“Ah, Luca. Our gaydar was muted by lust.” Lara sighed. “But he wore his Gucci so well. Can you believe that was . . . what? Ten, twelve years ago?”
“Twelve.” This August. She was sure of that. The wedding had given her life new chronological definition. How well she remem- bered her first sighting of Lara in
Pop I-Q
’s Clerkenwell offices as she peacocked out of the small, dark fashion closet, draped in a bor- rowed black gothic coat by Alexander McQueen, her tiny green shoes taking fairy steps out of the coat’s dark flapping skirt. She re- membered the brightness of Lara’s blond hair, the way the air seemed to vibrate around her, and how when she laughed the office dynamic changed and everyone found themselves helplessly star- ing, unable to concentrate, wanting to know what she would do or say next. She and Lara didn’t speak for the first three months. She assumed Lara would be insufferably vain. But she wasn’t. Just con- fident and cocky. They’d drunkenly bonded over their crush on Luca one night, whispering behind their hands during after-work drinks. These days, she didn’t see Lara as much as she’d like. But whenever she did see her, there was still that reassuring emotional shorthand. And she was still one of life’s tonics.
Lara looked at Stevie fondly. “We braved the singles jungle to- gether, girl.”
“Screw that, we survived
living
together.”
“
Just
. You drove me to distraction with your
untidiness
.”
“Shit, no wonder we got mice.” Stevie began to shake with laughter. “Oh, God, I haven’t changed. I’m going to be the worst wife ever.”
“A
wife
,” Lara said wistfully. “Doesn’t it sound so unbelievably grown-up?”
“Maybe that’s why this feels like dressing up.” Stevie smoothed down the folds of satin, warm now from her skin. Her eyes started to prick. Her mind was all over the place. There was a pause. “I just wish you weren’t going to New York so soon after the wedding.”
“Hey, you’ll be a married lady. You won’t need me no more,” Lara said softly in her best American accent.
“I wouldn’t be so sure.” Why did people assume that because she was getting married she’d be able to get all her emotional suste- nance from Jez? It hadn’t been true in the past, and it suddenly seemed rather less likely to be true in the future. “I just wish ... oh, I don’t know.... Part of me still feels like I’m not ready to settle, to draw that line. Does that sound ridiculous? I’ve got gray hairs, for God’s sake. If not now, when? Should I wait until I am sixty-five be- fore I shout, ‘Ready! Any takers?’” Stevie smiled sadly. “But it’s just that when I think about New York... Oh, hell, why does life have to be so linear? Why can’t we do lots of things at once?”
Lara fiddled with her glossed pink lip, rolling it between forefin- ger and thumb. It was what she did when she was upset about something. “Couldn’t you try to persuade Jez again? You’ve wanted to move to New York for as long as I’ve known you.”
Stevie dug her nails into the palm of her hand. Lara had secured a fantastic job as senior editor at a new, as yet unpublished, Ameri- can fashion magazine, currently coded
Project J.
She’d offered to pull strings and introduce Stevie to the right people, but Jez had objected. Jez’s career was here. Jez had some really exciting projects coming up at his marketing firm. “Anyhow, as soon as we have kids, pumpkin,” he’d said, “you’ll probably want to be at home.” The argument had played out in resentful silence. “I’ve tried, Lara. He is
so
against the idea. You know how he hates New York.” She shrugged, trying to justify the decision. “Besides, slim chance I’d get the job anyhow.”
“You always underestimate yourself, Stev. You’ve got a great rep- utation.”
“Thanks.”
“Why do you so look sad?” Lara put an arm over Stevie’s bare shoulder. “Smile. You must be a smiley bride, my darling. Frown- ing’s not good.”
Stevie grinned, perking up again. “ ‘Bride’ is rather nice. I like ‘bride.’ It’s kind of pastoral.” She rolled the word around her mouth as if trying to taste it. “But ‘wife,’ let’s be honest, Lara. ‘Wife’ sounds frumpy.”
“Could you be overanalyzing here, hon?” Lara sat down on a wooden chair and kicked her feet in the air. “More importantly, did you bring those samples to show me?”
Stevie dug into her bag, smiling at Lara’s impetuous enthusiasm. She could never wait for anything. And she was insistent that all the wedding details be viewed together, with the dresses, to get the overall look. She hadn’t quite grasped that Stevie’s mother, who was in charge of decorating the house for the wedding, was a liabil- ity wherever a unified look was concerned. “Here’s the confetti.”
Lara turned the sample confetti box in her hands, watching the little discs of colored pastel paper toss about like a snowstorm be- hind the window of clear plastic. She looked up. “Don’t you want rose petals?”
Stevie stared blankly.
“Real flower petals. A bit nicer, I reckon.”
“Shit, you’re so right.” Stevie scrunched her hands to her face. Suddenly the fact that the confetti was paper and not rose petals mattered more than anything in the entire universe. “Crisis.”
“Breathe, Stevie. Breathe.” Lara laughed. “We can get through this.”
Gina knocked on the door, opening it before they’d answered. “Everything okay, girls?”
“Great. Thanks, Gina,” said Stevie. “Just give us two minutes.” But it wasn’t all great. There were problems. Endless problems. She picked up her strappy gold wedding shoes. “See these, Lara. They are too small.” Her voice was getting higher and higher, as if she’d been sucking helium out of a balloon. “Because I
bought
them half a size too small. I’m not sure why. I walked into Jimmy Choo and tried on hundreds of pairs, and I got kind of shopped out, you know, and in an ecstasy of indecision, I bought them because they were the only ones left near my size and I thought I’d wear them in or something. How stupid am I?”
“You haven’t worn them?”
“Around the garden.” Stevie cringed. “Oh, I know. Don’t say it.” “Here, let me.” Lara held one gold heel in her hands, licked her fin- ger and rubbed it on a scuff mark on the leather sole. It didn’t budge. “Never let the wrong size get between you and a fabulous pair of heels. You only have to wear them for a day. Don’t be a lightweight.”
She put the shoe down on the floor. “Now, what about flowers?”
“Jez’s mum is sorting them out.” Stevie hung the words out for inspection by her friend. “Don’t shoot me that look.”
“Isn’t she the mother-in-law that taste forgot?”
“Jez wanted her to ‘feel involved.’ ” Stevie’s anxiety was brushing past her tonsils now, drying her mouth. “I’m going to end up with yellow carnations, aren’t I? Shit. Shit. Shit.”
Lara tried to help. “Carnations are kind of back, if you keep them bunched all one color.”
“Well, you’d know.” Stevie was aware that she’d let things slide, not kept on top of the finer details as much as she’d have liked. And there was so little time left to organize anything. Now, where was that garter? She rummaged in her bag and picked out a band of blue lace. “Saucy?”
Lara camped up an eyebrow and grinned. “I’d say.”
“Do you mind passing those scissors on Gina’s workbench? Thanks. See here? Fraying threads. Shoddy workmanship.” She held the scissors up to the garter, pulled the elastic taut, and snipped it. The garter fell apart like a cut ribbon at the end of a race. Stevie put her hand to her mouth. “No! What have I done now?”
The two friends stared at the blue garter lying on the cream car- pet, its symbolic circle ruptured. Stevie slumped onto a chair, the pale satin dress spilling around her like milk. “What the hell is wrong with me? Jinxed. I swear I’m jinxed.”
“You’re just stressed. It’s okay, really.” But Lara looked con- cerned.
“
Nothing
is going right, Lara. It’s spooking me out. To be totally honest with you, I feel like there’s something in me—a kind of bridal poltergeist—causing havoc.” Stevie felt a tear sliding down her face. It landed with a damp, staining splodge on her satin dress. “Shit. You see?”
Lara dabbed carefully and maternally at the spot with a tissue. “Oh, love.”
“I’m terrified. I can’t sleep. I’ve got some kind of smallpox going on.”
“You don’t seem quite yourself.” Lara stood up, squatted, and bridged her arms on Stevie’s bare shoulders, so that they were look- ing directly into each other’s eyes. “What’s
really
bothering you?”
“Just nothing is . . .” Stevie feared if she voiced her doubts that would give them more substance.
“I promise to be the soul of discretion.”
Stevie searched the stray threads on the floor for an answer. “Well . . . I . . . I’ve been having doubts.” She looked up. “These funny little doubts, Lara.”
“Wedding nerves? Is there anything I can do?”
“No. Thanks.” She managed a smile. “They’re not huge doubts, you know. Just homeopathic amounts, but enough to color every- thing.”
Lara tried hard to understand. But she’d never come close to get- ting married. She’d had two proposals, turned them both down. She was having far too much fun being single.
“Do I still feel passionate about Jez?” Stevie muttered, partly to herself. “Is the magic still there? I want to get it
right
, Lara.”
“Of course.” Lara squeezed Stevie’s hand. “But if you think about anything too hard, you can talk yourself out of it.”
“The thing is that what I am feeling is so inextricably muddled with the practicalities, the onward march of the wedding jugger- naut, the napkins, the food, the RSVPs . . . All this
stuff
.” Stevie held up the offending confetti sample box and waggled it. “And it shouldn’t be about stuff.”
“No, it absolutely shouldn’t. It’s about what’s right for you.”
Stevie decided to test the water. “And that’s Jez, right?”
Lara paused, resisting the urge to break eye contact. “Only you know that.”
“Oh, God.” Stevie pulled the skin on her cheeks. “What if I
don’t
know, not absolutely, not one hundred percent? I mean, I love him. Obviously. I must do, right? He’s my Jez. It’s just . . .”
“It’s hard for me to advise you,” interjected Lara softly.
“I know, I know.” Stevie put her head in her hands. “It’s all so fucking confusing.”
“Marriage is a pretty massive step.”
“Till death do us part? Sleeping with one person for the rest of your life? I mean, the mind boggles. What if I stop fancying him?” “Isn’t that what sex shops and handsome gardeners are for?” Lara
put her hand over her mouth. “Not very helpful, sorry.”
“The thing is . . .” Stevie continued, on a roll now, “Jez is adorable, most of the time. But he
does
say some pretty foul things sometimes, and I wonder if I’m going to be able to stand that for another fifty years. You know he said I needed to lose weight before the wedding?”
“Pretty unforgivable,” said Lara, treading softly. “But you know what men are like, if you press them about body stuff, they’ll shoot off the wrong answer.”
Stevie sniffed indignantly. She didn’t think she’d ever be able to forgive Jez for that, not properly. “I wish I hadn’t asked.”
“Always a mistake.” Lara pursed her mouth and moved it from side to side, agitated. “But shit . . . I feel so horribly unqualified to offer advice. A few hundred years ago, I’d be dunked in a pond.”
“It’s all right, I’m just thinking aloud, really.” Stevie sat up straight, shocked they were having this conversation at all. It wasn’t right to talk about Jez like this. Marriage surely demanded a
subtle but significant transition of loyalties from friend to husband. She should be thinking about the good times, like the way Jez taught her how to drive, endlessly patient, good-humored, not in the least scared or angry when she nearly crashed his car. The way he stroked her hair in bed, tucking it behind her ear tenderly with his big hands. The way he kissed her eyelids, first one, then the other, when he thought she was asleep. How he’d taken away the loneliness of being single, made her feel safe, lifted her to a more cheerful place. “Maybe I
am
being even more neurotic than usual.” “Stevie . . .” Lara paused, solemn-faced, words carefully mea-
sured. “I’ll be there for you whatever.”
There was a silence that went on for a bit too long. Stevie broke it. “So you don’t think my doubts are a deal breaker?” She couldn’t meet Lara’s eyes, didn’t want to influence her answer.
“They must be pretty normal.” Lara looked hesitant. “But I don’t really know. What do you think?”
Stevie stared at Lara, weighing things up. “Yes, totally normal.” She pushed the door ajar. “Gina!” she shouted. “We’re ready for the final pinning now.”
FIVE
Æ
sam padded quietly across the lawn toward stevie,
who was slumped on the cold wrought-iron bench that persevered, year after year, overgrown with ivy and honeysuckle, at the bottom of the Jonsons’ rambling garden. She was wearing a Grecian-style jersey dress, a slash of peacock blue against the green foliage. The sight made him suck in his breath. It was something to do with the way the light dappled her hair, outlined her pale cheeks with gold. As he came closer, he could see that her eyes were shut, the lashes— straight as a comb’s teeth—casting corrugated shadows on her cheekbones. Stevie’s creased eyelids pulsed slightly, from right to left, as if following the path of fast-moving clouds. There was yolk- yellow pollen smeared on the hem of her dress. Grass poked up be- tween the toes of her bare feet. That made him smile for some reason. Not moving, not wanting her to wake up just yet, he stared some more, unblinking, his vantage point from six feet away allow- ing him a clear view of the triangular planes of her strong nose, the way it counterbalanced her freckled, honey-eyed prettiness. In this
way, her features didn’t quite work together, he thought. Stevie was like two different faces merged into one, an echo of someone else, another Stevie, every time the light shifted, or her chin tilted its angle. He wished he had his camera. He touched her elbow gently. “Me again, I’m afraid.”