Bridesmaid Blitz (24 page)

He looks confused. “Didn’t I tell you? Friday, all being well.”

I shake my head. “No. And I tried calling you from Paris to find out how she was doing, but your phone went straight to messages and you never called back.”

“Sorry,” he says. “The doctors still have a few more tests to run, but if they’re happy with her breathing and her eating, and the hole in her heart stays firmly closed, then it’s good-bye, Parnell Street, thank the Lord.”

“That must be a relief,” Mum says. “Are you going to have her christened while Pauline’s still here or wait awhile?”

“There’s no rush,” Shelly says, even though Mum directed the question at Dad. “Mum’s going to stay till Christmas. And in the New Year we’ll see what happens.”

“Christmas?” Dad splutters. “When were you thinking of telling me that, Shelly? That’s months away!”

Shelly pats Dad’s hand. “I know. But it might take months to find the right nanny for our little girl. And Mum’s offered to help out until then.”

“Are you going back to work after Christmas, Shelly?” Mum asks.

“Work?” Shelly says. “Gosh, no. My Gracie needs me at home.”

Mum looks confused. “I thought you just said you were hiring a nanny.”

“We are. I can’t look after Gracie all by myself, now, can I? How would I go shopping or to the hairdresser’s?” Her eyes go all wide and owl-like.

Mum opens her mouth to say something, but Dad interrupts. “We’d better get going, Shelly.” He turns to me. “All being well, you can come over next weekend and spend a whole day with your baby sister. Would you like that?”

“Yes. Thanks, Dad.” Then something occurs to me. “But you’re not going golfing, are you?” Being left alone with Shelly
and
Pauline would be a fate worse than death.

He smiles. “Absolutely not. No golf for a long time — and that’s a promise.” He leans over and gives me a hug.

It’s only after Dad and Shelly have left that I remember Dad and Gracie’s presents from Paris. I run upstairs to grab them, but by the time I get back downstairs again, Dad has already pulled away. I squeeze the little duck in my hand, making it quack. I feel hollow all of a sudden: teary.

When I turn around, Mum is standing in the doorway to the living room.

“I forgot to give Dad his present from Paris,” I say. “If he’d asked me about the trip, I would have remembered. But he didn’t even mention it.”

She sighs, her eyes soft. “They’re both a bit baby obsessed at the moment, Amy, but it’ll pass. Are you OK? You look a little pale.”

I don’t trust myself to say anything without bursting into tears, so I just shrug.

Mum puts her hand on my forehead. “You are a little hot. Hope you didn’t catch one of those funny foreign flus in Paris. You’d better hop into bed and rest.”

We go back upstairs. She pulls back the duvet and I flick off my runners and crawl under gratefully, the duvet cool and heavy on my skin. As soon as she’s left the room, I finally allow myself to cry.

That night I still feel low, so I ring Mills for a chat.

“Hi, Amy. How funny — I was about to ring you. I’m so worried about Bailey.”

“He’s being a bit weird all right.”

“I know. Do you think it’s because of Eriq?”

“Eriq?” (What is she on about?)

“Maybe Annabelle told him more than he’s letting on? Do you think he’s annoyed with me? Or upset? Or maybe he’s . . .”

I listen to her obsess about Bailey and what he’s thinking for a few more minutes. To be honest, I’ve had quite enough of her boy drama-ramas to last a whole month. I know it’s ungracious — she’s a good friend and always listens to my Seth woes — but I can’t help how I feel.

Midflow, I say, “I’m really sorry, Mills, but Evie’s crying and Mum’s downstairs. I’d better check on her. See you tomorrow.” And I click off the phone. It’s a total lie but I just can’t take any more. Then I punch in Clover’s number. No answer. I throw my phone onto my bed in disgust.

I’m bored rigid in my room, so I wander into the hall looking for distraction. Mum and Dave’s door is open and I peep inside. Mum’s standing in the middle of the floor, staring at our bridesmaids’ dresses, which are hanging in their thin plastic see-through wrappers on the front of her wardrobe.

“Mum?” I say, and she turns around.

She looks miserable. Her eyes are wet and she wipes them with her fingers.

“What’s wrong?” I ask.

She sniffs. “Nothing. I’m fine.”

“You don’t look fine. You look terrible. Shall I call Dave?”

“No!” Mum’s face crumples and she starts crying again.

“Sit down, Mum.” I pull her by the arm toward the bed and she sits on the edge and stares down at her hands, now clasped in her lap.

“What’s wrong?” I ask again.

“It’s nothing, Amy, honestly. I’m just having a bit of a wobble.”

“Is it the dresses? Have you changed your mind — is that it?”

“No, I love the dresses.”

“What, then?”

She sighs. “It’s the whole wedding thing. I think I’m having second thoughts.”

I sit down beside her. “I know Clover’s going a bit overboard with the whole matching flowers and cupcakes —”

“It’s not the flowers or the cupcakes; it’s the idea of standing in front of everyone, again, and taking more wedding vows. It terrifies me.”

OK, this is not good, not good at all. “You don’t want to get married at all?” I ask.

“I’m not sure.”

“Why? You love Dave, don’t you?”

She nods. “It’s not that.”

“What is it, then?”

“Amy, I shouldn’t be talking to you about all this. I’m sorry. It’s wrong of me to involve you.”

“Mum, I hate to point it out, but this affects me too. And Alex and Evie. All of us. And before Dave came along, you talked to me about a lot of things, remember? About Dad and everything.”

Mum winces. “Well, I shouldn’t have. It wasn’t right.”

“Mum, tell me what’s wrong, please? Maybe I can help.”

“That’s very sweet of you, Amy, but I don’t think —”

“Stop treating me like a child,” I say strongly. “I’m thirteen, not four. At the very least, I can listen.”

Tears are running down Mum’s face and she says nothing for a while, then eventually nods again. “Sorry. You’re right. I just feel like I burden you with too much, you know, and it’s not fair. Mills doesn’t have to deal with half the stuff you do.”

“OK, maybe Mills doesn’t, but Seth’s mum has cancer,” I point out. “Everyone has their own problems to deal with. At least we
can
talk, Mum. Some people hate their mothers.” I think of Sophie’s mum, Mrs. Piggott, who’s a witch. She even accused me of stealing her pearl necklace at the end-of-term party in her house.

“Yes, we can.” Mum rubs her eyes with her hands. “OK, if you really want to know, I’m worried that things will change between me and Dave after we’re married. That he’ll start to feel even more tied down. He’s only thirty-two, and before we met, he was this cool musician, playing gigs all over Ireland. Now he’s a nurse and working all hours to make enough money to pay bills. Maybe getting married will put even more pressure on him and make things worse. I know I’ll have a job soon, but still . . .”

She pauses for a second, blows out her breath, and then says, “And in Paris, I had such fun, drinking cocktails and hanging out with Monique and you guys. I felt more alive than I have in years. I felt like
me:
Sylvie Wildgust. Not Mrs. Green or Mrs. Marcus — just me. And for the first time in a long time, it felt good being me. And I don’t know if I’m ready to give that up yet. I know it’s selfish, but it’s just how I feel.” She looks at me, her eyes sad. “Does that sound terrible?”

“No, not at all. Mum, if you’re not ready, then you’re not ready. Have you told Dave any of this?”

She shakes her head. “I can’t. He’ll be so upset. After plucking up the courage to ask me like that, in front of all those people, I can’t back out now.” (Last summer, Clover and I helped Dave plan his proposal. We drew a huge heart in the sand on Inchydoney Beach and Dave stood in it and asked Mum to marry him. It was very romantic.)

“Maybe it’s just nerves,” I say. “All brides get prewedding jitters — everyone knows that. I bet you were nervous walking up the aisle toward Dad.”

Mum snorts. “Only that he’d do a runner to Toronto and leave me jilted. He always wanted to emigrate to Canada, but I refused to go with him — didn’t want to leave Monique and Gran and Gramps and Clover behind. Perhaps things would have been different if I’d agreed. . . .”

“There’s no point worrying about it now,” I say gently. “You know what they say: ‘No regrets, they don’t work.’” (I’m quoting an old Robbie Williams song at her, but she doesn’t seem to notice.)

“Sorry,” she says again, pressing her fingertips against her eyes. “Maybe I am overreacting and maybe you’re right: it’s just nerves.”

Mum, a bigger drama queen than Mills, overreacting — never! I try not to smile.

“So the wedding’s still on?” I ask.

“I guess so. I’m probably just a bit out of sorts with all the traveling and everything.”

“Shall I make you a cup of tea?”

She nods. “Thanks, Amy. The color’s back in your face. Are you feeling better?”

“Yes. I think I was just tired.”

“In that case, have you done your homework?”

I sigh. Mum seems to have this built-in default “homework” mechanism. After me listening to her wedding dilemmas and being so nice to her, you’d think she’d let me off for one night, but oh, no. Typical!

“Nearly,” I lie. “I’ll bring the tea up to you, then get straight back to my desk.”

“You’re a good girl, Amy. I don’t deserve you.” Her eyes well up again, so I murmur, “Tea,” and flee.

In the kitchen, I ring Clover again. And this time she answers.

“Clover, help!” I hiss into my mobile while waiting for the kettle to boil. “Mum’s having second thoughts about the wedding.”

“She can’t be. I’ve put acres of work into it already. And there’s no way those fab bridesmaids’ dresses are going to waste. I’ll be right over to firefight, Beanie.”

Whatever Clover says to Mum seems to do the trick. Mum potters off to bed early with a copy of the latest edition of
Irish Bride,
courtesy of her fairy godsister.

“I heard she was nervous before her first wedding,” Clover says, collapsing on the sofa beside me. “But nowhere near this bad.”

“You don’t think she’ll call the whole thing off, do you?” I pick at the skin around my thumb. This whole wedding-jitters business is making
me
very nervous.

“Nah, give her a few days, she’ll be all wedding systems go. How’s everything else? Sylvie told me Gracie’s coming home on Friday. Pretty cool, eh?”

“Suppose.” I shrug.

“Thought you’d be cow jumps over the moon excited, Beanie. What’s up?”

“It’s Dad. He was over earlier — but only because he was
shopping
in Blackrock for Gracie. He doesn’t seem to care about me anymore. He didn’t even ask me or Mum how Paris went, and he’s asked Pauline to stay until Christmas to help with Gracie. Bang goes the big-sister babysitting!” (OK, that last bit is a slight exaggeration, but I’m so fed up I just don’t care.)

Clover says nothing for a few seconds, then starts to talk, a slightly dreamy look in her eyes. “I was only four when you were born. The first few weeks Sylvie went baby mad — every word out of her mouth was
Amy this; Amy that
. It drove me crazy.”

I look at her in surprise. “You remember being four?”

“Parts of it. Anyway, when you were only a week old, I threw some of your cuddly toys down the loo and hid your blankie. Mum was so cross she slapped me across the back of the legs. The following week I woke you up by poking you in the eye. Hard. It left a yellow bruise on your eyelid and everything. You yelled for hours, and I wasn’t allowed near you on my own after that.”

Clover runs her hand over my cheek. “I guess I thought Sylvie had forgotten all about me. Which she had. But it didn’t last long. It’s natural to feel a bit left out, and compared to me, you’re behaving like an angel. Art will soon snap out of it, you’ll see. If he doesn’t, he’ll have me to deal with. Do you want me to talk to him for you?”

“Thanks, Clover.” I rub my head on her shoulder. “You’re the best. But this is one problem I need to deal with myself.”

“I understand.” Then she grins and puts out her hand. “That will be fifty euro for the counseling session. But I’ll happily take my payment in chocolate. Anything hidden in Dave’s drawer?”

I smile back. Clover always manages to make me feel better.

Mum seems fine the following morning until a Concern ad about sick African babies comes on the telly, and then she’s off again, her eyes swimming with tears. “Those poor children,” she wails. “I just can’t bear it. Amy, switch it off, quick!”

I hand her some paper towels. “Take it easy today, Mum.”

She gives me a weak smile. “The sooner I get back to work, the better. Take my mind off . . . ”— she pauses —“everything.”

“You all right, Sylvie?” Dave walks into the kitchen, rubbing his sleepy eyes.

“Concern ad,” Mum says with a sniff.

He nods. He’s used to Mum’s sensitivities. I wish he’d stayed upstairs, though. He’s wearing a crumpled Killers T-shirt over checked boxers. I hate seeing him in his underwear —
soooo
embarrassing.