the mirror. Stevie stared at her reflection. The dress, cut on the bias, swirled around her ample curves. The satin bounced light into her face, which looked, in this bright afternoon light, pale and round as a plate. Yes, it certainly was a flattering dress, simple, nothing too lacy or shout. It now fit pretty perfectly. Gina had done well.
“Look what you’re doing to me.” Lara’s eyes glittered with tears.
She fanned her hands and made a funny noise, like a hybrid be- tween a cry and a laugh. “Sorry, I never thought I’d see you in a wedding dress.”
Stevie snorted. “Neither did I.”
Lara stood back, putting a hand on one hip. “It’s not that I thought you’d never get married, just that we would always be twenty-two and single.”
Stevie smiled. “But here I am.” She could hardly believe it her- self.
“Here you are.” Lara grinned mischievously. “Thank God you didn’t marry any of Jez’s predecessors. Can you
imagine
?”
Stevie raised her eyebrows. “They didn’t ask, actually.” “Just as well.”
“I hope I would have had the sense to turn them down. But you don’t know, do you?”
“Some people just decide to draw a line in their search and com- mit, I suppose.” Lara shrugged.
Stevie stroked the dress thoughtfully, smoothing out the crease above her belly. “But then again, you could wait and wait and never meet anyone you loved more than your first teenage crush.”
Lara rolled her eyes. “Stevie, stop it! This is not the time for your morbid introspection. You’re going to get married! You must enjoy it!”
“I know, I know.” Stevie laughed. She needed Lara. Lara light- ened things. She vowed to stop taking herself so seriously.
“Crushes are awful indicators of compatibility anyhow, I mean, come on. My most passionate obsessions all had the most hideous traumatic ends.”
Stevie thought of all the men she’d been infatuated with and started to giggle. “Remember Luca?”
“Luca? The old style editor of
Pop I-Q
? Yes, of course.” Lara smiled, puzzled. “Why do you mention him?”
“Oh, I don’t know, this wedding business is making me weirdly nostalgic.” Memories kept popping into her head, fresh and sharp as squirts of lemon juice in the eye. It was as if her imminent wed- ding had turned the binoculars on her romantic past, enlarging it, bringing its details into clearer focus, and giving her a new per- spective: She’d wasted far too much energy on men who’d turned out to mean too little.