Christmas at the Little Wedding Shop

Jess sends me one of the despairing looks she saves for when I’m being dense. ‘We aren’t here to clear up, Sera.’

‘We’re not?’ This is news to me.

There’s more purring going on. ‘Two tame and very sweet bar boys from Jaggers will be arriving any minute to look after that.’ So that explains that purr. Jaggers Cocktail Bar is Jess’s favourite hang out in town. Even though the clientele are half her age, when it comes to downing cocktails, Jess can drink most of them under the purple plastic designer tables, no problem. And given she spends so much time there, she’s great friends with the staff.

‘So what are we doing?’ If Jess doesn’t have cleaning plans for me, I’ll head upstairs to my studio. Not that I’ve told her, but I’m very behind with my dress designs for next season’s collection.

Jess sends me another despairing look. ‘Sera, please tell me you haven’t forgotten. We’re sorting out your bridesmaid’s dress. Obviously.’

‘Oh shit.’ My groan is long and heartfelt as I hitch up my shorts.

I design dresses, I don’t wear them. Ever. And I know I have to make an exception for my sister’s Christmas Eve wedding, but thus far I’ve been in denial. Although the bridesmaid’s dress arrived weeks ago, despite Jess’s best efforts, I’ve dodged trying it on. Although, as I think about Alice, I let out a shriek. ‘Oh shit, Alice wants a Skype call, I need to set up my laptop. Like now…’

If someone said ditsy, I’d have to hold my hands up to that one. I’m the dreamy person, with the attention span of a gnat. The one who’s so easily distracted that when I dunk a biscuit, it invariably falls in my tea. Let’s face it, I’m creative. Coordination and organisation aren’t in my mindset. Which is why Jess is so great for me to work with. She keeps me on track.

‘Set up your Skype in your room, Sera, I’ll get your dress from the store. That sister of yours can wait five minutes while you try it on.’

Jess deals in orders, not suggestions. She might be bossy, but I forgive her every time. In the last eight years, it’s her hard business head and her drive that have taken me from a student with a sketch book to a designer with a studio and a dedicated room in her shop. Plus an annual collection, and more couture clients than I can handle. If it hadn’t been for Jess, I would still be lazing on my beach towel, drawing and dreaming. And Jess has supported me all the way, financially too, which is unthinkably generous and why I don’t mind her railroading me sometimes.

I mean who – except Jess – would have imagined that five minutes later, instead of washing up I’d be emerging from the fitting room in a dress…

‘It’s very pink.’ As I gaze down at myself, a croak is the most I can manage. Imagine an explosion in a glitter factory colliding with an avalanche and you’ll still only be halfway there. Although that might be the least of my problems, given the skirt is fluffing out to the size of a small tree. And right now I have to forget I’d ever hoped for cloud grey tulle, with tiny silver flecks.

‘I’d say it’s oyster rather than rose.’ Jess’s voice is breathy. ‘And it’s exquisite, just look at these seed pearls… did you ever see sequins so tiny?’

Don’t worry about the hyperventilating. Jess can’t help getting excited over anything with lace and sparkles. That’s why she’s got such a great wedding shop. At least she’s temporarily suspended her disapproval of all things Alice, though.

Alice, importing her entire wedding from London to Rose Hill Manor, the Cornwall country house, where she’s getting married, got the ‘thumbs down’ from Jess. Big time. Alice has somehow blagged the most spectacular wedding venue from a friend of Dan, her fiancé. But Alice not shopping at Brides by the Sea for her bridesmaids caused a tidal wave of discontent from Jess. As for Alice choosing a wedding dress from another designer when she could have chosen me, in Jess’s eyes that’s SO awful, we haven’t even got onto talking about it yet.

‘Forget about their size, did you ever see so many sequins in one place at one time?’ I ask. No way can I be as enthusiastic as Jess when I’m the one wearing them all.

Don’t worry, I’m completely cool with Alice shopping elsewhere. A bride has to find the perfect dress, and Alice and I have always been very different. Where I’m boho and scruffy, she’s super-stylish and uber-smart. We live in entirely different worlds, our tastes don’t coincide. So my dresses wouldn’t be her thing at all. As for how we’re going to get on when we’re thrown together for the wedding… that’s another instance of ‘watch this space’.

I try a tentative swish with the skirt. ‘Maybe maximalist bridesmaids will set off Alice’s minimalist dress.’ The sketch she showed me was so severe and pared back, it only had two lines. I’m guessing it’s some kind of haute couture silk column. ‘She’s definitely embracing the “Snow Queen” theme.’

Alice’s favourite book when we were kids was The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. She starred in the Christmas production at school when she was ten and I was eight. Whereas I was a snowflake, and I fluffed my entrance, I’m not sure Alice ever forgot her triumph as Queen Susan. But Alice going for a full-blown Narnia wedding still came as a shock. Somehow I hadn’t pegged my ambitious, order-obsessed, high-flying sister as nostalgic.

‘If she’s hoping for snow she’ll be disappointed.’ Jess is smoothing out my skirts now. ‘This is Cornwall not Krakow. Someone should have told her – the climate’s oceanic.’ Jess drops onto her hands and knees, and begins to work her way around, giving the hem gentle tugs as she goes.

‘Okay, stand still, I’ll see how the length is. And while we’re here, you can tell me how your collection designs are coming along.’

The question floats upwards through waves of tulle, but it still makes me stiffen so hard that my spine goes ramrod straight. Jess is talking about my ideas for my next collection of dresses.

‘Alright… I s’pose…’ I try to make the lie sound nonchalant and laid-back.

‘Hadn’t you hoped to be finished by this weekend?’ Jess is slipping the questions between tweaks, but, believe me, there’s nothing casual about them. This is the interrogation I’ve been dodging for more weeks than the dress.

We both know that I usually get all my design sketches consolidated easily, in two short weeks while I laze on some exotic beach in the cheap off-peak time before Christmas. And we both know, with Alice’s wedding coming up, I’m here, not there. And somehow Cornwall in winter isn’t doing it for me like Bali does. I’d promised myself and Jess I’d work my butt off, and whatever happened I’d have everything sorted by this weekend. But somehow it hasn’t worked out like that. I’m a beachy girl, and that’s where I do my best work. The designs flow much more easily when I’m flat out on the sand. Add in the crippling worry that I’m never going to be good enough again after designing for a celebrity, and I haven’t been able to draw a thing. Between us, I feel about as creative as a turnip. I’ve got no designs finalised at all, but even worse, I haven’t any ideas either. So where there should be a complete collection of worked-up designs, instead there’s an empty sketch book. Sometime in the next week I’ve got a hell of a lot of work to do.

‘Realistically, nothing gets going again until after Christmas.’ I’m bluffing here. ‘I decided it’s way more sensible to give myself a New Year deadline.’ I’m staring in the mirror over Jess’s head, exchanging OMG glances with myself. Praying that the word ‘sensible’ will be the one Jess hones in on.

‘I see…’ Jess says, sounding like she really doesn’t.

I’m dragging in a breath so huge it almost makes my eyes pop, waiting to see if I’ve got away with this when there’s a loud squawk at floor level.

‘Sera, what the hell have you got on your feet under here?’

Shit. I’ve been rumbled. Which is really bad luck, considering exactly how many layers of dress there are between Jess and my…

‘Biker boots?’ Jess’s voice rises to a scream that makes my hangover head reverberate horribly. ‘You have to be joking me. Where are the white bridesmaid’s boots Alice sent you, Sera?’

My feet in those pointy toes? It’s not happening. But I might as well come clean. ‘The kitten heels are upstairs in the studio.’ Buried under a week’s worth of completely useless sketches. Along with the white fur jacket and the wedding manual she also sent. ‘They totally kill my feet.’ I can tell excuses are falling flat. ‘The heels on these are pretty much the same height.’

Jess is staring up at me, her arm like a signpost, finger pointing at the door. ‘Go.’

‘Fine,’ I say, with a sniff.

‘And come back wearing the proper boots.’ Her shouting softens. ‘You’ll have to break them in some time. You might as well start now.’

I look down at the skirt the width of the bay and know there’s no way I’ll make it up the narrow stairs to the studio in the dress. There’s only one thing for it. I squirm, undo the zip, let the dress fall to the floor. As I leap across the bunched-up acres of skirt, being careful not to trample it with my biker boots, there’s another howl from Jess.

‘Sera, I don’t believe it! You’ve got all your clothes on under there!’

‘And?’ I stare down at my leopard-print leggings, shorts and shirt. ‘Good thing too, now I’ve had to strip off.’ Honestly, it’s December, there’s no point being colder than I have to be. And if the dress is the size of a snowstorm, no one’s going to notice a bit of underwear. Besides, Jess is the original inventor of the mantra, ‘No one’s looking at the bridesmaids’. So I sense she’s being a) a bit of a stickler and b) slightly hypocritical here.

Five minutes later, when we resume, I’m wearing the kitten heels – yes, they’re agony, in case you’re wondering – and I’ve compromised hugely by taking off my shorts. And Jess has gone in to attack the hem with her pins. My toes feeling like they’re dropping off is a small price to pay when the heat’s off my designs. Or the lack of them. Which Jess appears to have completely forgotten about now.

‘You’re lucky Alice hasn’t got you in six-inch stilettos,’ Jess says.

I don’t bother to tell her that’s really not Alice’s look. Instead I lock my knees, settle down to listen to the gentle sound of guys washing up two rooms away, as I stare out of the window. Although, with the explosion of Christmas sparkle on the glass, it’s hard to make out exactly what’s going on in the world beyond, other than a solitary figure pausing to look at the displays.

‘Jess…’ One of the helpers has stopped clattering glasses and is calling through. ‘There’s someone at the shop door, wanting to come in.’

‘Take a break, Sera, I won’t be long.’

In a second Jess pushes herself up, shoves her feet back into her loafers and marches out into the hallway. Although the shop is technically closed, so long as Jess is in the building, there is the potential for trade. She’s never one to let the opportunity of a sale slip by. Sure enough, next thing, I hear her opening the shop door.

‘Come in… it’s horribly cold outside… definitely no snow though… yes, we’re closed, but we always make exceptions…do tell me, what can I do to help?’

Call me cynical, but from the welcome, I already know it’s a guy. Thirty to forty, to judge by Jess’s pitch. A smile spreads across my face, because the supercharge of charm tells me he’s probably good looking too. And just because I’m nosey, and amused, and a little bit bored, I tilt my head to hear better.

‘Yeah, I’m sorry to bother you…’ Male, with a nudge of Scottish in the accent. And the kind of chocolate-fudge undertones that make you shiver. ‘But there’s something I spotted in the window…’

My back goes rigid. You know that thing when you instantly know a voice? Even though it’s from years ago, this particular voice is indelibly logged, deep in my unconscious brain. Five tiny words, from twenty feet away, and my heart is hammering so hard that the sequins on my bodice are jolting.

Shit.

You spend years furtively looking round corners, in case a particular person might be there. Even though you know there isn’t a snowball’s chance in hell of them being around. And then you go so long without it happening that eventually you relax. Get lazy. You forget to look out. There are even days you forget they ever existed. And then…BANG! They’re there.