Crazy Little Thing Called Love: The perfect laugh out loud romantic comedy you won’t be able to put down. Charlotte Butterfield

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       Chapter 5

      Leila was so bored, she actually wished she was back sandwiched between two car seats trying to guess that ‘I’ belonged to ‘I-brow’.

      This was the fifth wedding dress shop of the day and she’d lost the will to live somewhere around dress three of the first shop. Except they weren’t called shops, they were boutiques or salons. She’d learned that after getting the stare of death from one of the ‘bridal liaisons’ (shop assistants). Marcus had called her to prewarn her of Lucy’s impending invitation, and he’d been so earnest, so heartfelt in imploring her to accompany Lucy and Lucy’s mum shopping she couldn’t say no. Well, no that was a lie, she’d tried, but he just batted her remonstrations away and guilted her into submission. ‘She’s hardly got any friends, and those she does have are stuck at work,’ he’d said, completely oblivious to the massive neon warning sign that accompanied this statement. Who didn’t have many friends?

      Lucy’s mum, Stephanie, was lovely though, which was a complete surprise. If pushed Leila would have admitted to have been expecting a buttoned-up platinum blonde with manicured talons and a designer handbag. She absolutely wasn’t anticipating this wonderfully bohemian middle-aged woman bounding off the train, wearing a full-length paisley coat, with long curly greying hair. If Stephanie noticed Lucy’s lacklustre greeting and stiff embrace she didn’t say, just gave her daughter and Leila a wide smile as she took their arms and proclaimed excitedly that they were going to have so much fun.

      The fact that each salon offered them a glass of champagne had lessened the pain but heightened the boredom. Leila was left sat by herself most of the time as Lucy was in the dressing room, and Stephanie was busy taking pictures of wedding dresses to send them to her son’s girlfriend who was also getting married soon. Every boutique was a carbon copy of the one before. Each had a plush cream carpet, shag, Leila thought it was called, giving an immature snigger inside. Big armchairs or sofas were flanked with side tables, usually circular glass ones, with a box of tissues perched upon them, for teary mothers no doubt.

      As the hours ticked by, Lucy was getting increasingly annoyed with each assistant, who kept giving sharp intakes of horror when she mentioned that her wedding date was in five weeks’ time. ‘I’m sure you’re not trying to be deliberately difficult,’ Lucy told the last one. ‘So let’s try and make this work, shall we?’

      ‘Off-the-peg’ was a term Lucy appeared to find offensive, wrinkling her nose and shrinking back a few inches every time it was mentioned. Her binder was full of princess-type dresses, all carefully cut out of magazines and placed in the relevant colour-coded section of the folder, after Flowers but before Poems and Readings. It’s not that each boutique didn’t have the exact eye-wateringly expensive gown she wanted, it’s just it would take six–eight months to order and make. You’d have thought by the fifth time she heard this, Lucy would start to understand.

      ‘I could always run it up for you my love,’ Stephanie offered later that afternoon, holding out a tissue to her sobbing daughter. Lucy wasn’t an attractive crier, Leila thought, and felt immediately very bad for having that thought.

      ‘Run it up for me? Run it up for me? I don’t want a pair of bloody curtains Mother!’

      That was a bit harsh, the poor woman was clearly trying to help. ‘Lucy, I think at this stage you have two options, buy something—’ Leila stopped herself just in time uttering a phrase that contained the word peg – ‘already made.’ Good save. ‘Or maybe think about having one of the designs you love made, either by your mum, who I’m sure is a very accomplished seamstress—’ Stephanie shot Leila a look of gratitude – ‘or someone else, but I think you need to call it a day at trying different shops. Salons. Whatever.’

      ‘I knew you’d try to sabotage today, I just knew it.’

      Leila knew Lucy would be mortified if she realised that a little bit of snot was stuck to the outside of her nose and that her eyeliner had smudged on the left side. While this was immensely gratifying to see, and more than a little amusing, Leila knew that staying silent went against everything the new Leila stood for. So she passed Lucy a tissue and said, ‘Wipe your nose and your eyes and how about we both pretend you didn’t say that and I ring ahead to the next two appointments to see if they can do this dress any СКАЧАТЬ