The Winter Wedding (14 page)

‘She’s amazing at it, of course,’ Amber said. ‘And I’m hoping she’ll let me bake the occasional cake. Because I’m definitely getting tired of my day
job.’

‘Really?’ I said. ‘I mean of course, I would love to team up with you. But I didn’t realise you were bored at work.’

She shrugged. ‘It’s not forever. I’ve realised that much now.’

We fell silent for a moment, and my gaze drifted over to the other young people in the bar. Couples, chatting to one another and kissing, hands grasped tightly together as if one of them might
fall overboard at any minute. Groups of girls, dressed up with jugs of lethal-looking cocktails between them, clearly just starting out their night. Their male counterparts in shirts and jeans,
talking loudly over pints, knocking each other on the arm for show. Every set-up seemed more, well, normal than ours.

‘So, Amber – where are you from, originally?’ Sam asked. ‘It can’t be anywhere as small and boring as our village, that’s for sure.’

I smiled, thinking of the close parallels between our hometowns, that we’d found while talking.

‘Oh, you’d be surprised . . .’ she said, laughing.

‘Go on, tell me.’ As she spoke, Sam seemed hooked on her every word. It was so obvious, now that I’d spotted it. Sam was enraptured.

The hope that I’d had, that Sam and I might get closer this weekend, disappeared in that moment.

I glanced over to Josh’s desk and caught his eye briefly. Emma had had her office door closed all morning, staving off a hangover that was even worse than usual, with a
steady supply of coffee from me.

I looked again at Josh’s message and my fingers hovered over the keyboard. Part of me wanted to be light and breezy – gloss over the deep disappointment I felt and pretend that
everything had gone fine. But I knew Josh would see straight through me.

It wasn’t good. That much I knew. Sam had been so caught up in talking to Amber that I’d barely got to talk to him at all – and that certainly hadn’t been in my plan. I
felt embarrassed even thinking about it, how wrong I’d got everything. Sam must have liked Amber when he met her at the wedding. And I’d been dumb enough to think he’d wanted to
come and see me.

I typed.

Josh paused, before typing back:

His message conjured up the smallest of smiles. Earlier that morning I didn’t think I’d be able to summon a smile ever again. I’d said goodbye to Sam the
previous day, Sunday, and felt sure that he was half looking over my shoulder at Amber. Through the whole weekend it had seemed as if Amber was spotlit in gold light, and I was standing off-stage
in the shadows.

I swallowed down my jealousy – it was stupid. It certainly wasn’t Amber’s fault that Sam had taken a shine to her. That didn’t stop it from hurting, though. Another
message pinged through from Josh.

When I got back to the flat that evening, I realised there was only one way to deal with the situation – and that was to embrace it. I wanted Sam to be happy, didn’t
I? And I wanted the same for Amber. So what if this situation wasn’t quite what I’d envisioned. It seemed selfish to deny them both the chance of being happy together.

I texted Sam.

I didn’t get a reply, and I settled down to work at one of my sets. An hour later I heard laughter from Amber’s room. It went on for what seemed like for ever, but must only have
been about twenty minutes.

A knock came on my door a few moments after things went quiet.

Amber looked flushed, and had an irrepressible grin on her face. ‘Your friend Sam just called.’

‘Did he ask you out?’

She nodded. ‘He said you were OK with it.’

‘Of course,’ I said. ‘Did you say yes?’

‘Yeah. We’re going out next weekend.’

‘Cool,’ I said, feeling deflated but fighting it back.

‘Listen, Hazel. You’d tell me if you weren’t OK with this, right?’

Amber was so genuine and so sweet about it, that it made the whole situation almost bearable.

‘How could I not be?’ I said. ‘You’re great. Sam’s great. This is excellent news.’

The next day, I met with Gemma and Eliot, and was grateful for the distraction.

‘Hi, Hazel,’ Gemma said, giving me a kiss on the cheek.

‘Hey there,’ I said. ‘I’ve got us a table out on the terrace, come through – and we can talk everything through there.’

We walked through the café and out onto the decked terrace. The sky overhead was a clear blue, the kind that makes anything and everything seem possible. I ordered coffees for us and
brought out a folder I’d set up for Eliot and Gemma’s wedding.

‘OK,’ I said, once we were all sitting down. ‘So, I’m really sorry about this, but while I did all I could, I’m afraid I couldn’t get you your first choice of
venue.’

Gemma’s face fell, and she bit her lip. Eliot put his arm around her. ‘Sorry. I mean it’s stupid to be upset, I shouldn’t have set my heart on it – we both know
it’s late notice. But it just looked so perfect.’

‘I know,’ I said. ‘And I know it must be disappointing for you. But the good news – and there is good news – is that I think I might have found somewhere just as
good, and they do have availability.’

Gemma looked sceptical, but there seemed to be an air of cautious optimism with Eliot, at least. ‘Shall we take a look, hon? We agreed, didn’t we, that if we were going to do the
wedding this year then we’d need to keep our options open.’

Gemma nodded, and straightened in her seat. ‘Yes. I know you’re right. Do you have any pictures?’

I passed her the iPad with the castle’s website loaded.

The couple were silent for a moment, scrolling through the images.

Then Gemma looked at Eliot.

My chest felt tight as I waited for their reaction. I knew how slim the pickings were – they really had to like this.

A smile formed on Eliot’s mouth, then on Gemma’s.

‘I think you’ve found a gem here, Hazel,’ Gemma said. ‘It’s absolutely perfect.’

That evening, Lila and I met in a tapas bar on Exmouth market. I challenged her to a game of table football and took our beers over to the front of the bar. As we played (and
she, rather impressively, kicked my butt), I told her how things had panned out with Amber and Sam.

Her face creased up into a frown, and she stood up straight from the foosball table.

‘Well, what the hell did you do that for?’ Lila said, her voice uncharacteristically harsh.

‘What,’ I said. ‘I didn’t do anything . . . not really. It was clear that he liked her, and all I did was pass on her details.’

‘Clear how?’

‘He asked her to join us, laughed at everything she said . . . you know. It was obvious,’ I said, recalling that night.

‘There could have been a hundred other reasons for that. He was probably just being polite. Now you’ve practically matchmade them.’

‘He didn’t have to ask her out,’ I said.

‘Of course not, but he might well have read your message as a nudge to,’ Lila said. ‘Hazel. You can be really blind to this stuff sometimes.’

I stiffened defensively. ‘I’m not being blind. I can just see when two people are right for each other.’

‘If you say so,’ Lila said, looking away.

‘I mean it.’

‘You’re scared,’ Lila said. ‘Of really feeling something. That’s what I think.’

‘So what if I am?’ I said. ‘Because I really felt something last year, and look how that turned out, Lila – I told Sam, and it resulted in nothing but me losing my best
friend, and feeling like an idiot. I’m not prepared to do that again. And anyway – it’s too late now.’

‘Sorry,’ Lila said, backing down at last. ‘I shouldn’t have interfered.’

‘Exactly,’ I snapped back. ‘Trust me on this. I know I did the right thing.’

Arguing with Lila always upset me. It helped a little, at work the next day, to see that I wasn’t the only one feeling rough around the edges. Josh had dark circles under
his eyes, and the shadow of stubble on his jaw, a marked difference to how clean-shaven he usually was. ‘You all right?’

‘Oh, I’m fine,’ he said. ‘Just didn’t sleep much last night.’

‘How come, what happened?’

‘Nothing. I mean, nothing out of the ordinary.’

I hazarded a guess. ‘Sarah?’

‘She came back from Spain with a lot of ideas about the way things should be between us. Wanted to talk late about it.’

‘Right.’

‘She thinks we’re growing apart,’ Josh said quietly. ‘When we should be growing together. She spoke to a shamen about it, apparently.’

‘And what does she want you to do?’

‘She wants us to go to India together. Or get married. Or build a house in the country together. I don’t know,’ Josh said, rubbing his temples. ‘I feel like it keeps
changing.’

‘That does sound a bit confusing,’ I said. It sounded mad, and infuriating, actually, but I tried to remain diplomatic.

‘It is. I sometimes feel like I can’t get anything right. But I know relationships need work. So I guess I just have to keep working at this.’

I didn’t like seeing Josh upset. I didn’t like it at all. Josh, who only ever sought ways to make other people happier. My instinct was to put my arms around him and hug him. But,
hard as it was, I fought the urge back.

The good thing about Amber and Sam getting together, and the dark, wet autumn nights putting the kibosh on the rest of my social life, was that I had plenty of time on my own
in the flat – just when I needed it. Being alone in the flat more often meant fewer distractions, and that was what I needed right now. After their first date, I’d distanced myself a
little from them. It was the only way I had to feel like less of an idiot, and to get a bit of control back. It had helped me to move on, I guess. She insisted they were only dating, and it was
nothing serious, but the fact remained that Sam was part of Amber’s life now, not mine.

Once I’d accepted that, things got better. Amber and I had fallen back into our easy way of being, and baking, and eating. And, like I say, they were usually out, so at least I
didn’t have to see them together.

If I was really going to make a go of wedding planning – and I was feeling more and more serious about the idea – then I had a lot to learn. Flicking between Pinterest and recipe
sites, I could almost nudge it out of my mind – that nagging feeling that Amber and Sam were out together, and I was here on my own.

I didn’t need to ask Amber how things were going with Sam – that glow in her cheeks was pretty unmistakable. I was happy for her – she deserved it. And I guess I hoped that it
might rub off on me somehow.

I’d spent the time trawling blogs and specialist wedding sites, drawing together images until I had a complete mood-board for Gemma and Eliot’s wedding that I knew they were going to
absolutely love. There was a pleasant addictive quality to the work of wedding planning – ticking boxes of my to-do list without a boss breathing down my neck and giving me more admin each
time I finished something. And – well, there was something nice about dealing with other people’s relationships. They always seemed so much more straightforward than my own.

So, now was the time to regroup, and focus on making the most of the opportunity I’d been given. It was the end of September, and in wedding terms, Eliot and Gemma’s wedding was
getting crazily close. There was still a lot to do.

I’d enjoyed talking with them about their ideas, which were slowly coming into a kind of harmony. Yes, it was Gemma who was leading the more extravagant plans, the requests for husky rides
and sleighs, and a snow-covered pine at the entrance to the castle, and Eliot was still reining her in, but their ideas about guests, music, and food were all falling beautifully into line after a
few gentle nudges from me. Things were spilling a little outside of the first budget we’d discussed, but from what Lila had said, I got the sense that it didn’t really matter. These two
inhabited a different world from the one that Lila and I knew, one where Champagne flowed like water, and bills weren’t anything to worry about.

With ‘Last Christmas’ playing in the background to conjure up a festive mood, I worked up some images of table decorations to show to them at our meeting – silvered pine cones
and red berries and candle holders that would project the light in the shape of winter branches, to fall across the guests’ plates. There was a larger projector I’d seen that would cast
a similar shadow on the aisle while the couple walked up it – I was confident Gemma would love it, so had gone ahead and booked it for the day.

Aside from the main cake, Amber had come up with another idea for a display on the side – a trio of small gingerbread houses, dusted with icing sugar. I felt a buzz of excitement as I
worked – I knew I could make this the perfect day to take Eliot and Gemma into married life.

I thought of the frustration I’d been feeling at work lately – and then of the money that Eliot and Gemma were offering me.

There was a way out I was starting to see. The germ of an idea began to grow: I wanted to expand, start up a proper business. One compromise at Twenty-One had led to another, until I’d
lost sight of what might really make me happy. I had to change things.

But that didn’t mean I had to be hasty about it. Emma barely seemed to notice what I did these days anyway. I’d simply have to keep things ticking over, and maintain a low profile.
Any spare time, I’d put into my new business – my future.

Later that evening, I was sitting in the living room with Amber. I’d hesitated at first over whether to tell her about my new plan, but decided I couldn’t keep it
to myself any more. I was too excited.