A Beautiful Day for a Wedding: This year’s Bridget Jones!

‘This reminds me of that festival we went to, when our tent got waterlogged so we all kipped in Tanya’s dad’s Volvo,’ Eve said.

‘At least that was an estate car so we could all lie in the back, this is a bloody Yaris!’

‘It was fun though,’ Ayesha reminisced. ‘Four of us squeezed into the back of it, and Ben in the front.’

Once again, Eve realised that she’d managed to rewrite history in order to forget that Ben had been there too. Of course he’d been there, he’d even queued up for the tickets for them all.

‘Happy days,’ Ayesha sighed.

‘Happy days,’ Becca agreed.

Eve stayed silent.

‘Speaking of Ben,’ Ayesha started gently. ‘How do you feel about him coming back Eve?’

‘Like you said yesterday, it’s been four years, why would I care?’

‘Because we both know you do.’

Eve swiftly changed the subject. ‘So, how annoyed do you reckon Tanya is this morning? Do you think she’ll be filled with nostalgia like us, or just pure hatred for me?’

‘It’s not your fault!’ Becca said. ‘We all forgot the time and wanted to stay longer, it’s not as though she was ready to leave at half eleven, was she? It’ll be fine, how could you not see the funny side to this?’

Tanya could not see the funny side to this. Waking up in a car, the sequinned black dress she’d paid an eye-watering amount for hitched around her waist, with her stuck-on eyelashes gluing her left eye shut, was not the blissful sleeping-in-a-spa experience she’d wanted. What was Eve thinking allowing them all to miss the curfew? She’d specifically made her the head hen so that situations like this didn’t happen. She and Eve hadn’t been particularly close in years but she had assumed that having a wedding professional in her wedding party would be extremely useful. Eve should have called time on the party, ushered them all back to the hotel, handed out the monogrammed eye masks she’d insisted on Eve ordering, and they’d all be waking up right now refreshed and invigorated ready for the hotel’s fresh juice and homemade muesli. They weren’t twenty years old any more.

Just then, Eve tapped on Tanya’s car window that was slightly lowered to let the condensation dry out. She had the nerve smile at her, while still wearing that blasted unicorn horn. Tanya turned the engine on, closed the window, and reversed out of the car park back onto the main road and headed in the direction of London.

‘Tanya’s just left.’ Eve announced, opening the door of Becca’s Yaris.

‘Left?’

‘Yep.’

Ayesha and Becca started laughing again. They’d always seen the funny side to Tanya’s spoiled strops. Which was helpful as they’d both been in the firing line for daring to get married in the same year as Tanya. She had actually asked them both to consider postponing their weddings until the year after, ‘or at the very least autumn’, as though by sending her save the dates out fractionally ahead of the other two she owned the entire summer.

‘What about everyone else? Are they still here?’ Ayesha asked.

Eve looked around the car park. Hens in various states of disarray were straightening up, cricking their necks and checking their limbs still functioned by stretching. ‘I think everyone else is still here. We’d better go and check out, I’ll get Tanya’s stuff from her room.’

‘You’re a good friend Eve,’ Becca yawned. Eve guessed, correctly, that Tanya at that particular moment didn’t share that sentiment.

Chapter 4 (#u7019cb4f-9b3e-5646-94f6-37c809c4000a)

The blonde middle-aged woman was sat opposite Eve on the train again, wearing a half-heart locket. They never failed to make Eve smile. Half a heart. Meaning that someone, somewhere had the other half. Who was it? A lover heading off on his travels? A best friend declaring their unbreakable bond? It was amazing how many people all around you at any given time were in love with someone, whether the other person knew it or not. Eve almost missed her stop again, jostling through the wall of disgruntled suits to the train’s beeping doors to a soundtrack of tuts and sighs from her fellow commuters, who shifted the minimum of millimetres required for her to squeeze her body through.

‘Morning gorgeous. How’s my favourite redhead this morning?’

Eve smiled at the familiar greeting that the greying cockney security guard at her office building gave her every morning, before giving her standard response.

‘Morning Clive, fabulous day for it.’

‘You can say that again.’

‘Morning Clive, fabulous day for it.’

It wasn’t really a fabulous day, it was grey and slightly drizzling, Eve had just forked out an exorbitant amount for a hotel room she hadn’t slept in and Tanya hadn’t returned any of her calls or texts, but none of that was Cockney Clive’s fault. Feeling the need to cheer herself up, Eve opened up a new word document on her screen and started typing into her diary. It had become a sort of therapy for her that she’d started during those dark first few months in New York with nothing but her thoughts for company. By writing down her most cynical observations and feelings, it stopped her saying them out loud.

Hen do games. Three words to strike terror into the heart of any woman. And man. Men are not exempt from the horror of a group of inebriated women, particularly as so many of the ‘fun’ and ‘hilarious’ hen do games involve getting random things off unsuspecting men. Like underwear. What sober woman would think that running up to a strange man in a supermarket and demanding his boxers would be an acceptable form of discourse? But put a group of prosecco-sodden women together in a pub, tie some unicorn horns onto their heads and suddenly, it’s ‘wa-hey random bloke I’ve never met before, pass me your pants!’

What about the mandatory Mr and Mrs quiz? Imagine the scene. Ten or fifteen well-heeled hens, an ageing mother, the mother of the groom, a couple of aunties thrown in for good measure. ‘So, bride, what’s your husband’s favourite position?’ A couple of seconds of pensive consideration pass. ‘Probably the Spork,’ she replies. ‘Where he positions his body at a ninety-degree angle to get a deeper thrust action.’ ‘Oh, good guess Enid, but that’s wrong unfortunately – Jeff said CEO.’

No good can come of hen do games. Ever.

‘Good weekend?’ Kat asked brightly as she shook off her jacket and hung it on the back of her office chair.

‘Yes and no,’ Eve replied honestly, minimising her diary on the screen before Kat could see it. After the tumbleweed had blown away from around the pool and the hens started bonding over wine and unicorn horns, it had been really fun; but the radio silence from Tanya suggested she might think otherwise. ‘I think I may be demoted from my bridesmaid status at some point this week.’

‘Wow, that bad?’ Kat chuckled.

‘Let’s just say that the bride is suffering from a sense of humour failure at present.’

‘Don’t they all?’

It was true; at some point in the lead up to every wedding the bride, even the most laid-back, fun-loving bride imaginable, would have a major meltdown over the hue of their napkins. Eve had received enough anxious letters over her two-year tenure at the magazine to vouch for that. The only bride that showed signs of getting through the run-up unfazed and unflappable was Becca, but that too could change as her date loomed closer.

Over the other side of the open-plan floor, her editor’s office light was on. Fiona was always the first one in, setting a good example for everyone else, and enabling her to tut at any latecomers. Now would be the perfect chance for Eve to speak to her quietly without lots of eyes and ears around. Eve took a deep breath and headed over.

‘Is now a good time for a quick chat, Fiona?’ Eve said, sticking her head around her boss’s door.

‘Please tell me you’re not resigning.’

‘I’m not resigning.’

‘Good. Ok then, come in.’

That was a hopeful start; asking for a pay rise after your boss had virtually called you indispensable was the stuff dreams were made of. Eve heard herself bumble around the topic, talking about the rising costs of public transport in London, rent charges, electricity costs, as reasons why she deserved more money.

‘I’m sorry Eve, my hands are tied. We’re on austerity orders from the powers that be; no more new hires and no pay rises. I’m hopeful that at the end of the year we may all get a small Christmas bonus, but there’s no money in the pot as of now. I promise, as soon as the money tree starts shedding its leaves, you’ll be the first to know. You are incredibly valued though, if that helps.’

Being valued was nice, but it didn’t pay for her flat. Or her credit card. Everyone assumed that she was so much better off than she was, and no one knew that each month she was relying more and more on that little piece of plastic burning in her purse.

Eve headed back to her Dear Eve inbox which was always bursting at the seams on a Monday morning. It was mid-May, wedding season was in view just around the corner and brides up and down the country were slowly melting from the stress of it all. Eve sighed and took a large gulp of her coffee before opening the first one. The subject line said ‘HELP!’ In any other job, Eve would have paid more heed to this, she might even have got the authorities on standby, but being a wedding magazine agony aunt meant she knew that this type of dramatic upper case yell for assistance was probably not life-threatening.

Dear Eve

I’m at my wits’ end. My fiancé is insisting on wearing a navy blue tie instead of the pale blue one that I’d picked out to match the bridesmaid dresses, and it’s going to look so wrong. He just laughs at me when I cry about it, and says that it’s his wedding too, but the whole theme is going to be ruined, HELP!

Sarah, Birmingham