Summer at Tiffany's Page 23

  Cassie remembered the clean-looking gravestones, the simple words that couldn’t contain the loss behind them that continued to seep and bleed even now. Amber walked over and grabbed Gem by the hand. Gem smiled gratefully.

  ‘I wanted to give him my news, you know?’ she said, looking up at Amber. ‘I thought it would be nice to tell him something good and show him that my life’s happy now.’

  Cassie shot Suzy a dark look, but she didn’t need to. Even she looked stricken with guilt.

  ‘He must have been so overjoyed to see that you got your happy ending after all,’ Amber said.

  ‘I think he was, I really do, because then he made a few calls and said that if we wanted to, he could marry us at St Enodoc’s next Saturday at four.’

  ‘No!’ Amber and Suzy both shrieked together, albeit with very different tones.

  Gem picked up on Suzy’s, looking over at her quizzically.

  ‘I just mean . . . there’s so much to do, that’s all,’ Suzy said hastily. ‘I mean, weddings, they take weeks – months, really – to prepare. And it’s got to be perfect, right? This is the biggest day of your lives. It’s the very least you deserve.’

  ‘I don’t need it to be perfect. I just need to be Laird’s wife. Besides, we may have already found the dress, so that’s one thing to tick off the list.’

  ‘But . . .’ Suzy stammered, looking to Cassie for help.

  ‘But what about Henry?’ Cassie asked, coming to the rescue for once. ‘You asked him to walk you down the aisle and he’s so excited about that.’ She slapped her hand over her heart. ‘Oh my goodness, he didn’t stop talking about how honoured he was that you’d asked and what a big day it would be for you all.’

  Gem smiled sadly. ‘In the perfect world, Henry would be here to walk me down the aisle too, but he’s not back for three months. I wasn’t looking to make it happen just now and yet somehow it’s worked out that way; it feels like karma, you know? And what, really, is there to do, if we’ve got the church and the vicar? We can have a party at the house, flowers from the hedgerows, a dress from here . . .’ She smiled at Paula. Everything was falling into place so easily.

  ‘It’s not physically possible. The banns need to be read out for at least three weeks in advance. We’re looking at the end of July at the very earliest,’ Suzy said with seeming reluctance to be the bearer of bad news.

  ‘Ordinarily, yes. But the vic says I can apply for a common licence because I have a special connection with this church, you know, because of my parents.’

  ‘Well, food, then. You’d need to sort out the food,’ Suzy said with a note of desperation.

  ‘But aren’t you in catering, Cass?’ Gem asked with exquisite simplicity, so that Cassie could only look back at Suzy apologetically. ‘I think hampers on the lawn sound fab. Right up our street.’

  ‘Invitations! They take ages to sort and do the proofs and get sent out. And then people need six weeks’ notice, minimum. It’s the height of the wedding season now. No one will be able to come.’

  ‘As long as you guys are there and Auntie Hats . . .’ she shrugged.

  ‘But . . . Laird’s parents? They’d have to come from Australia.’ Suzy’s voice was already in another octave.

  ‘He’s an orphan too, like me. It’s what first connected us. He’s got a brother, though. Laird wants him as his best man, so he said he’d look into flights. We told him last night.’

  ‘I don’t believe this,’ Suzy muttered, draining her glass and striding back towards the bottle of fizz.

  ‘I don’t suppose . . .’ Paula said in a voice that barely contained a rising excitement, ‘that you’ve considered a three-way wedding?’

  A Daily Mail-style photograph of a mass wedding in North Korea filled Cassie’s mind; Suzy started coughing as her prosecco went down the wrong way; Amber looked as horrified as she had standing out on the street.

  ‘No? No? It was just a thought,’ Paula said quickly. ‘Right, well, shall we try some more dresses on, then?’ she asked, scooping Amber and Cassie into her fold and herding them towards the dressing room.

  Cassie stared at the bride in the mirror, telling herself it was the drink. Gem and Amber’s mutual excitement had led to her and Suzy drinking far more than was wise and things had gone too far as usual. In trying to protect Suzy’s ‘cover’ that they were all in it together planning this wedding, she had been brought face to face with her worst fears, and now she was in a dressing room, in a wedding dress, admiring herself, while Suze called Archie to tell him to pick them up. Emotions and memories were clamouring at her – the unfamiliar weight of a wedding dress remembered again, the fancy rustle of the silk underskirts, the squeeze of corsetry . . . She looked self-assured and elegant, like a woman who knew herself. It wasn’t the type of dress she’d chosen to wear to marry Gil – in fact, it was almost its opposite – but what if she had? Would it have changed things? She remembered Gil’s face as he stood expectantly at the end of the aisle waiting for his demure, insecure bride; she remembered Gil’s face in the study that last night as the secret was exposed. Between those two moments, he had changed her for ever, and her new taste in dresses was but the tip of the iceberg. She blinked at her confident, elegant reflection. Was this how Wiz was going to look a few days from now?

  ‘Hurry up, Cass!’ Suzy called from across the room. ‘What are you doing in there? Digging your way to freedom?’

  Cassie shook her head and stepped out from behind the curtain quickly.

  ‘Go for it, Suze,’ she ordered, her eyes to the floor and praying she’d be brutal. Suzy, drunker than all of them, had been having a whale of a time passing judgement from the love seat as they each paraded a whirl of ill-advised dresses. After the disaster of Gem finding the perfect dress, she had put on her professional hat and declared she would ‘edit’ the selection for everyone – leaving Paula merely to zip and button them in and fetch more prosecco – and she’d had a glorious afternoon laughing at Gem in ruffles, Amber in sateen and Cassie in gothic lace.

  Only, this dress had slipped through the net. It wasn’t shocking or cartoonish, dated or cheap. It was ivory silk tulle with a straight front, thin straps and old-rosebuds gathering the fabric in finger-pinches at the hips. It highlighted her slender shoulders and elegant back, her flat stomach and good height. It was narrow but not tight, modest but not frigidly so, modern but romantic. It was a dress worth getting married for. Not that she’d ever be so daft as to do that, but she wished she’d never put it on and she needed Suzy to do her worst.

  But Suzy wasn’t speaking. Her hands were up at her mouth, tears in her eyes as she twirled her finger in a circle, indicating for Cassie to do the same.

  ‘Oh, Cass . . .’ she murmured as Cassie slowly revolved on the spot, both Amber and Gem stepping out of their changing rooms and cooing as they picked up on the peculiar silence.

  The sound of the door opening made Cassie look over her shoulder, freezing on the spot as Luke walked in backwards leading in Laird, who had his eyes closed.

  ‘Well, it’s the right place,’ Luke said to him, turning into the room. ‘Don’t open your—’

  Amber and Gem gave little screams and disappeared into the changing rooms. ‘You can’t see us in our dresses!’ they shrieked, their eyes peering round the curtains. ‘It’s bad luck!’

  ‘Well, that’s why I closed my eyes!’ Laird laughed.

  ‘I didn’t realize that . . . you were,’ Luke stammered to Amber, but with his eyes on Cassie as she stood there frozen in the middle of the room. Why wouldn’t her feet move?

  ‘Gem made us,’ Amber trilled nervously from behind her curtain. ‘I never would have otherwise. We’re just playing at it! You know what us girls are like when we get together.’

  ‘We’ve had way too much to drink,’ Gem piped up, just as she seemingly lost her balance and they all heard a loud thump behind the curtain.

  ‘Babe! You OK?’ Laird asked, advancing towards the changing room.

 
; ‘Fine! Fine! Don’t come in!’ Gem laughed. ‘It’s bad luck.’

  ‘We make our own luck, baby,’ he said, his cheek to the curtain and his voice low. A second later Gem peered round the curtain – at his knee height.

  ‘Awwww,’ she cooed. He bent down for a kiss.

  Cassie, watching, glanced back at Luke. His eyes were still on her.

  She darted back behind her curtain, cheeks flaming that she’d been caught dressing up, playing at being a bride when she wanted to be anything but! She took the dress off roughly, feeling humiliated and exposed and raw, not wanting to see herself in it for another minute, as Suzy offered the boys a drink.

  ‘I rang for Arch to come and get us,’ she said, in a slurred voice.

  ‘Yes, but he had to give Velvet her bottle – we’re not qualified,’ Laird said with a smile. ‘So, it looks like you girls have been having a fine old time of it here.’ Cassie could hear the sound of the champagne bottle being replaced on the table, beside the four empty ones.

  ‘Like you wouldn’t believe,’ Suzy hiccuped. ‘I’m tempted to redo my vows with Arch after this.’

  Cassie stepped out of the changing room, back in her clothes and handing the dress to Paula with averted eyes.

  ‘No?’ Paula asked, dismay on her face. It had been as much of a sure thing, to her mind, as Gem’s first dress.

  ‘It’s not me,’ Cassie murmured as Gem and Amber followed too, with heaps of dresses in their arms.

  ‘Ladies? Any decisions?’ she asked hopefully as they piled them high.

  ‘Paula, we’re going to come back next week and do another fitting when we’re sober,’ Gem smiled, swaying slightly as she held on to Paula’s arm.

  ‘Oh.’ Paula’s face fell. She had turned the ‘open’ sign to ‘closed’ once the others had started trying on dresses too – and it had all been for naught.

  ‘But I promish you this – I will buy my dress from you, come what may. We did not just clear you out of all your champagne for nothing.’ Gem, whose head was hanging down like it was too heavy for her neck, gripped Paula’s arm reassuringly – and for support.

  ‘OK, well, you just let me know . . .’ Paula said to their backs, nodding bravely as they trooped out, Amber holding on to Luke as she wobbled on her tiny ankles, Laird grasping Gem by the hand and Suzy and Cassie linking arms.

  Suzy sat in the front on the way back – on the pretext of showing them the route back home – as Laird drove, and Cassie squeezed in the middle between Gem and Luke, who had Amber on his lap. No one said very much on the journey home. Suzy was asleep, and Gem was trying to meditate to stop the world from spinning quite so quickly. Amber chatted excitedly about the ‘girlie fun’ they’d had, but neither Cassie nor Luke, thighs touching in the darkness, said a word.

  Chapter Eighteen

  There was no surf. The sea was as calm and flat as a cup of tea as she sat astride the board, legs dangling in the water while she watched Laird demonstrating to Archie, again, the explosive power needed to get from lying down to standing in under two seconds.

  ‘Cass,’ Laird said, looking across at her, ‘do you want to give it a go?’

  She nodded reluctantly and lay tummy down, moving into a slow crawl with her arms before suddenly planting them on the board and pushing up as she tucked in her feet, but unlike on the sand, and even without any waves, the board wobbled on the water’s surface; although she got her feet down, she couldn’t find her balance enough to straighten her legs and in the next instant she was in. Again.

  She surfaced with a gasp. The water was shockingly cold, even with a wetsuit, and she was sure a jellyfish had missed her face by inches. That would have been all she needed – red welts to decorate her sunburn. She felt her sense of humour – and her sense of adventure – desert her.

  ‘Good effort there, Cass. You nearly had it,’ Laird said encouragingly.

  ‘You think?’ she asked drily, heaving herself back onto the board with a groan. Who were they kidding? She and Archie had spent four days having lessons now, trying just to stand on the boards, and this was the first time they’d made it into the water. Conditions couldn’t have been better for novices like them yet they seemed doomed to spend their time lying on their tummies. ‘I’m beginning to think I’ll make an excellent boogie-boarder.’

  Laird, hearing the tone of her voice, paddled over, pushing himself up to sitting easily. ‘Don’t give up, Cassie. I know it’s depressing, this stage. You think you’ll never master it, but believe me, all this groundwork you’re doing, it’s creating muscle memory that’s going to come together. And when it does’ – he flashed her a winning smile – ‘nirvana. There’s nothing like it in the world, trust me.’

  She shrugged, feeling useless, feeling angry, feeling depressed. Everything in her world was just wrong right now, like it had tipped off kilter by one degree, leaving her unbalanced and lurching slightly.

  ‘Shall we give it another try?’

  ‘If you want.’

  ‘That’s the spirit.’ He turned back to Archie, who looked like he was trying to nap on his board. ‘Arch, shall we try again?’

  ‘OK, boss.’

  They lay tummy down and went into crawl again. Twenty seconds later there was a double splash.

  ‘How was that?’ Suzy asked brightly, chopping tomatoes for a salad as they walked with a squelch into the kitchen. ‘Oh.’

  ‘I’m going to have a long, hot shower and then a lie-down,’ Archie said morosely, opening the fridge for a beer and finding only elderflower. He closed it again and walked off in an even bigger grump.

  ‘Don’t wake Velvet – she’s having her lunchtime sleep,’ Suzy called after him, but he didn’t reply. She looked over to Cassie for an explanation, but she was just as unforthcoming.

  ‘Still not standing, then?’

  ‘I’ve decided I’m going to go back tonight. There’s a train at half seven,’ Cassie said, ignoring the question and walking over to the fridge too. ‘This just isn’t working for me. It’s lovely down here, Suze, but thrashing about in the ocean, swallowing seawater on an hourly basis and getting sunburnt is not what I need right now.’ She opened the fridge door and looked in.

  There was a short silence as Suzy stopped chopping and put down the knife. ‘Oh right. Uh-huh. I see.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘That’s the reason, is it?’

  Cassie glanced back at her. ‘Yes, why wouldn’t it be?’

  Suzy watched her. ‘It’s got nothing at all to do with your ex next door.’

  She turned sharply, her hand on the handle. ‘Of course it hasn’t! We haven’t even seen them for three days.’

  ‘Exactly. That’s what I mean.’

  Cassie blinked at her. ‘Suzy! I told you, there’s nothing there. He’s apologized, I’ve accepted his apology, and we’ve both moved on. He’s a different person now.’

  ‘Oh yes, I totally agree he’s changed. He and Amber seem very settled. I have to admit it’s not played out the way I feared it might with him. I was dead worried when I saw him coming over the lawn that first night – I thought he’d followed you down here to win you back, but . . .’ She shrugged. ‘Well, he’s clearly moved on too. In fact, I almost quite like the fella. I saw him and Amber in town earlier, walking hand in hand eating an ice cream – they actually looked kind of cute.’

  Cute? Luke? That man was all about sex in the shower, not teddy bears and love hearts.

  ‘And Arch thinks he’s great, although if he actually knew the truth about you and Luke . . .’ She pulled a face.

  Cassie frowned. ‘Do you mean to say you haven’t told him who Luke is yet?’ She had simply assumed Archie was fully accepting of the fact that they had both moved on. After all, Luke was here with Amber, and she was a model.

  ‘Who Luke was, you mean? No.’ Suzy shrugged. ‘Why bother? It’d only make him feel like he had to hate him on Henry’s behalf, and really, he so doesn’t need that kind of stress right now.’


  Cassie exhaled impatiently. ‘So then what is your point? Why would I be leaving because of Luke if everything’s cool between us?’

  ‘Because I think it’s rattled your cage that he’s over you.’ She held her hands up defensively as Cassie gasped in indignation. ‘Hey! Don’t think I don’t understand it – I do! Every girl should be able to get an ego-boost from her ex. He should remain bitterly in love with you forever. It’s all very well in theory you both moving on and behaving like grown-ups, but it’s quite another thing to have his newfound bliss flaunted in your face – especially when things are so dire with you and Henry right now. I get it, really I do.’

  ‘No, dire is not the word. It’s just a rocky patch – Kelly said so.’ Cassie stuck her head back in the fridge and scanned the cheeses on the top shelf. She rather liked the look of one of Velvet’s Babybels. Instead, she pulled out a pack of prosciutto. ‘And I couldn’t give a stuff about Luke and his bliss. Ugh, starved,’ she said, closing her eyes and chewing belligerently.

  Suzy sighed, scraping a chair out from under the kitchen table and sinking heavily into it. ‘Well, then I don’t understand why you want to go.’

  ‘I just do.’

  There was a pause. ‘I really don’t get what’s going on with you at the moment. You’re all over the place.’

  ‘No I’m not.’

  ‘Cass, you and Henry are seemingly at breaking point over something we all thought you’d agreed to a year and a half ago! If that’s not “all over the place” I don’t know what is.’

  ‘We’ve been over this, like, a million times,’ Cassie groaned. ‘You know why I feel how I feel.’

  ‘I reckon it’s a timing thing. You’re out of sync with one another: you want career and fun; he wants to settle down. You want more time to live the life you missed out on, but, Cass, time is passing – you’re getting older, hon.’

  ‘So you’re saying I’m embarrassing myself?’

  ‘No,’ Suzy demurred, before adding under her breath, ‘Not yet.’ She watched as Cassie replaced the prosciutto and started on the pack of mini Peperamis. ‘Well, if you and Henry are just in a rocky patch and you’re cool with Luke, why the big rush to escape? You know I need you right now.’