A Bad Bride's Tale (9 page)

and she’d only eaten oatmeal for breakfast. If she could just re- sist the in-flight meals, she’d be in fine shape by the time the plane landed. Where it would land, she had no idea. Seb had just told her to pack for “Somewhere sunny, darling.” The surprise element was making her a little anxious, thrillingly anxious, like the night be- fore a big exam you knew you would ace. Did he have the ring al- ready?

To anesthetize the butterflies, Katy reminded herself that she’d thought just the same thing a few months ago in Venice. No ring had materialized. Nothing mentioned. Instead, they’d argued in St. Mark’s Square in a heated, public, rather Italian way, about where to eat lunch.

She lit a cigarette, flapped the smoke away so it wouldn’t settle in her hair. No, she couldn’t help herself. And why should she?

Imagining Katy Norris’s nuptials—she reverted to thinking of her- self in the third person whenever she thought about marriage—was too delicious to resist. No rubbish wedding for Katy. No sand- wiches curling at the edges and bad table wines and embarrassing relatives wielding video cameras. Oh, no. Katy’s guests were to be handpicked and would fall into three categories: family (edited, the mad Liverpudlians wouldn’t be invited), friends (ditto), and con- tacts (a swell of attractive well-connected Londoners who would now be beholden to invite them to their weddings and parties in the future).

The Smythson-printed invitation would be as thick as a small novel, its font—more Harvey Nichols than provincial swirls— wittily detailing the wedding cast from flower girl to maids of honor (chosen according to bone structure so as not to outshine the bride). The celebrations would tumble on for two or even three days, with guests (staggered, the best and earliest slots going to the most prized guests) arriving at the castle two days before the wed- ding for games and shooting and boating on the private lily- padded lake. Everyone would mingle, the hubbub of laughter rising like heat toward the battlements. The sun would shine, threading gold into her highlights (courtesy of Louise Galvin, done the day before). They would conceive a child on their honeymoon, move to a large Georgian terrace in Primrose Hill. She’d give birth in a water pool at the Portland. The child would have a very small nose.

The front door slammed. Katy jumped. “Hi.”

“Seb, sweetheart!” Katy ran to the front door, freshly pedicured bare feet slapping the smooth oak stairs. As she got to the bottom step, she felt herself slow down as if resisting the natural arc that

would lead a girlfriend into the arms of her boyfriend. This was be- cause Seb was not standing with his arms open. One arm was stiffly locked by his side, the other clawed around a small suitcase. This absence of open arms was a little hurtful. “Good flight?”

Seb raked his hand through his floppy gravy-brown hair. “Dreadful. Some actress, can’t think of her name, sitting next to me with her screaming baby. They shouldn’t allow babies in Business.” Katy brushed some invisible dust off Seb’s angular shoulders, then reached for his hand. “Hey . . .” She paused and realized she

was waiting for a compliment. “It’s nice to have you back.” “It’s nice to be back,” he lied.

Katy kissed him.

Seb squeezed her hand, remembering his role. “Pretty top.

New?”

“Isn’t it adorable? Temperley.” “Right.”

They walked through to the sitting room, where a cathedral’s worth of Jo Malone Lime Basil & Mandarin candles had been burn- ing for hours, scenting the flat in preparation for his arrival. The two sat, about a foot apart, on their large cream B&B Italia sofa with a clever reclining back. He picked up a new feather-fringed cushion. “Shopping again?”

Katy tossed her hair. “There’s this darling little interiors shop opened on All Saints Road.” He didn’t reply. She popped open a bottle of Rioja. “How’s New York?”

“Super. Yeah, super.” Seb’s toes tensed in his shoes. He felt bad, but not as bad as he thought he would feel. Nevertheless his sec- ond, minor
and
meaningless (a crucial distinction) infidelity did make it difficult to meet Katy’s eye. He switched on the television.
EastEnders
. He talked evasively through Dot Cotton.

“Are you still in love with New York?” Digging for intimacies, Katy curled forward on the sofa on all fours, her back arched, bot- tom in the air, trying to nuzzle his neck. “You seem . . .”

“I
told
you.” Seb bent away from her and picked up a fistful of salted almonds from one of the chic concrete bowls Katy had arranged around the sitting room. “New York’s great.”

“Sorry. I thought . . .” Katy stared at him, expectantly, her all- fours pose crumpling. She picked up the fringed cushion, hugged it to her chest, and sat back cross-legged. “I’ve missed you, Seb.”

“Likewise.” Seb’s hazel eyes, slightly hooded, inherited from his father’s Welsh line, flicked quickly around the room. He nodded to her pile of suitcases. “So you’ve managed to pack, then?” He grinned, a slightly lopsided grin. “Do you want me to jump up and down on your suitcase?”

“Later.” Katy laughed appreciatively. This was a popular, long- standing couples joke. Flagging it out now was a sign of solidarity. “Shall I give you a lovely rub? I’ve got some essential oils that nail jetlag.”

He crossed one knee over the other, folded his arms. “Don’t fuss so, Katy.”

“Sorry.” Katy hugged the cushion tighter, trying to quell the queasy feeling of rejection. “So, what do you fancy for supper? What can I get you?” This wasn’t really a question. She’d been to the farmer’s market specially to buy huge hunks of organic lamb and field-fresh vegetables. She liked to be in control of the house- hold food.

“Thai on the Grove. I could eat a bloody horse.”

Katy considered protesting, but decided better of it. She wanted to give Seb what he wanted. “Good idea.”

Later, at the Green Orchid, Katy tried to guess the GI content

of the entrées. “I’m not that hungry, what do you recommend?” she asked Seb to make him feel manly.

Seb put on his new wire-framed Armani glasses to read the menu, flicking the laminated plastic sheet away from the waiter dismissively, as if used to far more consequential venues in New York. “You’re never hungry.”

Katy looked up. That wasn’t the correct response. The evening continued with more incorrect responses, Seb being too fast, too critical. Then, as if catching himself at it, he would overcompen- sate a few moments later with a squeeze of the hand or an inappro- priate clink of glasses. New York has taken it out of him, thought Katy. He needs to recuperate in London. We need time to get used to being together again. Few couples could go three weeks without seeing each other and just click back into it.

After successfully managing to eat as little as possible of her meal, Katy felt a little happier by the time they got home. Seb, she noted, had a twinkle in his eye. He pressed his pale hand into the small of her back, sliding it down, lingering over the curve that de- lineated back from bottom. She wiggled into his palm. While she did not feel exactly seductive herself, she was pleased to have con- firmation of her own attractiveness.

Half an hour later, between newly washed Frette sheets, Seb en- tered his girlfriend. He screwed his eyes shut and thought about the waitress in New York.

In her separate world, behind her false eyelashes, Katy pressed Play on a reliable lesbian fantasy. It didn’t work. Distracted, she couldn’t get into it. So she tried to imagine Seb’s sperm swimming— tails wagging like tadpoles—up inside her, to fuse with her round pearl-like egg and... Gosh, that
did
work. Baby-making sex was

sexy. She decided to push it, test the boundaries. How would he re- act? Maybe she’d underestimated him.

“Seb, darling . . .” Seb groaned. “Yeah?” “I missed a pill.”

Seb stopped his sawing motion.

Katy felt a deflating feeling inside, a horrible looseness. He hadn’t?

He had. Seb had shrunk and slipped out.

ELEVEN
Æ

“i am delighted to be able to declare you man

and wife!” announced the registrar with well-practiced joviality.

Jez pulled Stevie toward him for the kiss. In the pressure of the moment, his lips collided slightly due east of his intended destina- tion, on the corner of Stevie’s mouth, which was tightly shut as if trying to hold something in. A bubble of “
ahhs
” erupted from the guests. Then there was clapping.

Stevie stood very still and smiled back at everyone. She couldn’t quite believe she was here. She couldn’t believe she’d gone through with it. Now was when the director walked into the picture and said, “Cut.”

It was not a director, but Jez’s mother, Rita, who was the first to pull Stevie aside, under the rim of her vast ribbon-bedecked straw hat and splutter a salivary, “Welcome to the family,” in her ear. Then came her mother, a weeping vision in pleated green silk and enormous lumps of Navajo turquoise jewelry. Then her dad, look- ing bewildered. Neil. Poppy. Lara. Soon it felt there were a hundred

hands pawing her, dozens of painted lips, pursed and poised to at- tach themselves to her like the suckers of a giant octopus.

She strained to escape from the crowd, ducking beneath hats and feather headpieces and silk flowers, all the while thanking people and behaving in a suitable, radiant bride-like fashion. At the back of the room, standing next to a vase of peonies, she spotted Sam’s tall, athletic frame, uneasy and angular in a dark, slim-cut suit. His mother, Pearl, had an arm around his shoulders. He didn’t look too happy.

Jez squeezed her hand. “Come on, beautiful. This way.” Stevie looked up. Oh. Jez was talking to his mother.

They took a few steps out of the registry office before Rita dropped back and Jez and Stevie walked out into the world alone, as man and wife, stopping to wave and smile at the crowd like roy- als and shuffling forward hesitantly to the vintage Daimler that was waiting at the back of the Westgate shopping center.

patti tossed handfuls of
confetti at her daughter, trying, rather unsuccessfully, to imagine what her grandchild would look like. She hoped it wouldn’t get Jez’s pale skin. Such a bore in the sun.

Rita, taking refuge from Stevie’s noisy, unfathomable family in a huddle of cousins from Northampton, tossed handfuls of the con- fetti at her new daughter-in-law and resisted the urge to brush them off Jez’s shoulders where they collected like dandruff. That was his wife’s job now. She was a little doubtful whether Stevie was up to the task.

Lara tossed handfuls of the little paper disks at her best friend

and thought Stevie deserved more. More certainty. More love. And, yes, the confetti should definitely be rose petals, not paper.

Sam watched the confetti embed itself into Stevie’s hair like windblown blossoms. He leaned back on some iron railings as though punched, letting the railings transmit their cool through his Paul Smith suit. It occurred to him that this was quite possibly the worst day of his life.

the ancient daimler, crippled
by decades of servicing brides and grooms, had bad suspension, and every time it took a pothole, Stevie bounced up from the seat, her crystal-pinned do crunching against the padded-leather cream ceiling.

Jez laughed and pulled her toward him. He slid an arm up from her waist, below her armpit. “Uh oh.”

Stevie explored the area with her fingers. Wet. God, deodorant wasn’t working. “I’m sweating like a pig. Nice.”

Jez offered a tissue from his suit pocket, which he’d brought in case he cried during the ceremony. He hadn’t.

Stevie folded the tissues into pads and wedged them beneath her armpits. It wasn’t very romantic, but she didn’t want to arrive at the reception with blooming yellow stains.

“I’d say that went pretty well, wouldn’t you, pumpkin?” asked Jez, sighing and staring intently out of the window as if the famil- iar sight of Woodstock Road were going to look different somehow, now that he was a married man.

“It was lovely.” Stevie interlaced their fingers. Their hands looked different with rings on their wedding fingers. Older some- how. Like the hands of a friend’s parents. “The weather held.” The

sun was behind cartoon cumulus clouds, blackening their bulk, outlining them in gold.

“Hmmm. And Neil managed the reading pretty well,
consider- ing
.”

Stevie laughed. The Streets lyrics had been an unusual choice. But Neil meant every word. He had tears in his eyes, bless him. “And weren’t all those flower girls just so adorable?” There was something about toddlers with flowers in their hair that made her stomach lurch happily.

The newly married couple managed to dissect most of the minu- tiae of the service on the ten-minute drive home, from the triumph of Lara in her gray silk maid of honor dress, to the poor taste of the registrar’s brass-buttoned
Dynasty
-style jacket, to the moment when Stevie had paused for a hideously long time and then stum- bled over the “I do.”

“You got the nerves bad, baby.” Jez scratched his neck, where his stiff never-worn-before shirt collar dug in and chafed him pink.

Yes, for a microsecond, there in front of all the people who had ever meant anything to her, Stevie had considered apologizing and running away. But she hadn’t. She paused, quelled her fears, and looked Jez in the eye. She thought about her barely cold father-in- law, a family, a future. She had stood by her man. She had hoped for the best.

The Daimler slowed down on its approach to the Jonsons’ home. Despite the directions from the town center to North Oxford’s be- ing what her father, Chris, called “Alzheimer-proof,” a scurrilous reference to some of the older relatives, many guests had managed to get lost in transit. Nonetheless, there were enough jostling in the large square driveway to create a welcome. More confetti. More

cheers. Stevie quickly removed the tissues from under her armpits and, not knowing where else to leave them, tucked them under the front seat of the car. A large collective
whoop
bubbled up from the waiting guests as she stepped onto the gravel.