The Stylist (32 page)

Having all piled into one golf buggy, AJ, Vicky, Rob, Pinky and I arrived at the entrance to the tiki torch-lit pathway at the other end of the beach. A hush had fallen over the congregation, seated on white chairs on the sand in a quiet, secluded bay. The whole area was bathed in a beautiful orangey glow, and a quartet of ukuleles were sounding the opening strains of Debussy’s ‘Clair de Lune’. Eight thousand pink orchid petals marked out the aisle. The female section of the bridal party hadn’t yet made the short journey from the Presidential Villa to the scene of the ceremony. AJ had put his foot down, doing well over the 5 mph resort speed limit to get us to the ceremony ahead of time.

Taking a deep breath to steady my nerves, I stepped out of the buggy and slowly walked down the little path, Pinky strained on his lead ahead of me. Having loosened the top three clasps on the corset, I could at least breathe more easily, but I definitely wasn’t calm. A few guests at the back turned and gasped at the woman, fully dressed as a bride, but clearly not Beau, walking towards the groom. When Trey looked up, aghast, I stopped.

‘Amber—what the hell, babe?’ Mona called out from her position, lying in readiness for Beau on one side of the seating arrangements. ‘You’re meant to be down the other—’

‘Amber?’ said Trey, stepping forwards. Confusion was etched across every part of his face.

I nodded. ‘Afraid so.’ At this precise moment Trey’s discovering my real identity was going to be the least of his
problems. There was a ripple of laughter from the unsuspecting guests as I let Pinky out of my grip and he gleefully ran down the aisle, straight across the petals towards Trey, his curly tail wagging excitedly. The pastor looked on, no doubt wondering whether this was all part of an elaborate, highly choreographed Hollywood performance to signal the entrance of the bride.
You never know what celebrities with more money than taste will do when there’s a magazine deal on the table.
Fran, Shaggy and the magazine photographer were at the front, too, capturing it all.

I didn’t take my eyes off Trey. ‘Pinky’s got something for you, in his pouch,’ I said softly, as he crouched down to catch the pig at the other end of the aisle. ‘I’m so sorry.’ I turned and walked off slowly back towards the buggy, my stomach a knotted ball of nervous tension. A sad, sick feeling descended on me as I saw, with my mind’s eye, a bemused Trey reach into Pinky’s purse to pull out the note where his wedding bands should be.

‘Amber!’ I heard Mona call again, enraged that I’d had the cheek to ignore her in front of an audience. ‘Come back here right now and tell me what the hell is going on!’ But I kept walking.

When I reached the cart, AJ was in the driving seat, the engine running.

‘Hurry, it’s nearly twenty-five past!’ He pointed at his watch, about to slam his foot down.

Quickly, I hitched up my ridiculously huge skirt and dived onto the back seat.

‘Wait! Stop!’ Trey came running up the pathway, Pinky under one arm, his face as white as the ascending full moon. We all turned to look at him as he stopped in front of the
buggy, illuminated by the headlights. ‘If what Pinky says is true, I need to get to the ukulele bandstand. Now.’

‘Jump in,’ AJ ordered. Trey squashed himself into the cart, next to Vicky and Rob, and we accelerated off. We made the two-minute journey in complete silence, none of us quite sure what to say, or what would await us at the other end. Though we knew it probably wouldn’t be a bunch of ukulele players rehearsing in the moonlight.

As we neared the bandstand area, AJ stopped the buggy and turned out the headlights. As quietly as possible, we all scrambled out. I was glad I’d had the foresight to chuck my flip-flops in; the too-tight Cinderella shoes had done nothing for my bunions. Trey turned to Rob, settling Pinky into his arms, and then we all fell in line behind him as he silently marched towards the bandstand, which stood behind a gated wall covered in tropical flora. When he reached the entrance, he paused. AJ put out a hand to us:

‘Leave him to do this alone,’ he whispered.

Trey headed for the gate, only pausing once to look over his shoulder. His eyes fixed on me.

‘You know, I never did believe you were Annie Liechtenstein,’ he said. ‘And you should know that Scorsese’s next movie is shooting in New York, not Shepperton.’

‘I’m sorry, Trey, I shouldn’t have lied to you,’ I whispered, a horrible burning sensation building up behind my eyes. ‘It was wrong, and I hate myself for it. I’m so sorry.’

‘Don’t be,’ he replied. ‘If you hadn’t been here today, who knows what might have happened? I could have ended up married to the lying bitch.’

Suddenly the sound of a car pulling up on the other side of the wall made us all stop. Trey breathed in deeply, slowly
loosened his tie, undid his collar button, folded back his cuffs, and then purposefully opened the gate and disappeared from view.

The rest of us stood there, intrigued by how Beau might try and talk herself out of this one.

‘Fancy using a poor, innocent pig like that,’ Vicky muttered, stroking Pinky’s soft belly.

‘I’m getting quite attached to the little fella.’ Rob tickled him under the chin. ‘Wouldn’t like to be Jason right now.’

The car engine was turned off. We heard a man’s startled voice—it had to be Jason. There were a couple of exchanges, voices low and muffled; we couldn’t clearly make out what they were saying. Then came a loud smack, the sound of a good, meaty punch, and a thud as a body fell to the ground, followed by a shrill shriek from Beau.

‘Oh my God! Jason!’

We all looked at AJ.

‘I think you’d better have a look,’ I said, and he dashed past us and in through the gate.

From the other direction, a figure holding heels in one hand, a bottle of champagne in the other and walking with a pained expression, as if over broken glass, was approaching rapidly, her hair a giant ball of frizz in desperate need of some serum.

‘Great—the last person we need,’ I mumbled.

‘Would you, Amber, like to tell me what the fucking hell is going on here, please?’ Mona yelled, her voice slurred. ‘We’ve currently got eighty of LA’s biggest movers and shakers sitting around on the beach wondering when the hell this wedding is going to start, a bride who’s gone AWOL, a groom on the run and ten bridesmaids wandering around
aimlessly with less than half a brain cell between them.’
Huh—she’s a fine one to talk!
‘And you’re just standing here, flirting with Rob, thinking it’s all a huge laugh?’ She looked at Rob and Pinky and grunted with disdain.

I felt anger rise inside me in an unstoppable tidal wave. If anyone else needed knocking out this evening it was Mona, and it surely wouldn’t take much—she was already half-cut.
Whose stupid idea had it been to put me into this dress in the first place?
Vicky placed a restraining hand on my arm.

‘The wedding’s off.’ I scowled. ‘You can ask Beau about it yourself, if you like. She’s just through there, Trey is, too, and I believe Jason Slater is as well—if he’s still alive.’ I signalled towards the gate. Mona promptly dropped her shoes and the bottle by the side of the path and barged past us.

‘Right, that’s it—I need to see this,’ Vicky announced, grabbing me by the hand.

‘I’m coming, too, then.’ Rob followed, his arms still full of pig.

As we turned the corner, the scene on the oriental-style ukulele bandstand looked like something from a horror movie. Still in her wedding gown, Beau was kneeling over Jason, who was lying on the ground, wincing as she wiped blood from his nose and lips with the back of her hand. There were mascara stains all the way down Beau’s cheeks—her veil was off, her updo half down, her feet bare.

‘Beau—for God’s sake!’ Mona shrieked, making a beeline for her. ‘The dress! Whatever you do, don’t get blood on the dress, it will never—Oh Christ, too late.’

‘Oh, just fuck off, will you?’ Beau spat at her in response. Sobbing, she put a hand under Jason’s head and cupped the back of his neck.

‘Ouch, not there! Just leave it, angel.’ He grimaced, blood dripping onto his Hawaiian shirt as well as her wedding gown.

‘But what about the magazine deal? The editor will go spare!’ Mona screeched.

‘Oh, I think that’s well and truly off,’ snarled Trey. ‘Don’t you, baby Belle?’

Beau let out a loud wailing noise and buried her head in Jason’s chest.

We crept forwards to join AJ, who was standing, motionless, to the side of the bandstand. Rob set Pinky down, but instead of trotting over to comfort his rightful owner, Pinky remained rooted to his side.

Trey walked behind the bandstand to the waiting car and had a word with the bemused driver. He then coolly opened one of the passenger doors and called out:

‘Beau, darling, the driver is ready to take you and Jason to the hospital now. Might I suggest you go with them, Mona? Oh, and don’t bother coming back—any of you.’

‘Wh-wh-what do we do?’ Beau muttered to Jason.

‘We go to the damn hospital. I think my nose is broken,’ Jason replied, clearly in pain as he dragged himself into a standing position. Beau clung to his side, looking like the Bride of Chucky.

‘Beau, I’m coming with you! You can count on me!’ Mona slurred, desperate not to lose the only client she had left. ‘Here, let me get your things.’ She began scurrying around collecting up Beau’s discarded Louboutins, veil and the two Louis Vuitton cases she had packed ready to elope. ‘What about—er—Pinky?’ she asked, pausing to look at the pig currently licking Rob’s shoes.

‘I don’t want to see that traitor ever again.’ Beau scowled. ‘We’re through.’

She and Jason hobbled over to the car and ungracefully got in, Mona taking the front seat after she’d stashed their belongings in the boot. Trey waved them off with a flourish.

‘And I hope you’ll be
really
happy together!’ he called as the car slowly backed out of the resort, leaving us all reeling in its wake.

T
he wedding guests were already inside the glittering reception marquee, where four hundred candles lit up the initials ‘B’ and ‘T’ at the entrance. Sumptuous serving stations with platters of fresh island catch and exotic salads were positioned along one side, and the mermaid theme continued with watery projections and more giant shells. The guests stood around, talking awkwardly as news of the cancelled wedding spread. When Trey appeared at the entrance, flanked by AJ, Vicky, Rob, Pinky and me, there was a blanket hush. Instinctively, Vicky and I held hands tightly. Though if I wasn’t mistaken, she was also lightly touching Trey’s fingers on her other side.

‘Looks like a bloody Disney theme park,’ Trey remarked, whipping a glass of champagne from a waiter’s tray and necking it in one and reaching for another. ‘What the fuck was I thinking?’

We all followed his lead in downing a glass—the entire tent had turned to stare at us. Trey made his way to the front
of the marquee and stopped on the chequered dance floor, where he should have enjoyed his first dance as a married man. He unclipped the microphone from its stand.

‘As you might have guessed, there’s been a change of plan today,’ he announced, his voice perfectly level.

Vicky squeezed my hand. ‘He’s so cool.’

‘There will be no wedding,’ Trey continued, ‘because I have discovered that my fiancée has been having an affair with Jason Slater.’ A gasp swept around the tent. ‘Yes, the rumours are true. Biggest cliché in the book, huh! But, do you know what? It’s okay,’ he went on. ‘They’re welcome to each other, when Jason eventually gets out of hospital.’ Gasps from the gathered guests. ‘Oh, don’t worry, Beau’s okay,’ he assured them. ‘She’s being looked after by her mad stylist, Mona Armstrong, the one who recently got caught shoplifting. They’ll be fine together.’ A titter went up from one section of the crowd. I looked over and saw Fran in the centre of it, next to Shaggy, who was still filming. ‘But I do have one special thank-you to make this evening.’ He beckoned over Rob, who walked forwards, pulling Pinky by his lead. Trey stooped down to pick up the pig. ‘And that is to Pinky, without whom I would have made the biggest mistake of my life today. Thank you, mate.’ He patted the bemused little creature on his head. ‘Well, don’t all just stand there gawping. This marquee is currently housing two hundred bottles of the finest Dom Pérignon, not to mention a bar stocked with every spirit under the sun, and I’ll be damned if any of it goes to waste. Don’t know about you, but I’m going to get rat-arsed!’

I spontaneously raised my glass into the air and cheered. As I did, glasses across the marquee were raised high, until
we all found ourselves making a thunderous noise in support of Trey, Pinky and lucky escapes.

‘Music, please!’ Trey shouted above the racket, and the assembled band behind us struck up a perfectly apt Hawaiian version of ‘Better the Devil You Know’.

Some hours later—I’d long lost count of the number of bottles of champagne and Mai Tais that had been consumed—the scene at the top table had become emotional. Vicky was locked in deep conversation with Trey, sitting in a compromising semi-straddle across his lap; Rob was playing ‘who can slam the most tequila’ with AJ; and there I was, squashed in the middle of both couples, a tuxedo-less Pinky asleep on my knees, bow tie loose around his neck like a partied-out playboy. I was perfectly fine with this set-up until I noticed a foul smell and a warmth in my lap. Pinky had done a widdle on the Vera Wang without my noticing. I shooed him off and went to tell Vicky, but realised that she and Trey were now full-on, tongues and all, snogging. I looked to my right and saw Rob slowly sliding lower in his chair.
Since when is a man mountain like AJ a good bet to take on in a drinking competition?
Maybe Rob wasn’t as smart as I’d thought.

Wobbly on my feet, I quietly shuffled my chair backwards and weaved my way through the guests, who were mostly pulling expansive shapes on the dance floor, or draped over each other in various states of drunkenness. In one corner an inebriated Fran was directing a Jack Rabbit Slims Twist Contest between Shaggy—now wearing a grass skirt and little else—and the three hefty bridesmaids, all with their lipstick smudged. And, if I wasn’t mistaken,
that was Beau’s mother up on stage, singing ‘9 to 5’ karaoke-style with the Hawaiian band.

My memory from then on is patchy. I remember it feeling good to get some air—the night-time breeze was much cooler now, sobering. I ambled down a pathway towards the beach, with a few more ‘Alohas’ to Four Seasons staff en route, who looked bemused as they took in my outfit.
I’d almost forgotten I was wearing a wedding dress.
More than anything I wanted Rob to be here with me.
My fake hubbie!
My hand hovered on my phone, but I stopped myself; he would be too wasted to pick up, anyway. Instead, a few hundred yards from the back of the reception, I was distracted by a grunting noise near the catering tent. I struggled to see in the darkness. The grunting turned into a rampant snorting as I approached the side of the open tent and pulled back the canvas.

‘Pinky!’

Beau and Trey’s once-stunning five-tiered artisan chocolate-truffle wedding cake had been left on a table just inside a corner of the tent. Well, until Pinky had toppled it over and sat in the middle of the demolished dark chocolate sponge, happily munching away, his pink skin now a delicious shade of cocoa. I looked down at my pee-stained gown and laughed. Sitting down beside him, I scooped up a handful of the gooey mix from the untouched top tier, and started stuffing it into my mouth.
Man, I’m hungry.

‘Looks like it’s just you and me now, my little friend,’ I said aloud. ‘What a day.’

Grinning, I thought of the hundreds of photos of Pinky in a giant shell, but no celebrity bride or groom, that would be landing on the servers of newspapers and magazines
around the globe this evening. There’d be a lot of confused picture editors before the real story was eventually pieced together by a hack with a contact on the inside.

‘What a drama you’ve caused, little piggy,’ I teased. Pinky snorted in response. ‘Tell you what, I’ll adopt you if you like. It wasn’t very nice of that evil owner of yours to just abandon you like that, was it? And I don’t think you’d want to live with Mona—she wasn’t really a pig person, was she?’ I stroked his soft, warm body, not caring that I was coating myself—and the Wang—in chocolate, too. ‘I think you’d like England—it’s much colder than LA and Hawaii, but we’ve got lots of mud there and acorns, and I’ll treat you to some truffles if you like. Maybe chocolate ones, rather than the posh ones though—you seem to like those best.’ Pinky had an incredible appetite for an animal so small. ‘I could make you a little pen in my bedroom and Vicky and I could take you to the pub with us—it’d be fun!’ I chuckled as I used Beau’s favourite catchphrase. Then I thought of my flat back home, the piles of junk mail in the hallway, eating hummus in front of the telly, going to The Chamberlayne with Vicky, my old clothes, my job at Smith’s, getting the tube to work, even enduring one of Nora’s recitals. I craved it all so badly.

I looked up, suddenly sensing I was being watched. There was Rob, walking towards us, slightly unsteady on his feet. I gazed blearily at him. When he reached our chocolatey corner, he stopped and lowered himself to the floor, sitting straight on top of a mountain of melted icing and ruining the Tom Ford suit.

‘You know, I might have to fight you for adoption rights,’ he joked, prodding Pinky, who looked kind of dazed, drunk on chocolate.

‘See you in court, then.’ I smiled.

‘How’s the cake?’

‘Delicious.’ I offered him a handful and he took a mouthful straight from my palm.

‘Have you heard anything from Mona?’ he asked between bites.

‘Nothing. And I don’t expect to, after all this. Besides, she’s not my boss any more.’

‘Probably for the best. Look at us.’ He sniggered, gesturing to the chocolate around us and all over our clothes. ‘What a mess. In every sense.’ He tenderly brushed my jawline with his thumb, then he turned my face towards his bloodshot eyes. He had tequila breath and there was chocolate cake stuck to his lip.

‘Do you remember that time, just before the BAFTAs when you were snogging the face off that American in Starbucks? You know, Poldark on steroids.’

I squirmed, chocolate squelched underneath me.

‘Don’t remind me. Worst kiss I’ve ever had.’

‘Worst kiss I ever had to watch,’ he remarked.

I turned to look at him, unsure what he meant. ‘Did it look that bad from the outside, too?’

‘I just hated seeing you with someone else.’

My heart leapt.

He pulled me a little bit closer, his green eyes now fixed on mine.
He’s trying to kiss me. Oh my God, he really is.
A searing sobriety cut through the haze.

‘Not like this,’ I said, gently pushing his hand away, though I felt like my heart was shattering into little pieces.

He recoiled. ‘I’m sorry.’ We sat together as an awkward silence descended. My mind spun as the full impact hit me.
Rob just tried to kiss me. My Rob. And I said no.
For Christ’s sake, Amber.
Oblivious to it all, Pinky finally stopped munching and snuggled sleepily between us, burying himself in my ginormous chocolate and wee-stained skirt. Seconds later Rob’s head drooped and rested on my shoulder. I sniffed the top of his head; his brown hair still smelled clean despite the hours of tequila drinking. Half of me wanted to wake him up and turn back the clock. But I knew it wasn’t right.
Besides, he might not even remember when he wakes up.
Before long, I had drifted off, too.