The Wedding Date. Zara Stoneley

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       Chapter 4

      ‘How are you gorgeous?’ Tim, the loveliest hairdresser in the world, gives me a very unprofessional hug, then holds me at arm’s length. ‘A little snip here and there and you’ll be all bouncy again.’

      It will take more than a little snip to give me back my bounce, although a snip in Liam’s direction might help cheer me up. In fact a snip several months ago might have meant we were still together. It’s dawned on me in the last few minutes that for anybody to be hugely pregnant, they would have had to be shagging my boyfriend long before he became my ex.

      This is not a good thought.

      My plastered-on smile must have slipped a bit because Tim is frowning at me.

      ‘I think you need a bit of colour in your life. How about a hint of pink?’

      I nod. Pink, purple, bright blooming blue. I’d say yes to anything right now.

      ‘Chantelle will run you some colour through, won’t you, darling?’ Chantelle is nodding. ‘And I’ll get you a nice little glass of prosecco.’ He pats my hand. ‘Then you can tell Uncle Tim all about it.’ Uncle Tim is probably a good few years younger than me, but right now I’m happy to play along.

      Prosecco in hand, with Chantelle gaily adding streaks of colour to my boring hair and life, and Tim sitting looking intently at me, I am already starting to feel a bit better. Tim might be gay, but he’s the only man who’s run his fingers through my hair this year. And that’s fine.

      ‘It’s that lousy Liam, isn’t it?’ I nod rather too vigorously, then freeze, hoping Chantelle hasn’t added a highlight the size of a zebra stripe. Tim knows all about ‘the break up’; he’s my hero – he supplied me with fags, wine and a good haircut as I wept in front of his mirror, and never once suggested I wasn’t good for business before wheeling me into a dark corner of the salon. If Tim didn’t have a boyfriend I’d have suggested he move in with me by now.

      ‘You know, don’t you?’ Shit. He knows. Everybody knows. How come I’m the absolutely last person on the planet to find out about the huge girlfriend?

      ‘His mum was in here last week, she’s putting a brave face on it babe, but… She. Is. So. Fuming.’ He spaces the last four words out, then shakes his head before patting my hand. ‘Such a dick, you are so well rid.’

      Logically I know I am well rid, and I know that his mother disapproves of all his girlfriends (including me), but in my heart there is still a tiny illogical Liam-shaped hole. I’ve been hanging on to that hole, I haven’t been ready to stitch it up and shut him out forever. ‘He’s going to be at the wedding, with her.’ And it. The unborn. The prosecco seemed to have lost some of its bubbles. ‘I can’t go.’

      ‘Oh, girlfriend, you have got to go. Hasn’t she, girls?’

      There is a nodding of heads and chorus of consent. I suddenly realise that the dryers have gone quiet and all ears are tweaked our way.

      ‘But I can’t.’ I know I’m being a bit feeble, and it’s a bit of a wail, but Tim is not to be deterred. ‘My parents have been invited as well, and I can’t face them all unless I look amazingly fabulous, I will totally be the centre of attention and I’m fat and…’ Tim holds a hand up to stop the flow, but he knows what I’m getting at. The next time I see Liam I have to be slim, glamorous, drop-em-dead gorgeous. The one that got away. For my sake, not his. My voice drops to a whisper. ‘And I have to have a man.’ It isn’t that I think my life isn’t complete without a man. I’m not that hopeless. ‘I’ve told Jess I’ve got a new boyfriend, and Mum.’ Christ why did I do that? ‘And everybody…’

      ‘Will be looking at you?’ Tim sums it up in one. He stands up, triumphant. ‘We’re going to make you look fab-u-lous, and—’ he waves his hand flamboyantly ‘—we’re going to find you a man, aren’t we girls?’

      Sitting with gunge plastered all over my head, a rather hot heat lamp threatening to singe my hair, and a glass of prosecco in my hand, I don’t feel fabulous.

      ‘Right gorgeous, describe your perfect date.’ He’s back in his seat. ‘Hit us, babe. The full works.’

      I wriggle in my seat (it does feel a bit like my head is burning, and for a moment I wonder if he’s got carried away and turned me up high). ‘Well, Jude Law’s very nice.’

      Chantelle tops up my glass. ‘Oh my God, did you see him in The Holiday? I mean he’s a bit old for me—’ anybody over twenty-one is probably a bit old for Chantelle ‘—but I wouldn’t have said no.’

      ‘Daniel Craig is more my taste.’ A lady at the far side of the salon puts her copy of Harper’s Bazaar down. ‘I didn’t know I liked blonds until I saw him stride out of the sea in those swimming trunks.’ She fans herself with the magazine.

      ‘Isn’t he everybody’s, darling?’ Tim joins in the fanning melodramatically.

      ‘He has got quite nice, er, pecs.’ I’m never quite sure which muscle is which, but I do know Daniel Craig has plenty of them. And I do know he scares me a bit. ‘He’s not quite my style though.’ An image of Liam jumps into my head, totally pec-less. I shake it away – I can do better than that. ‘I mean I like muscles, but I like cuddles as well.’

      There’s a collective sigh. Don’t you love hairdressing salons? Guaranteed support, and a haircut.

      A burst of loud music launches itself at my ear drums and Chantelle whisks away the heat lamp as the timer goes off. ‘That’s you done, don’t want you too intense, do we?’ She ushers me over to the backwash unit, and points at my right thigh accusingly as I settle myself into the chair.

      I’m just about to apologise (several packets of cheesy wotsits have found СКАЧАТЬ