The Wedding Day (2 page)

She hadn't wanted to admit it to herself, to face the truth and had tried to block it out, to dismiss her thoughts as wedding jitters and silly jealousy. She needed to know the answer, the truth and needed to know it right now.

"Who is she, Paul?" Nicole whispered through gritted teeth.

Paul looked at her then, shock written on his face. His reaction made her catch her breath. She desperately swallowed the sobs that were threatening to escape.

Nicole looked frantically around the congregation, scanning the faces of her family and friends. She wondered if her fiance's mistress was someone she knew personally.

Had she had the audacity to attend their wedding?

"Are you here, you bitch?" Nicole lashed out at the congregation. "Speak now or forever hold your peace, you coward!" She laughed maniacally, her blue eyes spitting fire.

Her gaze snapped back to Paul, who was staring meaningfully at someone over her shoulder. Nicole swung around and caught Simone smirking.

"It’s you!" Nicole yelled. "It's you, Simone, isn't it?"

Simone arched an eyebrow, no emotion showing on her immaculately made up face.

"Is it her?" Nicole turned back to Paul. "Is it her?!"

"Yes!" Paul finally admitted defeat.

Nicole looked from one to the other. She'd known there was someone, but one of her best friends? How could they stoop that low?

Helena reached out to her then and tried to put an arm around her friend.

"Get away from me, all of you!" Nicole shrieked. "I have to get out of here."

She gathered up the folds of her wedding dress and ran down the aisle. Several people tried to stop her but she pushed them away. She burst through the doors of the church and crashed outside into the blinding brightness of the spring day.

I have to get out of here.
I can't stand their pitying looks
.
How can I escape from this train wreck that was supposed to be my wedding?

She squinted for a moment, searching frantically for a mode of escape and with relief she saw the wedding limousine and jumped inside.

The driver was nowhere to be seen. The ceremony wasn't scheduled to finish for another half an hour and afterwards there would have been photographs to be taken outside. He'd decided to go for a walk around the park and take advantage of the unseasonably warm weather.

Nicole fiddled with the keys in the ignition, which luckily for her, the driver had left behind. She started the engine and reversed the awkward car out of the church. Another car slammed on their brakes and blew the horn loudly as she suddenly shot out of the church entrance. She blinked and tried to focus.

"What now?" she said aloud. "Where can I go? Everyone who supposedly means anything to me is back in the church."

She sighed, wracking her brains for an escape plan. Evette! Suddenly she remembered her younger sister, who'd been invited to the wedding but had declined the invitation, pleading work committments as an excuse. Evie, I'll find Evie. The sisters had never been very close, but Evie was Nicole's only hope now.

Nicole took a sharp right turn and drove the motorway to the city centre. Her mind and heart were racing with the living nightmare that she'd experienced in the church. It seemed surreal.

She couldn't quite comprehend that less than an hour previously she'd been driving down the same road heading to what was supposed to be the happiest day of her life and now she was driving in the opposite direction with her whole life in meltdown.

She wished that she was dreaming or having a nightmare and that it was some other poor misfortunate woman who'd been dumped at the altar.

How could this happen to her? She'd had everything planned so carefully and meticulously, like everything else in her life. She'd always believed in plans. All her other plans had worked out, why not this one; the most important day of her life!

She'd believed that as long as she was a good person, and made sensible decisions that everything would be well in her world. Follow the plan was her mantra and it had served her well until today. She slammed her fist on the horn in anger.

Paul had been unfaithful with one of her closest friends. She suddenly broke out in a cold sweat. The steering wheel was slippery in her clammy hands. Her stomach heaved and her mouth went dry. She pulled over just in time to open the car door and violently throw up.

How long had it been going on? How long had they been making a fool of her?

Images of them together made her throw up once again.

She slammed her fist on the horn in frustration.

How could she not have known that he was cheating on her? How had he hidden it from her? Was Paul happy that it was over between them? Would he start dating Simone officially now? Was Simone the only woman he'd been with? How many others were there?

She could feel her stomach heaving. She felt dizzy and lightheaded, like all the fight had suddenly been knocked out of her. She rested her head on the steering wheel for a moment and tried to focus on her breathing.

How could he do this to me? How could that bitch do this to me? Block it out, block it out!

She couldn't deal with the enormity of her situation in that moment.

I have to find Evie, then everything will be ok,
she tried to console herself.

Nicole sped down the motorway and before long she was parked outside her sister's apartment complex. She couldn't remember the code to the gate; it had been so long since she'd last visited her sister.

A guilty pang shot across Nicole's heart. She'd never shown her little sister much interest or encouragement. She'd been too wrapped up in her own life. The two sisters weren't close, but Evette was the only person that Nicole felt she had left to turn to now.

She stood outside Evette's gate, desperately trying to remember the entrance code. She stared at the apartment numbers, each of which had their own buzzer on the wall. There were twenty apartment numbers listed. She couldn't even remember Evette's number, so she decided to buzz them all, figuring that someone would have to let her inside eventually.

"Excuse me, love." A burly man ambled slowly towards her from the other side of the gate. "Can I help you?"

"Yes, I'm trying to find my sister. I've forgotten her apartment number." Nicole tried to explain.

The superintendent glanced at her doubtfully.

"You don't know your own sister's apartment number?" he asked, as he looked her up and down, taking in her tear-stained face and crumpled wedding dress.

"It's been a very bad day," Nicole tried to swallow the lump that was building in her throat. "My sister's name is Evette Baxter. Please can you tell her that Nicole needs to see her urgently."

Finally, she managed to persuade the superintendent to let her inside. He must have taken pity on her in her dishevelled wedding dress and her makeup-streaked face. She was sure she looked a sorry sight.

"It's number twenty," he advised her as he let her into the apartment block. "Take the elevator to the third floor and Miss Baxter's place is second on your left."

"Thank you," Nicole sniffed as she brushed past him into the elevator. She was relieved when the elevator doors finally closed behind her and she was away from his and everyone else's pitying eyes.

Several minutes later and Nicole was standing outside Evette's front door. She hesitated and then took a deep breath before knocking, but Evette swung open the door before she'd even had a chance to knock once.

"Wow." Evette couldn't help staring at her sister. A mixture of shock and horror flashed across her face and it took her a few moments to regain her composure.

"Aren't you going to ask me in?" Nicole asked tetchily.

"Of course, come in, come in." Evette pushed open the door and let her sister inside.

Her head was spinning. What on earth was her older sister doing at her apartment, wearing a wedding dress?

"What happened, Nicole?" she asked as her sister flung herself onto the couch.

"Take a wild guess," Nicole replied sarcastically.

"I'm afraid to guess," Evette said carefully. "Isn't today supposed to be your wedding day?"

Nicole looked dramatically at her watch and said, " it's half past twelve. Yes, I should have been Mrs. Nicole Schofield by now, according to the wedding plan, but that's never going to happen. Paul dumped me at the altar."

"Why?" Evette asked incredulously.

"Apparently, he's been sleeping with my best friend, Simone. They've probably been having an affair for months for all I know."

"Wow," Evette repeated as she slumped onto the sofa next to her sister. "I can't believe it."

"Nor can I," Nicole sighed. "Isn't love grand?" She gave a strangled laugh.

"I couldn't stand to look at their pitying faces so I ran out of the church. I don't why I ran to you, but you were the only person that I could think of."

"Well, I'm glad you thought of me," Evette said kindly.

"I don't understand what I did wrong. I know I was a good girlfriend, he told me so a million times. I've supported him throughout medical school and the long hours he had to work at the hospital. What was my mistake? What did I do to deserve this?"

"I can't even begin to imagine what you're going through, but I don't believe that any of this was your fault," Evette said slowly.

Nicole smiled gratefully at her sister.

"Would you like some wine?" Evette asked tentatively.

She wasn't sure if Nicole would have wine at such an early hour. She was usually so straitlaced that she only ever drank one small glass of wine with dinner, "to aid her digestion."

"Yes, please," Nicole accepted immediately. "Bring me the bottle."

Evette hurried to her refrigerator and quickly returned with two large glasses of white wine. She handed Nicole a glass which she promptly demolished.

"Fancy a refill?" Evette offered uncertainly.

"Absolutely," Nicole held out her empty wine glass for more.

They didn't speak again until Evette opened the second bottle of wine. She could see that her sister was in a complete mess, but she didn't know what to say or do to comfort her. Nicole had always been the perfect older sister with the perfect life plan, while she often felt like the black sheep of the family by comparison.

Nicole was the A grade student, captain of the debating team who graduated with first class honours in her journalism degree. She was head-hunted in her final year of university by the top national newspaper in Ireland, News Central, where she'd been working ever since, steadily making her way up the corporate ladder.

Evette, in contrast to her older sister, left school at sixteen, having barely passed her final year exams. Her working life to date had consisted of various temporary positions, none of which she'd managed to hold down for very long.

She loved her sister but she didn't really know her. Nicole had always been busy with her own group of friends and Evette had moved out of home when she turned sixteen.

They'd lost touch over the years and only saw each other occasionally at family gatherings like Christmas and their parents' birthdays, but that was about all the interaction they had with each other.

"How could he do this to me? Nicole yelled suddenly, making Evette jump and spill some of her wine. "Things like this don't happen to people like me. People like me don't get dumped at the altar! I had everything planned perfectly. This sort of thing happens to people like you, not me!"

"Gee thanks," Evette said evenly, trying to keep the anger out of her voice.

"You know what I mean, no offence intended." Nicole waved her hand dismissively in the air.

"Don't worry, none taken," Evette replied sharply. Same old Nicole, she thought to herself. She wondered how long she would have to endure her sister.

Evette's old childhood resentments and inferiorities came flooding back to her at her sister's harsh words. She found it difficult to restrain from yelling that she wasn't the one who'd been dumped at the altar, instead she sighed and got to her feet.

"I need to go out for a while," she said as she gathered up the empty wine bottles and glasses and stuck them in the kitchen sink.

"You can't leave me now!" Nicole cried. "I can't be alone at a time like this!"

"It's only for a few hours," Evette tried to explain.

"Where are you going? Take me with you." Panic was starting to rise in Nicole's voice.

"I'm going to work actually," Evette continued.

"You're starting work at three o' clock in the afternoon?" Nicole asked disbelievingly.

"Yes, I'm a model for a life-drawing class."

"What?" Nicole almost choked on the last of her wine. "Is it nude?"

"Yes, it's nude," Evette rolled her eyes behind her sister's back.

"Well, I'll come too. I can't stay here on my own."

"You're going outside in public in your wedding dress to sit in an art class and watch me, your sister, pose in the nude?" Evette said slowly.

"Maybe not," Nicole relented. The prospect of seeing her sister naked wasn't very appealing.

Evette looked Nicole up and down. She'd had enough of her sister already. She wasn't about to put up with her sanctimonious attitude nor was she going to tolerate being judged disdainfully in her own home.

She'd had a surfeit of being treated like a second class citizen when she'd lived in her parents’ house and she wasn't prepared to regress to that stage in her life again.

"Don't you think you should go home? Everyone must be worried sick about you at this stage." Evette couldn't wait to get her sister out of her apartment. There was a reason why they'd never spent much time together; they were polar opposites in every way.

Nicole was uptight and obsessive whereas Evette was easygoing and free-spirited. They simply didn't understand each other.

"Where's my home? I'm not going home. I'm never going back there. Paul and his slut are probably fornicating in our bed as we speak!" Nicole shuddered involuntarily at the thought.